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> Tech has obviously in general has made considerable progress in being more inclusive Ah yes the old and tired argument comes out again. Since there are 50% m

by zer8k 3y ago

> Tech has obviously in general has made considerable progress in being more inclusive Ah yes the old and tired argument comes out again. Since there are 50% men and 50% women in the world why doesn't tech look the same? Cool opinion though...it's so 2015. Almost vintage! I particularly enjoyed the part where you imply it's a bad thing. Why don't we hear about that with welding, house building, firefighting, policing, the military, or any other male dominated field Dr. Inclusion?

dragonwriter 3y ago
> Why don't we hear about that with welding, house building, firefighting, policing, the military, or any other male dominated field Dr. Inclusion? I would guess that you don’t hear it because you don't pay attention to news concerning those domains, at least as it relates to gender inclusion, as gender inclusion is an active issue in each of them. https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/education/education-matters-getting-more-girls-into-welding/ https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/education/education-m... https://www.achrnews.com/articles/147486-welcome-women-into-hvac-and-the-skilled-trades https://www.achrnews.com/articles/147486-welcome-women-into-... https://www.hsaj.org/articles/21721 https://www.hsaj.org/articles/21721 https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/public-safety-career-expo-hopes-to-attract-women-to-field/ https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/public-safety-car... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/21/hire-female-officers-fix-police/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/21/hire-fema... https://www.lexipol.com/resources/blog/police-culture-and-women-in-law-enforcement/ https://www.lexipol.com/resources/blog/police-culture-and-wo... https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2023/01/military-must-recruit-more-women-immigrants-future-force-experts-say/382317/ https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2023/01/military-must-recr... https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/12/19/barriers-still-preventing-women-from-joining-special-ops-watchdog-say/ https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/12/19/...
grepLeigh 3y ago
Well, you do hear about those things (welding, house building, firefighting, policing, the military). For example, the United States Marine Corps is slowly integrating some basic training and has a few co-ed companies [1]. This was such a far-fetched idea in the 90s that Ridley Scott made a movie about it starring Demi Moore (G.I. Jane, 1997). Firefighting is another excellent example [2]. 7-11% of firefighters in the United States are women (depending on how volunteer vs. career firefighters are counted). I remember that statistic because StackOverflow's female respondent rate hovers around ~5%. "Women are more likely to run into burning buildings than what I'm doing now" is the kind of gallows humor that gets me through the day. There are also advocacy groups for other gender/work minority combinations, like male nurses and caretakers. [1] https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/61/Docs/FOIA/Reading-Room/Final_Report-University_of_Pittsburgh_Academic_Study_on_Gender-Integrated_Recruit_Training.pdf https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/61/Docs/FOIA/Reading-Ro... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_firefighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_firefighting Edited: typos
- WillPostForFood 3y ago
  GI Jane was about a imaginary Navy special operations unit that was a stand in for the Navy SEALs. There are still no female Navy Seals, and it is still far-fethced except for the generally declining standards across the armed forces.
- pseudo0 3y ago
  Better examples probably would have been garbage men, roofers, welders, plumbers, etc. It's only a problem when the job is perceived to have some amount of status. No one fights over opportunities to unclog toilets or shovel fertilizer. The military has (rapidly declining) prestige, firefighting is considered exciting and heroic, etc. Then a demographic split becomes an opportunity to shake down the organization for DEI consulting and make-work sinecures. Personally I don't care as long as any prospective firefighters can quickly carry a 200 pound unconscious person out of a burning building. For some reason, I suspect that pool of qualified candidates skews male.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Better examples probably would have been garbage men, roofers, welders, plumbers, etc. And... if you were following any of those fields, you'd find gender inclusion is also an issue. Tech definitely gets more attention in a tech centric forum like HN, and usually (because $$) gets more attention from the general interest press, but the issues are everywhere, with fairly similar discussions.
cyclotron3k 3y ago
No need for the sarcasm and derision. Let's try to keep things civil.
- leventonportera 3y ago
  There was sarcasm, but there was no derision. There's nothing wrong with sarcasm - it is a common and civil tool of communication. Sarcastically stating the fact about an bad take in someone's comment - that it is a bad take - is not derision. would you prefer dry talk completely lacking emotion? There is chat with a computer for that - you are here communicating with people. Your take, is a bad take. Things are civil. They don't also need to look like two robots talking to an oven.
imiric 3y ago
Or, conversely, for the female-dominated fields: preschool teachers, nurses, hairdressers, etc. This whole endeavour to have equal representation of all genders in all aspects of life completely misses the mark that career choices and most life decisions are rooted in personal preferences and interests, and that on a fundamental level males and females (and other genders as well, I suppose) are different. And that this is OK. Not only that, but it doesn't address the main issues of discrimination and wage gap, but pretends it will somehow fix itself if we maintain a perfect balance of gender representation. And why stop there? Why focus on gender and race only? Shouldn't we also have equal representation of all nationalities, religions, hair colors, eye colors, and whatever other human criteria? The entire DEI trend is absurd, and ironically only serves to further divide us into arbitrary buckets.
greasephalanges 3y ago
True crime is that effeminate males are too shy to come out of the closet... Women are perhaps the closest distant group that gets undeserved presuppositions thinly-veiled and anecdotal pseudoscience. The point is that most non-labor intensive jobs don't have such a hard gender preference. Without the loss of generality, my family tree of Soviet citizens were able to be chemists, engineers, doctors, and now software devs just fine. I fail to recognise what IT or playing chess is different to warrant such a huge discrepancy, something doesn't add up. The fact that discriminating is short-sighted when it come to employment tells me of a deprecated conceptual model that I doubt can truly be resolved through fixing IT alone, to be blunt, the problem is old because the actions are ineffective.

