Edit: I already regret making this post.
My point is: on the one hand, if you disagree with the ideology, then... that's just that. You disagree about what is most decent to do. But I don't believe that you are confused about what other people's ideologies are -- you know perfectly well why they are doing the things they do, what value system informs their actions. So what's the point of protesting it here like you're bewildered about it? The only result is people shouting their stances at each other -- not a debate, or even an argument, at all.
I mention this, and risk making things worse, because I think it is important to recognize this thread as one of those pointlessly destructive ones, which changes nothing except to make people more annoyed at each other. It just amounts to people saying what they think and trying to make it sound abundantly reasonable so the other side sounds wrong. It's a fake argument; what's the point of starting it?
I mean, I could write a comment critiquing the grammar of the article, but that's decidedly asocial behavior, and unhelpful besides.
For me, it's fascinating how people can adhere to an ideology that is so overtly inconsistent. I like to hear the ways people try to reconcile such obvious inconsistencies. And one person's "bewilderment" is another person's "giving the benefit of the doubt that the ideologue is not so stupid as to espouse obviously self-defeating beliefs" which is necessary if the conversation is to have any hope of being productive.
He focuses a lot on the allegation that the disinvitee makes women (specifically) feel unsafe, but it's clear from his story that the alleged behavior isn't gender specific.
Is what they allegedly did to him more acceptable because he's a man? Should future organizers ignore his story, even if conclusively proven true, because it's not about a woman feeling unsafe?
No, I'm asserting that it's inconsistent (based on studying these sorts of purportedly "egalitarian" racial/gender ideologies). Anyone is welcome to make a counterargument.
> lots of people would completely disagree with that
I know. And I find their justifications fascinating, as previously mentioned.
> then you're pretending like it's obvious and not up for debate.
In many ways it is obvious. "Racism isn't racism if it targets $RACE people" is one variation of a popular slogan. In any case, as mentioned several times now, my position is "yes, more debate", yours is "debate is pointless".
> More fanning the flames. Why?
I'm not "fanning flames", I'm inviting debate. And as previously mentioned, I find the debate interesting. Incidentally it also tends to publicize the inconsistencies in the ideology, which is a nice side effect.
Software development is no exception here. Yes, it is a safe desk job. Yes, it pays well. It also has a pretty brutal and risky filtering process on hiring, significant cyclicality, high amounts of skill and learning requirements, and the role very often demands high performance. Oh, and you spend your time on work that tends to be less intrinsically rewarding and meaningful than something like nursing. These are pretty natural tradeoffs that make a lot of people decide that the field isn't for them, and the same sort of self-selection processes wind up with things like "roughly 90% of workplace deaths are male" too. I don't think it's fair to put your hand on the scales here for only one gender.
NB: I actually kind of regret getting into programming - I suspect I'd have been much happier if I went with my second choice and became an electrician.
0% of midwives in Ontario are men. What's the right number? How should we endeavour to fix that? When do we know when to stop and be satisfied with the ratio?
It's so well documented at researched at this point that the imbalance is at least partially driven by differences in fundamental interests between genders ("things" vs "people"). You see this with nurses just as much as you see it with engineers.
But, these are all averages and distribution, so plenty of work to do to make sure those that aren't in the average can still pursue their interests without facing such an uphill battle. Conference speaking seems like a good way to help. But the goal of "balance" as 50/50 is not a good goal.
I haven't actively looked for studies in this but I'm curious if these "fundamental" interests are somewhat partially driven by how society or people view them based on their sex. That is, get in them interested in certain things based on what the individual/society believes that their sex "should" be doing.
These kind of things could certainly push people towards a certain interest.
Then again, this is a nature/nurture talk. I personally find it hard to believe that women "naturally" prefer going into nursing compared to men - without sarcasm, I think the lack of male nurses is part due to how society views "men" in the nursing field which is steeped in sexism (i.e it's a "girly" job only for women).
I believe it was often the opinion at the time that nursing roles were delegated to women, societal opinion was veered towards that and you have kind of a "generational opinion/bias" forming. Nowadays, you (not you; in general) see the ratio is still quite different but you think this is now due to fundamental interests instead of any form a social (something; missing a word here). Anyhow this is all just speculating off of my opinion
let me tell you dude, some people see it as one (and have told me as much). Tech is their thing and me coming in as a woman who sees this as a good career choice and not something where I can essentially get paid for my hobby aggravates them. I'm ruining their "safe, nerdy space", essentially.
