Why is there such a clamor to get girls to code? I never hear anyone say "We need more female lumberjacks|roofers|trash collectors|pilots" despite those being male dominated professions as well.
There actually is a push to attack more female pilots, this for example: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2510471/British-Ai.... The fact you haven't heard of it probably means you don't follow that aviation market as closely as you do the tech market.
WRT to lumberjacks/roofers/trash collectors, those are the jobs that are rapidly being automated out of existence, so it's not surprising that there isn't a lot of effort to attack women to a dying industry. But there is a push to train women heavy equipment operation and some other trades: http://www.heavyconstructionacademy.com/2012/01/19/women-thr... http://www.womenbuildingfutures.com
We see the push for women in tech because it's a lucrative, growing field and that the lack of women in the field is caused in large part by various obstacles as indicated in any number of HN submittals. We'll see how it pans out.
From the side of people concerned about sex discrimination in society, because the perception that both the source and the effect of the problem is discrimination (on the source side, often subtle and potentially not conscious), which on the effect side leads to poorer range of opportunities and outcomes for females with similar natural abilities.
From the employer side, because programming is a high-cost labor pool and increasing the supply is expected to drive down the market clearing price, and because it is believed that (largely because the employer side sees the source as not too different from the discrimination-concern side) there is a substantial capable workforce for the field that is being pushed out but could be drawn in.
> I never hear anyone say "We need more female lumberjacks|roofers|trash collectors|pilots" despite those being male dominated professions as well.
Do you spend as much time on lumberjack/roofer/trash collector/pilot focussed forums as on places like HN? It may be that what you hear is in part a reflection of what people say -- the factors noted above do not apply equal to all those professions -- but it could also be that what you hear is a product of where you are listening.
So we're back to the good ol' days of "women shouldn't do hard labor"?
We're in a good future days of "nearly no one should do hard labor".
I don't think that means what you think it means.
Regardless, it seems strange to me that people are pushing for advertising coding to women in the name of gender equality, but then they seem not to care about the number of women in fields that aren't perceived so highly. I think it really throws their motivations into question.
And no, it doesn't seem strange to me that people are pushing women to learn coding. Coding skills provide great income, stability, mobility and independence. So yeah, thanks Google and others, who are trying to get more women in coding and increase their quality of life.
So why not try to make these skills more accessible to everyone?
Adoption of skills depends on the ecosystem of practitioners. Empirically, we are observing that women do not copy social behavior of the male part of the ecosystem and do not engage the subject of programming/coding/compsci.
We need to reach a threshold value, a tipping point where girls and women would see enough role models and would have enough support networks to progress in the technology industry. This may be achieved by reaching a critical mass and that is exactly what Google and others are doing.
This is an oft-repeated canard in these discussions, but it's patently and demonstratively not true: getting men interested in nursing and ECE has been a large focus of those fields for years. Even a quick Google search would produce tons of information on various initiatives, studies, and scholarly articles, but here's a small sampling:
http://web.jhu.edu/jhnmagazine/summer2009/features/men_in_nu...
https://www.discovernursing.com/men-in-nursing
http://folk.uio.no/olegmo/Men%20in%20Nursing/Evans%20J%20199...
http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/12710806
http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ618681
http://www.meninchildcare.co.uk/index.htm
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/61263553/male-pre...
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1012564610349
But yes, it is strictly true that 'a drive' exists. A single person crusading for it would make it true.
These organizations may exist, but no one seems to care about them. Perhaps adrianN really meant to ask why this was the case.
Plenty is written about it, but it's likely that people not focused on those subjects don't notice it.
The same reason, I believe, why FB is so keen about immigration.
Not only would it be a horrible return on investment (and one that would take years to come to fruition), it's also never brought up about every other coding initiative out there. Let me know when you start bringing this up in every thread about corporate-sponsored hackathons, education events, scholarship programs, or just plain old "getting started" guides.
Good news: I see three on the front page right now! I'll wait.