Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women?

#61

Post by quinnchr » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:13 PM UTC

ps4fanboy wrote: post #50

quinnchr wrote: post #40

The goal of women oriented initiatives isn't to tell women they aren't as capable. The author may be perfectly capable and she may be treated on her merit alone, but in aggregate women are not treated like that. From http://www.oecd.org/inclusive-growth/Closing%20the%20Gender%... "They reveal considerable gender differences among the self-employed, particularly those who are also employers. Figure 22.1 shows that acr…

Women who own businesses are on average higher educated than there male counterparts yet they earn significantly lower salaries. I remember reading this I wish I had the link but it showed female business owners tended to take more time off than male counterparts and had a nicer work/life balance over money/growth/profit. Are you suggesting that consumers are buying/consuming products/services from female run busines…

No, I'm not hypothesizing a reason for this. I'm simply describing the end effect, which is women being paid less.

When you control for working hours women entrepreneurs still earn less.

Re: Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women?

#62

Post by ps4fanboy » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

quinnchr wrote: post #61

ps4fanboy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women who own businesses are on average higher educated than there male counterparts yet they earn significantly lower salaries. I remember reading this I wish I had the link but it showed female business owners tended to take more time off than male counterparts and had a nicer work/life balance over money/growth/profit. Are you suggesting that consumers are buying/consuming products/services from female run busines…

No, I'm not hypothesizing a reason for this. I'm simply describing the end effect, which is women being paid less. When you control for working hours women entrepreneurs still earn less.

How can this be? Are you suggesting that women run less profitable businesses?

Re: Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women?

#63

Post by mkr-hn » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #26

aroch wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the tech field be better off with more women?

Computing is a very young field. It's well on its way to infiltrating our everyday lives, but it's incredibly underdeveloped. Leaving women out of the process of creating the world we're going to live in seems like a really bad idea.

The garbage man and the bus driver see little benefit from the latest SV IPO. How about a program to encourage people to move into higher potential roles and keep an eye out for implementors giving unfair benefit to one gender/class/whatever.

Re: Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women?

#64

Post by nicktipp » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:16 PM UTC

And just like that this post went from #3 to off the front page in 5 minutes. Is sexism to controversial of a subject to discuss so it's just going to be ignored?

Re: Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women?

#65

Post by ps4fanboy » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:16 PM UTC

quinnchr wrote: post #48

ps4fanboy wrote: post #42

In 2010-11, there were more female (55%) than male fulltime undergraduates (45%) enrolled at university – a trend which shows no sign of shrinking http://www.theguardian.com/education/datablog/2013/jan/29/ho... This sort of thing is happening in most western societies, majority of university students are women, but what we are most concerned about is which degrees they are choosing.

And by far the majority of PHDs and professors are men. Even in women dominated fields the the professorships are dominated by men. What exactly is your point?

What do professors have to do with the work force?

Re: Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women?

#66

Post by ps4fanboy » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:18 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #53

ps4fanboy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

income inequality is a myth, people with the same job and same amount of experience make the same amount of money on average.

Income inequality generally just means that different people make different amounts of money. It's quite obviously true, and has increased quite a lot in the U.S. in recent decades. You mean to be dismissive of the wage gap or pay gap, or maybe more specifically the gender wage gap, or male-female income disparity. Wikipedia seems to indicate that there is a healthy body of research on the topic, with researchers rea…

Every study I have ever seen that says there is a wage gap, compares people in different roles and industries which seems stupid. That's like complaining that a teacher doesn't earn as much as a CEO.

Re: Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women?

#67

Post by makomk » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:18 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #11

montage wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe its because women down't want to take Computer Science?

That's probably not true. The money is pretty good, for one thing :) The ratio used to be higher in the USA, and it's still higher in some other countries. To be specific, it seems like boys are encouraged to go into tech while girls are not, which has a few effects. The first is that girls don't really consider tech at all: it's not that they consider and discard it, they just don't think of it. The other is that mo…

The money may be good, but the working conditions are often awful - long hours, continual crunches and emergencies, work-life balance basically a myth... Since women are socialised to care less about income and more about work-life balance than men, and both groups are under pressure from society to fit into those traditional gender roles, the fact the money's good is probably enough to cause much of the gender gap in itself.

Now, there's almost certainly nothing inherent about women and men that means they have to think that way, but no-one seems to really be interested in changing this; even groups pushing for more women in tech think this way.

Re: Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women?

#68

Post by johnbm » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:19 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #26

aroch wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the tech field be better off with more women?

Computing is a very young field. It's well on its way to infiltrating our everyday lives, but it's incredibly underdeveloped. Leaving women out of the process of creating the world we're going to live in seems like a really bad idea.

I just don't buy this argument. As others said, it is 2014, not 1990. Women now outnumber men in colleges 3 to 2, and this is somehow not an issue of discrimination or inequality, on the contrary, it is now apparently more important than ever that we eradicate the few areas where men still unambiguously dominate the outcomes.

The only thing that has changed is society's view of computer geeks, which has evolved from pathetic neckbeards to entrepreneurial wizards. And big surprise, now all of a sudden feminists are concerned about all the sexism and rampant harassment that's supposedly unique to tech.

Every conference I've been to, I've seen men falling over themselves to placate and humor the few women that do show up. Sexism? The vast majority is of the benevolent kind, the kind the feminists themselves constantly advocate for. The kind that makes men watch what they say when a woman enters the room, for fear of triggering another Adria Richards. And the kind that pisses off any capable woman with self-respect.

Re: Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women?

#69

Post by yummyfajitas » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:19 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #19

aroch wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you genuinely suggesting that every degree should have a 1:1 (or thereabouts) distribution of male and female graduates?

Not necessarily, although it does worry me that the ratio is declining. Specifically, computer-related fields make more than average amount of money, so getting women into tech would help reduce income inequality and associated issues in our society. But here my specific point is: tech fields would be better off with more women!

...so getting women into tech would help reduce income inequality...

This is incorrect - assuming these women don't displace men, inequality will go up.

Say a woman (or man) moves from a $50k/year office job to a $120k/year tech job. Income inequality will go up. Gini will go up and the "size of the middle class" (typically defined as % of the population between 50% and 150% of the median) will shrink.

Simple example: consider a world of 10 people with income of 50k. Gini is zero. Now double the income of one of them. Gini has gone up to 0.08, and size of the middle class has gone from 100% to 90%.

So given that you have the stated goal of reducing income inequality, and your proposed policy would actually increase inequality, do you now oppose bringing women into computing?

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2011/09/07/eliezer-yudkowsky/tru...

Re: Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women?

#70

Post by ps4fanboy » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 5:19 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #59

ps4fanboy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didnt even know who my professors where or would be when I enrolled in university, are you suggesting women dont enroll in IT because there arent female professors?

The data isn't about when you enroll but when you graduate.

I am sorry if this isnt clear but you are talking about professors at universities and people who are enrolling I dont see the link?