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Or, the correct perspective: "we realized we were contributing to the problem of inadequately motivating women to re-enter the programming workforce¹ through ou

Or, the correct perspective: "we realized we were contributing to the problem of inadequately motivating women to re-enter the programming workforce¹ through our selection of candidates from schools which likewise perpetuated the problem, so we switched to hiring from institutions which were also investing towards balancing the talent pool, with the goal of creating a positive feedback loop motivating more corporations to do the same, and therefore motivating more schools to aim to diversify their software engineering recruitment efforts." ¹ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programmi...

microcolonel 9y ago
> likewise perpetuated the problem I think before you say that the highest performing schools "perpetuated the problem", you're going to need to substantiate that. > https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programmi... . I haven't thought about this topic for a while, but an analysis I heard goes a bit like this: Typist used to be a "woman's job" as well. My understanding is that the job was split. What you would call programmers today were typically called "architects" or similar. Lumping them all together you obviously get a serious skew toward women because considerably more technicians/programmers (where the ratio favours women, but not exclusively) were required for computers of the time (trailing off through the '80s as stored program computers became the hotness) than architects/designers (where the ratio favours men, but not exclusively).
- eganist 9y ago
  > I think before you say that the highest performing schools "perpetuated the problem", you're going to need to substantiate that. I don't actually believe so given that the source link did so for me. The problem was substantiated in Duolingo's own metrics and reasoning for switching, the problem in this case being that their traditional college talent pools were overly biased towards men -- well, colleges select their own students. :)

microcolonel 9y ago

> likewise perpetuated the problem I think before you say that the highest performing schools "perpetuated the problem", you're going to need to substantiate that. > https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programmi... . I haven't thought about this topic for a while, but an analysis I heard goes a bit like this: Typist used to be a "woman's job" as well. My understanding is that the job was split. What you would call programmers today were typically called "architects" or similar. Lumping them all together you obviously get a serious skew toward women because considerably more technicians/programmers (where the ratio favours women, but not exclusively) were required for computers of the time (trailing off through the '80s as stored program computers became the hotness) than architects/designers (where the ratio favours men, but not exclusively).

eganist 9y ago
> I think before you say that the highest performing schools "perpetuated the problem", you're going to need to substantiate that. I don't actually believe so given that the source link did so for me. The problem was substantiated in Duolingo's own metrics and reasoning for switching, the problem in this case being that their traditional college talent pools were overly biased towards men -- well, colleges select their own students. :)