5 ms·

i have trouble accepting the idea that fewer women in tech is a problem. it's not that i want to discourage women -- or anyone -- from going into tech. i just d

by jfe 10y ago

i have trouble accepting the idea that fewer women in tech is a problem. it's not that i want to discourage women -- or anyone -- from going into tech. i just don't believe in encouraging anyone to do anything in particular, except what they enjoy. i'd appreciate it if someone can persuade me that the hype is true so i no longer need to feel like a black sheep. but.. for one, the fact that there are fewer women than men in any field, computing or otherwise, is neither good nor bad. the disproportionate number of women in nursing is not seen as a problem, but somehow it has become one in tech. two, as we flood more people into professional computing, the good pay -- one of the reasons given on the wwcode website for encouraging women to enter the field -- will decrease, due to the increased supply of workers. tech is reduced to Yet Another Job, and Women Who Bgurp becomes the next YC startup. three, the wwcode website argues that diverse teams perform better by increasing collective intelligence -- measured in what units? and when it claims that organizations with the largest representation of women leadership have a higher return on investment, how is that measured? this seems super hand-wavy to me. lastly, the website's statement about women investing 90% of their income in their communities "when [they] make more" is not only unlikely, but is predicated on the long-term availability of good pay in professional computing, which, as i mentioned earlier, will decline at a rate proportional to the frequency with which we encourage people to enter the field.

