5 ms·

Wow, literal quotas? That's just discriminatory.

dgudkov 10y ago
All gender-based quotas are discriminatory. Even a 50% quota would be. Professional choices should not be made based on gender.
- sremani 10y ago
  If you think that is discriminatory, India also has caste based and in certain cases religion based quotas.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- mikeash 10y ago
  Declaring it doesn't make it so. Sometimes you have to push things in the direction you want them to go.
  - dgudkov 10y ago
    Sometimes it's called manipulation.
svs 10y ago
so is not having women in STEM. Pick your poison.
- TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
  Given the fact that nearly every major corporation enacts some sort of affirmative action hiring system, women have every incentive to go into STEM in the US, yet are choosing other careers, which should be their right. Equal opportunity should be our goal, not forced diversity quotas. As an aside, I don't hear many people complaining about the lack of diversity in other careers like plumbing, HVAC, or logging. Why do you think that is?
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    Maybe because plumbing and HVAC aren't growing at the same exponential rate as IT. Few fields are. Maybe because by pure statistics[1] or by anecdote men tend to have greater upper body strength than women. This matters when replacing 50x 10kg condenser coils or carrying 10 meter long segments of steel pipe up stairs. But it doesn't matter at all when solving problems in front of a keyboard and a compiler. [1] one example in hand grip strength - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17186303 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17186303
    - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
      Why should exponential growth be a prerequisite for equality?
      - sqeaky 10y ago
        In the long run it shouldn't be. In the short term, it means firing experienced people of one class to hire inexperienced people of another. Fast growth means that equality can be reached faster with just equal training and hiring.
        TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
        I see what you're saying and it makes sense. I disagree with the underlying assumption that differences between men and women are purely cultural and that all nonphysical jobs should be evenly distributed among the sexes, but if you disagree, then what you are saying would be a great way to create a more even distribution between the sexes.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    > As an aside, I don't hear many people complaining about the lack of diversity in other careers like plumbing, HVAC, or logging. Why do you think that is? It's because you're not paying attention. All of those have been mentioned on HN before, and each of them have programmes to increase the diversity of the workforce. Here's a post from a year ago that mentions forestry, and plumbing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11232237#11234613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11232237#11234613
- ra1n85 10y ago
  Do you have data that indicates the number of females in STEM fields is due to discrimination?
  - erispoe 10y ago
    What is the alternative hypothesis?
    - drkstr 10y ago
      Peer pressure, mostly in the form of Big Media.
      - 2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
        Everyone suffers from peer pressure. That is not a gender based thing.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - analognoise 10y ago
      Women are too goddamn smart to put up with the bullshit in tech so they go elsewhere if they have a chance, is my working hypothesis.
    - ra1n85 10y ago
      I don't think that logic applies, or results in too shallow an observation. If you reverse it, say for men and the profession of dental hygienists, could you say the field has fewer men because of discrimination? There are likely many reasons as to why there are fewer women in STEM fields than men. Culture and socio-economics are two very big factors being completely dismissed here. Chalking everything up to discrimination is intellectually lazy (unless there's good data presented and indicating that to be fact), and does nothing to help the situation. If you don't fully understand the root cause, how can you resolve the problem?
    - btilly 10y ago
dang 10y ago
"Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them": https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Such discussions are tedious, and tedium is an enemy here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13896887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13896887 and marked it off-topic.
- TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
  Given this topic is kind of important, especially to hackers and founders who decide who gets hired and why, this is not a topic I feel should be considered a flamewar topic, and it definitely is not tedious. I will not avoid such discussion here. With that said, I'll be sure to add more substance to my posts in the future.
  - dang 10y ago
    A topic can be both important and tedious. Tedium comes from repetition. Of the two values, avoiding tedium is the higher priority on HN. It's for the same reason that we ask people not to conduct political and other battles on HN. Those may be important but they're also extremely repetitive. Indeed, anyone who enters into any kind of battle needs to gird themselves for repetition, otherwise the more patient side will win. It's not hard to see how incompatible this is with intellectual curiosity, the guiding value of this site. Battles have to be off-topic here or a site based on intellectual curiosity becomes impossible.

