SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
General Motors has announced a new partnership with education nonprofit Girls Who Code that's intended to encourage more young women to pursue STEM subjects. The auto manufacturer will offer up a $250,000 grant to help fund after-school STEM clubs in schools, universities, and community centers.
"Becoming an engineer paved the way for my career," said GM CEO Mary Barra in a statement posted to the company's website. "It's one of the reasons I am passionate about promoting STEM education to students everywhere. Partnering with Girls Who Code is one more step in GM's commitment to inspiring and growing diverse future leaders."
[...] GM and Girls Who Code are pursuing this collaboration is [sic] response to the decreasing proportion of women in jobs related to computing, even as the field continues to grow. In 1995, 37 percent of the computing workforce was comprised of women, but today that has shrunk to 24 percent.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday January 11 2017, @05:49PM
The urge is to lambast you for crying sexism about people trying to address already-present sexism through (charitable, voluntary) affirmative action.
But we both know that argument will go nowhere. Instead, I'd like to talk about definitions, morality, and maybe even first principles, and try to get at how you got to where you're whining about sexism, on what I'd personally view as a pretty harmless attempt to combat it.
If you have the time to humor me, could you please answer these questions?
*How do you define sexism? In your own words, as much as possible, because applying the dictionary definition(which one?) doesn't help get at your feelings on the matter.
*How does that relate to morality? Why is sexism wrong?
*How does that relate to this situation? Which moral boundaries are they violating, and how much?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @06:23PM
You cannot combat sexism with sexism.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday January 11 2017, @06:38PM
I've got another folksy saying for you.
You can't resolve fundamental and profound disagreements with unsubstantiated thought-terminating-cliches.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @06:42PM
You can resolve any problem with a gun; that's where your ilk is leading the world.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Wednesday January 11 2017, @06:57PM
Yes, please, comrade, seize that person who doesn't think about the details and nuances of their beliefs and bring them before the firing squad. No trial, they posted something dumb on the internet.
Really, I think these principles are probably worth fighting, killing, and dying for(the recent nazification of the US has forced me to think on that) if it comes to that, I can't imagine your half-assed "but-but-but technically" bullshit means as much to you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @08:39PM
you're the socialist, you dumb fuck
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @10:45PM
Yes, we are the socialist. We surround you. We are the majority. We have more guns. We know how to educate. You are in big trouble, you racist, sexist, Ford loving moron!
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday January 12 2017, @01:34AM
Sadly, I'm not actually socialist.
Compared to the American almost-literally-worshipping-the-market-as-divine center, I could come off that way, but I'm pretty sure most actual leftists don't want their ideology was watered down with humanist pragmatism.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday January 11 2017, @06:31PM
When you want something, a slot in a school, or a job, or to rent an apartment, whatever, one of the many many things out there that have no logical connection to sex. When you apply, and are denied because you have (or even project) the wrong genitalia, that's sexism.
Now we can have another conversation if you like about whether or not a certain amount of sexism should be allowed or accepted or tolerated, but let's not act like we don't know what we're talking about. There's a double standard at work in American education and it's in a fairly advanced state. Exclude a woman for being a woman and untold wrath will descend on you from every corner, say hello to your new career at Burger King. Exclude a man for being a man and if anyone gives it a second thought it will likely be to applaud you.
In the meantime most of these girls don't give a damn about coding, still won't give a damn about coding even if you bribe them enough to attend classes, and in the meantime there are young men with drive and talent who can't attend. And we claim we have no choice but to import our coders from India.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @07:16PM
Let's put this simply: when those who are oppressed or disenfranchised are given equal opportunity, or an opportunity to be equal, those in power to oppress don't get to bitch about it.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Wednesday January 11 2017, @07:46PM
Women are not oppressed or disenfranchised, in the US or in any developed country.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @07:49PM
Reality disagrees with you. But then again, you've got your own special little reality, don't you?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @07:51PM
Here's what their disenfranchisement looks like. "I got the job at the factory for $20/hr, but my boyfriend didn't like it, so I took a minimum wage job instead."
At some point, women need to pull on the big girl pants and dump the boyfriend. Simple as that.
It's a man's world, not because it should be, but because the female 51% of the planet's population seems to like it that way.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @07:52PM
Bullshit. Show me who's 'oppressing' them. Show me how they don't have equal opportunity.
They don't have equal *interest*, just as men don't tend to have equal interest in teaching or nursing (which you'll notice don't have sexist funds set up for them).
This is pure politics and while I'd love to work with more female programmers, I don't think this is going to help much. Women who are interested in programming are as good at it as men. I don't think this is going to enhance anyone's interest, and I'd add that it might also create the kind of backlash seen with quota based hiring.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by http on Wednesday January 11 2017, @07:52PM
Your definition sucks horseballs. It's correct as far as it goes, but it's like calling a rabbit hole "that dark place over thar."
Gilrs have an extremely different experience in education than boys do. Your notion, "exclude a women for being a woman and untold wrath will descend on you" is trite, sophomoric, and wrong. Girls are asked to participate less often, regularly shut down when attempting to participate on their own initiative, and belittled even when their knowledge is superior to that of boys. They are systematicly excluded and most often nobody bats an eye.
