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I am for diversity, I think it makes a better, stronger, more agile company. However Quotas I don't think are the answer. 1) because they reinforce negative s

I am for diversity, I think it makes a better, stronger, more agile company. However Quotas I don't think are the answer. 1) because they reinforce negative stereotypes (you are only here because you are x, rather than being qualified) 2) They make the candidate feel like they don't belong/less valued 3) they don't fix the underlying issues Now, this is from a UK perspective, so the next points are less universal. In the UK we have a training issue. It is hard as a startup to source mid/senior "diversity" candidates because they are rare. Therefore we as an industry need to get into schools and provide mentorship to allow children of all types to come into IT. UK society has decided that girls are not destined for IT and that needs to fucking stop. since 2019, there are apprenticeships that provide 2 days a week tutoring. before you had be of a certain company size to qualify for funding. However the battle is to get enough people to apply for the apprenticeships. From a business perspective its a brilliant way to source cheap, loyal and effective workers. For companies like the financial times, its worked out pretty well. They have something like 70 apprentice/apprentice grade employees in a tech team of 400.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
> since 2019, there are apprenticeships that provide 2 days a week tutoring. before you had be of a certain company size to qualify for funding. However the battle is to get enough people to apply for the apprenticeships. Right, you can't solve pipeline problems near the end of the pipeline. You have to provide robust support as far back as possible. Quotas are a lackluster response to outrage porn and a desire to implement quick fixes, when thoughtful, long term policy decisions are what provides the desired outcome (equitable power distribution). “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
supergirl 6y ago
> UK society has decided that girls are not destined for IT and that needs to fucking stop. That actually sounds universal. I think a big part of choosing a career/education track is having role models. If there are no women now in tech, then girls will not be inspired. Imagine how many boys are inspired by Elon Musk to work on cars and rockets. Quotas are not the end game. It can be seen as a necessary hack to kick start the process.
- globular-toast 6y ago
  Nope. Girls have their role models. We've been pedalling the exaggerated truth of Ada Lovelace being the first programmer for decades. She even has a programming language named after her. Grace Hopper is pulled out at any opportunity. Boys don't need role models. They don't do things "because Elon Musk is cool". You speak about things you really don't understand. Boys do things because they are driven to do them for seemingly no reason at all. Boys obsess over things. Taking things to sometimes absurd extremes. And they're not doing any of it because they want to be rich, or want women, or want to be Elon Musk. Trust me. I've spent all my evenings of the last month on my latest electronics project. Do you think I'm doing that just because Charles Babbage also had a penis?
  - dennis_jeeves 6y ago
    >Do you think I'm doing that just because Charles Babbage also had a penis? Lol. Well what I've noticed is that it is women who obsess over their gender, men far less so. Freud got it right I think - penis envy is real!
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Boys don't need role models. Boys are surrounded by role models in lots of areas in a way girls are not (and that was even more true a couple generations back.) They don't need any special effort to provide them because their social context is suffused with them, both real and fictional. > Boys do things because they are driven to do them for seemingly no reason at all. No, if you pay much attention to boys, there's plenty of direct inspiration from specific role models and images from their social context.
  - KaiserPro 6y ago
    Boys do as they are taught. its not role models, its expectations. I as a man am not expected to become a carer. I am not expected to be a nurse. I am not expected to show emotion. I am expected to fight, talk through grunting and like sports. Girls are taught to be girls, they must be nice, they must smile, they must care, they must be demure. Now, this is automatic. You treat others how you see others being treated, unless you have reason to change your behavior. > I've spent all my evenings of the last month on my latest electronics project. Do you think I'm doing that just because Charles Babbage also had a penis? nope. but, try this: obsess over caring for orphans, injured animals, restoring habitats, etc etc. Kinda naff right? Its equally as hard as electronics, requires the same level of science. But its not done by boys because its "what girls do"
goatinaboat 6y ago
UK society has decided that girls are not destined for IT and that needs to fucking stop. Women outnumber men as graduates, in medicine, in law. What is the difference between those fields and IT?
- epx 6y ago
  Because it is perceived to be full of cash and everyone now wants a piece of the action
- AnHonestComment 6y ago
  The difference is that institutional misandry is okay in 2021. For at least the last decade, the “feminist” movement in Western countries has been a force for misandry, not equality. Arguably, the feminist movement in education has been a force for misandry since women became the educational majority in the 1980s and feminism in education became a sexist power movement by the majority in education.
- throwaway19937 6y ago
