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The cold, hard facts prove that unless we force a change, it will not change. The simple counter argument to this, and what changed my mind utterly, was that t

The cold, hard facts prove that unless we force a change, it will not change. The simple counter argument to this, and what changed my mind utterly, was that the number of woman on boards never changed. "Women will setup companies" was what they said in the 70s, 50 years ago. It never worked until we started forcing it. There's still a ridiculously small percentage of female chairs. There's still a ridiculously small percentage of female board members. If they're just as good, as you say, and I also believe, why didn't it change? Because gender discrimination is rife. Without positive discrimination, the status quo did not change, will not change. Doesn't matter anything you said above, it's all noise. It doesn't correct itself like you say it will.

ThomPete 9y ago
That's not a counter argument because women DIDN'T actually start companies and still doesn't. So what do you want to do? Force them to? According to you, that's what we need. The reason why people get board seats is again one of those misunderstood discussions. It has absolutely nothing to do with qualification as in non-at-all. What it has to do with is the board members access to network, political power, special experience etc. So as long as you and other keep insisting qualification is somehow important in this discussion, you are actually the ones making the noise. Qualification has nothing to do with this.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  In your numerous replies, two things are clear. You're annoyed that older coders can struggle to get jobs and you think women can start their own companies and programming clubs and seem to be insinuating that they should leave ours alone. If you're having a problem getting a job 'cause you're old in SV, I'm sorry. I have no such age discrimination problem in the UK, loads of jobs here but not any where as well paid as the US. I might point out that you had 20 years to make a ton of bank. If you want to fix age discrimination, campaign for it, but leave it out of this thread. As for companies being boys clubs, to me that's clearly unacceptable, it's simply wrong to say that a "company culture" can be male only as that's clear discrimination. If you think that discrimination's ok, it feels as if you want to take it out on women because you want to go back to living in a man-cave, replete with pizzas and then a late night coding sessions followed by a game of Quake, where women don't fit because they spurned us at high school. And if they want to join in, they better start their own company. Do that with your mates, that view doesn't belong in a company, shouldn't belong in a company. It's not a male-only social club. But if you agree that's wrong, you and I caused this problem, and we're the ones who have to fix it, have the opportunity to fix it. Perhaps our Dads and Grandads told us computers are for men only, but they aren't and we don't have to wait until your kids are growing up to fix this. We can fix this now, and positive discrimination is a way that works. Tech is growing up and we need to fix the gender imbalance we helped cause.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    I am not a coder, I have no issues getting work as I run my own company. But it's now clear that without strawmen you have no arguments just insults and claims about my person you can't back up. But I guess that's kind of symptomatic for this discussion isn't it?
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      These are your arguments, it's not a strawman when you're saying these things. These are direct quotes, of you, in this thread: Old white male coders in SV, which it now turns out you have no personal experience of and just making stuff up about: Try being +40 in Silicon Valley Try and get a job in SV after you turn 45. Examples of you saying women can't be part of our club, because they didn't play with the right toys when they were 12: Women aren't tech nerds as much as men are we know that for a fact men also takes the most high paying jobs because more of them were interested in technology early on and are better at selling themselves is that less women start companies or get into tech early on Examples of you saying women can't be a part of existing tech companies, they should form their own: get more women to start a tech company More women will hopefully start companies and I hope some of them will hire only women Push your girls to start their own companies to build their own networks In Norway where they have quotas all that happened is that now there is just also an old ladies network with the same women sitting on many of the boards
      - ThomPete 9y ago
        You are the gift that keeps giving huh. More strawmen. Those are not arguments they are facts you can educate yourself about them which is obviously not in your interest. Furthermore I would suggest you learn the language of the country you live in. None of those quotes mean what you claim they mean.
fvdessen 9y ago
A friend works at the European Commission, where there is a strict 50/50 male/female requirement for all hires and all positions. Apparently it is causing problems because too many women refuse to be promoted in management. So they don't have enough managers to start new projects.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  Is this true, what citations do you have? You've just cited an anecdote to try and counter mountains of scientific research. There could be all sorts of nefarious stuff going on. Could he have been refused a promotion and now blames women? What's the back story? Has he gone on record? Is there a real problem or is a misogynistic manager using it as an excuse to him to cover his own incompetence?
  - fvdessen 9y ago
    Apparently the matter came when some women started to complain that they had been pressured into accepting management positions, didn't like the added stress, but had no possibility to move to other positions due to manager shortages. And yes it is an anecdote, so no there's no citations, but most posts in this discussion don't cite citations either.
lmm 9y ago
