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This problem cannot be fixed by changing hiring policy or corporate diversity training. 18% of computer science graduates are women. If women are 18% of program

This problem cannot be fixed by changing hiring policy or corporate diversity training. 18% of computer science graduates are women. If women are 18% of programmers, then arithmetic dictates that most software companies cannot reach gender parity. If one company has more than 18%, another company has to have less than 18%. It's just simple math. I applaud companies who try to increase the diversity of people learning computer science. But they cannot, by changing internal policy, reach gender parity - not without making some other company even more male-dominated. It is pointless and counter-productive to continually whack Google and Facebook over the head for their inability to make two plus two equal five.

eveningcoffee 10y ago
But they can still point to other companies and call the names. :)
VLM 10y ago
That assumes a perfect 1:1 mapping of grads to employees, and careers are lifetime. It would be pretty easy to downsize every white man at 30 for ageism reasons yet keep women and minorities around until retirement as diversity hires thus "fixing" the problem. Also assumes the purpose of the original story was as stated on the surface, not just to enforce prevailing politics in a preaching to the choir sense (we should all feel and share the white mans burden, etc). We don't hire (mostly white male) mechanical engineers to work on assembly lines although I'm sure corporations would enjoy that caliber of employee if they could get it, which they can't, so their assembly lines demographically look a lot more like the local neighborhood and relatively few bolt tighteners are good at differential equations or finite element analysis, although that doesn't affect productivity at all so its OK. Likewise to write boilerplate CRUD apps we traditionally hire grads with extreme levels of higher math and exotic upper level CS education because we have a huge surplus of those sort of people (who are mostly white men), although in practice there is no need and random laborer off the street is both semi-realistic and demographically more like the rest of society.
Uehreka 10y ago
Not all tech workers are programmers, not all programmers have CS degrees. This problem cannot be boiled down to such a simple metric. I've talked to a number of women in my office, almost all of whom have expressed that they felt like they had to overcome obstacles while growing up as a woman who was interested in technology. That when they made mistakes, they were told "maybe you should do something else" while their male counterparts were told "just try again, I'm sure you'll get it!" This may not be something Google, Facebook or Apple can unilaterally fix. We need to fix society, and that starts with privileged people simply accepting that this is a problem, even if it doesn't have a simple solution (although donating to organizations like BlackGirlsCode and GirlDevelopIt can certainly help). With that out of the way, there are real problems that women and minorities face in the workplace when diversity is ignored: abuse, harassment, being passed over for promotion in favor of less qualified white men. When the workplace is composed of 90% white men, they get to set the norms of behavior and culture. If they do so without thinking about the other 10%, they will hurt and eventually lose most of those people. When they get to the point where their workplace is 99% white and male, they may muse "hmm, I guess women and minorities just aren't that interested in tech." Someone may inevitably ask me: "alright smartypants, what are these 'white male behaviors' we're so guilty of?" To be honest, I'm not the one you need to hear it from. You need to talk to women and underrepresented minorities in your life about their experiences in the workplace (in tech or in other fields). If you don't know many women or minorities in white collar fields, and (this is very important) you're willing to patiently listen without butting in, I recommend following ericajoy and jennschiffer on twitter.

eveningcoffee 10y ago

But they can still point to other companies and call the names. :)

VLM 10y ago

That assumes a perfect 1:1 mapping of grads to employees, and careers are lifetime. It would be pretty easy to downsize every white man at 30 for ageism reasons yet keep women and minorities around until retirement as diversity hires thus "fixing" the problem. Also assumes the purpose of the original story was as stated on the surface, not just to enforce prevailing politics in a preaching to the choir sense (we should all feel and share the white mans burden, etc). We don't hire (mostly white male) mechanical engineers to work on assembly lines although I'm sure corporations would enjoy that caliber of employee if they could get it, which they can't, so their assembly lines demographically look a lot more like the local neighborhood and relatively few bolt tighteners are good at differential equations or finite element analysis, although that doesn't affect productivity at all so its OK. Likewise to write boilerplate CRUD apps we traditionally hire grads with extreme levels of higher math and exotic upper level CS education because we have a huge surplus of those sort of people (who are mostly white men), although in practice there is no need and random laborer off the street is both semi-realistic and demographically more like the rest of society.

Uehreka 10y ago

Not all tech workers are programmers, not all programmers have CS degrees. This problem cannot be boiled down to such a simple metric. I've talked to a number of women in my office, almost all of whom have expressed that they felt like they had to overcome obstacles while growing up as a woman who was interested in technology. That when they made mistakes, they were told "maybe you should do something else" while their male counterparts were told "just try again, I'm sure you'll get it!" This may not be something Google, Facebook or Apple can unilaterally fix. We need to fix society, and that starts with privileged people simply accepting that this is a problem, even if it doesn't have a simple solution (although donating to organizations like BlackGirlsCode and GirlDevelopIt can certainly help). With that out of the way, there are real problems that women and minorities face in the workplace when diversity is ignored: abuse, harassment, being passed over for promotion in favor of less qualified white men. When the workplace is composed of 90% white men, they get to set the norms of behavior and culture. If they do so without thinking about the other 10%, they will hurt and eventually lose most of those people. When they get to the point where their workplace is 99% white and male, they may muse "hmm, I guess women and minorities just aren't that interested in tech." Someone may inevitably ask me: "alright smartypants, what are these 'white male behaviors' we're so guilty of?" To be honest, I'm not the one you need to hear it from. You need to talk to women and underrepresented minorities in your life about their experiences in the workplace (in tech or in other fields). If you don't know many women or minorities in white collar fields, and (this is very important) you're willing to patiently listen without butting in, I recommend following ericajoy and jennschiffer on twitter.