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This is ridiculous. At some point we need to face up to the reality that most women in the US are just not interested in working in technology. There is no evil

This is ridiculous. At some point we need to face up to the reality that most women in the US are just not interested in working in technology. There is no evil conspiracy to keep women out of tech. Maybe high school guidance counselors and parents don't encourage women to go into tech. Maybe there is someone to blame, but it's not the tech industry's fault.

hasenj 10y ago
or D. A female who is not in the top 30% in terms of facial attractiveness (or is socially impaired for other reasons).
- sdml 10y ago
  How critically are you judging the facial attractiveness and "social impairement" of male developers? This is a completely useless comment, and exactly the sexist kind of attitude that drives women out of tech.
  - hasenj 10y ago
    It's a mere observation. Not a comment of what should be the case. And yea, the average male in the field tends to be the same.
argonaut 10y ago
Did you even read the article? Nowhere does the author blame the tech industry. In fact, at the end, she is basically claiming that women tend to have less self-esteem when it comes to evaluating their performance.
balls187 10y ago
Strawman argument. The article delved into whether or not there was systemic bias against women in tech interviews, given that interviewing.io's data showed that men continued onto next rounds 1.4x more often. The conclusion based on the experiment, that it wasn't due to bias, but because women were more likely to not continue to refine their skills by continuing to interview. > When you do meet the rare American born female developer she is either: A. a designer who realized that there are no design jobs so she became a front-end dev; B. a first-generation Asian-American (B/C Asian parents steer their children into STEM); or C. it's a woman with blue hair and a pierced face who is there to "shake up the patriarchy" and make a statement about gender. This is a sexist comment (and borderline racist).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
etjossem 10y ago
I'd like you to read this. https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-in-tech-is-just-a-pipeline-problem-you-haven-t-been-paying-attention-cb7a2073b996 https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-i... The gender gap in the workforce is wider than the gender gap in computer science as a major. Particularly at senior and management levels, we see a severe underrepresentation of women. To me, that suggests either a hiring bias or an attrition problem, not a pipeline problem.
- tomp 10y ago
  Mentioning senior/management levels is stupid. Obviously they will lag both the increase in the number of women studying CS in college and the decrease in sexism by employers. Wait 10-20 years, if the gap is still as wide as it is today, then it becomes a valid complaint.
onion2k 10y ago
At some point we need to face up to the reality that most women in the US are just not interested in working in technology. Let's assume for a moment that this is true. I'm not sure it is, but we'll go with it. Software companies don't hire women who aren't interested in technology because those women don't apply for the job. The aim of ideas like the one in the article is to make the hiring process fairer by removing a gender bias from the pool of candidates who do apply. That's all. It doesn't imply that the candidate pool will change. The point is that every equally qualified candidate in that pool should have the same chance of getting the job. Better candidate should have higher chances. Biases skew that probability downwards, so we should aim to remove them. Otherwise we aren't hiring the best people.

hasenj 10y ago

or D. A female who is not in the top 30% in terms of facial attractiveness (or is socially impaired for other reasons).

sdml 10y ago
How critically are you judging the facial attractiveness and "social impairement" of male developers? This is a completely useless comment, and exactly the sexist kind of attitude that drives women out of tech.
- hasenj 10y ago
  It's a mere observation. Not a comment of what should be the case. And yea, the average male in the field tends to be the same.

argonaut 10y ago

Did you even read the article? Nowhere does the author blame the tech industry. In fact, at the end, she is basically claiming that women tend to have less self-esteem when it comes to evaluating their performance.

balls187 10y ago

Strawman argument. The article delved into whether or not there was systemic bias against women in tech interviews, given that interviewing.io's data showed that men continued onto next rounds 1.4x more often. The conclusion based on the experiment, that it wasn't due to bias, but because women were more likely to not continue to refine their skills by continuing to interview. > When you do meet the rare American born female developer she is either: A. a designer who realized that there are no design jobs so she became a front-end dev; B. a first-generation Asian-American (B/C Asian parents steer their children into STEM); or C. it's a woman with blue hair and a pierced face who is there to "shake up the patriarchy" and make a statement about gender. This is a sexist comment (and borderline racist).

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

etjossem 10y ago

I'd like you to read this. https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-in-tech-is-just-a-pipeline-problem-you-haven-t-been-paying-attention-cb7a2073b996 https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-i... The gender gap in the workforce is wider than the gender gap in computer science as a major. Particularly at senior and management levels, we see a severe underrepresentation of women. To me, that suggests either a hiring bias or an attrition problem, not a pipeline problem.

tomp 10y ago
Mentioning senior/management levels is stupid. Obviously they will lag both the increase in the number of women studying CS in college and the decrease in sexism by employers. Wait 10-20 years, if the gap is still as wide as it is today, then it becomes a valid complaint.

onion2k 10y ago

At some point we need to face up to the reality that most women in the US are just not interested in working in technology. Let's assume for a moment that this is true. I'm not sure it is, but we'll go with it. Software companies don't hire women who aren't interested in technology because those women don't apply for the job. The aim of ideas like the one in the article is to make the hiring process fairer by removing a gender bias from the pool of candidates who do apply. That's all. It doesn't imply that the candidate pool will change. The point is that every equally qualified candidate in that pool should have the same chance of getting the job. Better candidate should have higher chances. Biases skew that probability downwards, so we should aim to remove them. Otherwise we aren't hiring the best people.