5 ms·

Women were barely allowed into workplaces in general within the last 50 years and are still fighting biases that have existed for millennia. Fixing the lack of

by jetpks 7y ago

Women were barely allowed into workplaces in general within the last 50 years and are still fighting biases that have existed for millennia. Fixing the lack of women in tech is a multi-century process, not something that's just knocked out in as little as 15 years. We'd be lucky to start seeing the needle move in such a short amount of time.

manfredo 7y ago
Interestingly, the rates of women in tech were higher 50 years ago than they are today. Reduction in inequality between men and women has an inverse relationship with rates of women in engineering. The countries with large inequality between men and women like Indonesia and India have some of the highest rates of women on tech. Egalitarian countries like those in Scandinavia have the lowest rates. The idea that low rates of women in tech is a product of inequality and discrimination is hard to justify in practice. My response to bluntfang, HN is rate limiting my office IP: > Who's to say there's a reduction? Anyone who studied gender relations over the last half century will say so, unambiguously, Trump notwithstanding. Women didn't have the right to abortion 50 years ago. They earned college degrees at half the rate of men (today, 3 women earn a degree for every 2 men). Workforce participation was much lower. Many states did not allow women to initiate divorces except under specific circumstances. Explicit denial of employment on the basis of sex was socially acceptable. I'm willing to claim that women are better off today than they were in 1969 is a fact. I suppose "equality" is fundamentally subjective, and there might be people who genuinely believe that women getting the right to abortion, divorce, protection from discrimination, etc. somehow harmed them. But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that most women see such changes as beneficial.
- bluntfang 7y ago
  >Reduction in inequality between men and women has an inverse relationship with rates of women in engineering. Who's to say there's a reduction? Have you been paying attention? There's a reason people are upset about this. Look who our president is and how many outstanding sexual assault allegations he has against him.
- dv_dt 7y ago
  I think those are interesting data points, but it's hard to take that data and clearly conclude there is a non-problem. For one, 50 years ago in America, women were unintentionally at the frontline of computers perhaps because high numbers of women were the "computers" before machine computers were introduced. And when the machine computers were introduced, the departments of women "computers" got exposure to them perhaps because of a high overlap in the departmental "compute" functions. Similarly if you look at high level women in computing from 50 years ago, they often got chances to apply their extraordinary skills because they happened across extraordinary opportunities - in some part because no-one else was above them for unique job, nor was there a formal role to hire for and choose between a woman or man. Another contributing factor might be the nature of war as well as the newness of the tech that created a temporary gender-blind vacuum.
  - jariel 7y ago
    Those are all fine points, but it doesn't entirely address this gender paradox issues of Engineers in developed countries. Moreover, it doesn't address the underlying assumption that 'equality' actually has to imply 50/50 in every labour category. I personally believe that anyone should be able to do anything, but that gender is so deeply ingrained into culture and society, that there'll never be 50/50 in most professions not matter what we do - and that we should consider accepting 'different strokes for different folks' - and that ironically 'diversity' means people will do different things. There can still be equality in the world even if people do different things, we might just have to look at things a little differently and make sure 'fairness' is applied from another angle. In the 1920's, Lenin tried to abolish that utterly bourgeois institution of the 'family'. He banned 'weekends' and made Russia work on a 5 day work day. Everyone got one day off - but different days off were assigned to different workers. Husbands and wives would often be assigned different days off specifically so they'd never see each other, i.e. to wear down the coherence of the family. This is not some Netflix Dystopia - this was a reality for 10's of millions of people in a 20th century country. It failed miserably because I think the hyper intellectual social egalitarian attitudes were at odds with the social reality of humanity. I believe much of our gender wars boil down to this as well: we have gender, it's never going away, and trying to kill it is absurd. It's ok, we can have real equality without having to wipe out gender - we just have to think a little bit about it.
