Comment by TheLilHipster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheLilHipster | Hacker News Reader

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> Men have the opportunity to go into programming and be in a culture that is not stacked against them. Women don't. That's not equality of opportunity.

Depends where you define the line between opportunity and outcome. You could take a step back and argue that equal opportunity exists in the education space for both women and men to thrive in said field. The fact that this doesn't result in a 50/50 split in gender in the market is an indicator to me that the cause isn't institutional, it's cultural.

You can't police culture and you shouldn't be trying to police the outcomes of a "free market". I appreciate your perspective, but I think you've honed in on symptoms, not the cause.

If the cause is institutional, fix it 100%. All hands on board, sign me up.

If its cultural - adapt. Cultures will also adapt in-time to the individuals that make up said culture.

You could take a step back and argue that equal opportunity exists in the education space for both women and men to thrive in said field.

What would that argument look like?

To me, equality of opportunity means "substitution equality." I.e. you should be able to swap someone's gender and the way the external world treats them should be identical at every step.

> I.e. you should be able to swap someone's gender and the way the external world treats them should be identical at every step.

This is equal outcome in my eyes, not equal opportunity. It's a stance of absolutes, a "perfect-world" scenario - a practical impossibility.

You've got to align your goals and perspectives to the reality of the world. Men and women are genetically and physically different which manifests in many different ways culturally. There are so many variables here that I'd be writing an essay if I wanted to list everything that shapes my bias - but the point I'm getting at here is; as individuals we're all different in varying ways and this is a great thing (I'd rather not be genderless, featureless clones).

Focusing on eliminating negative bias is great, sure. But its not a gender issue and should never be institutionally enforced as such. Hell, cultural issues and differences should never be institutionally enforced in my eyes. It's just trading in negative discrimination for positive discrimination.

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