  > Women outnumber men as graduates, in medicine, in law. What is the difference between those fields and IT? I'm not sure about the UK but law and medicine in the US used affirmative action to address sexism in the profession. There were class action lawsuits that required law firms, law schools, medical schools, and hospitals to accept women doctors and lawyers. After sexism was recognized as a problem law schools used affirmative action to admit gender-balanced classes and law firms hired equal numbers of men and women. STEM subjects didn't have these interventions so it's unsurprising that sexism is more of an issue than in other fields.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - KaiserPro 6y ago
    > US used affirmative action to address sexism in the profession. I'm not sure what changed, but its seen as something that a career minded middle class girl _should_ do. it certainly wasn't any sort of legal discrimination. I'm not sure of the exact stats, but the slim majority of first year doctors in the UK are women
globular-toast 6y ago
> I think it makes a better, stronger, more agile company. Why do you think that? Do you have any evidence to back it up or is this just a feeling? > UK society has decided that girls are not destined for IT and that needs to fucking stop. Any evidence for this? Or just another feeling?
- tharne 6y ago
  I've often wondered about this myself. I always see "diversity is a moral good" and "diversity is good for business" bundled together. What happens if we were to hypothetically discover unequivocally that more homogenous groups outperformed for diverse ones? Plenty of non-diverse societies are high-achieving (Japan, South Korea, Scandinavia. It always creeps me out when people try to couple morality with "and it's got a practical benefit too". The whole point of a moral is that you follow it because you do, not because you get some added reward. If folks (and society as a whole) are going to push diversity, we should all be clear on whether this is a moral issue or a practical issue because the implications are very different and it dictates which one takes priority.
- KaiserPro 6y ago
  > Why do you think that? Do you have any evidence to back it up or is this just a feeling? monocultures have explosive growth, but are vulnerable to the same threats, this means that one small change can bring a company to its knees. Its the same throughout nature. > Any evidence for this? Or just another feeling? https://www.bcs.org/more/about-us/press-office/press-releases/number-of-female-students-studying-computer-science-increases-by-300-in-five-years-new-data-reveals/ https://www.bcs.org/more/about-us/press-office/press-release... shows improvement, but its far from equitable https://www.stemwomen.co.uk/blog/2021/01/women-in-stem-percentages-of-women-in-stem-statistics https://www.stemwomen.co.uk/blog/2021/01/women-in-stem-perce... is for university, and shows a less rosy picture. given the numbers, its pretty clear there is something significant stopping women studying computing. Given the attitudes, and general conditioning that programmers are male, I can see how it arises. As a thought experiment, try this: imagine being a boy at 16 and standing up in front of class and saying that you want to be a nursery assistant. Its not going to end well. Almost the same level of ridicule and "raised eyebrows" would be given to a "normal" girl at 14/15/16 standing up and saying that she was going to be a developer.
throwaway09223 6y ago
I agree. These three points you raise are discussed at length in this blog post constructed around a letter written by Judge Flemming in 1969 which accurately predicted how a quota system, or using different standards for different groups, would result in these types of negative outcomes: https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/the-amazing-1969-prophecy-that-racial-preferences-would-cause-the-exact-grievances-of-protesters-today/ https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/the-amazing-1969-prophecy-... Undermining the credibility of existing, properly qualified players in the field is one of the most pernicious aspects of a quota system.
throwaway19937 6y ago
> 3) they don't fix the underlying issues Quotas and affirmative action have worked successfully in other fields. Law in the US was a hostile profession to women in the 1950s and 1960s. Ruth Bader Ginsburg (first in her class at Columbia) and Sandra Day O'Connor (third in her class at Stanford), for example, both had trouble finding work after graduation. The legal industry addressed sexism by making gender balance an explicit goal. Law schools admitted equal numbers of men and women; law firms hired equal numbers of male and female associates. Women now make up 36% of lawyers and the majority of law school graduates.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  Do you have any information on firms and law schools having gender balance quotas? I did a quick search but didn't find anything.
  - throwaway19937 6y ago
    AFAIK gender balance quotas are no longer in effect. Gender ratios are widely tracked within the industry, though, e.g. (https://ylw.yale.edu/top-firms/ https://ylw.yale.edu/top-firms/). Also clients for legal services often have their own diversity requirements (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/02/business/dealbook/facebook-pushes-outside-law-firms-to-become-more-diverse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/02/business/dealbook/faceboo...). If you're looking for a historical reference, (https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=facpub https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...) is 26 pages and covers the history of women in law from 1920 to 1970. Cynthia Epstein's Women in Law should cover this topic but I haven't yet read it.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      Thanks for the references, but I didnt see anything about quotas for admissions and associates. Setting hard quotas is pretty different than tracking diversity as a key performance metric