- glogla 7y ago
  > Reduction in inequality between men and women has an inverse relationship with rates of women in engineering. The countries with large inequality between men and women like Indonesia and India have some of the highest rates of women on tech. Egalitarian countries like those in Scandinavia have the lowest rates. The idea that low rates of women in tech is a product of inequality and discrimination is hard to justify in practice. That sounds like a cherry-picked example. For example, Eastern Block (USSR and similar countries) had a lot more gender-equality than the Western Block (like US) and has way more women in STEM.
belorn 7y ago
This does nothing to explain why 85% of women and 85% of men in Sweden work in gender segregated professions, with gender segregation getting worse for every year. It does nothing to explain why out of 5 professions with 99% or higher gender segregation, 3 is female dominated and 2 is male dominated. It also does not explain why the only university program that ended up single gender a few years ago was female dominated. The gender paradox is also poorly explained through the narrative that historical gender roles is the cause of gender segregation today.
- jfim 7y ago
  It might just be that with a social net that one can fall back onto, people pick the careers that they want instead of the careers that pay more?
  - DATACOMMANDER 7y ago
    Right, and what we’re seeing is that men and women enjoy different things.
legostormtroopr 7y ago
> barely allowed into workplaces in general within the last 50 years Pardon? 50 years ago was 1969. Not discounting the fact that lower class women have always worked, the 60s saw a huge growth in Women's liberation, with the first woman to be a Fortune 500 CEO happening in the 1972. To say Women were "barely allowed in the workplace" during the 60's, 70's 80's and 90's needs significant proof.
- dahart 7y ago
  Why not just look it up? It took 10 seconds. https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/NEWSTATS/facts/women_lf.htm#CivilianLFSex https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/NEWSTATS/facts/women_lf.htm#Civ... In 1969, the labor force participation rate of women was 37.8%, and today it’s 46.8%. That’s a big change, and you have to realize that this difference is also coming out of the men’s share; it’s a bigger change than it looks. Also the women’s share was much lower - only 29% - just 20 years before that in 1949. In 1920 it was 20%. And don’t forget 1920 was the first year that women were allowed to vote. So if you’re looking at the bigger point and don’t fixate on exact dates, the pattern is one of massive change in the last 100 years from almost nothing to now nearing 50%. FWIW, while the comment you replied to maybe seemed to overstate the claim a little for recent years, your response here doesn’t look particularly good in this sensitive/divisive topic, if you’re actually worried about being unfairly labeled. For example, the fact that the first woman Fortune 500 CEO happened in the last 50 years, after 1969, really goes straight to the parent comment’s point, and constitutes extremely clear proof that in 1969 women were barely allowed in some parts of the workforce.
  - legostormtroopr 7y ago
    > In 1969, the labor force participation rate of women was 37.8% I would not call 38% participation "barely" in the workforce. And the point of noting the first female Fortune 500 CEO in 1969 was to highlight that while it is a shame it took so long, women would have been in senior roles well before 1969 to make her promotion possible.
johngalt 7y ago
> Fixing the lack of women in tech is a multi-century process Why does tech take longer than other professional fields like medical and legal? Harvard law started admitting women in the 1950s. MIT started admitting women in the 1870s. Yet the gender balance in the legal field narrowed much more rapidly.
BurningFrog 7y ago
I don't see how this argument can coexist with the reality that during the same time, women have achieved equal numbers and majority status in many other lucrative careers in medicine and law etc. Highly talented women are not having to work as nannies and school teachers because they're kept out of tech. They choose other high paying careers and do very well in them.

