Fighting Tech's Diversity Issues Without Burning Down the System 479
reifman writes: Fizzmint CEO Tarah Wheeler Van Vlack says she "never had a problem with Mitt Romney's use of the phrase 'binders full of women.' ... Instead of congratulating him for his realization and his attempt to (awkwardly) rectify the situation, we crucified him for not already having a network of accomplished women." The scarcity of women in tech is a central issue in Seattle, where Amazon's growth is literally reshaping the city. The company refuses to release its technology workforce diversity numbers, and it's been criticized for interviewing practices that put female candidates on a "horrifying steeplechase [by] careless and non-people-oriented technologists." Van Vlack says, "It's stupid on every level not to acknowledge the obstacles women face when they try to join a tech company." She suggests three concrete steps for technology leaders to attract more women into the fold: 1) Push your technical recruiters to hit 20% thresholds for female candidates 2) Challenge and question your personal assumptions about the leadership skills of women in technology and 3) Transparently and openly take a stand to improve your company's diversity figures.
Honest question. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm at a loss here so I might as well ask cowardly and anonymously.
Why do we need women in tech so bad? Seriously, why? Is there something I'm missing that makes women super heroes at programming?
I'm not even trying to troll at this point, I can do that much easier on other sites and get way better reactions.
Re: (Score:3)
Because humans, for the most part, are pretty stupid and fail to grasp that just because there's an uneven number of something, doesn't make it not normal or perfectly fine.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Because humans, for the most part, are pretty stupid and fail to grasp that just because there's an uneven number of something, doesn't make it not normal or perfectly fine.
Yes. But, but having an uneven number of something doesn't mean it's automatically bad, wrong, exclusionary or in need of "correction" either.
Simply throwing someone into a position because they do or do not happen to have a dick doesn't mean you're putting someone competent or appropriate in place.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what I said.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds sexist to me. I've spent time in hospitals and the male nurses seemed just as compassionate as the female nurses.
Re: (Score:3)
Men AREN'T compassionate enough to be nurses. That's why we don't apply for those positions! You're making my point! Source: my wife is a nurse.
And women in nursing eventually turn into lazy, tactless, soulless, cackling harridans. The REAL reason why men don't stay in nursing positions.
At least, this was the situation that chased me from my nursing position 13 years ago.
My compassion had nothing to do with it. I simply had had enough of the inconsiderate bitchiness and declined to stay employed in the nursing field.
Oh well. At least the stress levels working in IT is lower. And if I break a computer, I can fix it.
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
yeah, "man" falls under "or something"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not things like police, fire, teaching, military, garbage collection and so forth? Those are all things where there's a huge disparity, but you don't see the same zeal for fixing it that you do in this case.
You are either blind and deaf, oblivious, or very young. When women first tried to join the police and fire departments, it was a HUGE issue. Women in the military is still a controversial issue, as they are segregated and blocked from many combat roles.
Honest answer (Score:4, Funny)
An honest answer that is at least a good deal of the cause is that tech people are, broadly speaking, considerably smarter than garbage collectors, cops, and (sadly) most teachers. Consequently we see the problem more clearly, and feel the inequity more deeply when it is, in fact, an inequity and not just a result of "no qualified female (or any female) applied for the job." Exceptions exist, particularly where the people who do the hiring are mostly not tech types, and frankly, even leaving the issue of sex aside, they do a freaking terrible job of it.
"Ruby Programmer" Ok, fine.
"Must have 4 yr degree" arbitrarily prejudicial, counter productive. Also, fuck you.
"Offshore" seriously, just fuck you in the ass with a pineapple.
"Must be local" why, are your tech people/managers incompetent? Must the hire attend the company picnic? Offshore ok but Wyoming isn't? Add poison ivy wreath to pineapple
"Male" fuck you with a BIG pineapple that's on FIRE
Re:Honest question. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Honest question. (Score:4, Interesting)
Replace all the people with LEGO people. Little LEGO people seem to have no gender-specific issues, since the differences are just painted on. Even better would be to use bricks to assemble giant LEGO people, because then on the anatomical level everything would fit into everything else.
Re: (Score:2)
You'll be heading from the LEGO Friends line brigade soon enough!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The tech industry's self- flagellation on this issue is probably more self-destructive than any sexism which exists. Imagine you're a bright teenage girl who is interested in programming, reads around & does some research. What do you see? ENDLESS articles about how terrible the industry is, how sexist nerds are, how you'll be threatened with rape if you so much as write an Android Pac Man clone... Instead of y'know, being optimistic and showing us some of the many thousands of women who work in tech we
Re:Honest question. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with so few women in IT is that one has to ask is there something that is preventing women from getting jobs in IT. It's a fair question. In our society, there should be nothing that stops someone from getting a job - equal access is important. The problem is that no one is asking what sucks about IT. Could it be:
1) the amount of retraining you have to do on your own now that companies don't train?
