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What historic wrongs kept these people out of programming? Last I checked most of programming came from the once persecuted nerd and geeks. Things have changed

What historic wrongs kept these people out of programming? Last I checked most of programming came from the once persecuted nerd and geeks. Things have changed for sure, but every time I hear this statement with relation to programming I can't help to think about how laffable it is. For the longest time computers and programming were one of the major places you could go and learn alot and become good at all while being under the cloak of anonymity. Back when this would have made a difference it was almost mandatory to conceal both gender and race because the bandwidth for live streaming video,voice simply was not there. Vast amounts of work and collaboration were done via text interfaces. This is a narrative I keep seeing with little proof to back it. The lack of the numbers representing a group does not automatically imply discrimination. And if you are going to bring that to the table then you are going to need to show some hard proof that is the defacto reason why any group of people are not represented. But even if you were right, I am not entirely sure setting merit aside is such a good idea for roles that can mean life or death of others. Do you not want the best heart surgeon working on your heart? Do you not want the best programmer you can get programming robotic arms and the breaking subsystems of the car that is behind you in traffic? The only sane way to correct historic wrongs is by flooding the lower level education systems with money in poor areas. Programs to help single mothers, access to laptops and the internet. The second you lower the bar you are doing a disservice to society, and to the person you think you are helping.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I would also add here Norway as the prototypical example. Norway is not only a mostly homogenous society with extremely low inequality, but is now considered arguably the most gender equal nation in existence. But the interesting thing is that this does not translate to an equal proportion of people in every single activity -- or even remotely close to it. What they found is that when working to actively push people into careers that would not normally fit gender "stereotypes" there was a small and relatively constant improvement. As soon as that push was relinquished the numbers would trend back towards the pre-push ratios. The point of this is that even when given completely equal opportunity in a completely equal society, different groups trend towards different things. This whole notion that everything and everybody is identical with most, if not all, differences being the product of some form of ism or discrimination of some sort of another is a very new, very wrong, and very dangerous belief. The only way you're going to achieve identical outcomes is by pushing society towards a dystopia as it would entail either preventing those who want to do x from doing so, or by pushing people who do not want to do x into doing just that.
rectang 8y ago
> Last I checked most of programming came from the once persecuted nerd and geeks. ... > The lack of the numbers representing a group does not automatically imply discrimination. ...
dx87 8y ago
I can't find the exact article where I read it, but programming used to be considered woman's work, similar to the work of a secretary or someone doing data entry. When big companies like IBM were trying to grow their workforce, they found that the best programmers were antisocial loners, and that woman programmers were more likely to leave the workforce early in order to get married and raise a family. Knowing this, they deliberately started trying to change the public perception of programming to a nerdy guy thing, and it appears they were succesful. That said, I do agree with you that lowering the bar is the wrong way to go about things, and that outreach programs will be more beneficial. I saw the negative effects of lowering the bar first hand in the military. Physical fitness tests have lower standards for females, but they both compete for the same promotion spots. This led to a lot of females with higher fitness scores than males, and and subsequent faster promotions and resentment from the males. A lot of the females didn't like the lower standards either, because they knew that once they got to a higher rank their subordinates would just assume they only got that high of a rank because they had to meet lower standards and that allowed them to get promoted faster than their peers.
- deleted 8y ago
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- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  The way I understood that story, programming was initially "women's work" for 2 reasons: 1) Legacy of the word 'computer' being a job title of lots of women sitting at long tables together with slide rules. Men would give orders and they would compute. 2) Designing the machines was originally the high-prestige job. "Just" programming wasn't considered difficult until we actually tried doing it a lot. I think the stuff about public perception was more about marketing PCs in the 70s and 80s than any illuminati-level labor market manipulation.
  - mbrumlow 8y ago
    My understanding is they filled the need of work being done while the men were off at war. But again. Just because there were women doing a job that is very different than today's or the last 40 years of programming and now there is not does not indicate that there was actual discrimination that caused woman to leave the industry. 1) Thr job changed dramatically. 2) Aftet the war we had the baby boomers. Women were off making a ton of babies not programming. 3) The entire job market changed for both men and woman away from manufacturing to white collar jobs. This opening the doors for both men and women to have jobs else where.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

I would also add here Norway as the prototypical example. Norway is not only a mostly homogenous society with extremely low inequality, but is now considered arguably the most gender equal nation in existence. But the interesting thing is that this does not translate to an equal proportion of people in every single activity -- or even remotely close to it. What they found is that when working to actively push people into careers that would not normally fit gender "stereotypes" there was a small and relatively constant improvement. As soon as that push was relinquished the numbers would trend back towards the pre-push ratios. The point of this is that even when given completely equal opportunity in a completely equal society, different groups trend towards different things. This whole notion that everything and everybody is identical with most, if not all, differences being the product of some form of ism or discrimination of some sort of another is a very new, very wrong, and very dangerous belief. The only way you're going to achieve identical outcomes is by pushing society towards a dystopia as it would entail either preventing those who want to do x from doing so, or by pushing people who do not want to do x into doing just that.

rectang 8y ago

> Last I checked most of programming came from the once persecuted nerd and geeks. ... > The lack of the numbers representing a group does not automatically imply discrimination. ...

dx87 8y ago

I can't find the exact article where I read it, but programming used to be considered woman's work, similar to the work of a secretary or someone doing data entry. When big companies like IBM were trying to grow their workforce, they found that the best programmers were antisocial loners, and that woman programmers were more likely to leave the workforce early in order to get married and raise a family. Knowing this, they deliberately started trying to change the public perception of programming to a nerdy guy thing, and it appears they were succesful. That said, I do agree with you that lowering the bar is the wrong way to go about things, and that outreach programs will be more beneficial. I saw the negative effects of lowering the bar first hand in the military. Physical fitness tests have lower standards for females, but they both compete for the same promotion spots. This led to a lot of females with higher fitness scores than males, and and subsequent faster promotions and resentment from the males. A lot of the females didn't like the lower standards either, because they knew that once they got to a higher rank their subordinates would just assume they only got that high of a rank because they had to meet lower standards and that allowed them to get promoted faster than their peers.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
yourbandsucks 8y ago
The way I understood that story, programming was initially "women's work" for 2 reasons: 1) Legacy of the word 'computer' being a job title of lots of women sitting at long tables together with slide rules. Men would give orders and they would compute. 2) Designing the machines was originally the high-prestige job. "Just" programming wasn't considered difficult until we actually tried doing it a lot. I think the stuff about public perception was more about marketing PCs in the 70s and 80s than any illuminati-level labor market manipulation.
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  My understanding is they filled the need of work being done while the men were off at war. But again. Just because there were women doing a job that is very different than today's or the last 40 years of programming and now there is not does not indicate that there was actual discrimination that caused woman to leave the industry. 1) Thr job changed dramatically. 2) Aftet the war we had the baby boomers. Women were off making a ton of babies not programming. 3) The entire job market changed for both men and woman away from manufacturing to white collar jobs. This opening the doors for both men and women to have jobs else where.