busterarm 10y ago
Also, should we really be pushing anyone into a field known for social isolation, long hours, depression and suicide without making a seriously strong effort to resolve those problems as well?
- lukeschlather 10y ago
  It might be harder to solve either problem in isolation than it is to solve both at the same time.
- morgante 10y ago
  Introducing a higher percentage of women to the field would likely directly improve several of those problems due to statistics alone.
- maerF0x0 10y ago
  it may be known for that because those are societal problems that plague men. Sadly no big push to solve those for men. suicide (proxy for depression) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide Hours : http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/time-spent-working-by-full-and-part-time-status-gender-and-location-in-2014.htm http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/time-spent-working-by-full-... Sad thing is by introducing women it will dilute the averages making it seem like everything is aok.
tuna-piano 10y ago
One other comment on your comment of many female nurses (among other professions, great graph here showing that surprisingly few professions are even close to 50/50 mix: https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/chalabi-datalab-flightattendants-2.png https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/chal...) Keeping it simple and assuming that the economy needs a stable amount of nurses + coders, for every girl who decides to be a coder instead of a nurse, you are saying a boy should be a nurse instead of a coder! But as you say, I don't see a big push for boys to do other things, which is exactly what would have to happen.* *I understand price substitution effects occur, but the general idea is still correct.
nck4222 10y ago
>i just don't believe in encouraging anyone to do anything in particular, except what they enjoy. There are plenty of women who would enjoy being a developer but it wasn't presented to them as a realistic option in their childhood, or it wasn't a welcoming atmosphere for them when they started learning about it.
- busterarm 10y ago
  You could swap the gender and career with just about any field in either end of this list[0] and have the same argument, but there is a razor focus on this one specific field/gender combination. [0]: https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/chalabi-datalab-flightattendants-2.png https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/chal...
  - nck4222 10y ago
    You could, but I'm not sure how that's relevant to this discussion. Other fields have a similar problem, and are either unaware or don't consider it a problem. I consider it a problem in the software/tech industry regardless of whether other professions do.
    - busterarm 10y ago
      It's a reference to the GP's suggestion that maybe this isn't the correct problem to solve.
  - chongli 10y ago
    I think the reason so much emphasis is put on attracting women to tech is the same reason so much emphasis is put on female politicians: tech people - especially startup founders - have the opportunity to have an outsize impact on the lives of everybody else in society. Encouraging more men to become kindergarten teachers may be great for the kids in their classroom but it's unlikely to have the impact of the next Twitter or a Facebook.
  - nostrebored 10y ago
lukeschlather 10y ago
> for one, the fact that there are fewer women than men in any field, computing or otherwise, is neither good nor bad. the disproportionate number of women in nursing is not seen as a problem, but somehow it has become one in tech. I don't agree. I think the gender disparity in nursing is just as much a problem. I think it's a significantly less tractable problem though, because I don't think the monetary incentives are there for men to enter nursing. As for your economic arguments, I think they're oversimplified. We really don't know what the job market is going to look like long-term. We do know that the computing job market has quadrupled in size over the past 20 years, and it is a good bet that the job market can quadruple again over the next 20 years, without any loss in median salary. Back to monetary incentives. The median salary for software engineers could be reduced by 25% and it would still be a good career choice. So there's no real reason not to encourage more people to enter the field. Nursing has a substantially lower median salary.
- sev 10y ago
  I agree with both of you, in some regards. But just thinking about it...maybe it's okay to have an uphill battle to get into a field that's prized. "Natural selection" of sorts...or survival of the fittest, etc. The field being dominated by males at this moment, might simply be a temporal problem that will automatically change in time without much specific effort.
- TheCoelacanth 10y ago
  > The median salary for software engineers could be reduced by 25% and it would still be a good career choice. So there's no real reason not to encourage more people to enter the field. Nursing has a substantially lower median salary. That's not accurate, at least when controlling for location. Going by BLS data, the difference between RNs and software engineers is less than 25% in LA, NYC, Boston, Chicago, San Jose and probably many other places that I didn't check. In San Francisco, RNs actually get paid more on average.
  - lukeschlather 10y ago
    It's not useful to control for location without controlling for number of jobs available. What I'm really trying to approximate is "How difficult is it to get a job making at least a six-figure salary as a nurse or a software developer?" In SF for example, there are at least twice as many software developer positions as nursing positions. So while the median may be higher for nurses, it's still harder to get a high-paid nursing job than a similarly paid software job. http://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/occupationalemploymentandwages_sanfrancisco.htm http://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/occupationalemp...
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
> the good pay -- one of the reasons given on the wwcode website for encouraging women to enter the field -- will decrease, due to the increased supply of workers As women enter a field, the pay decreases faster than can be explained by just "increased supply", because the job becomes perceived as "women's work" which is systematically undervalued.
nostrebored 10y ago
1. When it becomes a systemic problem, i.e. women earn a significantly lower amount based on their job choices, there is an issue. The narrative of the pay-gap has largely been framed around pay for the same job, when in reality the consideration we should be making is pay-gap based on profession. The reason being that it exposes a flaw in the way that our society is socializing young women. The idea that we have that women go into non-profits at an absurdly high rate because they have some inherent biological difference just doesn't make sense based on the neuroscience research that we have today. A huge proportional difference in any field that does not have a physical limitation (i.e. if women were 1% of lumberjacks I would not see that as a problem) is worrisome. The large proportion of women in nursing is emblematic of a problem -- it's a field with ridiculously long hours, high rates of injury, and entirely focused around caregiving. While a higher number of available candidates in a field will decrease our salaries, is that a valid reason to keep women out of high-paying fields? You could say the same for any other engineering profession. I agree that the wwcode claims are nebulous. I don't doubt that women who make more invest more in their communities, I do doubt that it's 90%, but in a way I feel like this is also part of the problem, and I would be saddened if women invested 90% of their income in their communities. It would mean that the problems I'm talking about above are not solved, and are rather being financially and socially perpetuated. Meh
- HarshTruth 10y ago
  Women earn lower because they choose to earn lower. Men face more pressure to earn a higher income than women, so naturally men dominate the high income fields. Then, once married, it makes more sense (economically) for the lower earning partner (the woman) to become the primary parent further widening the pay gap. Want to fix it? Tell women to instead (statistically, as a group) start marrying down in income. Then men will face less pressure to earn a high income (and be able to, like women now, marry up for economic security), so will have more freedom to choose, and pay gaps will equalize. The reason women go into non-profits is that it doesn't significantly effect their sexual selection. A man who does so would be significantly limiting his sexual opportunities. You don't need neuroscience to explain it. Men face every economic pressure that women do AND a sexual pressure. So naturally men earn more. I would also be hesitant to try and fix it because the entire human endeavor is built around the male's desire for high status, which is fundamentally sexually motivated. Fix it and humanity stagnates.
startling 10y ago
> just don't believe in encouraging anyone to do anything in particular, except what they enjoy. Great. What about the women working in tech now who feel isolated and held back, and the women who leave tech because of it? (i.e. the people this initiative is supposed to help)