2) The amount of retaining you have to provide yourself so that you don't become irrelevant?
3) Shitty hours, e.g., software updates can only be performed between 12:01 AM and 4:00AM? On call?
4) In IT you don't have challenges anymore. Everyone is a designer an your're just the programmer.
5) H1-b.
6) Outsourcing
7) Washed up at 40.
8) No overtime.
If I were to look at this list as a 22 year-old, why would I go into IT except for a misplaced love of programming? If you ask me, women are smart to avoid IT like the plague. IT has become the new production line without overtime. Managers introduce methodologies like Agile because the word "sprint" seems to mean that they can overwork you.
Re:Honest question. (Score:4, Insightful)
Although, I don't think that's the primary reason that managers like agile.
As far as I can tell, the primary reason is that they are completely unable to manage and plan long term and agile is a perfect refuge for those who lack these skills but nevertheless covet the 'manager' title.
(Oh, and because it sounds cool - like "Pivoting", "Cloud Strategy", "Leveraging Our Strengths", "Coopertition", etc.)
Re: (Score:2)
nah they tried bendover first, didn't take.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes - I'll admit to being a bit pedantic on this topic. I've always worked in systems software development where you can't ship the product, or let the customer try it out in a meaningful way, without about 90% of the core capabilities being implemented and those capabilities are often most of the work in meaningful features. As well, there is no "single customer" - every feature is available to all customers (sometimes at an additional cost) so for long term success one must think beyond just the few situa
Re: (Score:3)
one has to ask is there something that is preventing women from getting jobs in IT
Absolutely.
But what if the answer is "no"?
Re:Honest question. (Score:4, Informative)
If the answer to that question is "no," then so be it. But that leads to a new question of, "why isn't IT experiencing the same relative gender parity that other professions are?" Admittedly, that question would probably be more suited for a sociologist or psychologist to answer than an employer that's just trying to fill a job vacancy, but it would still be a worthwhile question.
Personally, I am an actuary, and I find this issue to be interesting because my profession has had little trouble attracting qualified females once it started trying. Somewhere around 40%-45% of actuaries in the U.S. are female, up from 7%-8% in the 1970s. That number will presumably get pretty close to parity as the oldest, all-male generation finishes retiring.
Being an actuary is generally technically demanding - it usually requires the ability to perform complex statistical simulations, a knowledge of SQL (or at least enough SQL to be dangerous), an understanding of the finer points of applicable state insurance regulations, and passing a long series of reasonably difficult examinations on probability, finance, general insurance knowledge, and specialty topics. As far as I can tell, getting into the actuarial profession is every bit as difficult as getting into the IT profession, at least in terms of the amount of intelligence, adaptability, and perseverance needed to acquire the necessary technical skills and domain knowledge.
Yet, the actuarial professions has almost achieved achieved gender parity, without really even trying - it just stopped deliberately excluding women in the '70s, and the problem solved itself. And I would point out, my profession is not unique in this respect - it's almost an identical story in the medical profession. There's another post in this thread somewhere claiming that the legal profession is seeing the same pattern. So I do think it's fair to ask why all these other fields that require a high amount of technical skill, not to mention perseverance, can attract women, but IT (and nursing) can't. What makes IT (or nursing) different?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I agree with all of those, but, not one of them discriminates against women vs men.
one has to ask is there something that is preventing women from getting jobs in IT
Yes, one does. You haven't.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually the first question that comes to my mind is, why isn't there a similar crusade to stamp out gender bias in public education [ed.gov]? 76% of public school teachers are female. That's actually th
Re: (Score:2)
You're defending the question, but not why it's a "problem."
Why are there so few non-asian minorities in IT? Why are there few women in IT?
These both are valid, albeit very different questions. The answers may or may not be what people like to hear though, and the correct solution may exist and be easy, or it may exist and be difficult, or it just might not exist. And that last scenario is very hard for certain people to swallow.
Re:Honest question. (Score:4, Funny)
To get you guys to start taking showers.
I mean, it's starting to get ripe in here. Now I know why they call them "skunkworks".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I can give you the most politically incorrect reason that companies are falling over themselves to push this.
It's the same reason they fall over themselves for H-1B and other immigration reform.
