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The article doesn't describe sexism, the article describes scarcity and demand: In Silicon Valley today it's not possible to hire more women simply by recruiti
by jerrya 14y ago
The article doesn't describe sexism, the article describes scarcity and demand:
In Silicon Valley today it's not possible to hire more women simply by recruiting them. Good engineers today have their pick of jobs, and good female engineers are being stalked like the last antelope on the African veldt.
Etsy's solution doesn't seem to be to stop sexism, Etsy's solution appears to be train more engineers, take a risk on junior women engineers out of Hacker School, and let their risk taking and boots on the ground approach serve as a signal to senior women engineers.
None of this is evidence of sexism in CS and engineering, it was a winning strategy to defeat scarcity.
- subsystem 14y agoThe argument is that sexism is what creates the scarcity in the first place. So by creating an environment where sexism is less of a factor you attract more women.
- enraged_camel 14y agoYep, exactly. By funding this training program Etsy signaled that they value women as much as they value men. As a result, a ton of women applied to the program and many of those ended up getting hired.
- Tichy 14y agoOr maybe it's just thast they paid for their education. Getting something for free could attract a lot of people. I also would like an update on the results in 5 years.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Tichy 14y agoThere is nothing in that experiment supporting that theory, though. So why push it anyway? How does people flocking to free education prove anything?
- subsystem 14y agoIf you can't see my point and want me to elaborate, ask like a normal civilized person and I might.
- Tichy 14y agoWhat didn't you like about the way I asked?
- subsystem 14y agoYou're asking a rhetorical question that insults my character by implying that I would fabricate a theory and then "push it" although I knew it was false. I'm fine with not being right or people having a different opinion, but don't insult me in the process. Your other question doesn't make sense since it's factually incorrect (hackers school was free before) and puts weight on only one factor. The incentive Etsy made for women to join hacker school was of course offsetting some other factors. I'm saying that sexism or something devolved from sexism is one of those other factors.
- Tichy 14y agoI didn't say you fabricated it, just that it doesn't follow from the story. That there was something to offset also doesn't imply sexism was in the mix of things to offset.
- subsystem 14y agoSee, you didn't actually say story, you said experiment. I wouldn't base my theories on a single story. Instead I've been following this experiment for a year, during which many of the people involved seem to think that sexism actually is one of the factors. Hacker school amended their policy with "no subtle sexism", the CTO of Etsy said that it was harder to hire great women because they tend to have a history of bad experience and one of the attendees, which was later hired by Etsy, specifically pointed out sexism as a problem within the tech community. This of course also make me think that sexism or, like I said, something devolved from sexism actually is a factor for women. It was at least definitely part of the experiment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4LExVkv4Pw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4LExVkv4Pw http://firstround.com/article/How-Etsy-Grew-their-Number-of-Female-Engineers-by-500-in-One-Year http://firstround.com/article/How-Etsy-Grew-their-Number-of-... http://marthakelly.github.com/blog/2013/03/10/an-open-letter-to-the-nashville-tech-community/ http://marthakelly.github.com/blog/2013/03/10/an-open-letter...