by jfe 10y ago

busterarm 10y ago

Also, should we really be pushing anyone into a field known for social isolation, long hours, depression and suicide without making a seriously strong effort to resolve those problems as well?

lukeschlather 10y ago
It might be harder to solve either problem in isolation than it is to solve both at the same time.
morgante 10y ago
Introducing a higher percentage of women to the field would likely directly improve several of those problems due to statistics alone.
maerF0x0 10y ago
it may be known for that because those are societal problems that plague men. Sadly no big push to solve those for men. suicide (proxy for depression) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide Hours : http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/time-spent-working-by-full-and-part-time-status-gender-and-location-in-2014.htm http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/time-spent-working-by-full-... Sad thing is by introducing women it will dilute the averages making it seem like everything is aok.

tuna-piano 10y ago

One other comment on your comment of many female nurses (among other professions, great graph here showing that surprisingly few professions are even close to 50/50 mix: https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/chalabi-datalab-flightattendants-2.png https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/chal...) Keeping it simple and assuming that the economy needs a stable amount of nurses + coders, for every girl who decides to be a coder instead of a nurse, you are saying a boy should be a nurse instead of a coder! But as you say, I don't see a big push for boys to do other things, which is exactly what would have to happen.* *I understand price substitution effects occur, but the general idea is still correct.

nck4222 10y ago

>i just don't believe in encouraging anyone to do anything in particular, except what they enjoy. There are plenty of women who would enjoy being a developer but it wasn't presented to them as a realistic option in their childhood, or it wasn't a welcoming atmosphere for them when they started learning about it.

busterarm 10y ago
You could swap the gender and career with just about any field in either end of this list[0] and have the same argument, but there is a razor focus on this one specific field/gender combination. [0]: https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/chalabi-datalab-flightattendants-2.png https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/chal...
- nck4222 10y ago
  You could, but I'm not sure how that's relevant to this discussion. Other fields have a similar problem, and are either unaware or don't consider it a problem. I consider it a problem in the software/tech industry regardless of whether other professions do.
  - busterarm 10y ago
    It's a reference to the GP's suggestion that maybe this isn't the correct problem to solve.
- chongli 10y ago
  I think the reason so much emphasis is put on attracting women to tech is the same reason so much emphasis is put on female politicians: tech people - especially startup founders - have the opportunity to have an outsize impact on the lives of everybody else in society. Encouraging more men to become kindergarten teachers may be great for the kids in their classroom but it's unlikely to have the impact of the next Twitter or a Facebook.
- nostrebored 10y ago

lukeschlather 10y ago

> for one, the fact that there are fewer women than men in any field, computing or otherwise, is neither good nor bad. the disproportionate number of women in nursing is not seen as a problem, but somehow it has become one in tech. I don't agree. I think the gender disparity in nursing is just as much a problem. I think it's a significantly less tractable problem though, because I don't think the monetary incentives are there for men to enter nursing. As for your economic arguments, I think they're oversimplified. We really don't know what the job market is going to look like long-term. We do know that the computing job market has quadrupled in size over the past 20 years, and it is a good bet that the job market can quadruple again over the next 20 years, without any loss in median salary. Back to monetary incentives. The median salary for software engineers could be reduced by 25% and it would still be a good career choice. So there's no real reason not to encourage more people to enter the field. Nursing has a substantially lower median salary.