They want cheaper labor because tech skills are rare. If there are equal numbers of women that are smart enough to program, but being held back by invisible barriers, it's in their financial interest to remove those, because that will create a larger supply pool and push down wages.
Bla bla bla other factors about ho
Re:Honest question. (Score:5, Insightful)
you are going to get burned by the orgs that know they can do better.
Better how? Fewer errors per million lines of code better? Higher sales per employee better? Show me a metric besides diversity itself that proves these other orgs you describe are inherently "better." Because unless this quality increase you describe can be defined and measured, and directly attributed to having a diverse workforce, you're going to have a hard time selling this idea to those who might be a bit skeptical.
Re: (Score:3)
There is nothing concrete to suggest that women just "don't want to be in tech" and there is nothing to suggest that they are any less apt at excelling in tech.
Well it's anecdotal of course, but the number of women at the Commodore 64 parties at the pizza parlor back in the day: 0 out of 300
As a slightly more up to date and official number, the percentage of computer science degrees awarded to women is only 18%
In order to excel, first you must have interest.
Qualifications (Score:4, Insightful)
"1) Push your technical recruiters to hit 20% thresholds for female candidates"
At the expense of the qualified candidates?
Re:Qualifications (Score:5, Interesting)
...at the expense of every other company.
Rants like this forget that there is a SUPPLY problem. You can't magically increase female participation in your IT departments because there aren't 20% there. If Amazon and Intel are all hot and bothered about "diversity" they could very well consume all of the available "talent".
They might consume all of the available suitable talent and still come up short.
At least Intel is bright enough to try addressing the supply side of this.
Re: (Score:3)
If there was a supply problem the salaries would be rising. They're not because the "problem" is a charade and a lie you've been sold so that the wealthy can screw you over to make more money.
There is no STEM shortage.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
How about you understand the parent before spouting your 'religion'. The GP is claiming the total amount of women looking for tech jobs is less than 20% of the available workforce thus there's not enough of a supply of them to reach 20%. That has nothing to do with the total amount of people in STEM. If you need 10 people and have 9830 men apply and 1 women, you'll never hire 20% women and there's no shortage of people.
Or are you really arguing that women should be paid considerable more just because the
Re: (Score:3)
...at the expense of every other company.
Sounds right... there seems to be good competition for female tech workers in the Seattle area. It makes sense too, since if your product is better able to serve the female population, that can pretty much double your customer base.
I've seen plenty of female tech workers and Microsoft and Disney here, compared to some of the defense-industrial sausage-fests back in the DC area. Amazon is probably playing catch-up.
Some of our neighbors work for Amazon, both husband and wife. They met in college doing CS,
Re: (Score:3)
I have no issue with pushing for diversity,
In seriousness, why? If the people in your office are mostly white males and they're doing a competent job, while the women and minorities who do choose to go into IT manage to get work at the same rate as white men do, where is the problem? Why is there this arbitrary need for "more diversity"?
Re: (Score:2)
They're CANDIDATES. No "at the expense of".
Re: (Score:2)
So if 100 people apply, and only 10 of them are women, I still have to exclude 10 male candidates that are more qualified than those 10 women.
Re: (Score:3)
"This is about RECRUITERS. They go out and find candidates."
This doesn't change what I said. In this case the recruiter is passing on qualified people just so they can hit a %20 quota. It's not like they have infinite candidates to begin with.....they may be limited to 100, or 50, or whatever. If there aren't enough qualified people to fill the candidate quota to begin with, they'll have to start reaching out to unqualified female candidates to fill that 20%.
And I did read the article thanks.
Re: (Score:3)
They're CANDIDATES. No "at the expense of".
The problem is that there are a lot of people that are like "well, you had 20% more candidates of group X, so why are you not hiring 20% more people from that group"? Failing to realize that just because you have 20% more candidates from that group doesn't necessarily mean that they are (a) qualified, or (b) would fit in.
And honestly, no company should compromise its hiring standards just to try to fit a certain percentage. Some may like it, but it's not good for the company - both in terms of performanc
Re: (Score:2)
Before: "Hey, just got back from working the job fair. Here are 20 resumes, one of which is from a woman!"
After: "Hey, just got back from working the job fair. Here are 5 resumes, one of which is from a woman! Diversity!"
When I go to a job fair, I bring back resumes from all the qualified applicants. The only way I could meet a 20% quota would be to discard enough male candidates to make the ratio fit.
