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> No need of the "if true", it's studied.

Terrible. :(

> Changing it in entire societies will take time, but there is talk about "growth mindset" vs "fixed mindset".

I am glad that things are changing, and rather disappointed/frustrated/annoyed that at this point in time it's still a problem. How can we as a society not instil in everyone a deep-seated belief in, respect for, and love of practice? Am I nuts or is that not so much to expect?

Rant over...

> girls are praised for results and boys for effort

This is a sad thing, if true. If true, it does sound very changeable. From the article you linked:

> bright girls believe that their abilities are innate and unchangeable, while bright boys believe that they can develop ability through effort and practice.

Everyone should learn somehow that effort and practice bring about change in behavior and improvement in skill level. It's the only thing that has brought me much level of success, other than birth.

You're right; it's bad practice. Sometimes I just want to talk tech and it's easier for me to talk about a tangent that I undersand than to stay on-topic when I don't have any knowledge, but that's a bad habit when it comes to a post on someone's article. I'll eliminate this behavior.

I was following the time honored HN tradition of posting one line about the article and then taking up a tangent.

That might be a practice to do away with.

But to be literal, I asked because I wanted to talk about it and not just read about. However that may have been a mistake on my part; this article, found through my search engine, was pretty good: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/08/why-are...

Points raised in the article:

1. Inherent differences between genders, if they exist, are tiny, and vary considerably from region to region

2. Starting in the 80s computers were marketed towards males

3. Computers were often in the male sibling's bedroom and not their own, according to interviews with some female CMU students in the 90s

4. Self-bias "For instance, girls tend to score worse on a test if they are told their maths skills are being assessed than when they are told they are taking part in a study investigating how people solve problems."

5. Hostile work environments: articles about why women should not be in the workplace, sexual harassment and illegal discrimination

6. May not be a worse gender gap than other industries such as finance or media

7. Cultural: women can (physically) start a family by having children; men cannot; there is an cost to staying in a work environment with regard to starting a family, and there is a "risk-taking" in the tech industry (to be honest, I've always found it very a secure line of work, but that is what the article says)

8. Tech may be well placed to bring more females into the workplace

9. Startups where someone is encouraged to spend a lot of time at the workplace are not doable for primary caregivers (which is often mothers)

10. Algorithmic biases being implicitly developed by a mostly male workforce (e.g. voice recognition trained and tested solely by men)

Final line from the article, and why I posted my root post to begin with: “Computing is too important to be left to men.”

So there is a whole host of reasons.

there are many good reasons for wanting more women developers, IMO. are there any bad reasons for wanting such? this is not a flip comment. if it causes a laugh i dont see a problem with that but it is honestly not intended to denigrate anyone, but bring people into, well, software, which is probably the greatest thing in existence.

diversity is generally considered a good thing in evolution. i dont know if that applies to concepts like the tech industry, but maybe it does.

i am not against anyone and think the universe of software is a big one with a ton of room.

software is not created in a vacuum, nor is any other art or form. i want us all doing it, not just a bunch of people like me in every way.

man, that sounds like a trashy thing (for the VC to have done).

This was an interesting read. I found it well written and kind of sad, if optimistic and hopeful.

Personally, I would love to see a lot more female developers. I am betting there is no significant difference in inherent potential talent between the two genders, so why are almost all coders I've worked with male?