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Comment by stakhanov | Hacker News Reader

There are job boards that SPECIFICALLY make it their business to target women and deliver female candidates looking for tech roles (in organizations that are in need of diversity hires):

  https://powertofly.com/

...and companies pay a premium for those job advertising channels.

Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?

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> Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?

Because the one aims to reduce an imbalance in the workforce, which leads to a particular section being under represented.

Thwe other aims to increase an imbalance in the workforce, which leads to a particular section being under represented.

Why do we think the imbalance is bad?

It's not, it's actually natural.

Presenting it as bad is simply, at worst: propaganda espoused by sheep and their shepherds, and at best: ignornace.

There has been a ton of research done on "Thing vs People" career interests, which show very clearly that men prefer working with Things, whereas Women prefer working with People.

(When I say prefer, I mean the average in a normal distribution)

Simply google: occupational interests people vs things

Ex1: "Men and Things, Women and People: A Meta-Analysis of Sex Differences in Interests"

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Th...

Ex2: "Straight Talk About Sex Differences in Occupational Choices and Work-Family Tradeoffs"

"Sex differences in occupational interests have been known for decades, and a recent aggregate analysis of the interests of more than 500,000 people shows that some of these differences are quite large.1 The most relevant finding here is that about 15% of women have the same level of interest in engineering as the average man; 50% of men, by definition, would have stronger interests in engineering than the average man."

https://ifstudies.org/blog/straight-talk-about-sex-differenc...

Ex3: "Brainwash: The Gender Equality Paradox"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE

Exactly what proportion of the gender imbalance is accounted for by a "Thing vs People" disparity, according to those studies?

Is it only a question of sex-related disposition? If so, what has caused disposition to change so radically over the last 30 years?

And why, for example where over 50% of nurses men in the 1900s in the US, but it is now only around 7%? What caused men to apparently become so much less interested in people over the last 100 years, starting to become more interested in people again in the last 10?

Gender Imbalance is a presupposition -- it begins from the place that a "gender imbalance" exists.

I can't justify for you your presupposition [nor demonstrate the existence of your chosen, yet unjustified presupposition given the evidence], you'll need to do that for yourself. Sounds like the news & entertainment media told you something repeatedly (without evidence), and you accepted it on its face without critical analysis.

Now, like many, when presented with evidence, you feel a sense of cognitive dissonance and would prefer to refute clear evidence rather than adjust your public opinion-- as to be expected given human nature of desire to save face.

However, what is apparently demonstrated in the studies is that the vast majority of individuals in a normal distribution favor a particular occupational set of interests based on gender: Men -> Things/Systems. Women -> People.

"The most relevant finding here is that about 15% of women have the same level of interest in engineering as the average (Read: 50% i.e. 50th percentile) man;"

"Straight Talk About Sex Differences in Occupational Choices and Work-Family Tradeoffs"

https://ifstudies.org/blog/straight-talk-about-sex-differenc...

> I can't justify for you your presupposition [nor demonstrate the existence of your chosen, yet unjustified presupposition given the evidence], you'll need to do that for yourself. Sounds like the news & entertainment media told you something repeatedly (without evidence), and you accepted it on its face without critical analysis

But you're pointing out the imbalance yourself...

> The most relevant finding here is that about 15% of women have the same level of interest in engineering as the average.

But when presented with evidence, you feel a sense of cognitive dissonance and would prefer to simply presume some biological effect. Is there any evidence that this is a biological effect?

No, imbalance would presume things are out of balance.

Your presumtion is that balance = men and women have the exact same interests and should therefore be represented exactly identically in occupations of things & people.

That is an irrational posture, foisted upon you by your media overlords, and accepted by you wholeheartedly without critical analysis.

I do not believe men and women are equal-- if they were, we wouldn't have two names for two genders in a dimorphic species.

If apples equal oranges, we wouldn't have two names for them.

I don't know what sort of mentality you live within, but it isn't a rational nor informed one, in my estimation.