What if they're not just as good? What if they could be as good, but aren't interested? That part isn't fact, it's an assumption - one that it's time to reexamine given that things have turned out differently from how we expected.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  Listen to yourself, substitute the words you just used with the words any reasonable woman hears: What if women are just not as intelligent? What if they could be as intelligent, but are lazy? I appreciate you think you're being rational and reasonable. You're not.
  - lmm 9y ago
    Well, what if that's so? Are we really so fragile that we dare not even ask that question? Could it be that we're scared of the answer? There are plenty of posts in this thread expressing stronger and more negative generalisations about men, how is it that we're not so scared of those? The only way to reach truth is to be willing to look for it.
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      It's not being afraid of asking a question, it's not a question. You're just "ask"-ing if women are as "not good/stupid", or that perhaps they "aren't interested/are lazy". It's just a gender stereotype dressed up as a question. It's an insult dressed in an insinuation.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    Why do you have to make up something which wasn't said to have an argument? Women do make different choices we know that for a fact. Women aren't tech nerds as much as men are we know that for a fact. Women start far fewer companies than men we know that for a fact. We also know that women score way higher grades in school which we also know for a fact doesn't matter in real life. So maybe women (in general) are just prioritizing life differently. That doesn't mean they aren't as intelligent, smart etc. If you can't make your argument without pushing for strawmen then you don't have one yourself.
peak_body_yo 9y ago
> Because gender discrimination is rife Please stop making these unqualified statements on very touchy subjects
- mattmanser 9y ago
  It's not unqualified, we know that's the cause. It's like claiming climate change isn't real.
  - steego 9y ago
    I realize you're very busy and can't be bothered to support your claims, but you should actually try to demonstrate some knowledge rather than countering with the equivalent of, "but I'm really really certain."
- steego 9y ago
  Let's qualify it by posting a link which demonstrates gender bias when people read the same resume with a different name. http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-job-rather-jennifer http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-... This is hardly the only study. There are many more. My favorite was the law students from second tier schools where males who signaled coming from middle class backgrounds had a huge statistically disadvantage from males signalling wealth. The kicker? Wealth killed opportunities for women. https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-backfire-on-your-resume https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-b... Bias and prejudice are real and evaluating people is hard. To make things worse, your brain likes to save energy by substitution rigorous evaluation with heuristic evaluation and then convince itself it did the rigorous work. The problem isn't gender discrimination is rife, it's that thousands of forms of discrimination is rife because heuristic-based discrimination is what we excel at, not rigorous evaluation. I hope that didn't make it more touchy.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    If you add middle eastern sounding names the same result happens. Yes we have biases all of us but they are certainly not by any metrics confined to only women. Try being +40 in Silicon Valley, try being black or latino male on WallStreet, try making it as a hip-hop artist as a black guy. Try being fat in the fashion industry, try being a nerd in high-school. The world is rife with bias and prejudice against all sorts of "these are not like me" but the solution is not and have never been to force quotas through whether in board rooms or on the job market. If you want to change things changes them at their root cause. Push your girls to start their own companies to build their own networks so that they are less depending on existing ones. Teach them not to excel at school as that doesn't really matter but to learn how to sell themselves. Teach them that if a job posting names 10 skills and they have all but two it's still a job for them. These are the real barriers to entry not modern day companies light biases.
bolololo12 9y ago
You forgot there's still a ridiculously small percentage of female coal miners
- mattmanser 9y ago
  Yeah, I forgot the physicality of coal mining's just like programming and leadership.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    So according to you it's ok that men takes the most dangerous jobs, the most demanding jobs because of their physicality and risk tolerance, but it's not ok that men also takes the most high paying jobs because more of them were interested in technology early on and are better at selling themselves? Or how exactly what are you arguing?
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      What are you arguing? Because some men do more dangerous jobs, totally different men should get all the high paying ones? Perhaps for each man in coal mining, oil rigs, the army or deep sea fishing, we get a plushy finance or tech job exclusively for men? Or tech workers should be paid less than coal miners? I don't follow you?
      - ThomPete 9y ago
        Please read your own postulate. Why is the mans physical abilities important?
  - bolololo12 9y ago
    What physicality ?!?! We're all born same and equal!
    - lr4444lr 9y ago
      Didn't you hear? Differences in muscle tone are heteronormative. </s>
bneumann 9y ago
There question is not whether gender imbalances exist. The question is whether it's a "problem": Most kindergarten teachers are women. Is that a problem? Most lumberjacks are men. Is that a problem? Most graduating pharmacists are women. Is that a problem? Most graduating CS are men. Is that a problem? Most college graduates are women. Is that a problem? Most (93%) work-related deaths are men. Is that a problem? Most garbage collectors are men. Is that a problem? Most dentists are men. Is that a problem? Most fisherman are men. Is that a problem? Most pilots are men. Is that a problem? Most childcare workers are women. Is that a problem? Notice how there are literally hundreds of DIFFERENCES that we can identify. But that we only want to call it a PROBLEM in certain instances. Who gets to say what is a "natural difference" that we can ignore, and what is a "problem" that we should move heaven and earth in order to try to "solve" it?