by zer8k 3y ago

dragonwriter 3y ago

> Why don't we hear about that with welding, house building, firefighting, policing, the military, or any other male dominated field Dr. Inclusion? I would guess that you don’t hear it because you don't pay attention to news concerning those domains, at least as it relates to gender inclusion, as gender inclusion is an active issue in each of them. https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/education/education-matters-getting-more-girls-into-welding/ https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/education/education-m... https://www.achrnews.com/articles/147486-welcome-women-into-hvac-and-the-skilled-trades https://www.achrnews.com/articles/147486-welcome-women-into-... https://www.hsaj.org/articles/21721 https://www.hsaj.org/articles/21721 https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/public-safety-career-expo-hopes-to-attract-women-to-field/ https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/public-safety-car... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/21/hire-female-officers-fix-police/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/21/hire-fema... https://www.lexipol.com/resources/blog/police-culture-and-women-in-law-enforcement/ https://www.lexipol.com/resources/blog/police-culture-and-wo... https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2023/01/military-must-recruit-more-women-immigrants-future-force-experts-say/382317/ https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2023/01/military-must-recr... https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/12/19/barriers-still-preventing-women-from-joining-special-ops-watchdog-say/ https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/12/19/...

grepLeigh 3y ago

Well, you do hear about those things (welding, house building, firefighting, policing, the military). For example, the United States Marine Corps is slowly integrating some basic training and has a few co-ed companies [1]. This was such a far-fetched idea in the 90s that Ridley Scott made a movie about it starring Demi Moore (G.I. Jane, 1997). Firefighting is another excellent example [2]. 7-11% of firefighters in the United States are women (depending on how volunteer vs. career firefighters are counted). I remember that statistic because StackOverflow's female respondent rate hovers around ~5%. "Women are more likely to run into burning buildings than what I'm doing now" is the kind of gallows humor that gets me through the day. There are also advocacy groups for other gender/work minority combinations, like male nurses and caretakers. [1] https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/61/Docs/FOIA/Reading-Room/Final_Report-University_of_Pittsburgh_Academic_Study_on_Gender-Integrated_Recruit_Training.pdf https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/61/Docs/FOIA/Reading-Ro... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_firefighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_firefighting Edited: typos

WillPostForFood 3y ago
GI Jane was about a imaginary Navy special operations unit that was a stand in for the Navy SEALs. There are still no female Navy Seals, and it is still far-fethced except for the generally declining standards across the armed forces.
pseudo0 3y ago
Better examples probably would have been garbage men, roofers, welders, plumbers, etc. It's only a problem when the job is perceived to have some amount of status. No one fights over opportunities to unclog toilets or shovel fertilizer. The military has (rapidly declining) prestige, firefighting is considered exciting and heroic, etc. Then a demographic split becomes an opportunity to shake down the organization for DEI consulting and make-work sinecures. Personally I don't care as long as any prospective firefighters can quickly carry a 200 pound unconscious person out of a burning building. For some reason, I suspect that pool of qualified candidates skews male.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Better examples probably would have been garbage men, roofers, welders, plumbers, etc. And... if you were following any of those fields, you'd find gender inclusion is also an issue. Tech definitely gets more attention in a tech centric forum like HN, and usually (because $$) gets more attention from the general interest press, but the issues are everywhere, with fairly similar discussions.

cyclotron3k 3y ago

No need for the sarcasm and derision. Let's try to keep things civil.

leventonportera 3y ago
There was sarcasm, but there was no derision. There's nothing wrong with sarcasm - it is a common and civil tool of communication. Sarcastically stating the fact about an bad take in someone's comment - that it is a bad take - is not derision. would you prefer dry talk completely lacking emotion? There is chat with a computer for that - you are here communicating with people. Your take, is a bad take. Things are civil. They don't also need to look like two robots talking to an oven.

imiric 3y ago

Or, conversely, for the female-dominated fields: preschool teachers, nurses, hairdressers, etc. This whole endeavour to have equal representation of all genders in all aspects of life completely misses the mark that career choices and most life decisions are rooted in personal preferences and interests, and that on a fundamental level males and females (and other genders as well, I suppose) are different. And that this is OK. Not only that, but it doesn't address the main issues of discrimination and wage gap, but pretends it will somehow fix itself if we maintain a perfect balance of gender representation. And why stop there? Why focus on gender and race only? Shouldn't we also have equal representation of all nationalities, religions, hair colors, eye colors, and whatever other human criteria? The entire DEI trend is absurd, and ironically only serves to further divide us into arbitrary buckets.

greasephalanges 3y ago

True crime is that effeminate males are too shy to come out of the closet... Women are perhaps the closest distant group that gets undeserved presuppositions thinly-veiled and anecdotal pseudoscience. The point is that most non-labor intensive jobs don't have such a hard gender preference. Without the loss of generality, my family tree of Soviet citizens were able to be chemists, engineers, doctors, and now software devs just fine. I fail to recognise what IT or playing chess is different to warrant such a huge discrepancy, something doesn't add up. The fact that discriminating is short-sighted when it come to employment tells me of a deprecated conceptual model that I doubt can truly be resolved through fixing IT alone, to be blunt, the problem is old because the actions are ineffective.