toomuchtodo 6y ago

> since 2019, there are apprenticeships that provide 2 days a week tutoring. before you had be of a certain company size to qualify for funding. However the battle is to get enough people to apply for the apprenticeships. Right, you can't solve pipeline problems near the end of the pipeline. You have to provide robust support as far back as possible. Quotas are a lackluster response to outrage porn and a desire to implement quick fixes, when thoughtful, long term policy decisions are what provides the desired outcome (equitable power distribution). “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

supergirl 6y ago

> UK society has decided that girls are not destined for IT and that needs to fucking stop. That actually sounds universal. I think a big part of choosing a career/education track is having role models. If there are no women now in tech, then girls will not be inspired. Imagine how many boys are inspired by Elon Musk to work on cars and rockets. Quotas are not the end game. It can be seen as a necessary hack to kick start the process.

globular-toast 6y ago
Nope. Girls have their role models. We've been pedalling the exaggerated truth of Ada Lovelace being the first programmer for decades. She even has a programming language named after her. Grace Hopper is pulled out at any opportunity. Boys don't need role models. They don't do things "because Elon Musk is cool". You speak about things you really don't understand. Boys do things because they are driven to do them for seemingly no reason at all. Boys obsess over things. Taking things to sometimes absurd extremes. And they're not doing any of it because they want to be rich, or want women, or want to be Elon Musk. Trust me. I've spent all my evenings of the last month on my latest electronics project. Do you think I'm doing that just because Charles Babbage also had a penis?
- dennis_jeeves 6y ago
  >Do you think I'm doing that just because Charles Babbage also had a penis? Lol. Well what I've noticed is that it is women who obsess over their gender, men far less so. Freud got it right I think - penis envy is real!
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Boys don't need role models. Boys are surrounded by role models in lots of areas in a way girls are not (and that was even more true a couple generations back.) They don't need any special effort to provide them because their social context is suffused with them, both real and fictional. > Boys do things because they are driven to do them for seemingly no reason at all. No, if you pay much attention to boys, there's plenty of direct inspiration from specific role models and images from their social context.
- KaiserPro 6y ago
  Boys do as they are taught. its not role models, its expectations. I as a man am not expected to become a carer. I am not expected to be a nurse. I am not expected to show emotion. I am expected to fight, talk through grunting and like sports. Girls are taught to be girls, they must be nice, they must smile, they must care, they must be demure. Now, this is automatic. You treat others how you see others being treated, unless you have reason to change your behavior. > I've spent all my evenings of the last month on my latest electronics project. Do you think I'm doing that just because Charles Babbage also had a penis? nope. but, try this: obsess over caring for orphans, injured animals, restoring habitats, etc etc. Kinda naff right? Its equally as hard as electronics, requires the same level of science. But its not done by boys because its "what girls do"

goatinaboat 6y ago

UK society has decided that girls are not destined for IT and that needs to fucking stop. Women outnumber men as graduates, in medicine, in law. What is the difference between those fields and IT?

epx 6y ago
Because it is perceived to be full of cash and everyone now wants a piece of the action
AnHonestComment 6y ago
The difference is that institutional misandry is okay in 2021. For at least the last decade, the “feminist” movement in Western countries has been a force for misandry, not equality. Arguably, the feminist movement in education has been a force for misandry since women became the educational majority in the 1980s and feminism in education became a sexist power movement by the majority in education.
throwaway19937 6y ago
> Women outnumber men as graduates, in medicine, in law. What is the difference between those fields and IT? I'm not sure about the UK but law and medicine in the US used affirmative action to address sexism in the profession. There were class action lawsuits that required law firms, law schools, medical schools, and hospitals to accept women doctors and lawyers. After sexism was recognized as a problem law schools used affirmative action to admit gender-balanced classes and law firms hired equal numbers of men and women. STEM subjects didn't have these interventions so it's unsurprising that sexism is more of an issue than in other fields.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- KaiserPro 6y ago
  > US used affirmative action to address sexism in the profession. I'm not sure what changed, but its seen as something that a career minded middle class girl _should_ do. it certainly wasn't any sort of legal discrimination. I'm not sure of the exact stats, but the slim majority of first year doctors in the UK are women

globular-toast 6y ago

> I think it makes a better, stronger, more agile company. Why do you think that? Do you have any evidence to back it up or is this just a feeling? > UK society has decided that girls are not destined for IT and that needs to fucking stop. Any evidence for this? Or just another feeling?

