1auralynn

Redesigning neighborhoods to be walkable not driveable. Rezoning so that more businesses can open near residential areas, so people can walk or bike to work, walk to get groceries, etc. More people around leads to more serendipitous interactions, maybe improved safety.

I guess that's not really coordinated social change, but I think tweaks to the context in which we live can have huge, positive social impacts.

Many ambitious women want recognition, period, not to be asked about their clothes, husband, etc. Articles that focus on those things might get more views, which I think is the more interesting thing to discuss.

Speaking as a woman, I'm pretty sure you're wrong that other women would be up in arms if there were more straight-up articles about womens' achievements.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that women have to hear "Well... maybe it's just that women aren't naturally good at programming" 17 billion times throughout their careers.

In general the crowd at hacker news prides themselves on being super objective, so I think it's worthwhile to recognize the fundamental subjectivity of being a human.

I'm in the same boat as you recently, and all I can think of is the story (maybe a myth or fable?) about the painter who was cursed with his paintings coming "alive" when they were finished - to everyone's detriment. So he was always careful to leave one eye or other small element unpainted.

Anyone who wants a deeper dive into this stuff should read the book Reinventing Organizations, which goes into detail about Morningstar as well as several other "self-management" organizations. Really great read.

https://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Organizations-Creating-In...

Right, but my point is that if you have actively experienced discrimation, you're less likely to judge the research as unwarranted. You can argue with my off-the-cuff example, but as you mentioned there are many documented cases of discrimination that are hard to argue with.

The 2-6% difference in wages (depending on which study you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap_in_the_United_S...) can still be very significant.

And of course we should continue to discuss all the other reasons women don't end up going into high paying jobs.

Interesting. Going along with the biological metaphor - maybe what is needed is a) redefining the boundaries and cohesion in smaller units of organization (e.g. local communities) and b) a more organized circulatory system vs. a kind of directionless diffusion (i.e. current social media).

Sometimes when you just accidentally find out a male coworker is making way more than you (for lower quality work even), then you don't have to search very far. For a lot of women, we assume that there is discrimination because it happens to us directly, so further research into the extent of the problem seems very warranted.

As someone who spends a fair amount of time with software developed by researchers (mostly biochemistry visualization software), that for all the "research into what has been done", I think there is a huge amount of effort being duplicated all over the place. In my experience this is due to the relatively short timelines of grants, the fact that you have to spend most of your grant money demonstrating that what you created has some kind of scientific impact vs actually implementing the thing, and, as others have pointed out, the fact that a lot of the core work is done by diamond-in-the-rough superstar grad students who will move on after 2-4 years.

The real way we're going to see equity in girls going into computer science/tech is for it to be an academic requirement, or at least an honors-level course in all high schools. In my high school in the 90's, computer science was practically a vo-tech class so none of the smart girls took it - hobbyist boys were the ones with the most experience going into college. I had an engineer dad, was super into computers, and I didn't even think of taking it.

Another approach is for it to become a more acceptable hobby for girls, but the social pressure is strong still for girls in the opposite direction. I think that one's a harder battle in a lot of ways.