sev 10y ago
I agree with both of you, in some regards. But just thinking about it...maybe it's okay to have an uphill battle to get into a field that's prized. "Natural selection" of sorts...or survival of the fittest, etc. The field being dominated by males at this moment, might simply be a temporal problem that will automatically change in time without much specific effort.
TheCoelacanth 10y ago
> The median salary for software engineers could be reduced by 25% and it would still be a good career choice. So there's no real reason not to encourage more people to enter the field. Nursing has a substantially lower median salary. That's not accurate, at least when controlling for location. Going by BLS data, the difference between RNs and software engineers is less than 25% in LA, NYC, Boston, Chicago, San Jose and probably many other places that I didn't check. In San Francisco, RNs actually get paid more on average.
- lukeschlather 10y ago
  It's not useful to control for location without controlling for number of jobs available. What I'm really trying to approximate is "How difficult is it to get a job making at least a six-figure salary as a nurse or a software developer?" In SF for example, there are at least twice as many software developer positions as nursing positions. So while the median may be higher for nurses, it's still harder to get a high-paid nursing job than a similarly paid software job. http://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/occupationalemploymentandwages_sanfrancisco.htm http://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/occupationalemp...

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

> the good pay -- one of the reasons given on the wwcode website for encouraging women to enter the field -- will decrease, due to the increased supply of workers As women enter a field, the pay decreases faster than can be explained by just "increased supply", because the job becomes perceived as "women's work" which is systematically undervalued.

nostrebored 10y ago

1. When it becomes a systemic problem, i.e. women earn a significantly lower amount based on their job choices, there is an issue. The narrative of the pay-gap has largely been framed around pay for the same job, when in reality the consideration we should be making is pay-gap based on profession. The reason being that it exposes a flaw in the way that our society is socializing young women. The idea that we have that women go into non-profits at an absurdly high rate because they have some inherent biological difference just doesn't make sense based on the neuroscience research that we have today. A huge proportional difference in any field that does not have a physical limitation (i.e. if women were 1% of lumberjacks I would not see that as a problem) is worrisome. The large proportion of women in nursing is emblematic of a problem -- it's a field with ridiculously long hours, high rates of injury, and entirely focused around caregiving. While a higher number of available candidates in a field will decrease our salaries, is that a valid reason to keep women out of high-paying fields? You could say the same for any other engineering profession. I agree that the wwcode claims are nebulous. I don't doubt that women who make more invest more in their communities, I do doubt that it's 90%, but in a way I feel like this is also part of the problem, and I would be saddened if women invested 90% of their income in their communities. It would mean that the problems I'm talking about above are not solved, and are rather being financially and socially perpetuated. Meh

HarshTruth 10y ago
Women earn lower because they choose to earn lower. Men face more pressure to earn a higher income than women, so naturally men dominate the high income fields. Then, once married, it makes more sense (economically) for the lower earning partner (the woman) to become the primary parent further widening the pay gap. Want to fix it? Tell women to instead (statistically, as a group) start marrying down in income. Then men will face less pressure to earn a high income (and be able to, like women now, marry up for economic security), so will have more freedom to choose, and pay gaps will equalize. The reason women go into non-profits is that it doesn't significantly effect their sexual selection. A man who does so would be significantly limiting his sexual opportunities. You don't need neuroscience to explain it. Men face every economic pressure that women do AND a sexual pressure. So naturally men earn more. I would also be hesitant to try and fix it because the entire human endeavor is built around the male's desire for high status, which is fundamentally sexually motivated. Fix it and humanity stagnates.

startling 10y ago

> just don't believe in encouraging anyone to do anything in particular, except what they enjoy. Great. What about the women working in tech now who feel isolated and held back, and the women who leave tech because of it? (i.e. the people this initiative is supposed to help)