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Comment by wccrawford | Hacker News Reader

Because there's a well-known imbalance, and not everything balances itself. Sometimes fairness requires stepping in and lending a helping hand to right an imbalance.

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An imbalance existing does not imply that it is fair to right it. Taking a very rough approximation of the efficient market hypothesis, most career choices are approximately equally bad. You can only really choose what tradeoffs you want to make. Want to be a highly paid doctor? Prepare to spend at least 7 years doing long hours of difficult training. Don't want to do the training? Your choices are either low pay or physically taxing and/or dangerous work. Want to try to be a corporate executive? Most people who try spend many long, hard hours vying for corporate promotions and fail.

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.

The biggest imbalance in tech is caused by economic status. I wouldn't call a policy that prioritizes gender and sex over poverty as fair. Seems far from that.

I think there is a manifestly apparent imbalance in tech. But I struggle to understand how we can competently fight that imbalance without really knowing what we are aiming for.

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?

There is an imbalance, but no unfairness (or at least no established unfairness--and to the extent that there is an unfairness, it probably runs in the opposite direction due to the aggregate actions taken on behalf of a popular political ideology that conflates "imbalance" and "unfairness").

We should totally create a bias toward minorities for things like speaking engagements. And also - that imbalance will always be there.

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.

> partially driven by differences in fundamental interests between genders

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

Why do you think its right to fix the imbalance - what do you accomplish by it? Are you going to fix the imbalance everywhere you see it?

Yes. Aren't you?

Of course not. So, tell me, when are you going to be happy? When ratio in conferences are 33% men, 33% woman, 33% minorities? What did you accomplish by that?

I think there is something wrong with your math there.

3 white male and 3 black woman?

That would be 50% men, 50% women, and 50% minority.

what are we doing to fix the imbalance in preschool and elementary school teachers and bridal salons ?

should we be aggressively encouraging men to take up nursing?

We are aggressively encouraging men to take up nursing.

And for good reason. Nursing is physically demanding, especially seeing as how the majority of American adults are now obese. It's common for nurses to physically injure themselves trying to move a patient that they're simply not strong enough to handle.

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.

Sure, go for it. But I know a male nurse and he's never experienced anything remotely like what a lot of women I know in tech experience so it's not the equal thought you might think it is.

What did doctors and lawyers do starting back in the 80s? We should do whatever they did, since it seems to have worked.

Why are you assuming we didn't?

A heavy dose of affirmative action. At least in the law field. From what I've been told anecdotally is that women and minorities are not held to the same standard as white men. They are accepted even if they are less productive and women are allowed to work fewer hours to deal with child rearing.

Best is to do what symphony orchestras have done. All auditions are done behind a screen so you can be judged purely on your talent. You are not allowed to wear shoes to the audition because we don't want to judge your foot steps into the room. Just your instrument (which might be borrowed!) - and possibly your choice in music (or possibly not).

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.

I think that's true for male nurses, but at least in my country male Kindergarten teachers often have a hard time.

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.

I know a male nurse, and he's constantly getting jibes from patients about being gay. He's not, but that's kind of beside the point; the point is that there do exist stereotypes about male nurses that need to be addressed.

For what it's worth, men are certainly underrepresented in nursing in the US. From https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/04/upshot/male-n... :

"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."

If you searched for this, you would find multiple programs trying to do just that. The difference is that it doesn't make the news because there isn't a reactionary movement which sees that as an existential threat.

If anything, this would help my wife who is a doctor but often finds older patients assuming she is a nurse simply because she is woman. There are male nurses, and hopefully more men will join the field, as the same gender stereotype that assumes that women cannot be doctors is the one that assumes all nurses are women.

There isn't a reactionary movement that sees "women in tech" as an existential threat. The "reactionaries" you're alluding to are properly known as "liberals" or "egalitarians".

Gah, I realize that I think I was unclear. I didn’t mean “liberals and egalitarians are reactionaries”, but rather the people who are critical of tech diversity quotas are often motivated by liberal and egalitarian beliefs. Hopefully that’s clearer if not more agreeable.

Nobody thinks that women entering tech is an existential threat. If you think that’s the issue, it’s no wonder you can’t figure out why this is so counterproductive. In fact, you probably haven’t even realized the damage you are doing to your own cause.

> Nobody thinks that women entering tech is an existential threat.

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.

Sure. It's a very good line of work.

https://www.nursingtimes.net/why-are-there-so-few-men-in-nur...

https://nurse.org/articles/Male-Nurses-And-The-Profession/

If you want the real examples, you look at daycare workers and elementary teachers. Insurance is an issue with daycares that hire male workers. Plus, you have quite a few parents that are fine with their boys being changed by women, but not their daughters being changed by men. Thus the problems, plus the pervasive stories of child molestation and societal stigma against males in this area.

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.

It's definitely a problem, and it's not good that male role models are often lacking in earlier childhood education (especially when male role models may be lacking at home at well), but one key difference is that these aren't generally well-compensated positions.

I don't see why a position being "well-compensated" is relevant, particularly when society is worse off for the imbalance.

It's relevant in the sense that I don't particularly care that it'd be harder for me to get these jobs, as the pay cut vs my current job of software engineer would be so significant that I would never seriously consider it. 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).

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.

> 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).

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.

I think you're responding to a stronger version of what I actually said. I said that compensation is a factor, whereas you're responding as if I said it were the only factor (which I would disagree with too).

No, I believe the whole compensation argument misses the point. There are males who want to be educators and are actively discouraged from doing the job. Compensation is not a factor in their decision or the employer decision. Its a prejudice against males in early childhood education.

If imbalance in IT is bad then it should also be addressed in education. Compensation isn't the problem.

Discouraged by whom, and how?

Insurance companies (mysterious higher rates), existing daycare staff, and parents who are very suspicious of male workers. It’s a socially acceptable discrimination.

Definitely, compensation is a big factor. In fact, compensation for women in other roles is also a factor. The more that women can be paid in technical / other roles, the more flexibility their partners would have to take on jobs that don't pay as much but that might be more personally satisfying (like this). People who object to women getting paid more often seem to treat it as a zero-sum game, rather than as a rising tide lifting all boats.

> should we be aggressively encouraging men to take up nursing?

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.

That's mealy-mouthed prevarication, and does not match the actual actions taken under the claim of that philosophy. There is a difference between proactive nurturing and proactive suppression and condemnation.

>That's mealy-mouthed prevarication, and does not match the actual actions taken under the claim of that philosophy. There is a difference between proactive nurturing and proactive suppression and condemnation.

I'm not following what that text means. Can you elaborate?

Not the writer of that post, but maybe they're pointing out the difference between "lending a helping hand" and "deplatforming".

In the name of improving equality, many conferences are turning to censorious tactics, removing anyone who receives the slightest complaint on ground of even minor disagreement with those claiming to be fighting for equality.

To clarify, I don't think that's what's happening in this story. This is more a response to the GGP post.

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