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"we don't have enough boys going into fashion, elementary school education, communications, nutrition, nursing, or human resources." And, yet, look who are in

"we don't have enough boys going into fashion, elementary school education, communications, nutrition, nursing, or human resources." And, yet, look who are in leadership roles even in those female dominated industries. Somehow, the majority of the wealthy fashion designers are white men. Somehow, the majority of principals in elementary education are white men. The executives that nurses answer to? Once again, predominantly white men. There's a useful discussion to be had about why more boys or girls don't go into certain fields...and, feminists have been having those conversations for many years (yes, talking about the boys, too, because it often comes down to the same core problem). And, it's too complicated to sum up with statistics about who goes into what industry. But, there are a variety of real problems that come from these imbalances and these inequalities, so it's useful to try to sort them out and figure out root causes, without simplifying it down to gender essentialist arguments (i.e. that "women go into caregiver fields because women like that sort of thing" and "boys are big and tough and like machines so they go into STEM fields and shoot guns"). Finally, to pretend our industry is not overtly hostile to women is to ignore thousands of women who have told their stories of being made to feel unwelcome, disrespected, and even harassed and abused, because of their gender, when working in technical fields.

such_a_casual 11y ago
Show me an industry where there aren't thousands of women who have told their stories of being made to feel unwelcome, disrespected, and even harassed and abused, because of their gender, while working.
- gknoy 11y ago
  The existence of other industries where women are treated worse than their male peers, harassed, or otherwise mistreated because of their gender in NO WAY excuses the fact that it happens in our industry, nor does it diminish our responsibility to fix it.
integraton 11y ago
> Somehow, the majority of principals in elementary education are white men. No, they aren't. From http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013313.pdf http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013313.pdf "The percentage of public school principals who were female was 52 percent overall, 64 percent in primary schools..."
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  Cool. That's improved remarkably in the past couple of decades. Every principal I ever had was a white male, and the balance for most of the history of our public education system was way off. Of course...I wonder how it looks when you go even further up the executive chain in public education? Nonetheless, it is not our topic of discussion here. Tech is remarkably unbalanced, and we've been told countless times by countless women why it is remarkably unbalanced (or at least a big enough part of the reason for us to want to do something about it). Edit: Also, you know nothing of my political beliefs, and my political beliefs have no bearing on what women have said about their experience in tech fields.
  - eclairekid 11y ago
    Its a little disingenuous to shift the goalposts about female/male principals to going up the executive chain. What's really clear, is things are changing quickly, and perhaps we all need to reevaluate our beliefs and bias with current research.
    - SwellJoe 11y ago
      It is disingenuous to continually change the subject from the gender imbalance in tech, particularly when we're talking about an article by someone who has first hand experience about why that imbalance has developed.
- mroset 11y ago
  Take a look at this [1] article, especially the first chart. True, a slight majority of principals are women, but it's much more illustrative to look at the career progression. Those selected to be moved up the career ladder are clearly primarily men. 1 - http://www.womenonbusiness.com/men-women-the-glass-escalator/ http://www.womenonbusiness.com/men-women-the-glass-escalator...
pessimizer 11y ago
> And, yet, look who are in leadership roles even in those female dominated industries. Somehow, the majority of the wealthy fashion designers are white men. Somehow, the majority of principals in elementary education are white men. The executives that nurses answer to? Once again, predominantly white men. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_escalator#Glass_escalator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_escalator#Glass_escalato...
belorn 11y ago
I can't say for other nations, but the yearly statistics collected by the Swedish government is showing that the leadership roles in female dominated industries have switched over to be female dominated, where healthcare and education are currently at 80%+ female CEO/president and increasing. About 20% of the industry has a leadership that is female dominated of around 70%, 25% is balanced with 50/50, and the rest 55% is male dominated. Inequality in gender distribution seems to only get more extreme each year here and female industries tops the lists with several that has a over 90% female to male distrubution. The very top of the list is a profession with 99.94% female to male ratio, and the whole male group of the profession could fit in a single mini-buss. This is in my view the primary reason why no feminist politician in Sweden ever brings up this yearly statistics, as the facts doesn't support the narrative being presented. The changes as reported last report was minor changes in the top list of male dominated profession with about 2 percent increase in females to males, but in the female dominated professions the change goes the opposite direction with ever higher female to male ratio. Some professions like psychology is reporting that at university level it is about 95% female to male ratio, and if nothing is changed soon there won't be any male therapists once the last 20% that currently work reach the age of 65. As someone sooner or later always want links: http://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se/ http://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se/ (you have to build you own query and compare it to previous years).

