Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Friday May 11 2018, @11:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the controversial-topics dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday May 12 2018, @05:54AM (3 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Saturday May 12 2018, @05:54AM (#678721)

    Why is it a problem in STEM but not sanitation and to what end are we suggesting females go against their nature and desires?

    That really is the telling observation that blows this whole farce up. There are literally hundreds of job codes where women outnumber men, often by margins similar to the disparity in tech being discussed. Yet there, to date, have been precisely zero efforts to adsress any of those "problems", zero major conferences devoted to attempting to get to the bottom of those problems, no major politicians making hay of the issue. Yet it follows logically that if the imbalance in the male dominated fields is to be corrected, by definition, it will require removing women against their will from female dominated fields and replacing them with the men displaced from their preferred occupations. Or is the plan to simply toss the unemployed men into the ovens?

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 12 2018, @06:42AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 12 2018, @06:42AM (#678733)

    False, jmorris. Not true. You are, in fact, once again, incorrect. Please post again when you have any, yes, just any, evidence to support your bigoted claims. Until then, SN is in the market for a female right-wing nut-job, a "jmorrisette", to provide some balance and diversity to the far-right corpse here at SoylentNews.

    • (Score: 2) by Tara Li on Saturday May 12 2018, @02:59PM

      by Tara Li (6248) on Saturday May 12 2018, @02:59PM (#678837)

      Let's go through this and find the falsehood:

      That really is the telling observation that blows this whole farce up.

      Statement of opinion.

      There are literally hundreds of job codes where women outnumber men, often by margins similar to the disparity in tech being discussed.

      https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/54e376936bb3f70d36c66d19-750-525.png [businessinsider.com]

      Quite a few categories here, several of which include dozens of occupational codes. I think "hundreds of job codes" is not an exaggeration, nor the similarity in disparity.

      Yet there, to date, have been precisely zero efforts to adsress any of those "problems", zero major >> conferences devoted to attempting to get to the bottom of those problems,

      This is an easily falsifiable statement - simply identify any of those conferences.

      >> no major politicians making hay of the issue.

      Again, find a major politician using this as a platform plank - I'll accept anyone running for a State Legislature, State Executive, Federal Legislature, or Federal Executive position that polls above 40% at the state level, or 20% at the federal level.

      Yet it follows logically that if the imbalance in the male dominated fields is to be corrected, by definition, it will require removing women against their will from female dominated fields and replacing them with the men displaced from their preferred occupations.

      This does seem reasonable. If there are X jobs in a field, and we require that half of them be assigned to each major gender (let's avoid the entire non-binary gender argument raging - what's the representative level for a person who identifies as 'a yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin' and also 'an expansive ornate building.') then this is going to require that some who currently hold those jobs being forced out of them and assigned new jobs in fields with the opposite imbalance. One could perhaps argue that appropriate education and hiring outreach will naturally lead to those balances, but what are you going to do if they don't?

      Or is the plan to simply toss the unemployed men into the ovens?

      If the educational and hiring outreach doesn't work, then perhaps you start simply applying quotas - you only hire the appropriate gender until the balance is reached, and then once a male quits, you hire another male and one a female quits, you hire another female - and if you don't have qualified candidates of the appropriate gender, you simply leave the position unfilled.

      But those lead to the situation being solved in some hypothetical future time. If you want it to happen now, well, forced firing and hiring becomes the only solution...

      Other than forced removal from existence of the appropriate number of males - metaphorically "tossing them into the ovens".

      I have failed to spot the falsehood - please identify it and illustrate why it is false. This is, after all, the essence of the scientific method - falsifying theories until you're left with the truth.

  • (Score: 2) by legont on Saturday May 12 2018, @04:36PM

    by legont (4179) on Saturday May 12 2018, @04:36PM (#678862)

    The original plan was to make women work for the same - as typically calculated - "family" income. Since the beginning of the movement every dollar paid to females was taken from their husbands income. The family total stayed pretty much the same. (St. Louis Feds have the best data available and if one does not trust conspiracy theorists one can easily process raw with a simple Python or Perl script)

    Women work for free. Yes, as in free beer. They got to realize this and change their strategy accordingly.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.