tharne 6y ago
I've often wondered about this myself. I always see "diversity is a moral good" and "diversity is good for business" bundled together. What happens if we were to hypothetically discover unequivocally that more homogenous groups outperformed for diverse ones? Plenty of non-diverse societies are high-achieving (Japan, South Korea, Scandinavia. It always creeps me out when people try to couple morality with "and it's got a practical benefit too". The whole point of a moral is that you follow it because you do, not because you get some added reward. If folks (and society as a whole) are going to push diversity, we should all be clear on whether this is a moral issue or a practical issue because the implications are very different and it dictates which one takes priority.
KaiserPro 6y ago
> Why do you think that? Do you have any evidence to back it up or is this just a feeling? monocultures have explosive growth, but are vulnerable to the same threats, this means that one small change can bring a company to its knees. Its the same throughout nature. > Any evidence for this? Or just another feeling? https://www.bcs.org/more/about-us/press-office/press-releases/number-of-female-students-studying-computer-science-increases-by-300-in-five-years-new-data-reveals/ https://www.bcs.org/more/about-us/press-office/press-release... shows improvement, but its far from equitable https://www.stemwomen.co.uk/blog/2021/01/women-in-stem-percentages-of-women-in-stem-statistics https://www.stemwomen.co.uk/blog/2021/01/women-in-stem-perce... is for university, and shows a less rosy picture. given the numbers, its pretty clear there is something significant stopping women studying computing. Given the attitudes, and general conditioning that programmers are male, I can see how it arises. As a thought experiment, try this: imagine being a boy at 16 and standing up in front of class and saying that you want to be a nursery assistant. Its not going to end well. Almost the same level of ridicule and "raised eyebrows" would be given to a "normal" girl at 14/15/16 standing up and saying that she was going to be a developer.

throwaway09223 6y ago

I agree. These three points you raise are discussed at length in this blog post constructed around a letter written by Judge Flemming in 1969 which accurately predicted how a quota system, or using different standards for different groups, would result in these types of negative outcomes: https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/the-amazing-1969-prophecy-that-racial-preferences-would-cause-the-exact-grievances-of-protesters-today/ https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/the-amazing-1969-prophecy-... Undermining the credibility of existing, properly qualified players in the field is one of the most pernicious aspects of a quota system.

throwaway19937 6y ago

> 3) they don't fix the underlying issues Quotas and affirmative action have worked successfully in other fields. Law in the US was a hostile profession to women in the 1950s and 1960s. Ruth Bader Ginsburg (first in her class at Columbia) and Sandra Day O'Connor (third in her class at Stanford), for example, both had trouble finding work after graduation. The legal industry addressed sexism by making gender balance an explicit goal. Law schools admitted equal numbers of men and women; law firms hired equal numbers of male and female associates. Women now make up 36% of lawyers and the majority of law school graduates.

s1artibartfast 6y ago
Do you have any information on firms and law schools having gender balance quotas? I did a quick search but didn't find anything.
- throwaway19937 6y ago
  AFAIK gender balance quotas are no longer in effect. Gender ratios are widely tracked within the industry, though, e.g. (https://ylw.yale.edu/top-firms/ https://ylw.yale.edu/top-firms/). Also clients for legal services often have their own diversity requirements (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/02/business/dealbook/facebook-pushes-outside-law-firms-to-become-more-diverse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/02/business/dealbook/faceboo...). If you're looking for a historical reference, (https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=facpub https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...) is 26 pages and covers the history of women in law from 1920 to 1970. Cynthia Epstein's Women in Law should cover this topic but I haven't yet read it.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    Thanks for the references, but I didnt see anything about quotas for admissions and associates. Setting hard quotas is pretty different than tracking diversity as a key performance metric