6 ms·

Has anyone applied the reverse argument to nursing? I'm getting sick of the gender argument to be honest. Sure, women in tech are a minority. Sure we'd all lik

by Peroni 14y ago

Has anyone applied the reverse argument to nursing? I'm getting sick of the gender argument to be honest. Sure, women in tech are a minority. Sure we'd all like to see more of a gender balance. However I have yet to see someone actively retarding that balance.

mimiflynn 14y ago
> Has anyone applied the reverse argument to nursing? Can you explain this further?
- Peroni 14y ago
  Sure. The general complaint is that tech is dominated by males. Conferences & meet-ups are sausage fests and the speaker line-up often all male. Female devs are considered a novelty and the term female dev is considered to be frustrating due to the term dev being appended by 'female'. Nursing is dominated by females. Male nurses are considered a novelty and men in the industry are almost always described as male nurses. Nursing is an insanely demanding career and requires tons of skill and training. Why aren't men posting in outrage about the gender disparity in nursing? Why can't it simply be accepted that programming is simply a career that tends to appeal to men more than women in the same way that nursing appeals to women more than men? There are arguments that women get paid less in tech. My direct experience with women in tech (and I have plenty) is that if anything, they tend to be better paid due to the fact that female devs are in high demand and I've yet to see proof, even anecdotal, proving otherwise. I've also yet to come across a single, official complaint of sexism in the workplace within the tech industry.
  - lindseybieda 14y ago
    Nursing is a reinforcing of traditional gender roles. It being female dominated is a bad thing to. This wasn't brought up here because this is about a girl who wants to be a programmer not a little boy that ways to be nurse. You know, I'm tried of this straw man (excuse me, straw person) being brought up every time someone talks about women in computing.
  - mimiflynn 14y ago
    The one male nurse I know did feel the need to post in facebook upon graduation that he felt being a male nurse was manly. Being a male in a mostly female environment is an advantage for him, though. He is physically stronger, yes, but, often, patients think he is a doctor and will take his direction without question in situations that female nurses find difficult. Being a female developer in gives me a disadvantage. If I am mistaken for anything, it is a graphic designer, a secretary, an assistant or an intern. Positions that are typically male are generally considered higher positions. When a man takes on a typically female position, they feel the need to prove the position to be 'manly'. When a female takes on a typically male position, they feel the need to prove themselves to be 'manly'.
    - Peroni 14y ago
      Being a female developer gives you a disadvantage by being mistaken for another, equally respectable professional. Being a female developer gives you an advantage by having employers instantly agree to interview you in the hopes that your talent is enough to warrant a place on their team and simultaneously help dilute the male dominance in their company.
      - mimiflynn 14y ago
        The point is that I am never assumed to be a developer. I don't know of any developer having a hard time finding interviews right now, btw. The industry is in desparate need of more developers.
      - mnicole 14y ago
        > Being a female developer gives you an advantage by having employers instantly agree to interview you Wrong. > in the hopes that your talent is enough to warrant a place Offensive. The gate swings both ways here; getting an interview as a woman isn't any easier than getting one as a man at any place worth working in this industry, especially right now when the demand for quality is high. If they're lowering standards for their female candidates, that hurts the business and the people alike. Etsy is doing it because they know they can ramp those engineers up with their existing staff without putting their business at risk, so more power to them if they're able to solve both problems at once and have it work to their (and everyone's) advantage long-term. If a company does it for the sole purpose of trying to balance things out without consideration of how it could affect both production and morale, they'll sabotage themselves and further underscore the argument that women aren't as competent to begin with.
  - wilkie 14y ago
    > Female devs are considered a novelty and the term female dev is considered to be frustrating due to the term dev being appended by 'female'. The amount of active segregation is indeed frustrating. > Why can't it simply be accepted that programming is simply a career that tends to appeal to men more than women in the same way that nursing appeals to women more than men? Because programming was a field dominated by women until established as an academic field. Afterward, even then it saw a unprecedented rise in women in the 80s only to be followed by a sharp decline while every other math/science field had continued to rise: http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/spring07a.pdf http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/spring07a.pdf You may fault the following as this is purely rhetorical albeit reasonable, but I find it difficult to believe that thousands of women who would have potentially studied the field suddenly decided upon a generational line that CS is an uninteresting pursuit. I align myself with Sapna Cheryan's conclusions of the stereotype threat in computer science as an explanation. > I've also yet to come across a single, official complaint of sexism in the workplace within the tech industry. I've come across many. The vast majority of aggressions I've witnessed go completely unnoticed and unreported among those that could do something about them.
jeremysmyth 14y ago