Given the psychological science (again, many studies over the course of decades), and given the biological science (hormonal and brain differences between sexes), I think it is very clear: Women prefer working with people, men prefer working with things -- On average.

I don't think you understand how statistical distributions work. There are two distributions here: One for men, one for women.

They don't both fit onto the same normal distribution-- if they did, it would be bimodal, not normal.

Good lord, I see you're trying to argue against biological differences between men and women-- You must not be aware of hormone differences, which in fetal development, yield either a male or female.

OK, I am done talking with such a brainwashed person. Your ignorance does not offend me, I just think it's pointless to discuss this with an irrational person who prefers to block out the daylight of reality falling upon their presuppositions, and media-informed (not science-informed) perspective.

Historically most nurses were related to war, men fight war and thus become nurses. Even in the modern military you learn how to apply bandages, identify different kinds of wounds and how to treat them etc to keep your mates alive even in the modern military, so you could call everyone in the army a "nurse". But of course they are not modern nurses, the profession changed over time from mostly patching up people after fights to mostly treating diseases as our understanding of diseases improved.

The same thing with programming, women were dominant when it was mostly low level computations, but more and more men joined the field as computers grew more powerful and people saw the breadth of programs you could create. So the job changed, early it was more about maths and algorithms, and then we added more and more engineering tasks on top and people started to create huge programs which doesn't resemble math at all. So the gender balance of programmers shifted from the relatively equal applied math field to the extremely male dominated field of engineering. You can look it up, STEM without E has a very balanced gender ratio, while E tend to have above 80% men.

I don't know for sure whether it's natural or not, but I keep wondering: imagine someone runs a groundbreaking research which eliminates all the possible biases and digs to the root of the issue. And it turns out the difference is natural Is any member of our corporation diversity board going to apologize then?

Imbalance is bad because participation in civil society, to include employment, should be representative of society as a whole.

Besides, inclusive and diverse workforces have been repeatedly shown to be better for the bottom line because organizations are more able to serve a wider market when they are made up people more representative of the total market.

Revenue for the division I work in at my current employer exploded when we started hiring people outside of the traditional avenue for new hires. Until a couple of years ago we had been staffed by traditional government/military-focused scientists and engineers with narrowly-focused aerospace engineering backgrounds. Our customer base was 100% domestic government/military because that's who we knew and had relationships with. Outside consultants recommended non-"traditional" hires, and we followed their recommendations.

New hires in the environmental sciences (mainly women) and personnel with foreign language experience opened up market opportunities that we had been unable to see before and by diversifying our workforce we were able to diversify our customer base to include foreign environmental management organizations, agricultural, and natural resource-based markets.

My employer develops and sells a pretty unique Synthetic Aperture Radar system with capabilities not found in competing platforms. We had been trickling out systems to the Navy and Air Force on a onesy-twosy basis every year.

People with a diverse background said "hey we can sell this to oil and gas companies, departments of agriculture and environmental science all over the world, and we can work with all of these universities on terrestrial surveying projects and make more money".

And we did.

I imagine for mass-market consumer products and services the impact of understanding the needs of the market by having a workforce representative of the market as a whole would be even greater than what we experienced.

Imbalance is bad because participation in civil society, to include employment, should be representative of society as a whole.

But why?

I understand the point that diverse workforce leads to diverse ideas. But will fifty women per hundred employees produce five times more diverse ideas than, say, ten women?

Hiring women just for the sake of hiring women looks like a cargo cult.

I agree that "increase diversity" is a rather obtuse meta argument, and using it implicitly argues that there are not other significant discrimination issues facing these groups. Maybe it is a better argument to make in certain settings though. For example, a company wouldn't want to admit to having discriminatory biases in hiring, so "increase diversity" is a much more palatable objective.

The more honest, less PR answer is that people still discriminate on huge range of factors. Race and Gender are just the most obvious and egregious.

You are being deliberately disingenuous.

