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Problem: There's a massive gender imbalance in CS and amongst the coding community. There are loads of men and hardly any women. Most of half the population wou
by pliptvo 10y ago
Problem: There's a massive gender imbalance in CS and amongst the coding community. There are loads of men and hardly any women. Most of half the population would never consider working for us or our partners.
Solution: Make a website which specifically encourages young girls to see themselves as coders.
Problem: We have invested loads of money into our Irish, Indian, Australian/NZ offices, but we could increase our pool of workers from those countries.
Solution: Make a website which specifically encourages kids from those countries to start their journey into CS and tech.
What is the problem?
- beachbum8029 10y ago>What is the problem? It's very disingenuous to act like you're a company started by Mother Theresa that just wants to help make the world a Better Place when all you really care about is your bottom line.
- Lawtonfogle 10y agoThe problem? Because those actions are discrimination. Using discrimination to fight discrimination largely targets the under privileged members of the privileged groups. It's basically a call for equity instead of equality, except it is limited equity which automatically assume some do not need equitable help. It is also limited in how it's applied. Find the actual problems causing any modern day biases and fix those. Personally I work with some kids to help them love math. In my (admittingly anecdotal experience) there is a bias noticeable in middle school for all kids to not like math that evolves into a gender bias but to some extent hurts both genders' ability and desire to learn. Identifying and remedying the cause of this would do more to help both girls and boys than targeted aid in high-school or college.
- reitanqild 10y agoNo problem for you. And I have learned to live with it but as a young boy it was extremely frustrating to see girls getting advantages throughout the whole school system just for being girls. Now I am fully aware that I have certain advantages ("privileges") as well but as I said: when you are young this can be extremely frustrating.
- notheguyouthink 10y agoI mean, it's frustrating at any age. It's not a popular opinion, but just because you know "some" things are easier for you than say, "girls", doesn't make it any less frustrating. Sure, they're frustrated too i'm sure - i'm not denying that or putting anyone down, to be clear. It has always just seemed like the wrong approach to a problem, or possibly projection of a problem where a problem doesn't exist.
- pliptvo 10y agoI can't speak for your particular experience at school, but in general I think it's a shame that people whose lives are, as you say, "privileged" by the systems in which we live feel like they are at a disadvantage because of concerted attempts to raise others to their level.
- reitanqild 10y agoYou know, I was a lot younger then. Furthermore I was answering a direct question: "What is the problem?" Also I put the "privileged" word in quotes for a reason: while being male gives me a number of advantages it also gives me a number of disadvantages. Furthermore there is all the rest: coming from a low socioeconomic background should account for a lot as well (buying a pc was a huge deal - I think I was 15 when my dad finally managed to get hold of one, going abroad for holiday was never an option, working unpaid at my dads business was pretty much expected and I started working as a farm hand with other farms when I was 15. ) As I said I don't care much but I think I can explain why for a lot of young men the idea of male "privilege" feels like a reality they don't experience as for them any male privilege seems to be overshadowed by a number of other factors.
- paulddraper 10y ago> What is the problem? Discrimination. It has been justified for centuries with all manner of reasoned arguments. Hopefully we will eventually learn discrimination is a Bad Idea.
- wolfgke 10y ago> Hopefully we will eventually learn discrimination is a Bad Idea. ... including discrimination against boys/men - which quota regulation and "women only" programs are (imagine the outcry if one would replace "women only" by "white people only").
- shuntress 10y agoYou seem to be worried about over-correction where there is clearly none. If we had a CS field dominated almost entirely by women then the "women only" programs would be undesirable. This is a man in a boat protesting that a drowning woman is being helped out of the water but he is receiving no such equivalent assistance.
- wolfgke 10y ago> You seem to be worried about over-correction where there is clearly none. I live in Germany - and there the situation is IMHO different.
- mcguire 10y agoThe majority of high skilled tech jobs aren't held by men? There are no selective barriers to entry?
- wolfgke 10y agoPeople are free to study what they want. If there are more men who want to study a STEM subject, this will of course lead to a majority of men. Indeed, typical STEM subjects have no limitation on your A-level mark (Numerus Clausus) for being allowed to study it. So there is clearly no selective barrier to entry (Numerus Clausus) [but I'm not a native speaker of English - so it can be that "selective barriers to entry" has a subcontext in English that I'm not aware of].