It's a bigger problem than that, unfortunately. There are, for better or for worse, traditionally male roles, and traditionally female roles. The argument (as you suggest) seems to go in one direction only - why aren't there more female (developers|CEOs|politicians)? The problems are more complex: 1) One problem is related to the fact that society values male roles more than female. A traditional skilled "female" role earns considerably less than a similarly qualified "male" role. While this isn't immediately relevant to the current conversation, it crops up along with the "glass ceiling" argument about CEOs and other high-status traditionally male roles. 2) Another, and the one typified in the OP, is the mockery or prejudice that applies from men to those who take jobs in roles more typical of the opposite gender. You know the jokes about male hairdressers, and male nurses also have to overcome such jokes. The jokes that females in typically male roles have to overcome are similarly well known, and even less palatable. Personally, I don't care about gender balance, numerically at least: I don't think the world needs more male nurses or hairdressers, or female developers or construction workers (more power to them if they want to do it though). I do think the world needs to accept (without orthogonal prejudice) when they make the choice and try as hard as I did when I started out in this career.
- leovingi 14y ago
  I have always found that the argument of pay inequality doesn't really make any economical sense. If a woman is as qualified as a man, yet is ready to work for less pay, wouldn't that be an incentive to hire loads of women? And if someone, regardless of gender, is OK with the salary they are being offered, why should anyone else care if a separate group of people, who have also accepted the salaries they got offered, are earning more?
  - UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
    Pay inequality does exist but it is mostly used in an intentionally misleading way to "prove" the extent of sexism/discrimination. There is pay inequality caused by "unknown factors" (potentially including sexism) of around 5%. The rest of the pay differential is caused by known factors (e.g. taking time out of work for children, career choices, etc). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga...
lindseybieda 14y ago
There's a lot of factors retarding the balance. There's been a number of studies on it. There's the stereotype threat and the common notion that women are bad a math. There's been a number of sexist comments and incidents within the field (http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents). There's even a study the correlates geek culture with keeping women out. There's this thing called the patriarchy, you mighta heard of it. It's not something as clear as the things above, esp. if you have become comfortable within the system. However, it is there. There's subtle unconscious biases from both men and women inside the field (as observed in this study http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract). Is that enough to convince you? Or do you need more, because there really is an abundance of data to support this.
tedks 14y ago
If you actually read the article, you can see how some of the statements might apply to nursing (there might be short lines for the men's room at nursing conferences), but many clearly don't. Some examples: * Male nurses will not be told "good for you" by someone finding out their profession. * Male nurses are not assumed to be secretaries in meetings. * Male nurses won't be judged by their body over their skill -- and as a result, they won't face cognitive impairments because of internalized objectification[1][2][3][4][5]. * Male nurses will not be perceived as "bitches" if they are competent at their job -- and they will not be perceived as incompetent if they attempt to be likable[6]. * Male nurses are not paid less, on average, than female nurses[7]. By ignoring these very tangible and well-demonstrated barriers to entry for women in a wide variety of careers (any of the above arguments apply to women attempting to be lawyers, doctors, or executives in addition to being "in tech" as you put it), you are minimizing women's lived experiences of these effects, and you are retarding the balance. [1] http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/30/1/59.short http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/30/1/59.short [2] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-006-9140-x?LI=true http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-006-9140-x... [3] That swimsuit becomes you: sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of personality and social psychology [0022-3514] Fredrickson yr:1998 vol:75 iss:1 pg:269 [4] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ASERS.0000032306.20462.22?LI=true http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ASERS.00000323... [5] http://www.sanchezlab.com/pdfs/FredricksonRoberts.pdf http://www.sanchezlab.com/pdfs/FredricksonRoberts.pdf [6] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0022-4537.2004.00381.x/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0022-4537.2004.... [7] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2009.00600.x/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2009....
- Peroni 14y ago
  1. I did read the article. Twice actually because I know this is a contentious issue and I wanted to ensure I wasn't missing the point. 2. Your source for #7 is ridiculous. There is absolutely zero proof that female programmers are paid less than males. My career is dedicated to helping programmers find work (both male and female) and my own direct experience with the thousands of people and companies I've worked with points to the fact that female programmers are paid more than average simply because companies are willing to shell out a bit more for a female dev in order to avoid the label of having a male dominated workplace.

by Peroni 14y ago

mimiflynn 14y ago

> Has anyone applied the reverse argument to nursing? Can you explain this further?

