Comment by endersshadow | Hacker News Reader

Comment by endersshadow | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

This attitude is very pervasive on the internet, especially with amateur critics. Just because an initiative doesn't solve an entire problem doesn't mean that it can't help or isn't worth doing. Moreover, just because one group is more disadvantaged doesn't mean that the less disadvantaged groups (which are still disadvantaged!) shouldn't matter at all.

The idea that you have to solve the entirety of a gargantuan problem to be doing anything of value is stupid. Most gargantuan problems are solved with steps of progress, not sweeping changes. If we want diversity in our industry, we have to, step by step, start aligning the incentives for young people to get into software in ways that don't overwhelming appeal to white and Asian males. This is one (very) small step along the path.

Now, whether or not this fellowship will actually do anything to help women get into software is a different argument completely. If what you're trying to communicate is that you think this is just PR and won't actually accomplish anything, then fine--there are plenty of arguments that you can make for that stance, but you haven't.

I just don't think white women should be the first disadvantaged group that any company should go after. That just reeks of unoriginal 'me too' strategy. I might be totally wrong here but has FogCreek ever reached out to black and latino communities in social/economic ghettos ?

Sorry that merely stating this opinion gets people all riled up and offended.

Ctrl-F "white": 0 of 0 results

"Women" doesn't mean "white women", and as Haul4ss pointed out, all women won the right to vote in the U.S. years after minority men did.

While it's true that there were laws allowing minorities to vote in the late 1800's at the federal level, up until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 there was still institutionalized discrimination that made it difficult to actually do so.

More on topic, I think there does need to be more inclusion for women, and there are programs springing up now that are targeting women of all backgrounds which is good. However, there is very little, if anything, being done to target minority men.

I can only speak for myself as a minority male working in tech, but I feel that some of the same unfairness/injustices that affect women apply to minority males as well.

If these initiatives were really about helping out disadvantaged minorities, then you might have a point. But bridging the gender divide solves two problems that bridging the race gap won't solve.

The first is product sensibilities. While it's not better or worse, most women do think about things differently from most men. If a large portion of your customers will be women, it's really difficult to develop software that's intuitive and serves their needs if you don't have some female perspective when building that product.

The second problem it solves is keeping the best and brightest male developers in the industry. It sucks working in an industry where 90% of your coworkers are other men. When I was in school, there were a number of my classmates that switched away from a CS major simply because they wanted more girls in their classes. To a lesser extent, the same happens after people get into the industry and see just how few women they'll get to work with.

It may be cynical, but I think attracting white women to the industry is just as much about better targeting a rich demographic and keeping the white men we already have happy rather than it is about being inclusive.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com