8 ms·

This is such a difficult topic. When I started my undergraduate in CompSci, the department of 300 students had exactly 3 women. The faculty had way more female

by elric 2y ago

This is such a difficult topic. When I started my undergraduate in CompSci, the department of 300 students had exactly 3 women. The faculty had way more female instructors than it did students. The Commucation Sciences department, which was on the same campus, had the inverse student population. I'm all in favour for letting students making their own study (and career) choices, but when the imbalance is this great, I can't but help think that valuable perspectives are lost. And that's just looking at the sexes, that doesn't even take into account what could be gained from interacting with folks with different socio-economic backgrounds, who were equally underrepresented. Trying to keep barriers for entry low seems worth while. Organizations which help people break into non-traditional fields (for their background/sex/whatever) also seem to be worth while. Funding them seems like a no brainer. This isn't limited to girls in tech. Also boys in nursing, poor kids in law school, brown kids in politics, whatever.

commandlinefan 2y ago
> Trying to keep barriers for entry low But the barrier is already low - you need to complete an undergraduate degree in a related field. That's it.
- elric 2y ago
  That might be technically true, but it's definitely not the whole story. Things like socioeconomic background can definitely be a high barrier. I can easily imagine kids (and especially girls) in poor families being severely restricted in their study choices.
- givemeethekeys 2y ago
  It is even lower. You don't need to complete an undergrad in CS to get a tech job.
ZoomerCretin 2y ago
> Trying to keep barriers for entry low seems worth while. With Section 174 (increasing business taxes on SWE salaries) + high interest rates, this is a big ask for US employers who loath hiring at the entry level in the best times. To me, the real problem seems to be solving US employers' unwillingness to hire anyone without experience, after which the rest (hiring underrepresented groups) will follow. But why would they do this when they have all the experienced and senior engineers they want? Is this not the exact problem DEI was created to solve, and is now being dismantled?
- xpl 2y ago
  > With Section 174 (increasing business taxes on SWE salaries) It looks like they’re going to fix it: https://abgi-usa.com/section174/latest-and-greatest https://abgi-usa.com/section174/latest-and-greatest
jimbokun 2y ago
[flagged]
- elric 2y ago
  > you seem to have very little curiosity into WHY those ratios are so skewed That's a weird take. How would you know what I'm curious about? Pardon the strawman, but I'm not interested in handwavy explanations which tend to border on bigotry ("$category simply isn't interested in $topic"). I suspect the fundamental reasons are myriad and complex, but that doesn't mean $field wouldn't benefit from more diversity. > It's impossible to change these distributions without understanding the underlying causes for how they got that way. Maybe, maybe not. The ratio is certainly a lot less skewed now than when I was a student over 20 years ago. My understanding (or lack thereof) certainly didn't have an impact, but throughout my career I have always tried to be supportive of people who are in some way different from me. Heterogeneity is a good thing. Monocultures result in weakness.
  - Sinthrill 2y ago
    They can tell you aren't a curious person from your use of punctuation. This is why I always add ;`'([] at the end of every sentence ;`'([]
  - jimbokun 2y ago
    > ("$category simply isn't interested in $topic"). First link that came up in my Google search: https://www.psypost.org/women-like-working-with-people-men-like-working-with-things-all-across-the-world/# https://www.psypost.org/women-like-working-with-people-men-l... It is almost certain that differences in interest play a large role in the different distributions of men and women in different occupations. The studies showing this are well known and I have not seen them debunked. Please note that labelling a claim with strong backing in empirical evidence "bigotry" does not magically change reality to conform with what you would like it to be. You need to produce actual evidence to the contrary.
    - cauch 2y ago
fennecbutt 2y ago
Or completely invisible (well mostly) perspectives based on sexuality, etc as well. There's pretty much never been a call for more diversity in terms of queer developers that I've seen. Even at my current job, women in tech is a big thing that we try to do a lot about, but I feel scared to bring up that there's more to diversity than race and gender.
exadeci 2y ago
My high school back in France was offering 1000euros each to girls who'd pick STEMs for the last 2 years of their studies and had 12/20 or more on their final exam. Out of 200 girls 2 picked it, there's only so much you can do but the truth is most women prefer to work with people.
- badgersnake 2y ago
  Working with people is pretty important in tech.

by elric 2y ago

commandlinefan 2y ago

> Trying to keep barriers for entry low But the barrier is already low - you need to complete an undergraduate degree in a related field. That's it.

elric 2y ago
That might be technically true, but it's definitely not the whole story. Things like socioeconomic background can definitely be a high barrier. I can easily imagine kids (and especially girls) in poor families being severely restricted in their study choices.
givemeethekeys 2y ago
It is even lower. You don't need to complete an undergrad in CS to get a tech job.

ZoomerCretin 2y ago

> Trying to keep barriers for entry low seems worth while. With Section 174 (increasing business taxes on SWE salaries) + high interest rates, this is a big ask for US employers who loath hiring at the entry level in the best times. To me, the real problem seems to be solving US employers' unwillingness to hire anyone without experience, after which the rest (hiring underrepresented groups) will follow. But why would they do this when they have all the experienced and senior engineers they want? Is this not the exact problem DEI was created to solve, and is now being dismantled?

xpl 2y ago
> With Section 174 (increasing business taxes on SWE salaries) It looks like they’re going to fix it: https://abgi-usa.com/section174/latest-and-greatest https://abgi-usa.com/section174/latest-and-greatest

jimbokun 2y ago

[flagged]

elric 2y ago
> you seem to have very little curiosity into WHY those ratios are so skewed That's a weird take. How would you know what I'm curious about? Pardon the strawman, but I'm not interested in handwavy explanations which tend to border on bigotry ("$category simply isn't interested in $topic"). I suspect the fundamental reasons are myriad and complex, but that doesn't mean $field wouldn't benefit from more diversity. > It's impossible to change these distributions without understanding the underlying causes for how they got that way. Maybe, maybe not. The ratio is certainly a lot less skewed now than when I was a student over 20 years ago. My understanding (or lack thereof) certainly didn't have an impact, but throughout my career I have always tried to be supportive of people who are in some way different from me. Heterogeneity is a good thing. Monocultures result in weakness.
- Sinthrill 2y ago
  They can tell you aren't a curious person from your use of punctuation. This is why I always add ;`'([] at the end of every sentence ;`'([]
- jimbokun 2y ago
  > ("$category simply isn't interested in $topic"). First link that came up in my Google search: https://www.psypost.org/women-like-working-with-people-men-like-working-with-things-all-across-the-world/# https://www.psypost.org/women-like-working-with-people-men-l... It is almost certain that differences in interest play a large role in the different distributions of men and women in different occupations. The studies showing this are well known and I have not seen them debunked. Please note that labelling a claim with strong backing in empirical evidence "bigotry" does not magically change reality to conform with what you would like it to be. You need to produce actual evidence to the contrary.
  - cauch 2y ago

fennecbutt 2y ago

Or completely invisible (well mostly) perspectives based on sexuality, etc as well. There's pretty much never been a call for more diversity in terms of queer developers that I've seen. Even at my current job, women in tech is a big thing that we try to do a lot about, but I feel scared to bring up that there's more to diversity than race and gender.

exadeci 2y ago

My high school back in France was offering 1000euros each to girls who'd pick STEMs for the last 2 years of their studies and had 12/20 or more on their final exam. Out of 200 girls 2 picked it, there's only so much you can do but the truth is most women prefer to work with people.

badgersnake 2y ago
Working with people is pretty important in tech.