Peroni 14y ago
Sure. The general complaint is that tech is dominated by males. Conferences & meet-ups are sausage fests and the speaker line-up often all male. Female devs are considered a novelty and the term female dev is considered to be frustrating due to the term dev being appended by 'female'. Nursing is dominated by females. Male nurses are considered a novelty and men in the industry are almost always described as male nurses. Nursing is an insanely demanding career and requires tons of skill and training. Why aren't men posting in outrage about the gender disparity in nursing? Why can't it simply be accepted that programming is simply a career that tends to appeal to men more than women in the same way that nursing appeals to women more than men? There are arguments that women get paid less in tech. My direct experience with women in tech (and I have plenty) is that if anything, they tend to be better paid due to the fact that female devs are in high demand and I've yet to see proof, even anecdotal, proving otherwise. I've also yet to come across a single, official complaint of sexism in the workplace within the tech industry.
- lindseybieda 14y ago
  Nursing is a reinforcing of traditional gender roles. It being female dominated is a bad thing to. This wasn't brought up here because this is about a girl who wants to be a programmer not a little boy that ways to be nurse. You know, I'm tried of this straw man (excuse me, straw person) being brought up every time someone talks about women in computing.
- mimiflynn 14y ago
  The one male nurse I know did feel the need to post in facebook upon graduation that he felt being a male nurse was manly. Being a male in a mostly female environment is an advantage for him, though. He is physically stronger, yes, but, often, patients think he is a doctor and will take his direction without question in situations that female nurses find difficult. Being a female developer in gives me a disadvantage. If I am mistaken for anything, it is a graphic designer, a secretary, an assistant or an intern. Positions that are typically male are generally considered higher positions. When a man takes on a typically female position, they feel the need to prove the position to be 'manly'. When a female takes on a typically male position, they feel the need to prove themselves to be 'manly'.
  - Peroni 14y ago
    Being a female developer gives you a disadvantage by being mistaken for another, equally respectable professional. Being a female developer gives you an advantage by having employers instantly agree to interview you in the hopes that your talent is enough to warrant a place on their team and simultaneously help dilute the male dominance in their company.
    - mimiflynn 14y ago
      The point is that I am never assumed to be a developer. I don't know of any developer having a hard time finding interviews right now, btw. The industry is in desparate need of more developers.
    - mnicole 14y ago
      > Being a female developer gives you an advantage by having employers instantly agree to interview you Wrong. > in the hopes that your talent is enough to warrant a place Offensive. The gate swings both ways here; getting an interview as a woman isn't any easier than getting one as a man at any place worth working in this industry, especially right now when the demand for quality is high. If they're lowering standards for their female candidates, that hurts the business and the people alike. Etsy is doing it because they know they can ramp those engineers up with their existing staff without putting their business at risk, so more power to them if they're able to solve both problems at once and have it work to their (and everyone's) advantage long-term. If a company does it for the sole purpose of trying to balance things out without consideration of how it could affect both production and morale, they'll sabotage themselves and further underscore the argument that women aren't as competent to begin with.
- wilkie 14y ago
  > Female devs are considered a novelty and the term female dev is considered to be frustrating due to the term dev being appended by 'female'. The amount of active segregation is indeed frustrating. > Why can't it simply be accepted that programming is simply a career that tends to appeal to men more than women in the same way that nursing appeals to women more than men? Because programming was a field dominated by women until established as an academic field. Afterward, even then it saw a unprecedented rise in women in the 80s only to be followed by a sharp decline while every other math/science field had continued to rise: http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/spring07a.pdf http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/spring07a.pdf You may fault the following as this is purely rhetorical albeit reasonable, but I find it difficult to believe that thousands of women who would have potentially studied the field suddenly decided upon a generational line that CS is an uninteresting pursuit. I align myself with Sapna Cheryan's conclusions of the stereotype threat in computer science as an explanation. > I've also yet to come across a single, official complaint of sexism in the workplace within the tech industry. I've come across many. The vast majority of aggressions I've witnessed go completely unnoticed and unreported among those that could do something about them.

