3 ms·
"If we met the utopian ideal we toss around in blog posts, we’d still have lots of middle-aged women in this field. We’d have black people. We’d have Asian peop
by kolektiv 14y ago
"If we met the utopian ideal we toss around in blog posts, we’d still have lots of middle-aged women in this field. We’d have black people. We’d have Asian people – not a smattering, but a majority, cause the world is mostly Asian people."
Just had to pick up on this, purely because it's symptomatic of another form of blindness. We DO have Asian people. Go and look in Asia. There aren't many Asian programmers in companies in my current town because the demographic is not a small scale mirror of the world demographic. I wouldn't expect to find even 8% white guys in a programming office in Manila.
That's not to ignore the fact that certain sections of populations are, for whatever reason, dramatically underrepresented in companies in various prominent countries, but throwing around random meaningless soundbites like that doesn't help anyone's argument.
- jiggy2011 14y agoIt's also worth noting that female developers seem much more common in asian countries too.
- seanmcdirmid 14y agoBetter than the US, but not as much as you would think. Diversity hires in my office (in China for an American company) mean female, not even the various ethnic minorities that are a more than a bit underrepresented (I haven't met a Tibetan or Uighur programmer yet, but then we aren't out in West China).
- sopooneo 14y agoThat is new information for me. Anyone have any insight on why it would be the case?
- jiggy2011 14y agoI can't find any information to back it up so it's possible I'm wrong. I've noticed this most specifically with Indians though. If you look at Indian outsourcing shops that employ programmers there do tend to be more females than you would find in an equivalent western company. If I had to hazard a guess I think the "nerdy" stigma attached to CS is more of a western thing. Whereas in a growing economy a woman who can go out and compete with men is perhaps viewed as more empowered somehow?
- saraid216 14y ago> We DO have Asian people. Go and look in Asia. Middle-aged women, on the other hand. Since the article he's responding to is about sexism, that seems a little more salient.
- yahelc 14y ago>he's responding She.
- seanmcdirmid 14y agoLook at how many asian computer scientists there are in Seattle and the valley, or even NYC? This just baffles me, because Microsoft (my employer) is very diverse, I would bet that Asians make up a super minority if not a majority of the Redmond office. As for my own office in China, I think we have 1 or 2% Caucasian, maybe less. But to be honest, it doesn't feel that much different from the west coast.