The shame of it is that witnessing positive interaction between the sexes at that age would do quite a bit for the children later in life. Particularly in communities where the percentage of in-household fathers is low.
To the extent that society is worse off for the imbalance, part of the solution is better compensating these jobs in the first place. We're currently taking advantage of people who have a passion for doing the work by underpaying them, which disproportionately affects women.
It might be useful to point out since this is an internantional forum:
This is very different from northern Europe. Here if I help recruit a male engineer I get a fat check.
If I help recruit a female engineer I get an equally fat check + smiles and possibly mentions, because leaders have this as a KPI.
So for me this all seems really weird but I guess it looks a bit different in the US.
I'll also admit that I once helped a foreign woman get a job in my office (she was cleaning, but had a degree in IT and had the skills), but this is > 10 years ago and she wasn't fluent in the local language.
I'm glad your chosen profession is well paid and you have the ability to do it. Some folks have alternate dreams and maybe not the same abilities you have. Perhaps they would make an amazing educator and find the salary acceptable.
Conversely, I would care a lot if there's some job that would earn me more money that my gender hinders me in attaining (as is sometimes the case for women in tech).
People tend to react badly when their dreams, even if not as profitable as you would like, are hindered or totally roadblocked.
To the extent that society is worse off for the imbalance, part of the solution is better compensating these jobs in the first place.
That doesn't change the fact that these jobs are actually open to a segment of the population. Better salaries just makes the jobs more attractive to people who aren't roadblocked.
We're currently taking advantage of people who have a passion for doing the work by underpaying them, which disproportionately affects women.
Well, the men are being excluded so it cannot take advantage them. If the imbalance is unacceptable then its unacceptable.
If imbalance in IT is bad then it should also be addressed in education. Compensation isn't the problem.
https://www.nursingtimes.net/why-are-there-so-few-men-in-nur...
Parents not wanting their daughter to be touched (or even helped to the toilet) by the male teacher, female colleagues making "jokes" about pedophile leanings, and so on.
The divide in typically female and typically male professions is not a one-way street.
Of course music is easy to do blind this way. It isn't clear how you judge technical people in a fair way in a 5 minute audition. (see plenty of previous discussions here on white board coding)
Music also has high numbers of minorities going into it in the first place. The number of females who start a technical degree program is very low, and this is reflected in the graduations numbers (I understand females are more likely to drop out of the program as well, which needs to be addressed)
Failing that, what lawyers have done is a possible answer.
"Only 13 percent of nurses in the United States are men, but that share has grown steadily since 1960, when the number was 2 percent, according to a working paper published in October by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth."
So yes, nursing needs more men, as the job shares a lot of the same physical requirements of other strength-requiring occupations such as construction.
yes, of course!
But should we reject good nurse candidates because they are female, and give their jobs to sub-par male candidates? Not so clear.
I'm not following what that text means. Can you elaborate?
To clarify, I don't think that's what's happening in this story. This is more a response to the GGP post.
I understand that perhaps to some people this may sound like a statement made in an effort to counteract identity politics, but isn't it really its own brand of identity politics?
I do understand their lived experience often differs from that of most of us and thus they can provide value sharing it, but that is not really the kind of normalization we should aim to achieve. In a similar vein, I'm disappointed whenever women speakers are still predominantly presenting gender issues. This might be necessary for now to break all those self reinforcing feedback loops that lead us to the current status quo, but just shows how long the road ahead of us still is.
> but that doesn't mean we should try to make the conference have an equal amount of disabled people as speakers
Pretending like anyone would generally want 50:50 representation of disabled is a bit of a straw man, isn't it? Its just that half of all humans tend to be female, thus this particular split when talking about sexes.
> It makes more sense to pick topics and technical ability in the vast majority of cases, because that's what people are there for.
I'd expect them to have done pretty much that, considering only 2 of 9 speakers are female.
You're calling on the OP to ignore a thing, while you cannot ignore this other thing. It's weird.
I was with the author until the UX part. Why does everything have to boil down to color themes and padding? I don't see why you need to focus on this for a software program. It should be about correctness and performance.