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> Men hold 75% of Google's leadership roles Well, I'm of 'leadership age' and when I was young, the only people I saw who were interested in computers were ner

by gedy 9y ago

> Men hold 75% of Google's leadership roles Well, I'm of 'leadership age' and when I was young, the only people I saw who were interested in computers were nerdy boys. We were mocked by jock guys and ignored by virtually all girls. So, to me it's a matter of focus. They had fun with romance and sex, we practiced computers. An imbalance seems expected given what I saw. Maybe that will change in time.

zem 9y ago
and what about nerdy girls who had neither athletics, romance or sex, and would have loved a computer? as npr[1] notes, when the home computer came out it was marketed heavily to boys; a generation of girls largely missed out on that step up. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...
- antod 9y ago
  I find that npr article on marketing being the reason for the drop in girls doing College CS overstates it and is a bit unconvincing. I took up computing during the 80s as a kid in a small country that had no real computer marketing (or even market) at all - that didn't stop it being a practically male only thing. Even amongst the wider population of boys, it was only a tiny percentage who got into computers. And while the Apple example in the article they used did have a boy as the focus, prominently sitting next to him in the class was a girl doing the same stuff and a 50/50 mix of other kids in the background. There wasn't a "computers are for boys" message in that ad. And image searches for 80s home computer ads don't really show it was all exclusively male targeted ads anyway* - there were a lot of those cliched ones marketed at the whole stereotypical family though. If anything they were overly optimistic in their depictions of gender ratios compared to actual interest in the market. * Except for the Italian ones - yikes
- gedy 9y ago
  Yes where were they? :-) I honestly can't remember much computer marketing at all - any computer I could get a hold of was exciting. The Apple II in our class was mostly ignored except for about 2-3 boys, and even by the girls who were better students than the other kids.
- hello_marmalade 9y ago
  I hate this stupid argument. Nobody ever marketed me to be into computers - my parents just had one, and I liked it, and wanted to use it. Whenever I saw a computer I wanted to play with it. Nobody needed to "market" it to me. Also, it's a shitty argument, because there are a million and one different things that could convince you to not be a part of something. Part of being an adult is learning to sometimes ignore what society expects of you, and also adjust your understanding of what society actually expects of you. If the thing that stopped you from working in tech is because "there were too many boys" then you probably weren't all that interested in the first place.
Melchizedek 9y ago
> Men hold 75% of Google's leadership roles Since men are 69% of the company it looks like they are only slightly overrepresented in leadership roles. > just 2% of its employees are black, 4% Hispanic, and 35% Asian. Doesn't this mean that Asians are way overrepresented? > She told Levin of a white male coworker who suggested she got her job more easily because people would think she was good at math. The horror! Looking at PISA scores from Asian countries or SAT results, it seems to be absolutely the case that Asians, on average, are "good at math". Honestly, people who work at freaking Google and don't have worse problems than this should count themselves lucky to be part of the 0.1% most privileged individuals in the world and have the decency to keep their spoiled mouths shut.
- circuiter 9y ago
  How do you deal with over-representation if you don't want to increase headcount? Fire the over-quota demographic so that their numbers match the general population? That seems to be the way most diversity initiatives want to solve the problem.
- DanBC 9y ago
  > The horror! He didn't say "you are good at math", he said "people just assume you're good at math, and it's those assumptions that got you the job". He's saying she didn't get the job on merit, she got the job because of her race.

by gedy 9y ago

zem 9y ago

and what about nerdy girls who had neither athletics, romance or sex, and would have loved a computer? as npr[1] notes, when the home computer came out it was marketed heavily to boys; a generation of girls largely missed out on that step up. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...

antod 9y ago
I find that npr article on marketing being the reason for the drop in girls doing College CS overstates it and is a bit unconvincing. I took up computing during the 80s as a kid in a small country that had no real computer marketing (or even market) at all - that didn't stop it being a practically male only thing. Even amongst the wider population of boys, it was only a tiny percentage who got into computers. And while the Apple example in the article they used did have a boy as the focus, prominently sitting next to him in the class was a girl doing the same stuff and a 50/50 mix of other kids in the background. There wasn't a "computers are for boys" message in that ad. And image searches for 80s home computer ads don't really show it was all exclusively male targeted ads anyway* - there were a lot of those cliched ones marketed at the whole stereotypical family though. If anything they were overly optimistic in their depictions of gender ratios compared to actual interest in the market. * Except for the Italian ones - yikes
gedy 9y ago
Yes where were they? :-) I honestly can't remember much computer marketing at all - any computer I could get a hold of was exciting. The Apple II in our class was mostly ignored except for about 2-3 boys, and even by the girls who were better students than the other kids.
hello_marmalade 9y ago
I hate this stupid argument. Nobody ever marketed me to be into computers - my parents just had one, and I liked it, and wanted to use it. Whenever I saw a computer I wanted to play with it. Nobody needed to "market" it to me. Also, it's a shitty argument, because there are a million and one different things that could convince you to not be a part of something. Part of being an adult is learning to sometimes ignore what society expects of you, and also adjust your understanding of what society actually expects of you. If the thing that stopped you from working in tech is because "there were too many boys" then you probably weren't all that interested in the first place.

Melchizedek 9y ago

> Men hold 75% of Google's leadership roles Since men are 69% of the company it looks like they are only slightly overrepresented in leadership roles. > just 2% of its employees are black, 4% Hispanic, and 35% Asian. Doesn't this mean that Asians are way overrepresented? > She told Levin of a white male coworker who suggested she got her job more easily because people would think she was good at math. The horror! Looking at PISA scores from Asian countries or SAT results, it seems to be absolutely the case that Asians, on average, are "good at math". Honestly, people who work at freaking Google and don't have worse problems than this should count themselves lucky to be part of the 0.1% most privileged individuals in the world and have the decency to keep their spoiled mouths shut.

circuiter 9y ago
How do you deal with over-representation if you don't want to increase headcount? Fire the over-quota demographic so that their numbers match the general population? That seems to be the way most diversity initiatives want to solve the problem.
DanBC 9y ago
> The horror! He didn't say "you are good at math", he said "people just assume you're good at math, and it's those assumptions that got you the job". He's saying she didn't get the job on merit, she got the job because of her race.