All gender-based quotas are discriminatory. Even a 50% quota would be. Professional choices should not be made based on gender.

sremani 10y ago
If you think that is discriminatory, India also has caste based and in certain cases religion based quotas.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
mikeash 10y ago
Declaring it doesn't make it so. Sometimes you have to push things in the direction you want them to go.
- dgudkov 10y ago
  Sometimes it's called manipulation.

svs 10y ago

so is not having women in STEM. Pick your poison.

TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
Given the fact that nearly every major corporation enacts some sort of affirmative action hiring system, women have every incentive to go into STEM in the US, yet are choosing other careers, which should be their right. Equal opportunity should be our goal, not forced diversity quotas. As an aside, I don't hear many people complaining about the lack of diversity in other careers like plumbing, HVAC, or logging. Why do you think that is?
- sqeaky 10y ago
  Maybe because plumbing and HVAC aren't growing at the same exponential rate as IT. Few fields are. Maybe because by pure statistics[1] or by anecdote men tend to have greater upper body strength than women. This matters when replacing 50x 10kg condenser coils or carrying 10 meter long segments of steel pipe up stairs. But it doesn't matter at all when solving problems in front of a keyboard and a compiler. [1] one example in hand grip strength - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17186303 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17186303
  - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
    Why should exponential growth be a prerequisite for equality?
    - sqeaky 10y ago
      In the long run it shouldn't be. In the short term, it means firing experienced people of one class to hire inexperienced people of another. Fast growth means that equality can be reached faster with just equal training and hiring.
      - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
        I see what you're saying and it makes sense. I disagree with the underlying assumption that differences between men and women are purely cultural and that all nonphysical jobs should be evenly distributed among the sexes, but if you disagree, then what you are saying would be a great way to create a more even distribution between the sexes.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > As an aside, I don't hear many people complaining about the lack of diversity in other careers like plumbing, HVAC, or logging. Why do you think that is? It's because you're not paying attention. All of those have been mentioned on HN before, and each of them have programmes to increase the diversity of the workforce. Here's a post from a year ago that mentions forestry, and plumbing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11232237#11234613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11232237#11234613
ra1n85 10y ago
Do you have data that indicates the number of females in STEM fields is due to discrimination?
- erispoe 10y ago
  What is the alternative hypothesis?
  - drkstr 10y ago
    Peer pressure, mostly in the form of Big Media.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
      Everyone suffers from peer pressure. That is not a gender based thing.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - analognoise 10y ago
    Women are too goddamn smart to put up with the bullshit in tech so they go elsewhere if they have a chance, is my working hypothesis.
  - ra1n85 10y ago
    I don't think that logic applies, or results in too shallow an observation. If you reverse it, say for men and the profession of dental hygienists, could you say the field has fewer men because of discrimination? There are likely many reasons as to why there are fewer women in STEM fields than men. Culture and socio-economics are two very big factors being completely dismissed here. Chalking everything up to discrimination is intellectually lazy (unless there's good data presented and indicating that to be fact), and does nothing to help the situation. If you don't fully understand the root cause, how can you resolve the problem?
  - btilly 10y ago

dang 10y ago

"Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them": https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Such discussions are tedious, and tedium is an enemy here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13896887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13896887 and marked it off-topic.

TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
Given this topic is kind of important, especially to hackers and founders who decide who gets hired and why, this is not a topic I feel should be considered a flamewar topic, and it definitely is not tedious. I will not avoid such discussion here. With that said, I'll be sure to add more substance to my posts in the future.
- dang 10y ago
  A topic can be both important and tedious. Tedium comes from repetition. Of the two values, avoiding tedium is the higher priority on HN. It's for the same reason that we ask people not to conduct political and other battles on HN. Those may be important but they're also extremely repetitive. Indeed, anyone who enters into any kind of battle needs to gird themselves for repetition, otherwise the more patient side will win. It's not hard to see how incompatible this is with intellectual curiosity, the guiding value of this site. Battles have to be off-topic here or a site based on intellectual curiosity becomes impossible.