Hmm... You know, it's just a short step from there to a full-blown H1B conspiracy fantasy... "Last
Re: (Score:2)
If you could find me 20% more qualified resumes, women or not, I would have no problem with adding them.
There is actually a supply problem with qualified candidates in IT, at least in what I am trying to hire for. I assure you, if you put a qualified female candidate in front of me, I'd hire her, because she'd probably be the only qualified candidate I get in front of me that week. If you gave me 20% more qualified candidates, I'd interview them all happily.
I do think there is a lack of supply in general,
We all do NOT know that (Score:3, Informative)
We all know that the exact same resume with a female name is much more likely to be rejected without being considered.
I have been in a hiring position before, and had to review resumes - it makes no sense at all that ANYONE would be rejected because of the name. I never did, I accepted or rejected candidates based on the resume, not the name. I have never seen any other co-worker doing anything different either (but then why would they when some of them were also women).
If anything because of many articl
Re: (Score:2)
Nice try:
http://www.snopes.com/racial/l... [snopes.com]
http://www.babynamewizard.com/... [babynamewizard.com]
Yelling is all you do department. (Score:2)
Entitled much? (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA: " the applicant was escorted to an undecorated office the size of a closet. There she sat as a procession of seven guys filed in one at a time to ask her questions, often the same questions as the guy before. Few made eye contact, none offered her so much as a drink of water or a bathroom break. The whole day she didn’t lay eyes on a woman. She was there for five hours. "
That happens to the men as well. It's not a gender thing.
Re: Entitled much? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why didn't she ask for a drink of water?
Why didn't she ask where the washroom is?
I find it absurd that an adult, regardless of gender, wouldn't ask such questions, and would instead just sit there for hours getting angry that such things weren't being offered.
Re:Entitled much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, guys spend five hours interviewing for a tech position without seeing any men, that happens all the time.
So they've got to have the women on staff before they are allowed to interview women to get them on the staff?!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
but if you start off the interview with "So, do you have a vagina?" they stomp out and call the HR department on you. What, are we just supposed to know?
In IT development, we have a concept called a sniff test.
That's how you'll know, without asking . . .
Re: (Score:2)
No, he's right, we interviewed a bunch of "dudes" but no men.
FTFY (Score:2)
"Apparently, companies are supposed to hire women based only on their gender now"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
So if you don't see a member of of your own gender or ethnicity every couple of hours then that means someone is discriminating against you?
Re: (Score:2)
Have run this through my head, having been in big corporations for long enough to know how this works, I'll hypothesize that:
1) Someone scheduled these interviewers to do an interview at a specific time. They had no interaction with each other wrt the interview.
2) The individual interviewers had no clue she was there for 5 hours.
3) Someone, probably an admin in HR, booked the room, scheduled the interviewers and didn't think to schedule a break time or a pre-post meeting for the interviewers.
4) That someone
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe not tech, but it certainly can happen in other industries where women dominate the workforce.
The modded-up sibling comment should be sufficient to point out how juvenile the original (and parent's follow-up) remark is.
Re: (Score:2)
At my work we have an equal number of men's and women's restrooms, and those restrooms are sized to allow the same number of people (so if the men's room has 2 stalls and 2 urinals, the women's room has 4 stalls). This is despite the fact that we have 4x as many men as women working in our facility (it's not a hiring issue, we just don't get the applicants).
The end result is that on average men can expect to wait 15-20 minutes before getting an open stall to use, while the women generally will not even see
I do not understand the self-flagellation (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not understand the self-flagellation of the tech world over "diversity."
Where's the bitching about the under-representation of men in nursing and teaching? The demand for more female garbage collectors? Construction workers?
Oh. I get it. It's only "inequality" if it's about a cushy desk job.
Re:I do not understand the self-flagellation (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not so sure this is a "tech industry" thing as much as it is a "media narrative" thing. The media has found themselves a great nerd bashing technique and some of the nerds are attempting damage control.
It's all marketing. That's the beauty of it. Companies can announce things that any numerate person should be skeptical of because journalists are likely not nerdy enough to understand what they're being told.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not so sure this is a "tech industry" thing as much as it is a "media narrative" thing.
I vote "media narrative" thing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, this. It appears that over the past year the media has declared war on nerds and are using sexism as a stick to beat them over the head. Why? Probably because 'lack of luck with the ladies' is a personality weakness of many nerds and a vulnerability to be attacked.
If you're a gamer you're bad, if you're a scientist then your choice in shirts is bad, if you're a teenage geek then haha you're a virgin loser, if you're a successful programmer then you clearly hate women for working in such a heinous busin
"Flamebait" my ass (Score:2)
"Flamebait" my ass. The perpetual whining about "diversity" in the media is a freakin' JOKE. Heaven forbid I shouldn't kiss the media's ass and those of the uber-liberal "elite" who keep wringing their hands about it.
Look, here's the fundamental issue (Score:2)
The fundamental issue is one of training and remaining current in your skills. Women, for the most part, will drop out of the workforce for 5-7 years early in their careers to start a family, and try to return to their careers after the kids are in school.
Nursing? Not an issue -- the way you dispense pills and clean a patient doesn't change much in 5-7 years.
Teaching? Not much of an issue. Course materials don't change that fast in education, nor do the modes and styles of teaching.
Programming? H
Re: (Score:2)
Nursing is just dispensing pills and cleaning patients?
Dude, you have no FUCKING idea of what you are talking about. I was married to a nurse for 25 years. It's WAY more than handing out pills and cleaning patients... hell, a monkey could do that.
Nurses are involved in creating patient care plans, providing ADVANCED technical care, and much much more...
Re:I do not understand the self-flagellation (Score:5, Insightful)
Where's the bitching about under-representation of people over 40?
There are oodles of people who want these jobs, and are very motivated to get them, and have specific industry experience, and don't need any hand-holding, coddling or emotional kisses.
Oh yeah, fuck them.
What's the graduation rate for women? (Score:5, Insightful)
What percentage of the people graduating with qualifying degrees are women? If the hiring is close to that, is there a problem?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're approaching this as if it's fact-based. Typical nerd error.
This is a social crusade to make sure there are more vaginas present in tech companies regardless of context, qualifications, or even women's preferences.
This is a quest not about fairness, but about righteousness.
It's curious, though, that I don't see a similar indignation that women are underrepresented as janitors, ditch-diggers, or even in the trades - electricians, plumbers, etc. Certainly, women are just as capable to fill those roles
What diversity issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You know that as a profession, HR is overwhelmingly dominated by women.
Right Problem, Wrong "Solution" (Score:2, Insightful)
"It's stupid on every level not to acknowledge the obstacles women face when they try to join a tech company."
I have no problem acknowledging that sexism exists, and working to correct sexism in the workplace. But requiring that a certain percentage of your workforce consists of a particular gender? That does not solve the problem of sexism, that IS sexism, regardless of which gender is being favored.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The problem that Wikipedia has is that of fighting biases.
The solution is a site sort of like Wikipedia, where multiple articles can be posted on the same subject, and where the community can vote on their quality. Articles don't even need to be deleted, they can just sink into the muck. Text is small. And the well-voted articles can be used as Wikipedia citations...
Re: (Score:2)
I agree that a likely reason for lack of female participation in this segment of the workplace is their discomfort with certain attributes considered to be "valuable" in those fields.
The problem is that while "competitiveness" or aggression, or risk seeking, can be useful in certain circumstances, in general, it does not represent any actual benefit to the position of being a developer, sysadmin, or other sort of IT person. Those traits can be useful on a situational basis, but they can be harmful in other
Do we still need affirmative action? (Score:5, Informative)
We all need to realize that Mitt Romney is an old politician. He's not a computer guy. 'Binders' of candidates I can easily see. Again, not something to get uptight over.
I do get a bit irked with Van Vlack though - 20% goal for women? That low? In addition, it implies that women can't even make 20% without being chosen simply for the fact that she's a woman. More women are going to and graduating college today than men, and it's by a substantial fraction 43.6% male vs 56.4% female [forbes.com] in public universities alone. Private universities the average is closer to 40-60. Her third statement amounts to a repeat of the first, implying that you can't simply have a policy of hiring the best employees - you have to hire looking to diversify. Does diversification even improve outcomes if you're a business? Please note that diversity of talent and experience is still a positive factor, hiring somebody with experience different than what's already in the group is generally beneficial. I'm talking about hiring somebody for a position substantially because the color of their skin is under-represented in your workcenter.
If women are still under-represented in some fields despite being the majority of college students, I think we need to look closer at social traditions and policies, because I think they might be the bigger factor at this point. Not much point at looking to hire women in a certain field if they're not even entering it due to 'reasons'.
Questioning my assumptions about the leadership skills of women, I can't really say. I don't really think I have any.
Amazon is an internet logistics company (Score:3)
Amazon is an internet logistics company, not a health spa. They solve difficult problems that require sharp thinking and logic. Kissing asses and holding hands isn't part of their business model.
