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Comment by cynoclast | Hacker News Reader

>I personally think the heavy PR push towards women in code over the last couple of years

It's not been 'the last few years' It's been about 30, now. I can remember them pushing when I was in elementary school.

Also, it's a misnomer to call it '[gender] dominated'. Tech is largely female rejected. Just as most men reject teaching, nursing, or the social sciences. Those aren't female dominated either, but male rejected.

I'm perfectly happy working with competent people of either gender. I don't give a shit what's in their pants. Just don't be an idiot and we're all good.

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It does seem to me that calling it female-rejected is a more accurate way of framing this topic.

Addressing it this way doesn't diminish or invalidate the issues people have with this state of affairs. And it still allows people to constructively ask the question, when a desire to increase the diversity within tech workplaces is present: How do we make tech more attractive to females?

"Male dominated" is, yes, technically the current state of the tech industry, but it's not accurate to ascribe male domination as a self-fulfilling cause when female rejection consists of many other reasons too.

> doesn't diminish or invalidate the issues people have

It depends what those issues are

> still allows people to constructively ask the question.. How do we make tech more attractive to females?

Why is this of value? If tech as it is isn't attractive to females, why dress it up? Do we do the same with any other field?

The word "dominated" or "domination" does have a slight stigma attached.

Sorry for the late reply.

> It depends what those issues are

Not really. Female rejection implies and is consistent with male domination, it's simply addressing the root cause rather than the symptom. It doesn't claim to change the situation at all.

> Why is this of value?

First, let me stress that this is not a cause I've picked up for myself, so I'm not the ideal person to ask.

However, within this thread there are sources that show measurable benefits to increased diversity in the workplace. As I wrote in the very sentence you partially quoted:

> when a desire to increase the diversity within tech workplaces is present,

What I'm saying here isn't that the question needs to be asked, merely that addressing the issue in this way doesn't preclude people who DO want to ask it.

I'm also sorry for late reply, was on holiday :-)

"measurable benefits to increased diversity" is a little suspect. What kind of benefit, and to who. I don't accept that any good end justify the means.

Also, Male domination is the result of female rejection. To flip causality, you have to show that women want to go into tech, but are prevented from doing so.

I studied computer science and biology, and yea I agree with this statement. My cs classes were full of guys, my biology classes were full of girls. I remember when a bunch of biology friends found out I was also studying computer science. The comments ranged from "Why, you aren't autistic ?", "Good for you, I can't even imagine how boring it is", and "Yea makes sense, Asians are good at math".

It seemed pretty clear most people considered compsci pretty low on the social status hierarchy.

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