The post you're replying to specifically claims that it is to make employment more representative of the whole of society. Your statement that it's "hiring women just for the sake of hiring women" completely ignores the very words you're quoting.

> Imbalance is bad because participation in civil society, to include employment, should be representative of society as a whole.

So when society changes the demographics we have to fire and hire the right amount? Sorry you're the best candidate we've ever interviewed but we have hired too many black men and are above our diversity quota.

> Besides, inclusive and diverse workforces have been repeatedly shown to be better for the bottom line because organizations are more able to serve a wider market when they are made up people more representative of the total market.

Is it the diversity of color or diversity of thought that is what drives a better bottom line? I'm gonna go on a hunch it's the diversity of thought that you're taking credit for.

I think this comes up against a fairly fundamental difference in opinions that people have.

Some people believe that discrimination on the basis of race/sex/etc is bad. By that standard, discrimination in favor of women is also bad.

Other people believe that imbalance is bad, and thus discrimination should be used to counteract this.

IMO people with the second opinion probably shouldn't call what they dislike "discrimination".

Sex is a federally protected class[1]. Discrimination in employment decisions based on any federally protected class is illegal, and can carry rather large fines.

Using a job board that explicitly discriminates based on a protected class is a very, very risky idea. If a member of the untargeted portion of the class (a male) sees a job ad there and is denied employment they have very good evidence for a sex discrimination lawsuit.

[1] https://content.next.westlaw.com/Document/Ibb0a38daef0511e28...

Unfortunately, the Department of Justice chooses to not enforce this law when the offending objective is to hire anything but white males. It should be enforced equally.

Do you have any sources for that?

The next time I (male) am looking for a job, I will make a specific point of seeking out job advertisements targeted at women in tech and applying, just to see what happens.

I think for similar reasons like it generally being seen as a good thing to give free food and housing to the poor, but frowned upon to do the same for the rich.

That's a poor comparison and I think most people understand that, even if the current environment discourages them from admitting it.

Why do you think that it's a poor comparison?

there are more homeless men than women. So that's like targeting men to give free food and shelter because more men need it, which wouldn't happen.

i think you are trying to stretch the metaphor too far

its more accurate. targeting the underrepresented cohort.

no, you are applying the thing "metaphorised" inside the metaphor. it is quite wrongheaded tbh

I have trouble to understand your message behind your analogy...

From what I get is that you are referring to woman as the poor, and man as the rich.

Just because it's a man dominated field, does it mean the others remaining have no chance to get anything in that field?

If so, do you suggest that one half of the world is not allowed to have these jobs at the same condition because some people already do, just because they have a male reproductive system? --- Meaning that all men are representative for all men, the same for women?

This is not equality.

I object to the use of "dominated". In a herd, a "dominant" animal will actively work to keep others away from food sources and mating opportunities when those are scarce. This is not what this is.

Strictly my opinion: There are few women in software engineering because few women WANT to be in software engineering, period. ...and it's not a given that this is by definition a bad thing for them either.

...actually, it occurs to me that the animal kingdom comparison is kind of funny, because it shows the absurdity of the claim that an entire gender of a species dominates another. If, in some herd, all animals of a given gender were actually kept away from food sources and/or mating opportunities, that herd would die out.

Maybe one of the reasons women do not want to work in IT is, that the atmosphere is still sometimes sexist?

Or at least arkward. When I started to study IT, I was surprised to see, that the stereotypes were the majority. Meaning, long, oily hair, etc.

So I guess that is still changing, and I really do not believe 50% women should be the goal, but maybe the IT world still needs reflection sometimes, why so little women want to get into it.

Welk i think not all women Want a job in it. propably because when they were Kids they were stereotyped. A lot of them thus didn‘t liked math.

IT is not about math

To be fair, IT was (and I'm guessing still is) perceived as something associated strongly with maths, even though actual jobs are year by year becoming increasingly less so.