If you want to be surrounded by people orientated luddites, go work in the service industry
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon is an internet logistics company, not a health spa. They solve difficult problems that require sharp thinking and logic. Kissing asses and holding hands isn't part of their business model.
From anecdotes that I have heard, and from speaking to people at companies that set them up, even Amazon's fulfillment centers are not the best places to work either.
Why? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
But that relies on HR departments (Score:5, Insightful)
Come *on*, you expect HR departments to *find*, much less hire qualified women? Most hiring managers have a hard enough time finding *any* qualified candidates, since about 80% or more of HR departments are completely staffed by people who have NO IDEA of what the company actually does, NO IDEA of what they're hiring for, and DON'T CARE TO LEARN.
Come on - for anyone working for any medium to large size, do *you* think HR knows their ass from a hole in the ground? When I was last looking, around '09, Grumman wanted you to upload your resume (Word format only, please), and not even a cover letter, and they said that they found "qualified candidates" by DOING DATABASE SEARCHES. So, you with the six years of Oracle, you're not qualified to work on MySql, or Sybase. And oh, you haven't done this, and don't have that certification, never mind how many years you've been doing it, you're not qualified.
Come the Revolution, we're going to lead HR departments into the parking lot, throw asphalt on them, and PAVE THEM INTO THE ROADWAY, and *then*, and only then, will they have any social or corporate utility....
mark
PS: and for those of you who think women aren't good enough, I'd suggest that one of my daughters who's a programmer and tester for a major aerospace firm is a *hell* of a lot better than you are at her job.
Look To History (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, we could look to both the legal and medical professions.
For example, back in 1970, about 8% of all doctors were women. Today, roughly 1/3 of all doctors are women--hardly parity, but a significant improvement, nonetheless. Similarly, about 1/3 of all lawyers are now women; back in 1970, that number was closer to 5%.
So what happened between the 1970s and today in the legal and medical professions? For one, there was a concerted effort to even make these professions accept that there was a problem. In both the industry and the public eye, it was generally accepted that women weren't lawyers or doctors because women simply weren't cut out for that kind of work--it was too demanding, too rigorous, too technical, too high-stakes, and required an 'instinct' that women just generally didn't have.
Additionally, there was a very active and ongoing effort to encourage women to enter these fields--efforts that took a long time to gain steam, as these fields require years of specialized study and training on top of a sound primary and secondary education. Professional organizations dedicated to supporting and encouraging women in these fields were created. Major existing professional organizations--like the AMA and the ABA--started paying attention to the issue, as well.
Today, you won't find many people defending the position that women are somehow less fit to be doctors or lawyers than men. That's gone. It took a long time, and it took a lot of people--mostly women--fighting a grueling and protracted battle against a broader community that was, at best, condescendingly tolerant of them, so long as their numbers were small enough and they accepted adapting themselves to life in a man's profession. You still see gender disparity, both in pay and people, and you still see a lot of the vestiges of the old system that need to be retooled, but there's been real progress.
Getting a solid number on how many women are employed as software engineers/programmers is tricky, but one recent effort compiled information from around 200 companies and found that about 15% of software engineers are women. Certainly not as bad as the medical and legal professions in 1970, but a far cry from what you'd expect--and, frankly, a far cry from where software engineering and programming has been in the past.
So here we are, in 2015. There's a lot to be done. We've barely even begun to accept that this is a problem yet, and the backlash against this concept is virulent, to put it lightly. That said, there's momentum building, and I'm hopeful that we're finally--finally--starting to move in the right direction.
The system won't be burned down, but the system won't survive in its current form, either. With any luck, 40 years from now, we'll be looking back on this with the same incredulity as we do on the legal and medical professions of yore.
Re:Look To History (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I was just a kid in the 70's, but I'd suggest that the overall employment of women was a key part, but far from the whole, of this issue. Specifically, while there were very few women who were doctors back in 1970, the medical profession had large numbers of women performing medical work: nurses. Similarly, in the legal profession, there were a good number of women fighting to break into the profession as lawyers (as opposed to clerical workers,) with generally disheartening [cornell.edu] results.
While overall employment
Re: (Score:3)
Here ya go, AC.
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pu... [ama-assn.org]
http://kff.org/other/state-ind... [kff.org]
http://scholarship.law.cornell... [cornell.edu]
http://www.americanbar.org/con... [americanbar.org]
https://docs.google.com/spread... [google.com]
http://www.indiana.edu/~emsoc/... [indiana.edu]
I can only assume that you'll return the favor. :D
Only stand that makes sense is to increase supply (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't buy into he shell-game concept where you try to increase "diversity" numbers at a company, especially if the number is higher than the overall percentage of qualified candidates - you are just shuffling a limited supply of a category of worker at the expense of some other companies numbers. Even just trying to maintain an average makes no sense, what if there's a company somewhere that has a much higher percentage of woman than normal because women really love working there? Isn't that OK?