Why is it so fucking hard for people to understand "systemic"? Oh, right. It's not hard, they'd just rather not admit that they are part of the problem.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @08:17PM
The reality you describe is completely counter to my lifelong experience, especially in education; throughout my schooling, it was very clear that the teachers (the vast majority of which were female) treated the boys as second-class citizens, and spent most of their time engaging with the "better" behaved (read: boring as fuck) girls.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @10:56PM
Red Pillars of Masculinity are getting the shaft again, so to speak. So sad, poor puppies! Did you realize that a large part of experience is determined by the experiencer? You if you are a sexist misogynist jerk, you will experience a lot of sexist misandrist discrimination against yourself because you are a second class citizen. Or, you are a jerk, still a boy, and you ought to grow a pair and be a real man who supports affirmative action, even at the cost of your own self interest, because that is what real men do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @08:44PM
that's why a high percentage of the US' males are going to jail or shitty jobs if they're lucky while females go to college? you're the one who's not paying attention.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday January 11 2017, @09:09PM
"They are systematicly excluded and most often nobody bats an eye." - In Saudi Arabia maybe.
Seriously I am not sure what planet you're from or if you even believe what you're saying.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Informative) by http on Wednesday January 11 2017, @10:06PM
I'm from a planet where I remember a few things. http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/prejudice/women/ [pbs.org] sums up the research in a nutshell.
Dale Spender, an Australian linguist, noticed that in groups, men think women participated equally if they spoke 15% of the time, and believe that women dominiated the discussion if they dared speak as much as 30% of the time. In all fairness, Spender's methodology has been questioned, but later researchers got more visibly rigorous and came up with similar results. Or Allyson Jule, Canadian, showing that in elementary classrooms, girls are silenced collectively, but boys are silenced individually. Or, well, ... you know what? I'm not a linguistics major, for one, and I'm not doing all your research for you, for two. But here's a free head start: Gender Issues in the College Classroom [columbia.edu]
It's a common trope around here that you can't make someone see truth when their livelyhood depends on denying it. As corallary, most men are unwilling to observe systematic discrimination against women, because they unfairly benefit from it being invisible to the casual observer. Me included.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @10:18PM
Now, that is very interesting. Perhaps it takes an individualist to push his way to the top of industry; maybe that's why society becomes ever more oppressively collectivist whenever women step (or, rather, are placed) into positions of power.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Arik on Thursday January 12 2017, @02:49AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by http on Thursday January 12 2017, @06:32AM
The forms of the discrimination (oppression, you call it) are only one axis of the problem. The other axis of the problem, the one that makes it into a huge fuckng deal, is that for girls in school, discrimination is everywhere, every day, multiple times per day, from day one. One mosquito? No big deal. Ten thousand mosquitos? Big deal. Living in a swamp? Bigger deal. Your attempt to minimize the problem with the irrelevant "but other people have it worse" is just... juvenile. And I'm moderately curious as to what you believe the "more formidable" problems boys face are. Fun fact: I agree with you that boys face particular problems in school, but we might disagree on both why and the extent.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12 2017, @02:02PM
Haha. Yeah, the group punishments were so discriminatory against girls. All the boys had to keep their heads on their desks because a couple boys in the back of the classroom were being disruptive. The girls get treated as individuals. The policy that let girls wander the halls during indoor recess and use the gym if they wanted but kept boys in their homeroom were so oppressive of women. When I started a computer club and then got railroaded on trumped up evidence and gaslighted, that was so discriminatory to girls. Years later when a girl made front page news because she started the district's first computer club, that was so discriminatory to girls.
Your genitals better be mutilated nice and tight for women's sexual pleasure. You better be circumcised so you don't transmit your HPV boy cooties to women, you rapist. We need to mutilate you as an infant too so that your 3 year old rapist ass feels nothing but excruciating pain. That will teach you. No, we can't immunize girls against HPV, because that would be sexualizing them. KNOW YOUR ROLE YOU SEX OBJECT.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @07:53PM
the leader of girls who code is actually of Indian descent, you know.
Makes you wonder
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @07:54PM
The urge is to lambast you for crying sexism about people trying to address already-present sexism through (charitable, voluntary) affirmative action.
No they are not. What they are combating is perceived sexism backed up by the flawed assumption that gender is informed by culture alone, and that boys and girls would fare exactly the same if society stopped sending "messages", which of course flies in the face of empirical evidence that established gendered behavior in week-old infants, the entire history of mankind which shows differences as far back in history as we have evidence, and of course observations in our close cousins in the animal kingdom who also display such trends.
In other words, the fundamental failure of your viewpoint lies in the fact that it's based on the presumption of a positive feedback based on vague cherrypicked circumstantial evidence, while dismissing any evidence that suggests otherwise.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by archfeld on Wednesday January 11 2017, @11:55PM
Please, the fact that girls don't want to code is not an issue of sexism, but of preference, and no amount of codling/extolling is going to make them want to. Do you really believe that at the elementary school level there is or has been some sort of conspiracy to prevent girls from pursuing STEM related education ? The fact of the matter is men and women are very different creatures and seek very different goals in life. Men and women draw a feeling of fulfilment very differently and that is reflected in the choice of careers. I'm not saying that in the business world there aren't barriers to women all over the place and those need to be knocked down, but in lower education I don't buy it.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge