Could it possibly be that men and women think differently, and those minor differences are reflected in their career preferences? Could it be that these preferences play a bigger role in gender imbalances in career fields than sexism in a modern society?
Nah. That's crazy talk.
Yes there is, and examples of programmes to get men into. Ursing or women into construction have been posted to HN before.
Someone always always makes the same point as you and for some reason it always manages to infuriate me. I've had to re-write this 4 times because it was so vicious at first. But it does feel tbat a person must be deliberately trollin when they trot out the same tired bullshit that other idiots spout, especially when that bullshit has been debunked on the same forum that they're posting to and when it is so easy to debunk with a simple websearch. It feels as if some people like living their lives with the blinkers on.
Well then, since I'm spouting "bullshit" (your words):
Educate me. Let me play the "Citation Needed" card.
Your inability, or unwillingness, to perform a simple websearch even when given suitable search terms tells me all I need to know about your desire to find facts and make corrections to your weong statements.
And your hair-trigger temper and vitriol tell me all I need to know about you.
It has been so thoroughly brought up and smacked down that at this point, I'm going to be charitable (?) and assume that this guy is just trolling and/or meta-trolling at this point. Take a deep breath and let it go.
FWIW, I read HN pretty regularly and had never noticed any programs to get more women into construction. Not to say that they don't exist, but I'd agree with your interlocutor that the level of hand-wringing on that subject doesn't seem at all similar to the level seen in tech.
As for whether that sort of claim is "easy to debunk with a simple websearch", it's probably much easier for you. Keep in mind that google tailors its results to return the sort of sites you've looked for before, so what you see in response to a given search is different from what others would see. (Not to mention that not knowing that something exists makes it hard to know what phrase one might google to find it.) So instead of saying "it's easy to debunk this with a web search", it's far more productive if you do that search yourself and provide an actual link to the references that YOU think debunk it.
Here there actually is a government program to get women into trades, simply because there's a shortage of skilled tradespeople in general, and nearly every other demographic is 'tapped out' if you will.
Construction, while it can be lucrative, is simply not 'aspirational', so anyone looking to improve their social status steers clear of the profession.
1. It is possible that men and women do think differently and therefore have different career preferences, so the optimal gender ratio is not 1:1.
2. Just because the optimal gender ratio may not be 1:1 does not mean that the current expression is the optimal one.
I think we absolutely need to make this field more friendly to women. I don't think we'll ever see 50% participation, but I don't want to see any person (man, woman, or anyone identifying otherwise) turn away from this field because they found it hostile. I do believe that this happens, and that sucks.
And I completely agree. I guess my point is: how much of this outrage is manufactured? Is the gender imbalance truly a "crisis" or is it an artifact of something else entirely?
Messy. And no women are persuaded to learn programming, and no one wins but those websites making money on advertising. Everyone comes away angry.
Looking at the hard data from 2012-13, we have 10.7% international students. So of the US students, 7.4/.897 = 8.2% identified as African American.
It's true that this is under-represented compared to the 12.2% of the US population for that demographic cited at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat... and in fact the ratio of the two percentages is about 0.67, so you could argue that about 33% of African American students who ought to be at Princeton if the student body were strictly proportional to population are missing.
If we look at the corresponding numbers of non-Hispanic whites, we see 72.4% of the population, and 56.7% (100 - 10.7 - 38.4)/.897 of Princeton's student body. The ratio is .78, which is definitely higher than 0.67, but not nearly as much higher as I was expecting when I saw the Princeton numbers. For one thing, I recalled the US as being 15-16% African American, but it looks like in the last 20-some years the demographics have shifted markedly... The upshot is that you see fewer black people in Princeton than you might expect based on general population but way more than you used to even in the recent past.
It would be interesting to see what US demographics for college-age folks look like, though; they may be significantly different from overall demographics.
For comparison with the above numbers, American Indian students are underrepresented at Princeton by a factor of 4 or so, and Pacific Islanders by a factor of 1.8. Hispanics are presumably underrepresented by a factor of 2 or so, but it's hard to tell with the complexities of the classifications there. Asian Americans are overrepresented by a factor of 4.
I'm not actually sure I have a point here, other than attempting to quantify "few"...
There are also substantial differences between Ivy League schools: http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/education/ivy-...
And yes, there are substantial differences between the Ivies, and between other "otherwise prominent" institutions. And even within a single school it can fluctuate widely, whether due to trends or chance. For example, http://web.mit.edu/ir/pop/students/diversity.html shows a pretty wide range in African American enrollment numbers at MIT over the last 4 years (ranging from 5.3% to 7.7%) and similar fluctuations for Latinos (but at a much higher base level).
Another confounding factor here is that even though the applicant pools and matriculating classes for these schools have gotten much more national than they used to be, the matriculation demographics still tend to skew somewhat local. MIT, for example, has a disproportionate number of undergrads from Massachusetts: according to http://web.mit.edu/registrar/stats/geo/ there are 340 of them out of 4080 US students total (8%) this year, while the population of MA, at 6.6 million, is only 2% of the US population. Similarly, http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/admi... says Princeton has 204 students from NJ this year, but only 38 from MA, while the population of NJ is only 1.5 times that of MA at most.
Since different parts of the country have different racial breakdowns (MA is 7% African American, not 12%, for example) this complicates any analysis of the goings-on at such schools. :(
But please tell me honestly how you feel about the fact that RIGHT NOW, anyone can look up "investment banking" in the library and start learning about it? They can open trading accounts and start doing it right away without permission from anyone. Would you disagree that the playing field is not level because of this?
I feel people who want to be coders should not wait to get acceptance from incumbent coders, but instead, go to the library and learn to code from books and websites.
Bosses want people with abilities, so if people get abilities, they'll be employable.
YC is probably a great way to start a company, but it is far from a requirement. If females want to found a company, why not start it right now, right away? Why waste time focusing on anything outside their goals?
Why fight to persuade someone that you can make customers happy and then give them back a portion of your work? Why not simply begin to make customers happy right now? This is the best time in the world for doing this, yet so many people are wasting it away by focusing on convincing other people that a minority of people are wrong.
Even if they get everyone to agree with them, they'll still need to do all kinds of hard work to learn to code/be a vet/dancer/founder, etc. So, why not start NOW to do that hard work for one's self?
- Most investment bankers aren't self-taught kids from impoverished neighborhoods who got where they are today through a combination of pluck and determination.
- Good libraries are in good neighborhoods. Poor neighborhoods often don't have a library at all.
- Bosses want people who have abilities, but depending on your circumstances at birth it may take a lot more effort to acquire those abilities.
Some people succeed even though the deck is completely stacked against them. This has always been the case. And yes, the individual should do what they can to make the best of an unfair situation. However, I'm arguing that the deck shouldn't be stacked against people based on gender and race in the first place. And before there can be meaningful change people have to acknowledge that this unfairness has to be addressed.
But the "no female programmers" thing is specific to western culture. There are plenty of female programmers in India, and in Russia. So this is likely something about western culture, that has caused this difference.
i'd be very curious to hear from a female programmer from Russia. I just find it hard to believe in overturning of the sexist culture there, and my impression that we have more females in hi-tech here in SV.
I tried to Google for the articles I've read about this but I didn't manage to find them.
Programming (or anything with a keyboard) is not really seen a manly profession in developing countries. Or, to be frank, in the first world countries either.
The difference is that in the first world, the pay increase and quality of life is much greater between say carpenter or fireman vs computer programmer.
I've been in conversations in with high level execs where the disdain for the 'tappy tappy' crew is clear.
There is in actually an immense amount of discussion online about the representation of women in the cartooning and comic book professions.
It's not an open-and-shut case that women are unambiguously respected within the fashion industry: http://www.forbes.com/sites/yec/2013/11/05/why-arent-women-i...
As I don't read sanitation, construction, or plumbing forums, I haven't run into much discussion of the subject there.
There are also many apprenticeships for women in construction/plumbing, because they are 1) good-paying jobs (at least in housing booms) and 2) ones where historically women have been denied apprenticeships/union membership.
Oddly enough, there is also gender imbalance in the fashion industry, but not the way you're thinking of it. Sure, women models make WAY more money than male models, but more top designers are men: (http://www.universityobserver.ie/2012/02/06/gender-imbalance...)
Maybe you should do a little googling before you sound off about the lack of hand-wringing? Maybe it's just you who don't care.