To me if a workplace is not welcoming to women, it's probably not very welcoming to men either, so simply making the workplace better for everyone is the right thing to do, and will attract better candidates of all genders.
What I prefer to do (apart from treating women no different professionally than men) to address the lack of women in technical jobs is put money and effort towards increasing the supply in the first place. Efforts that try to help young girls learn to program or otherwise engage them in technical subjects are the way to truly improve the industry. By the time women (and men for that matter) are out of college it's very hard to move into a technical field, so it's really important to get someone interested while they are young.
I do not understand it.... (Score:3)
What exactly the problem is.
I have worked in the tech industry for almost 20 years, Before that I studied in it, and before that it was a hobby.
I have met very few women that had any interest in it over the years.
The few women there was where treated like queens and superstars (quite frankly because they where soooo rare).
IMHO there was nobody that I personally knew that behaved in such a manor that would have discouraged women. In fact they would have been treated far better than the average Joe.....
And many times we actually complained to our bosses to hire more women....and the response we got....was there was NONE applying.....
Is there immature jerks? Of course! But no more and no different than any other industry. From my perspective, it seems like Computer Science is not appealing to most women. Why? I do not know, but in my opinion I believe there are some activities that will appeal more to men and vice versa. We are a species that is sexually dimorphic.....so expecting both sexes to be 100% identical is stupid, no matter how much these feminazis scream sexism.
I wonder what % of maids out there are men. Or what % are nurses. Or what % of daycare workers are male....And yet nobody is screaming bloody sexism in those situations. I personally believe the whole caregiver role appeals more to females than males. Same with computer science, it likely appeals more to those inclined to think logically rather than emotionally (again this is my opinion, not a fact).
I also agree with those who raised the point above; That articles such as this do more harm than good at attracting women into the industry, when all the read is all the horror stories of how they will be raped and harassed and not taken seriously. Which of course is likely to be mostly BS. A few bad apples ruining it for all kind of thing....
value of diversity / UI design (Score:2)
Selecting candidates from a broader range of experiences and viewpoints adds value to a company by allowing it to create a product that appeals to a larger portion of consumers. In this regard, the most technically qualified candidate may have equal or less value than a less qualified candidate who can lend a different perspective to development.
Dilbert’s user interface design is an amusing example of monoculture and the need for diversity. (If you haven’t seen a terrible UI, consider taking som
Change the system (Score:2)
So then you only ask "Why are there no women in tech", but the answer is the same for all of them. Its not socially acceptable for a woman in Today's society, be it either it materialist pop culture, nor traditionali
Re: (Score:2)
Blame The Parents (Score:5, Insightful)
This conversation rationally and logically devolves into the following:
Companies
"Our company doesn't discriminate against females for any position. The problem is that there aren't enough competitively qualified female candidates. Blame the universities."
Univerisities
"Our University's STEM programs don't discriminate against females. Hell, we have multiple support programs for females, an Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, and outreach programs into K-12 education to encourage young ladies to explore STEM subjects! If anything, we're doing the work that the secondary schools should be doing."
High Schools
"Our high school is pressed for money. We can't afford the teachers we need, PE has been cut, and there is absolutely zero funding for programs within STEM to do anything but prepare students to take tests. Do you even know what it's like to shove STEM education into the minds of teenage girls? Maybe if they had some earlier primering, we would have a chance, but their interests are formed far earlier than high school."
Middle Schools
"Junior high is too weird for anything purposeful to happen. Every day is a mix of hormones, fights, and liability risk assessments. Try the elementary school."
Elementary Schools
"Us? Seriously? We can't even teach real American history without receiving wrath from Tea Party Parents or teach evolution without getting sued by the religious right. We can't send home technical projects because it ends up being homework that Mom and Dad end up doing because they don't want their child to miss soccer practice or kid's cheer. Try getting the parents on board with education, first, then come to us."