such_a_casual 11y ago

Show me an industry where there aren't thousands of women who have told their stories of being made to feel unwelcome, disrespected, and even harassed and abused, because of their gender, while working.

gknoy 11y ago
The existence of other industries where women are treated worse than their male peers, harassed, or otherwise mistreated because of their gender in NO WAY excuses the fact that it happens in our industry, nor does it diminish our responsibility to fix it.

integraton 11y ago

> Somehow, the majority of principals in elementary education are white men. No, they aren't. From http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013313.pdf http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013313.pdf "The percentage of public school principals who were female was 52 percent overall, 64 percent in primary schools..."

SwellJoe 11y ago
Cool. That's improved remarkably in the past couple of decades. Every principal I ever had was a white male, and the balance for most of the history of our public education system was way off. Of course...I wonder how it looks when you go even further up the executive chain in public education? Nonetheless, it is not our topic of discussion here. Tech is remarkably unbalanced, and we've been told countless times by countless women why it is remarkably unbalanced (or at least a big enough part of the reason for us to want to do something about it). Edit: Also, you know nothing of my political beliefs, and my political beliefs have no bearing on what women have said about their experience in tech fields.
- eclairekid 11y ago
  Its a little disingenuous to shift the goalposts about female/male principals to going up the executive chain. What's really clear, is things are changing quickly, and perhaps we all need to reevaluate our beliefs and bias with current research.
  - SwellJoe 11y ago
    It is disingenuous to continually change the subject from the gender imbalance in tech, particularly when we're talking about an article by someone who has first hand experience about why that imbalance has developed.
mroset 11y ago
Take a look at this [1] article, especially the first chart. True, a slight majority of principals are women, but it's much more illustrative to look at the career progression. Those selected to be moved up the career ladder are clearly primarily men. 1 - http://www.womenonbusiness.com/men-women-the-glass-escalator/ http://www.womenonbusiness.com/men-women-the-glass-escalator...

pessimizer 11y ago

> And, yet, look who are in leadership roles even in those female dominated industries. Somehow, the majority of the wealthy fashion designers are white men. Somehow, the majority of principals in elementary education are white men. The executives that nurses answer to? Once again, predominantly white men. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_escalator#Glass_escalator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_escalator#Glass_escalato...

belorn 11y ago

I can't say for other nations, but the yearly statistics collected by the Swedish government is showing that the leadership roles in female dominated industries have switched over to be female dominated, where healthcare and education are currently at 80%+ female CEO/president and increasing. About 20% of the industry has a leadership that is female dominated of around 70%, 25% is balanced with 50/50, and the rest 55% is male dominated. Inequality in gender distribution seems to only get more extreme each year here and female industries tops the lists with several that has a over 90% female to male distrubution. The very top of the list is a profession with 99.94% female to male ratio, and the whole male group of the profession could fit in a single mini-buss. This is in my view the primary reason why no feminist politician in Sweden ever brings up this yearly statistics, as the facts doesn't support the narrative being presented. The changes as reported last report was minor changes in the top list of male dominated profession with about 2 percent increase in females to males, but in the female dominated professions the change goes the opposite direction with ever higher female to male ratio. Some professions like psychology is reporting that at university level it is about 95% female to male ratio, and if nothing is changed soon there won't be any male therapists once the last 20% that currently work reach the age of 65. As someone sooner or later always want links: http://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se/ http://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se/ (you have to build you own query and compare it to previous years).