Programming is pretty strongly about math, especially in university when you learn the theory and not just how to link an API to a database.

In order to study CS at my school you had to take some fairly advanced Math classes including Calculus and Linear Algebra, which are not easy unless you are comfortable with Math.

But selection usually happens way before that. Probably at latest in middle school.

In germany it even happens before. parenting has a real impact on any child. it starts with the color of their cloths. some people really live the old way and belive and tell their boys that boys don't cry and they don't wear certain colors, etc. while girls need to behave girly wear nice looking cloths, etc. and then when it comes to homework they try to push their childs in certain directions. or tell/force their childs their dream.

"Some"?

I wish. I have a baby and the most important question is allways: a boy or a girl? (Not: healthy? Everything allright? Hard birth? (Yes, allmost, yes))

And clothes, very important the distinction between boy and girl. We got a lot of second hand clothing ... and people did not understand, that I really don't car about the color shades. They should be comfortable, good to the babyskin and fitting for the weather. And good looking, yeah, that comes afterwards. But underlining that it is a son? Why?

I don't know how much I'd attribute this to choosing programming later in life. At 5 I was building Lego technics and my sisters were playing with dolls, though they got as much Lego as I did and our parents very much encouraged us all to fiddle with electronics and tech.

My SO codes but hated anything girly from a very young age and was constantly told she wasn't acting ladylike.

Those experiences are from prior to encountering the effects from the rest of society. My SO was diagnosed with ASD as an adult but has had elevated testosterone levels found at a young age. So just personally it feels weird attributing those things to upbringing.

And Sweden where I am really shouldn't have as few women in tech as we do either if it was based on gender roles in upbringing.

If parenting had such an impact, there would be no female software engineers in/from India, and many in/from the US and Western Europe.

The reality is pretty much the opposite, with Eastern Europeans, Indians and Chinese being overrepresented in software engineering and higher degrees in STEM subjects.

I see that theory pop up from times to times, but it only really sounds plausible if we look at the IT sector in isolation. Here in Sweden around 85% of men and 85% of women work in a profession that is gender segregated, and the national employment rate for both is practical identical.

Not only is 85% a really large part of the majority of everyone employed, and a higher number than in the US, but for any male dominated sector there is a equal large female dominated one. In addition, the trend has been for the last 50 years of ever increasing gender segregation.

If sexist atmosphere is the culprit then the numbers makes no sense at all. People like to throw in the gender paradox, but that is more of an observation rather than explanation. If we go by the data the cause must be very fundamental, exist in practically all work places, and have equal force at both women and men.

I personally ascribe the phenomenon to a pretty old theory from the 1970. People feel slightly more confident and secure in a decision when they mimic decisions of people they identify with. From the first moment someone choose a education path, to succeeding and failing with exams, to applying for jobs, to succeeding and failing in the job, each time the benefit of feeling more confident and secure apply a small bias. You thus get a leaky pipe, and the more equality in choice people have in every step the higher the probability is that you end up with a gender segregated work place by the time people are in the mid 40s or 50s. If we wanted to prevent this we would need to raise confidence of any minority (gender, race, wealth, background, anything that people identify with) to be identical to the observed effect. In my view this is the primary reason mentor programs actually work, while looking at atmosphere (sensitivity training comes to mind) is unlikely to change the outcome.

how much of that atmosphere is simply the result of the socially underdeveloped individuals (asd and otherwise)gravitating towards technical fields that play to their few strengths? does making those fields more welcoming for a desired group, in this case women, also result in creating an environment that's less welcoming for people who really have nothing else going for them?

I really do not want to have conventional social norms established. I like nerds and freaks of all sorts.

I was more speaking of things like body hygiene ...

> When I started to study IT, I was surprised to see, that the stereotypes were the majority. Meaning, long, oily hair, etc.

Do you realize how this comment would come off if you were talking about women and judging them for their appearance when they went to school to study something utterly unrelated to appearance?

Tell me.

I believe body hygiene is wanted in all professions. (btw. my hair is long, too)

It's wanted in all professions; it's absence is tolerated in some more than others.

"Long, oily hair" is not really saying anything about body hygiene though.

Awkward for you maybe. If women don’t want careers in IT because it is filled with socially awkward men then whose fault is it really?

There is ample evidence that women were pushed out of IT. Educate yourself.

Edit: citation https://www.theguardian.com/careers/2017/aug/10/how-the-tech...

This appears to discuss secretarial work like data entry which women weren't so much suited for as pushed into by limited options.

The fact that data entry was a female dominated profession because women were pushed into it and men discouraged from it doesn't serve to prove that current women are not able to work in the field.

Ask me how I know you didn't read the article. It touches on that, but mostly talks about how women were seen as convenient because they were cheap. The conventional wisdom was also that women would leave when they got married or had kids, but as computers got more powerful; the old boys club decided they needed to own those jobs too.

I read the article and still don't understand how women are really prevented from working in IT in the present day unless its mostly because many don't desire to.

Like hires like. It's incredibly difficult to be the odd one out.

The narrative that a boys club consciously conspired to take any jobs is quite a silly one.

Conscious or unconscious is really irrelevant.

There was a time that nobody would have considered education peasants. It was not a conscious bias.

Times have changed and will continue to do so, we need to do what we can to correct the mistakes of the past.

It’s quite relevant. The point is nobody pushed anyone out.

Independent autonomous people making decisions about which field they would like to study and seek employment in is not a mistake that needs correcting.

Your ignoring history. The ones making the decisions pushed them out. The ones doing the hiring, not the women deciding what to do.

Women don't study IT because they dislike the grooming habits of their peers? And that is the fault of those icky nerds themselves? Because their hair is evidence of sexism?

This is hilarious. I don't know if it is more insulting to nerds or to women, but I somehow like it.

Seriously, I don't even know how to begin here...

It's simply propaganda.

It's the concept that women have no agency. That other people are responsible for the choices of individual women.

Check out my other post on this thread-- I show three different investigations into the reality:

Regarding occupational interests:

Men prefer working with things, women prefer working with people

People only read, what they want to read it seems. Nothing new.

But if you want it explained, well above I just said, that many (not all!) IT nerds still fullfill the stereotype in my experience.

And the stereotype is unwashed nerds, who have never been close to a women in a way they wanted, but they want to, but don't know how. So they behave weird with women around.

That makes women uncomfortable and avoiding the scene. Not long hair.

If they cannot accept shy and awkward nerds, it is on themselves to find arrangements. Still absolutely ridiculous assessment.

Sexist -> awkward -> long hair is quite a series of leaps, and I'm mighty curious as to the underlying mental model. You appear to be implying that women might not want to go into IT because the men are unattractive. But unattractive is not the same as hostile. If you enjoy something, ugly people won't keep you away.

Of note is that the percentage of open source programmers who are women is half that of the broader industry, despite open source programming generally involving less face-to-face interaction. Surely, if women were scared away by ugly creepy nerds, the safety from behind a screen and absence of compelled personal interaction would tend to bring them out? It would seem to be suggestive that far fewer women enjoy doing that sort of thing for fun.

Incidentally, we have a nursing shortage. The incidence of male nurses is similarly low to female programmers. I find it amusing that no one hand wrings about this, or would dare make comments like "maybe men don't want to be nurses because nurses are ugly".

I have long hair myself. But I wash it.

At university .. I got the impression that quite some people forgot that. Regulary. Also to wash clothes. There is a difference between unattractive and disgusting. And I love open source and fresh air. But I did not enjoy some linux convention for example, because I seemed to be the only one, who minded the bad, worn out air in the rooms. So all of this I find offputting, I suppose is putting of women as well. What is the problem with more hygiene and fresh air and more sensitivity?

And the number of male nurses is increasing.

Why would it disproportionately put off women?

Because in general women take care more about their outfit?

Why? Complex, I guess. But also not too interesting to me. I am more interested in motivating people in IT towards a healthier live style in general.

...I agree. I find it disturbing, how quick women are to bring up notions like "awkward" and "creepy" in discussions such as this. 80% of "awkward" is about social interactions unfolding in a way that are outside the norm. 80% of "creepy" is about being unattractive. Not being socialized to conform with the norms is mostly a function of your childhood upbringing. Not being attractive is a function of your genes. Both are elements of a destiny that is cast upon you from outside and not within your control, like what gender you are born into.

I don't see at all how an environment full of unattractive and not well-socialized people create an environment that is in any way hostile to women.

But superficial people who, when female, will play the feminism card against people who happen to be unattractive and not well-socialized do create a hostile work environment for the latter group.

"Not being attractive is a function of your genes"

No. Genes play a role, but attractiveness is not so much about looks as it is about confidence and self esteem (and smell, of course).

I was considered very ugly in my youth. And yes, I compensated with computers. I did not got much experience with girls in teenage years.

Then I traveled, studied and grew in my mind and confidence.

And today, well, lets just say, sometimes I am still confused, when very attractive women flirt with me, as my old me would have considered them to be way out of league.

Now I know how to play the game, so to say, but in the beginning, I know I hurt quite some feelings and was probably considered arrogant, when I simply did not know how to respond.

So, I got out of the basement. But:

"I don't see at all how an environment full of unattractive and not well-socialized people create an environment that is in any way hostile to women."

many nerds never did. They long for women, but never learned the game and sometimes think, they are too ugly etc. bullshit.

So when you have lots of men with unfullfiled desires and weak confidence or knowledge regarding women ... then yes, they act awkward towards women. They would like to bond, but don't knowmhow and think they never can. So not hostile, but awkward, so quite some women feel uncomfortable and rather leave.

Now to be clear, no, not every IT nerd is like this. But too many. I was one of them once.

...actually, the stuff you are saying is precisely the kind of thinking that will turn somebody who is merely unattractive into somebody who is creepy as hell.

Exhibit A: Physical unattractiveness pairing off with acting like you're not unattractive, perhaps because of some misguided Disney-movie philosophy about how self-confidence makes you attractive. Somebody acting like Johnny Depp when they look like Patton Oswalt is pretty much the definition of creepy, while somebody acting like Patton Oswalt when they look like Patton Oswalt may be perfectly acceptable.

Exhibit B: Up until this point of the conversation, attractive/unattractive was in reference to the presence/absence of factors that make women uncomfortable when being around you, which does not really extend very far into the sexual realm. And all of a sudden you start talking about bonding, longing, unfulfilled desires, flirting, playing the game, hurt feelings, etc. That is precisely what women want men in the workplace to steer clear of, when they look like Patton Oswalt.

I rest my case.

You missunderstood most of it, but you are correct:

It is even more creepy, when someone "acts" like looking good, when he actually believes inside, he does not.

But when someone believes he looks good and feels actually good in his body, no matter the weight fot example, then this person does look good. (to most people) But that does not mean, that suddenly everyone wants to have sex with him or her.

You seem to took the hollywood definition, that attractiveness is objectivly measurable on a linear scale. With sexiest woman toplist etc. That is bullshit. There are general things if course, like healthy body and mind, but attractiveness is highly subjectiv. Eastern areas for example love fat women. Weetern not so much (in general)

And I have seen really "ugly" men (by common standard) with very beautiful women in true love. Because the men had confidence amd strenght and knew is way around in this crazy world and the women loved that strength to feel save.

> the stereotypes were the majority.

well, stereotypes don't appear out of thin air.

but think about it : when you started to study IT, you had to enroll a few months before, right ? the 1B$ question is why, with the information you had you chose to enroll, while many women with the same information do not. If we don't solve this, there's no chance to get anywhere near 50% parity in the workplace.