jeremysmyth 14y ago

It's a bigger problem than that, unfortunately. There are, for better or for worse, traditionally male roles, and traditionally female roles. The argument (as you suggest) seems to go in one direction only - why aren't there more female (developers|CEOs|politicians)? The problems are more complex: 1) One problem is related to the fact that society values male roles more than female. A traditional skilled "female" role earns considerably less than a similarly qualified "male" role. While this isn't immediately relevant to the current conversation, it crops up along with the "glass ceiling" argument about CEOs and other high-status traditionally male roles. 2) Another, and the one typified in the OP, is the mockery or prejudice that applies from men to those who take jobs in roles more typical of the opposite gender. You know the jokes about male hairdressers, and male nurses also have to overcome such jokes. The jokes that females in typically male roles have to overcome are similarly well known, and even less palatable. Personally, I don't care about gender balance, numerically at least: I don't think the world needs more male nurses or hairdressers, or female developers or construction workers (more power to them if they want to do it though). I do think the world needs to accept (without orthogonal prejudice) when they make the choice and try as hard as I did when I started out in this career.

leovingi 14y ago
I have always found that the argument of pay inequality doesn't really make any economical sense. If a woman is as qualified as a man, yet is ready to work for less pay, wouldn't that be an incentive to hire loads of women? And if someone, regardless of gender, is OK with the salary they are being offered, why should anyone else care if a separate group of people, who have also accepted the salaries they got offered, are earning more?
- UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
  Pay inequality does exist but it is mostly used in an intentionally misleading way to "prove" the extent of sexism/discrimination. There is pay inequality caused by "unknown factors" (potentially including sexism) of around 5%. The rest of the pay differential is caused by known factors (e.g. taking time out of work for children, career choices, etc). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga...

lindseybieda 14y ago

There's a lot of factors retarding the balance. There's been a number of studies on it. There's the stereotype threat and the common notion that women are bad a math. There's been a number of sexist comments and incidents within the field (http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents). There's even a study the correlates geek culture with keeping women out. There's this thing called the patriarchy, you mighta heard of it. It's not something as clear as the things above, esp. if you have become comfortable within the system. However, it is there. There's subtle unconscious biases from both men and women inside the field (as observed in this study http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract). Is that enough to convince you? Or do you need more, because there really is an abundance of data to support this.

tedks 14y ago

If you actually read the article, you can see how some of the statements might apply to nursing (there might be short lines for the men's room at nursing conferences), but many clearly don't. Some examples: * Male nurses will not be told "good for you" by someone finding out their profession. * Male nurses are not assumed to be secretaries in meetings. * Male nurses won't be judged by their body over their skill -- and as a result, they won't face cognitive impairments because of internalized objectification[1][2][3][4][5]. * Male nurses will not be perceived as "bitches" if they are competent at their job -- and they will not be perceived as incompetent if they attempt to be likable[6]. * Male nurses are not paid less, on average, than female nurses[7]. By ignoring these very tangible and well-demonstrated barriers to entry for women in a wide variety of careers (any of the above arguments apply to women attempting to be lawyers, doctors, or executives in addition to being "in tech" as you put it), you are minimizing women's lived experiences of these effects, and you are retarding the balance. [1] http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/30/1/59.short http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/30/1/59.short [2] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-006-9140-x?LI=true http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-006-9140-x... [3] That swimsuit becomes you: sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of personality and social psychology [0022-3514] Fredrickson yr:1998 vol:75 iss:1 pg:269 [4] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ASERS.0000032306.20462.22?LI=true http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ASERS.00000323... [5] http://www.sanchezlab.com/pdfs/FredricksonRoberts.pdf http://www.sanchezlab.com/pdfs/FredricksonRoberts.pdf [6] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0022-4537.2004.00381.x/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0022-4537.2004.... [7] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2009.00600.x/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2009....

Peroni 14y ago
1. I did read the article. Twice actually because I know this is a contentious issue and I wanted to ensure I wasn't missing the point. 2. Your source for #7 is ridiculous. There is absolutely zero proof that female programmers are paid less than males. My career is dedicated to helping programmers find work (both male and female) and my own direct experience with the thousands of people and companies I've worked with points to the fact that female programmers are paid more than average simply because companies are willing to shell out a bit more for a female dev in order to avoid the label of having a male dominated workplace.