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It is brilliant to see a move forward to recognising that there are women in technology and they provide as good a contribution as everybody else, BUT, Is cre

It is brilliant to see a move forward to recognising that there are women in technology and they provide as good a contribution as everybody else, BUT, Is creating a specific, segregated, event/group really the way forward or is it just creating a greater divide in the tech community along gender lines? What would really need to be done is look properly into why there is a disproportionate number of men versus women who go into technology, rather than introduce yet more segregation. I do not believe that there is an event/group out there currently that would place any sort of restriction, intentional or otherwise, on female entry.

AlexandrB 14y ago
> What would really need to be done is look properly into why there is a disproportionate number of men versus women who go into technology, rather than introduce yet more segregation. This isn't some big mystery. At least one reason that women don't enter technology fields is a lack of female role-models. Another is societal pressure that dictates that women are bad at technology. Technology conferences focusing on women aren't just for the participants, they help counteract these two forces by giving visibility to notable women in tech. http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.ca/2006/03/women-need-female-role-models.html http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.ca/2006/03/women-need-fe... http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-03/21/where-have-all-the-women-gone http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-03/21/where-have-al...
- recuter 14y ago
  What role models did Grace Hopper have? And I can only speak for myself but I was never drawn to 'technology' out of having famous neckbeards or Jobs or Gates and so forth as role models. You have to ask why women are more under represented in this particular field than others which used to be just as male dominated in the past. But people don't like to think about such deep large hairy societal problems. None of this is to say that what's described in the OP is a bad thing.
  - ceejayoz 14y ago
    > What role models did Grace Hopper have? This is a fallacy. Just because one person managed to surmount the lack of role models doesn't mean it isn't an issue. > And I can only speak for myself but I was never drawn to 'technology' out of having famous neckbeards or Jobs or Gates and so forth as role models. That's nice, but I don't see how your personal motivations are relevant on an industry-wide scale.
  - Permit 14y ago
    >And I can only speak for myself but I was never drawn to 'technology' out of having famous neckbeards or Jobs or Gates and so forth as role models. You may not have been drawn to it because of Jobs or Gates, but you never once looked at the field of technology and thought "People who look at me don't do this". That is, you never felt deterred because of the people who dominated the field. Scott Hanselman recently hosted Kyla McMullen (first black female Ph.D out of UMichigan) on his podcast where she shed some perspective on how difficult it feels to break into tech when no one looks like you and it feels like you don't belong. I enjoyed it a lot, and maybe you might too. http://hanselminutes.com/357/dr-kyla-mcmullen-on-diversity-in-computer-science-and-spatial-audio http://hanselminutes.com/357/dr-kyla-mcmullen-on-diversity-i...
    - recuter 14y ago
      > but you never once looked at the field of technology and thought "People who look at me don't do this". That is, you never felt deterred because of the people who dominated the field. That's a rather huge assumption on your part. > That's nice, but I don't see how your personal motivations are relevant on an industry-wide scale. I don't think my personal motivations are relevant on an industry-wide scale, that was my point to begin with. Like I said, the OP is hardly a bad thing, by all means, try. I hope it helps somebody. In my opinion it is treating the symptoms and not the disease.
  - querulous 14y ago
    Ada Lovelace
- nocm 14y ago
  Maybe we should just fix this need for superficially similar role models which some people suffer from.
dwb 14y ago
Yes it is a way forward, as explained in the blog post under the section "Why?". And there is clearly unintentional restriction, otherwise we wouldn't need this in the first place.
fishtoaster 14y ago
I think their "Why" section addresses this pretty well: they believe one of the underlying reasons there aren't more women in tech is the lack of visibility for women already there: young women see a male dominated field and feel like they're not welcome, and so perpetuate the problem. By highlighting the existing women in tech, more young women will feel welcome there.

AlexandrB 14y ago

> What would really need to be done is look properly into why there is a disproportionate number of men versus women who go into technology, rather than introduce yet more segregation. This isn't some big mystery. At least one reason that women don't enter technology fields is a lack of female role-models. Another is societal pressure that dictates that women are bad at technology. Technology conferences focusing on women aren't just for the participants, they help counteract these two forces by giving visibility to notable women in tech. http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.ca/2006/03/women-need-female-role-models.html http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.ca/2006/03/women-need-fe... http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-03/21/where-have-all-the-women-gone http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-03/21/where-have-al...

recuter 14y ago
What role models did Grace Hopper have? And I can only speak for myself but I was never drawn to 'technology' out of having famous neckbeards or Jobs or Gates and so forth as role models. You have to ask why women are more under represented in this particular field than others which used to be just as male dominated in the past. But people don't like to think about such deep large hairy societal problems. None of this is to say that what's described in the OP is a bad thing.
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  > What role models did Grace Hopper have? This is a fallacy. Just because one person managed to surmount the lack of role models doesn't mean it isn't an issue. > And I can only speak for myself but I was never drawn to 'technology' out of having famous neckbeards or Jobs or Gates and so forth as role models. That's nice, but I don't see how your personal motivations are relevant on an industry-wide scale.
- Permit 14y ago
  >And I can only speak for myself but I was never drawn to 'technology' out of having famous neckbeards or Jobs or Gates and so forth as role models. You may not have been drawn to it because of Jobs or Gates, but you never once looked at the field of technology and thought "People who look at me don't do this". That is, you never felt deterred because of the people who dominated the field. Scott Hanselman recently hosted Kyla McMullen (first black female Ph.D out of UMichigan) on his podcast where she shed some perspective on how difficult it feels to break into tech when no one looks like you and it feels like you don't belong. I enjoyed it a lot, and maybe you might too. http://hanselminutes.com/357/dr-kyla-mcmullen-on-diversity-in-computer-science-and-spatial-audio http://hanselminutes.com/357/dr-kyla-mcmullen-on-diversity-i...
  - recuter 14y ago
    > but you never once looked at the field of technology and thought "People who look at me don't do this". That is, you never felt deterred because of the people who dominated the field. That's a rather huge assumption on your part. > That's nice, but I don't see how your personal motivations are relevant on an industry-wide scale. I don't think my personal motivations are relevant on an industry-wide scale, that was my point to begin with. Like I said, the OP is hardly a bad thing, by all means, try. I hope it helps somebody. In my opinion it is treating the symptoms and not the disease.
- querulous 14y ago
  Ada Lovelace
nocm 14y ago
Maybe we should just fix this need for superficially similar role models which some people suffer from.

dwb 14y ago

Yes it is a way forward, as explained in the blog post under the section "Why?". And there is clearly unintentional restriction, otherwise we wouldn't need this in the first place.

fishtoaster 14y ago

I think their "Why" section addresses this pretty well: they believe one of the underlying reasons there aren't more women in tech is the lack of visibility for women already there: young women see a male dominated field and feel like they're not welcome, and so perpetuate the problem. By highlighting the existing women in tech, more young women will feel welcome there.