What’s wrong with long oily hair? Are you judging engineers by their appearance? And somehow you find _them_ sexist?

So you didn't want to enter IT because the men had long oily hair in your clasz?

Hmm, this is a reason I never heard of. Honestly I haven't come across many men with long hair in 20 years.

Do you think this might be regional? Are there a lot of men with long hair in your area? Perhaps moving countries might help.

> Or at least arkward. When I started to study IT, I was surprised to see, that the stereotypes were the majority. Meaning, long, oily hair, etc.

I see what you mean, the real discrimination in tech is against well groomed people! So all the well groomed men and women get pushed out and are forced to study things like business, medicine or law instead!

How do we solve that? I know, we put up posters like "Deodorant is not a sin", have mandatory diversity training days teaching the nerds how to properly shave, and have recruiters float well groomed peoples applications to the top!

> Just because it's a man dominated field, does it mean the others remaining have no chance to get anything in that field?

Maybe women have less of a chance to get something in that field because employers are specifically excluding them from their job ad targeting?

I upvoted your comment because I think the reasoning reflects people's actual reasoning. That said, I don't think techy women can be described as metaphorically "poor" these days. Big tech firms are desperate for more women.

For women as a whole it's another issue, but very few are going to learn an entirely new skillset just because they saw an ad.

>Big tech firms are desperate for more women.

I can't talk about everyone's experience, but this is true in a "We desperately want to have more women", but not true in the sense of "We're willing to address the systematic reasons women don't join our company". It doesn't matter how much you advertise on a website for women if you're advertising a job with no maternity benefits, or one of your engineers remarks "Oh! Is this our new HR lady?" when you're showing the prospective employee around the office.

How many firms don't offer maternity leave? Outside of tiny 5 person startups that don't have any HR policies at all that seems like a strawman.

As for men making condescending comments towards women, that's not a systematic problem with a systematic solution. And women (or really, feminists) pretty routinely make condescending comments towards men in my experience, at a much, much greater rate. The idea that women face a hostile work environment and men don't is the inversion of my own experience. Men face a much more hostile environment. The last thing the software industry needs is ramping up the hostility towards men even more because that's the only way feminists can think of to increase the number of female hires.

I think what the warring feminist faction doesn't understand (or does and ignores) is that their actions are breeding fear and resentment towards women. There's a spectrum here, On the consequence-less wrong end you have assholes getting away with sexist comments toward their women colleagues[0]. In the desirable middle, you have everyone treating everyone else with proper professional respect. But on the other bad end, you have every male in the office becoming tense and extremely self-conscious in presence of their women co-workers, because of the perceived risk that they may be dealing with someone that gets easily offended about random things and is ready to create a stink with HR for it[1].

Now, I see the feminist movement in our industry definitely overshooting towards that other bad end, and it doesn't really matter that most women are reasonable - the mere possibility of chancing into someone unreasonable drives overly cautious behavior. There is such a thing as pushing too hard. Stirring a conflict of sexes may have been the fastest way to enact change, but the antagonistic atmosphere isn't going to just dissipate itself.

[0] - I mean the cases that make women uncomfortable; I've worked with women whose sexual innuendos during regular office chats made me uncomfortable.

[1] - Or, worst case, someone who does that on purpose, to advance their career at the expense of others. There's always a fraction of people of both genders ready to play dirty, but in current environment one of them is now armed with a superweapon.

I wonder how widespread this really is, though. Before I retired I worked in IT, an my particular team was about 50-50 men and women. I certainly didn't feel anything like

> every male in the office becoming tense and extremely self-conscious in presence of their women co-workers, because of the perceived risk that they may be dealing with someone that gets easily offended about random things and is ready to create a stink with HR

The largest employer in the United States does not offer paid maternity leave — the U.S. Government. My wife whom is a federal employee did not receive maternity leave. Instead she was forced to use two years of forwarded sick leave.

I didn't know that! Thanks. I wonder why that's the case. Is that normal in the States?

It blew my mind too. No it isn't normal at all in the states which is why I found it so unbelievable until I researched it. All of my commercial employers offered paid maternity and paternity leave. There are movements now for passing legislation to get federal employees paid maternity leave but nothing has come of it yet from what I understand.

Why isn't it a law like everywhere else in the world. In Canada men and women get maternity leave at the country level. Why put this in the hands of employers? or on the backs of a 5 person company?

Seems like things are setup to fail.

How many companies in the US have paid paternity leave?

and specifically targeting men with free food and housing, who have higher rates of homelessness...

As someone pointed out further down the comment thread, we do not give out free food and housing exclusively to the demographic that has more poor people. Doing so would be inhumane and heartless.

Not all women are poor, not all men are rich.

If discrimination is THE issue, then woman specific job ads also needs to be banned.

Wouldn't a better analogy be to give free food and housing to women, but not to men?

Because it's the current year and men never complain.

Because certain groups have abandoned the pursuit of equality for the pursuit of equity, and you can't have both.

> Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?

I suspect you probably know the reason (even if you disagree with it) and you're making a polemic point rather than genuinely asking this question.

If I'm mistaken then forgive me. In short - certain sectors have a very skewed gender bias and it's regarded as a good thing to try and correct for that.

Gender bias is when a company doesn't decide by anything relevant to the job (such as skills, quality or work discipline), but instead decided mostly by the sex. And this is happening. Female programmers are getting hired even when their skills/productivity/experience is way lower than male programmers.

I don't want to get into the whole "positive discrimination" debate and my own thoughts on the matter are complex and change frequently.

However - the arguments for, against and for many points in between have been stated many times. Either you already are aware of them in which case you should be engaging with those rather than restating a starting position - or you can just do a Google search and get up to date with what is a fairly complex and nuanced topic.

Because “punching up” is allowed, apparently.

I mean, yes? That's where a lot of comedy has historically come from, it's not necessarily a problem.

When someone is sitting on you and you're punching up it can be seen as a fight for liberation, when you're sitting on someone and punching down it can be seen as violent oppression.

The thing is, a person "punching up" will inevitably found herself being "punched up" by someone else in future '_'

Bullying and punching of any kind, by any person or group, is unacceptable and not to be tolerated.

Because the goal may not be 'fair' for all individuals but instead 'equal' for groups of individuals, especially those who have been traditionally discriminated against.

I expect that most of the people applauding women-targetted recruiting are not the same people disliking men-targetted recruiting.

It has to do with the philosophical point of what you’re trying to do, doesn’t it? When you target your job-advertising at groups who are minorities in your field of expertise, then you’re being inclusive from an equality point of view. On the other hand, if your job-advertising targets members of the majority, then you’re being exclusive.

The degree of “unfairness” is the same, but the goal isn’t “fairness” as such but rather equality. Whether we personally agree with forced equality or not is really beyond the point in a society that views inclusiveness as good and exclusion as bad.

Because it's a specialized channel where companies can specifically advertise their inclusiveness, which is important for a number of reasons.

First, we need to stem the losses of women in tech that happen due to the traditionally woman-hostile culture that has pervaded the industry for so long, and is only now beginning to recede. Women (and in fact all minority groups) get pushed out of the industry by hostile work environments. A specialized channel like this allows companies to say "We don't tolerate that, so come work for us." It allows them to tap a potentially huge labor force before it shrinks too much.

Second, markets like these offer a less stressful job search for marginalized groups, because they can have greater confidence that they won't get jerked around this time. It means that less women get so fed up that they quit, which means less time and effort is required to reach a critical mass where the momentum of women in tech begets more women in tech on its own.

This isn't about excluding men; it's about providing a more confidence-inducing hiring process for marginalized groups.

FYI: the more choices women have, the less like are they to choose IT. Nothing to do with "hostility". Sitting for hours in front of the screen starring at code may not seem so appealing to everyone.

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