ThomPete 9y ago

That's not a counter argument because women DIDN'T actually start companies and still doesn't. So what do you want to do? Force them to? According to you, that's what we need. The reason why people get board seats is again one of those misunderstood discussions. It has absolutely nothing to do with qualification as in non-at-all. What it has to do with is the board members access to network, political power, special experience etc. So as long as you and other keep insisting qualification is somehow important in this discussion, you are actually the ones making the noise. Qualification has nothing to do with this.

mattmanser 9y ago
In your numerous replies, two things are clear. You're annoyed that older coders can struggle to get jobs and you think women can start their own companies and programming clubs and seem to be insinuating that they should leave ours alone. If you're having a problem getting a job 'cause you're old in SV, I'm sorry. I have no such age discrimination problem in the UK, loads of jobs here but not any where as well paid as the US. I might point out that you had 20 years to make a ton of bank. If you want to fix age discrimination, campaign for it, but leave it out of this thread. As for companies being boys clubs, to me that's clearly unacceptable, it's simply wrong to say that a "company culture" can be male only as that's clear discrimination. If you think that discrimination's ok, it feels as if you want to take it out on women because you want to go back to living in a man-cave, replete with pizzas and then a late night coding sessions followed by a game of Quake, where women don't fit because they spurned us at high school. And if they want to join in, they better start their own company. Do that with your mates, that view doesn't belong in a company, shouldn't belong in a company. It's not a male-only social club. But if you agree that's wrong, you and I caused this problem, and we're the ones who have to fix it, have the opportunity to fix it. Perhaps our Dads and Grandads told us computers are for men only, but they aren't and we don't have to wait until your kids are growing up to fix this. We can fix this now, and positive discrimination is a way that works. Tech is growing up and we need to fix the gender imbalance we helped cause.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  I am not a coder, I have no issues getting work as I run my own company. But it's now clear that without strawmen you have no arguments just insults and claims about my person you can't back up. But I guess that's kind of symptomatic for this discussion isn't it?
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    These are your arguments, it's not a strawman when you're saying these things. These are direct quotes, of you, in this thread: Old white male coders in SV, which it now turns out you have no personal experience of and just making stuff up about: Try being +40 in Silicon Valley Try and get a job in SV after you turn 45. Examples of you saying women can't be part of our club, because they didn't play with the right toys when they were 12: Women aren't tech nerds as much as men are we know that for a fact men also takes the most high paying jobs because more of them were interested in technology early on and are better at selling themselves is that less women start companies or get into tech early on Examples of you saying women can't be a part of existing tech companies, they should form their own: get more women to start a tech company More women will hopefully start companies and I hope some of them will hire only women Push your girls to start their own companies to build their own networks In Norway where they have quotas all that happened is that now there is just also an old ladies network with the same women sitting on many of the boards
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      You are the gift that keeps giving huh. More strawmen. Those are not arguments they are facts you can educate yourself about them which is obviously not in your interest. Furthermore I would suggest you learn the language of the country you live in. None of those quotes mean what you claim they mean.

fvdessen 9y ago

A friend works at the European Commission, where there is a strict 50/50 male/female requirement for all hires and all positions. Apparently it is causing problems because too many women refuse to be promoted in management. So they don't have enough managers to start new projects.

mattmanser 9y ago
Is this true, what citations do you have? You've just cited an anecdote to try and counter mountains of scientific research. There could be all sorts of nefarious stuff going on. Could he have been refused a promotion and now blames women? What's the back story? Has he gone on record? Is there a real problem or is a misogynistic manager using it as an excuse to him to cover his own incompetence?
- fvdessen 9y ago
  Apparently the matter came when some women started to complain that they had been pressured into accepting management positions, didn't like the added stress, but had no possibility to move to other positions due to manager shortages. And yes it is an anecdote, so no there's no citations, but most posts in this discussion don't cite citations either.

lmm 9y ago

What if they're not just as good? What if they could be as good, but aren't interested? That part isn't fact, it's an assumption - one that it's time to reexamine given that things have turned out differently from how we expected.