by jetpks 7y ago

manfredo 7y ago

Interestingly, the rates of women in tech were higher 50 years ago than they are today. Reduction in inequality between men and women has an inverse relationship with rates of women in engineering. The countries with large inequality between men and women like Indonesia and India have some of the highest rates of women on tech. Egalitarian countries like those in Scandinavia have the lowest rates. The idea that low rates of women in tech is a product of inequality and discrimination is hard to justify in practice. My response to bluntfang, HN is rate limiting my office IP: > Who's to say there's a reduction? Anyone who studied gender relations over the last half century will say so, unambiguously, Trump notwithstanding. Women didn't have the right to abortion 50 years ago. They earned college degrees at half the rate of men (today, 3 women earn a degree for every 2 men). Workforce participation was much lower. Many states did not allow women to initiate divorces except under specific circumstances. Explicit denial of employment on the basis of sex was socially acceptable. I'm willing to claim that women are better off today than they were in 1969 is a fact. I suppose "equality" is fundamentally subjective, and there might be people who genuinely believe that women getting the right to abortion, divorce, protection from discrimination, etc. somehow harmed them. But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that most women see such changes as beneficial.

bluntfang 7y ago
>Reduction in inequality between men and women has an inverse relationship with rates of women in engineering. Who's to say there's a reduction? Have you been paying attention? There's a reason people are upset about this. Look who our president is and how many outstanding sexual assault allegations he has against him.
dv_dt 7y ago
I think those are interesting data points, but it's hard to take that data and clearly conclude there is a non-problem. For one, 50 years ago in America, women were unintentionally at the frontline of computers perhaps because high numbers of women were the "computers" before machine computers were introduced. And when the machine computers were introduced, the departments of women "computers" got exposure to them perhaps because of a high overlap in the departmental "compute" functions. Similarly if you look at high level women in computing from 50 years ago, they often got chances to apply their extraordinary skills because they happened across extraordinary opportunities - in some part because no-one else was above them for unique job, nor was there a formal role to hire for and choose between a woman or man. Another contributing factor might be the nature of war as well as the newness of the tech that created a temporary gender-blind vacuum.
- jariel 7y ago
  Those are all fine points, but it doesn't entirely address this gender paradox issues of Engineers in developed countries. Moreover, it doesn't address the underlying assumption that 'equality' actually has to imply 50/50 in every labour category. I personally believe that anyone should be able to do anything, but that gender is so deeply ingrained into culture and society, that there'll never be 50/50 in most professions not matter what we do - and that we should consider accepting 'different strokes for different folks' - and that ironically 'diversity' means people will do different things. There can still be equality in the world even if people do different things, we might just have to look at things a little differently and make sure 'fairness' is applied from another angle. In the 1920's, Lenin tried to abolish that utterly bourgeois institution of the 'family'. He banned 'weekends' and made Russia work on a 5 day work day. Everyone got one day off - but different days off were assigned to different workers. Husbands and wives would often be assigned different days off specifically so they'd never see each other, i.e. to wear down the coherence of the family. This is not some Netflix Dystopia - this was a reality for 10's of millions of people in a 20th century country. It failed miserably because I think the hyper intellectual social egalitarian attitudes were at odds with the social reality of humanity. I believe much of our gender wars boil down to this as well: we have gender, it's never going away, and trying to kill it is absurd. It's ok, we can have real equality without having to wipe out gender - we just have to think a little bit about it.
glogla 7y ago
> Reduction in inequality between men and women has an inverse relationship with rates of women in engineering. The countries with large inequality between men and women like Indonesia and India have some of the highest rates of women on tech. Egalitarian countries like those in Scandinavia have the lowest rates. The idea that low rates of women in tech is a product of inequality and discrimination is hard to justify in practice. That sounds like a cherry-picked example. For example, Eastern Block (USSR and similar countries) had a lot more gender-equality than the Western Block (like US) and has way more women in STEM.

belorn 7y ago

This does nothing to explain why 85% of women and 85% of men in Sweden work in gender segregated professions, with gender segregation getting worse for every year. It does nothing to explain why out of 5 professions with 99% or higher gender segregation, 3 is female dominated and 2 is male dominated. It also does not explain why the only university program that ended up single gender a few years ago was female dominated. The gender paradox is also poorly explained through the narrative that historical gender roles is the cause of gender segregation today.

jfim 7y ago
It might just be that with a social net that one can fall back onto, people pick the careers that they want instead of the careers that pay more?
- DATACOMMANDER 7y ago
  Right, and what we’re seeing is that men and women enjoy different things.

legostormtroopr 7y ago

> barely allowed into workplaces in general within the last 50 years Pardon? 50 years ago was 1969. Not discounting the fact that lower class women have always worked, the 60s saw a huge growth in Women's liberation, with the first woman to be a Fortune 500 CEO happening in the 1972. To say Women were "barely allowed in the workplace" during the 60's, 70's 80's and 90's needs significant proof.

dahart 7y ago
Why not just look it up? It took 10 seconds. https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/NEWSTATS/facts/women_lf.htm#CivilianLFSex https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/NEWSTATS/facts/women_lf.htm#Civ... In 1969, the labor force participation rate of women was 37.8%, and today it’s 46.8%. That’s a big change, and you have to realize that this difference is also coming out of the men’s share; it’s a bigger change than it looks. Also the women’s share was much lower - only 29% - just 20 years before that in 1949. In 1920 it was 20%. And don’t forget 1920 was the first year that women were allowed to vote. So if you’re looking at the bigger point and don’t fixate on exact dates, the pattern is one of massive change in the last 100 years from almost nothing to now nearing 50%. FWIW, while the comment you replied to maybe seemed to overstate the claim a little for recent years, your response here doesn’t look particularly good in this sensitive/divisive topic, if you’re actually worried about being unfairly labeled. For example, the fact that the first woman Fortune 500 CEO happened in the last 50 years, after 1969, really goes straight to the parent comment’s point, and constitutes extremely clear proof that in 1969 women were barely allowed in some parts of the workforce.
- legostormtroopr 7y ago
  > In 1969, the labor force participation rate of women was 37.8% I would not call 38% participation "barely" in the workforce. And the point of noting the first female Fortune 500 CEO in 1969 was to highlight that while it is a shame it took so long, women would have been in senior roles well before 1969 to make her promotion possible.

johngalt 7y ago

> Fixing the lack of women in tech is a multi-century process Why does tech take longer than other professional fields like medical and legal? Harvard law started admitting women in the 1950s. MIT started admitting women in the 1870s. Yet the gender balance in the legal field narrowed much more rapidly.

BurningFrog 7y ago

I don't see how this argument can coexist with the reality that during the same time, women have achieved equal numbers and majority status in many other lucrative careers in medicine and law etc. Highly talented women are not having to work as nannies and school teachers because they're kept out of tech. They choose other high paying careers and do very well in them.