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>What I can't stand are these "Women in technology" conferences and workshops to "close the (gender) gap". Why? Because if you focus on one group, then you are

>What I can't stand are these "Women in technology" conferences and workshops to "close the (gender) gap". Why? Because if you focus on one group, then you are actively not focusing on another. That's the problem though. Sometimes you need to give special attention to a group to ensure that their abilities and accomplishments are seen. You may not personally have this problem, but there are members of the "old guard" that do. I surmise solely from this comment that you do your best to ensure that members of your team are the best regardless of physical differences. Again, this is why you aren't inherently the problem. The problem is people like a professor I had. He has published papers, an incredible work history, and he has rubbed elbows with a few CS people renown for their work. He made off-handed comments like, "First exam is in two weeks. Ladies, please don't wait until the day before to cram." He probably doesn't mean anything malicious by the comment, but that its an off-putting comment nonetheless. Another parallel would be the military. There are lots of females in the military, but one of the gross sentiments among males when encountering staff NCO females is, "How many people did she have to blow to pick up staff?" It's comments like those, some of the "bro culture", and general "CS is for guys" attitude that gives reason for women's conferences. The majority is always in focus on a grand scale. It's easy to feel like certain people are getting special treatment when Group-X Conference specifically targets a group. The purpose, though admittedly they can miss the mark, is to avoid systematic exclusion or opposition that prevents entry or ignores their contribution.

coreyp_1 11y ago
I'm a grad student (already have my masters, 3rd year into PhD). I've only had one CS prof make a gender-related disparaging comment, and he was talked to privately, and his contract was not renewed at the end of the semester (that was not his only indiscretion). I have never seen anyone question (publicly or privately) a student's or professor's abilities and achievements, regardless of gender, unless they were otherwise underperforming. Furthermore, in those situations, sexual activity was never implied, but nepotism was. As for these "women" conferences, I have a colleague who has attended 3 conferences in the past year (on the University's dime) just because of her gender (she was not presenting). I have attended 0 conferences. I was not even able to attend a conference in which my paper was accepted (my advisor presented in my place) because there was not enough funds for travel. And yet, when I speak out, I'm the bad guy...
marknutter 11y ago
> That's the problem though. Sometimes you need to give special attention to a group to ensure that their abilities and accomplishments are seen But this would imply that they actually possess these abilities and are accomplishing things with them. The problem isn't that we have droves of women programmers who are being systematically overlooked by potential employers - it's that there simply aren't very many women even interested in becoming programmers in the first place. In my 10 years of software development I've never been in an environment where anybody cared about someone beyond how their code was written and how well they communicated with others. Women, at every place I've worked, have always been treated as equals. I personally wish there was more women in Tech but for completely selfish reasons - I like interacting with women. But as I mentioned down below, I just wish we had more people in tech in general, regardless of who they are. For whatever reason, though, women 10-20 years ago weren't very interested in tech. The medical field and the hard sciences, sure, where they are actually very well represented. But not tech. But I'm guessing that's going to change on its own because of the one great equalizer - money.
- noxToken 11y ago
  This was what my closing statement was about: sometimes these initiatives have good intentions but miss the mark. I personally feel like the lack of women due to the culture is more of an engineering thing than a CS thing. I could be wrong, of course, but my experience compared to peers in engineering agrees with your sentiment. Regardless, I think the initiative exists to ensure that the same exclusionary culture doesn't propagate in an already male-dominated field. This may not be the correct execution, but I at least applaud the efforts to make women feel welcomed.

coreyp_1 11y ago

I'm a grad student (already have my masters, 3rd year into PhD). I've only had one CS prof make a gender-related disparaging comment, and he was talked to privately, and his contract was not renewed at the end of the semester (that was not his only indiscretion). I have never seen anyone question (publicly or privately) a student's or professor's abilities and achievements, regardless of gender, unless they were otherwise underperforming. Furthermore, in those situations, sexual activity was never implied, but nepotism was. As for these "women" conferences, I have a colleague who has attended 3 conferences in the past year (on the University's dime) just because of her gender (she was not presenting). I have attended 0 conferences. I was not even able to attend a conference in which my paper was accepted (my advisor presented in my place) because there was not enough funds for travel. And yet, when I speak out, I'm the bad guy...

marknutter 11y ago

> That's the problem though. Sometimes you need to give special attention to a group to ensure that their abilities and accomplishments are seen But this would imply that they actually possess these abilities and are accomplishing things with them. The problem isn't that we have droves of women programmers who are being systematically overlooked by potential employers - it's that there simply aren't very many women even interested in becoming programmers in the first place. In my 10 years of software development I've never been in an environment where anybody cared about someone beyond how their code was written and how well they communicated with others. Women, at every place I've worked, have always been treated as equals. I personally wish there was more women in Tech but for completely selfish reasons - I like interacting with women. But as I mentioned down below, I just wish we had more people in tech in general, regardless of who they are. For whatever reason, though, women 10-20 years ago weren't very interested in tech. The medical field and the hard sciences, sure, where they are actually very well represented. But not tech. But I'm guessing that's going to change on its own because of the one great equalizer - money.

noxToken 11y ago
This was what my closing statement was about: sometimes these initiatives have good intentions but miss the mark. I personally feel like the lack of women due to the culture is more of an engineering thing than a CS thing. I could be wrong, of course, but my experience compared to peers in engineering agrees with your sentiment. Regardless, I think the initiative exists to ensure that the same exclusionary culture doesn't propagate in an already male-dominated field. This may not be the correct execution, but I at least applaud the efforts to make women feel welcomed.