mattmanser 9y ago
Listen to yourself, substitute the words you just used with the words any reasonable woman hears: What if women are just not as intelligent? What if they could be as intelligent, but are lazy? I appreciate you think you're being rational and reasonable. You're not.
- lmm 9y ago
  Well, what if that's so? Are we really so fragile that we dare not even ask that question? Could it be that we're scared of the answer? There are plenty of posts in this thread expressing stronger and more negative generalisations about men, how is it that we're not so scared of those? The only way to reach truth is to be willing to look for it.
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    It's not being afraid of asking a question, it's not a question. You're just "ask"-ing if women are as "not good/stupid", or that perhaps they "aren't interested/are lazy". It's just a gender stereotype dressed up as a question. It's an insult dressed in an insinuation.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  Why do you have to make up something which wasn't said to have an argument? Women do make different choices we know that for a fact. Women aren't tech nerds as much as men are we know that for a fact. Women start far fewer companies than men we know that for a fact. We also know that women score way higher grades in school which we also know for a fact doesn't matter in real life. So maybe women (in general) are just prioritizing life differently. That doesn't mean they aren't as intelligent, smart etc. If you can't make your argument without pushing for strawmen then you don't have one yourself.

peak_body_yo 9y ago

> Because gender discrimination is rife Please stop making these unqualified statements on very touchy subjects

mattmanser 9y ago
It's not unqualified, we know that's the cause. It's like claiming climate change isn't real.
- steego 9y ago
  I realize you're very busy and can't be bothered to support your claims, but you should actually try to demonstrate some knowledge rather than countering with the equivalent of, "but I'm really really certain."
steego 9y ago
Let's qualify it by posting a link which demonstrates gender bias when people read the same resume with a different name. http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-job-rather-jennifer http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-... This is hardly the only study. There are many more. My favorite was the law students from second tier schools where males who signaled coming from middle class backgrounds had a huge statistically disadvantage from males signalling wealth. The kicker? Wealth killed opportunities for women. https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-backfire-on-your-resume https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-b... Bias and prejudice are real and evaluating people is hard. To make things worse, your brain likes to save energy by substitution rigorous evaluation with heuristic evaluation and then convince itself it did the rigorous work. The problem isn't gender discrimination is rife, it's that thousands of forms of discrimination is rife because heuristic-based discrimination is what we excel at, not rigorous evaluation. I hope that didn't make it more touchy.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  If you add middle eastern sounding names the same result happens. Yes we have biases all of us but they are certainly not by any metrics confined to only women. Try being +40 in Silicon Valley, try being black or latino male on WallStreet, try making it as a hip-hop artist as a black guy. Try being fat in the fashion industry, try being a nerd in high-school. The world is rife with bias and prejudice against all sorts of "these are not like me" but the solution is not and have never been to force quotas through whether in board rooms or on the job market. If you want to change things changes them at their root cause. Push your girls to start their own companies to build their own networks so that they are less depending on existing ones. Teach them not to excel at school as that doesn't really matter but to learn how to sell themselves. Teach them that if a job posting names 10 skills and they have all but two it's still a job for them. These are the real barriers to entry not modern day companies light biases.

bolololo12 9y ago

You forgot there's still a ridiculously small percentage of female coal miners

mattmanser 9y ago
Yeah, I forgot the physicality of coal mining's just like programming and leadership.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  So according to you it's ok that men takes the most dangerous jobs, the most demanding jobs because of their physicality and risk tolerance, but it's not ok that men also takes the most high paying jobs because more of them were interested in technology early on and are better at selling themselves? Or how exactly what are you arguing?
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    What are you arguing? Because some men do more dangerous jobs, totally different men should get all the high paying ones? Perhaps for each man in coal mining, oil rigs, the army or deep sea fishing, we get a plushy finance or tech job exclusively for men? Or tech workers should be paid less than coal miners? I don't follow you?
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      Please read your own postulate. Why is the mans physical abilities important?
- bolololo12 9y ago
  What physicality ?!?! We're all born same and equal!
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    Didn't you hear? Differences in muscle tone are heteronormative. </s>

bneumann 9y ago

There question is not whether gender imbalances exist. The question is whether it's a "problem": Most kindergarten teachers are women. Is that a problem? Most lumberjacks are men. Is that a problem? Most graduating pharmacists are women. Is that a problem? Most graduating CS are men. Is that a problem? Most college graduates are women. Is that a problem? Most (93%) work-related deaths are men. Is that a problem? Most garbage collectors are men. Is that a problem? Most dentists are men. Is that a problem? Most fisherman are men. Is that a problem? Most pilots are men. Is that a problem? Most childcare workers are women. Is that a problem? Notice how there are literally hundreds of DIFFERENCES that we can identify. But that we only want to call it a PROBLEM in certain instances. Who gets to say what is a "natural difference" that we can ignore, and what is a "problem" that we should move heaven and earth in order to try to "solve" it?