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> 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.
      - papsosouid 14y ago
        >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. Your second statement does not follow from the first. If we get 10 resumes of people who seem competent, any of them is likely to be fine. The ones who get interviewed are the ones who get hired. The fact that company policy is "all female applicants are to be interviewed" means we hire more women. Our standards aren't lowered as a result, we still don't hire incompetent women. The effect on the company isn't to lower standards, it is just to hire more women. The effect on women who apply is that they are far more likely to get a job than a man who applies.
- 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.

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.
    - papsosouid 14y ago
      >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. Your second statement does not follow from the first. If we get 10 resumes of people who seem competent, any of them is likely to be fine. The ones who get interviewed are the ones who get hired. The fact that company policy is "all female applicants are to be interviewed" means we hire more women. Our standards aren't lowered as a result, we still don't hire incompetent women. The effect on the company isn't to lower standards, it is just to hire more women. The effect on women who apply is that they are far more likely to get a job than a man who applies.
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.