Parents
"Hell yes, I voted against the new taxes to fund schools! I have a mortgage, two car payments, and a $150/month cable bill. The kids both have braces, I'm on anxiety meds, and Bill, when he gets to come home, just doesn't have time to deal with anything. The dog has renal failure. Did I mention that? It's costing $300/month to keep the dog alive. So, no. I don't feel bad for voting against overpaid teacher scam artists getting more money. And to top it off, then send home these computer projects that require Jessica to learn some foreign computer language to show she can make a computer add "2 + 2". This isn't right. We have calculators already. Now, I have to call my brother (he's a computer whiz) to help my daughter do the homework that's meant for boys. And that's another thing! Why don't they just let girls be girls?! My Jessica has loved dolls and dresses since she was born! I'll not have her become some sad computer nerd, dressing in black flannel and black denim only for her to get teased at school. NO WAY. My kid's going to be a cheerleader like I was. And I turned out pretty damn well, thank you very much."
Push your technical recruiters to hit 20% threshol (Score:2)
Hire the best people you can.
If they happen to be 5%, 20%, 60% women, so be it.
Threshold? KMA. Let's see who applies and walks throught e door.
Why is lack of male nurses not an issue? (Score:3)
For those who might not know: a lot of RNs earn over $100K a year.
I know, that is nothing especially extraordinary these days. But it's a fairly decent salary, even for a college graduate.
Men are hugely under-represented in the nursing field. Why isn't everybody having a hissy fit about that?
Re: (Score:3)
Matters not (Score:2, Funny)
I can't think of anything less relevant to this story than the opinions of a bunch of male Slashdot readers.
Nobody cares what any of us think and for good reason. The "nerd" is over. Everyone works in tech now. Deal with it and move along.
Interesting premise (Score:3)
On the one hand, the explanation for a "shortage" of women in tech fields is that somehow they are excluded because of gender in spite of being otherwise indistinguishable from men (for example, no different than men in skills, desires, education, or training).
On the other hand the linked article includes, without critique or outcry,
without being slammed for sexism by implying that women tend to be stronger in some skills (in this case social skills) than men because of gender.
Let's try some word substitution and see how that might fly
There seems to be a double standard here. It's unreasonable to fail to label a claim that "women have better social skills" due to gender as sexist while labeling a claim that "men have better technical skills" due to gender as sexist.
In my career in systems software development, the overwhelming majority of my colleagues and reports have been male. In senior positions, I think the average skill set of females has been higher than the average skill set of males. However, in junior positions, I think the average skill set of males has been higher than the average skill set of females.
What I have noticed is that the less skilled females seem to drop out of the development arena more quickly and in larger percentages than males. I don't know why this is. Perhaps...
males have fewer options outside of software development (perhaps because Megan Tweed's apparent premise that females have superior social skills is accurate so jobs requiring those skills are less available to mediocre male developers)?,
males are more likely to have some form of ASD and that helps with concentration, obsession, and attention to fine detail which can be quite useful in systems software development?,
males and females are socialized differently at an early age and (unsurprisingly) that is reflected in their priorities and interests?,
males are less willing to admit that they made a bad career decision and then take action to rectify that?,
males feel more pressure to earn as much money as they can for their families so try to stay in higher paying positions?,
males are (much) less likely to have babies and decide not to return from maternity leave after realizing how much it sucks to be towards the bottom of the skill heap.
Who knows...
Re: (Score:2)
How often are you able to compare notes with somebody else who interviewed for the exact same position as you? Even then, any one story is just an anecdote, and likely won't go anywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Well as someone else pointed out, it is more like:
Tech recruiter has a target of 10 candidates to be considered. Instead of stopping at 10, they now work to provide 2 more, but all female. It doesn't change the qualifications of who gets hired, it just means that the recruiter's job isn't done until they at least gave 2 women a chance to be considered.
I have serious problems with hiring quotas, but I don't have a huge problem with minimum levels of a gender in a candidate pool. As long as they are actua
Re: (Score:2)
The Pragmatic Solution (Score:2)
In my experience, the people who don't get jobs interview a lot more. People who get jobs easily, don't do as many interviews.
It only takes a few women working full time to provide 20% of the interview candidates for most of the interviews in silicon valley.
The tech companies should interview women for the position of full time bad interviewees and pay them to do it. Instant quota filling.
Meanwhile, men and women who like tech and are good at it can get on with making chips and software and little boxes wit
Speaking of bad ideas (Score:4, Informative)
(1) is a terrible idea, and should be only "Push your technical recruiters to ignore sex completely and hire the most qualified person for the job, while pushing those who create the requirements for the jobs to stop requiring the ridiculous"
(2) meh. Just stop thinking about sex as an employment qualification. Stop it. Right now.
(3) No, definitely not, and also, fuck no. See (1) -- just behave reasonably and "diversity figures" will settle wherever they should be.