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Over the last several months, I’ve witnessed many controversial discussions among my friends, in my San Francisco community, and on online forums about James Demore’s memorandum. People of both genders are wrestling with the fact that fewer women go into computer science and trying to find explanations that balance their experience, empathy, and ethical aspirations. I’ve heard lots of good-intentioned people consider discouraging theories of biological superiority because they can’t find any other compelling explanation (like this post on HackerNews, for example). As a woman who studied computer science, worked at some of the top tech firms, and has founded a software startup, I’d like to share my take on why fewer women go into CS and my opinion on how to address the issue.
[...] I graduated from Stanford with a BS in Mathematical & Computational Sciences in 2015, interned at Apple as a software engineer, and worked as an Associate Product Manager at Google 2015-2017. In October, I founded a video editing website called Kapwing and am working on the startup full-time. Although I’m only 25, I’ve already seen many of my female friends choose majors/careers outside of STEM and have been inside of many predominately-male classes, organizations, and teams.
This article is one person’s humble perspective, and I do not speak for every woman in tech. But hopefully having the view of someone who has “been there” can help people trying to understand why there are fewer women in tech.
(Score: 4, Informative) by jmorris on Saturday May 12 2018, @05:16AM (2 children)
Poor thing sees the dots but apparently crimestop and self interest prevent her from connecting them. That and she wants that funding round she mentions to go through and in the back of her head (where again she can't admit thinking the forbidden thought) she knows the odds are high she got her startup opportunity because of her female bits and will certainly close this round in large part based on the need of the VC community to demonstrate their commitment to "diversity." Fail to obey the $current_year pieties and kiss all that goodbye.
1st is she operates under the unstated but obviously so self evidently true it needn't be said assumption that there is a problem with the gender imbalance in tech. If "Diversity" means anything it has to mean people differ and if "Diversity is a Strength", which she would dare not question, it must mean that if some people are better at some things they must be worse at others. The "Strength" part can only come by bringing people with differing talents and outlooks together, right? So if people do differ across groups in ways beyond their genitalia and skin color it is absurd to believe that their numbers in every field of endeavor will be identical. Yet she goes into great detail explaining her views that men and women DO differ in mental outlook while still adhering to the Prog religious faith that if outcomes aren't the same it is a problem to be corrected.
But the really insane part is her initial theory is pretty sound. So she then spends pages debunking it because it is dangerous crimethink.
She says "I think that if CS continues to be lauded as a haven for antisocial people, the gender imbalance will persist." while oblivious to the reality in an industry she worked in for a couple of years. The hardest core programming and tech jobs are filled with anti-social people for two basic reasons. 1) Being anti-social is not an impediment to success in those jobs, you don't have to do much interacting with people, certainly not with normies so anti-social people are as much attracted to these jobs as repelled by most others and 2) being anti-social often goes with the sort of people who can not only work on a hard problem for hours on end but actually enjoy it. Most women, being more social, would be wasting one of their major skill clusters by sitting in front of a monitor.
Then this, "It’s harder for women to make friends and fit in, both in university classes and at tech companies. Because it’s unnatural or might be taken the wrong way, young men are less likely to approach women and invite them to join a study group or happy hour, poker night, or whatever else they do with their male peers/coworkers. They don’t just sit next to women without a desk neighbor, ask them unsolicited questions, or offer to help." we are treated to the stereotypically female dating behavior retained in the workplace of expecting men to initiate social interaction. Grrlpower!
Others have already fragged her over the lab partner bit but I can't resist another whack at that one. She posts a note and again passively waits like she was on Tinder or Match looking for a date. While apparently high enough above average intelligence to make it through a fairly complex degree program at a major institution she manages to fail to grasp how certain to fail that strategy would be. These are nerds / geeks at a top uni Comp Sci program. Meaning mostly spergs, but smart enough to know the difference between picking a date and a lab partner. Picking her would mean a high risk of carrying an affirmative action admission[1] as a dead weight in a difficult class that they need to pass plus the risk of her being able to have them expelled on a moment's notice if they displease her in the slightest. The university environment is toxic and these guys probably realize the danger. Especially guys like themselves, with poor social skills, little experience with girls and thus likely to make a horrible mistake and pooch their career before it begins. And she still appears utterly incapable of understanding these obvious things.
Then she begins pontificating on "solutions" that all can be summarized as "make the tech workplace more feminine so she will feel more comfortable." That most of the spergs who actually do the work that will make a tech company succeed or fail will hate that and probably look for the exit totally escapes this ditz.
But two bullet point screams for being called out for special abuse:
What. The. Actual. F*CK? Contradicts herself in the same paragraph? Special girls clubhouse AND co-ed at the same time.
What do you call an "engineer" who likes meeting users, reviewing, and has strong people skills? Probably not an engineer. So solving these problems is easy peasy, just make the men into something utterly unlike anything that has succeeded in this field in the past and all of HER problems will be solved. So you guys get right on that changing yourself part. The strong empowered wamen demand it and they must never be refused. Oh, sorry. I misunderstood her, never mind. I think she means SHE and the other girls should be bumped ahead of her male peers to become project leads. Or maybe she means both or simply confused.
Now time to rip her conclusions
That theory probably IS true if for no other reason that the sperg connection and the huge gender imbalance on the Asperger's spectrum but that assertion is not required to explain the observed imbalance. All that need be true is women lack the same desires, they could be equally capable but simply prefer different fields of work given the current society and choices available.
Classic example of credentialism. Yes you can have the paper and those other things. What you probably can't be is an actual productive programmer.
[1] Just to be really clear, I'm not implying SHE was an affirmative action admission. But I AM outright saying that since nobody else in the class seemed to know her personally and since most women and other minorities ARE admitted with much worse test scores, etc. on average that a smart math oriented geek would be smart to play those odds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 12 2018, @06:56AM
Poor, poor, jmorris. Really, she would yell out "Daddy" instead of your name? That's sad, and sick, man!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 12 2018, @12:22PM
A social engineer!