5 ms·

This is a common topic of discussion on HN. I'll risk downvotes to create a discussion in a sometimes touchy subject. STEM fields aren't the only ones with la

by spodek 13y ago

This is a common topic of discussion on HN. I'll risk downvotes to create a discussion in a sometimes touchy subject. STEM fields aren't the only ones with large gender imbalances. Others include elementary school teaching, nursing, garbage collecting, road maintenance, and many others. Are there efforts to recruit men to become elementary school teachers on the scale to promote women in STEM field? Are there efforts to recruit women into construction and collecting garbage? Why or why not? I don't have the answers, although I don't think male-only scholarships exist to promote male teachers (though I think society would benefit from it) nor female-only apprenticeships to promote women going into construction or garbage collection (though I think society would benefit from it, and would probably result in making the fields safer). I'm curious what people say. If nothing else, if we find successes in some areas we may be able to replicate them in others.

DanBC 13y ago
> This is a common topic of discussion on HN. All of your questions have been answered, very many times, in all of those other threads.
Impossible 13y ago
There are efforts to recruit men as teachers, nurses, therapists and other female dominated professions. There are efforts to recruit women in construction. Garbage collection is seen as an undesirable job (for both men and women) so I don't think there are efforts to recruit anyone :).
- judk 13y ago
  Desirable jobs don't need to recruit, because they are desirable.
erikpukinskis 13y ago
> Are there efforts to recruit men to become elementary school teachers on the scale to promote women in STEM field? Are there efforts to recruit women into construction and collecting garbage? If there aren't there should be. The world is magic. Programming is amazing. Building houses is an incredibly powerful experience. Learning from someone who looks like you and knows more than you can be transformative. These are experiences that every person deserves, and any person of any race or gender, should they be interested in these experiences, deserves a shot at them. Any time we see a phenomenon breaking down along gender or race lines, when skin color and genitals are not involved, that's a red flag that people are being excluded for silly reasons.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Any time we see a phenomenon breaking down along gender or race lines, when skin color and genitals are not involved, that's a red flag that people are being excluded for silly reasons. Well that's a sweeping statement if I ever saw one. Are you prepared to stand behind it? I'll give you a moment to reconsider. Edit: Seriously, you all believe that any time there is a gender disparity not involving genitals, it is happening for "silly reasons"? There is not one job where gender-related phenotypes might naturally result in skewed distribution?
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    I have to agree with you here (mostly with the edit). Differences between genders do not boil down to just the shape of the genitals; there are significant physical and psychological differences, so it is only to be expected that there will be gender disparities occuring. It seems to me that the very talk about sexism is starting to be a "silly reason" for changing things.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Yeah, I admit the comment pre-edit was pretty snarky. The edit expanded on what I was referring to.
    - erikpukinskis 13y ago
      There are certainly differences between the sexes beyond genitals. But that's not the hypothesis that's being pushed. The hypothesis being pushed is "the percentage of programmers is skewed because of genetic differences between men and women" The trouble is no evidence, nor can I even imagine a study that could gather evidence, which could validate that hypothesis over this one: "the percentage of programmers is skewed because of differences in how men and women are treated" Maybe you don't care about having scientific evidence for your belief and it's coming from elsewhere. I respect that... I think there are lots of valid ways of knowing and I'd be excited to hear about yours. But my strategy is to assume different "kinds" of people are equivalent unless there is some scientifically sound evidence to the contrary. And there is simply no solid evidence that genetic differences between men and women (or different races) are a factor in the kinds of distribution differences that we're talking about. Some people like to chain together a set of very tenuous conclusions from very shaky studies to support that idea, but for me as a scholar it just doesn't hold water.
mrxd 13y ago
I like Mike Monteiro's perspective: we have to give a hand up to the people who have been held down.
smtddr 13y ago
I'll jump into this touchy subject. The reason why there are not efforts to balance the other fields you mention is because of the "position of power"/"social prestige" of said jobs. I don't think anyone can debate that due to complicated social/economic issues, but significantly sexism/racism, the history of USA shows that jobs with power/prestige are usually held by white males. Oprah Winfrey crying at Obama's speech wouldn't of happened if Obama just became the first black garbage man. It was about the power/prestige of a black man being USA president. Sexism pretty much puts women as teachers & nurses and "men"(or society in general) is apparently fine with that. Road maintenance, garbage collection? Those are low-prestige & physical/dirty work. That's for minorities & men. Society(sexism) probably prevents most women from even considering those jobs and the few that do, I'm sure are greeted with an insane amount of inappropriate jokes/comments. Now, since positions of power/prestige tend to have a much greater impact on overall society, having some balance in those positions will help make products & laws more diverse to reflect the diverse society we're in. BTW, this is why I find it ridiculous the concept of exclusively men making laws on abortion. Anecdotal: When I was a kid, I had to take some kind of "development" test to see if I was generally progressing properly. I failed that test, the results stated things such as "No solid understanding of reality vs fantasy". My parents were livid. They went to school to complain. Turns out, a lot of parents were complaining. Also turns out, all the complaining parents were foreigners. And it also turned out that the questions on the test had a heavy assumption that you were an american child with american parents. I didn't know what a pizza was when I was a kid; that's one of the questions I bombed. My parents never got it for me; at least not yet. The school ended up having to put the test-questions through some kind of minority/foreign-parents verification process and re-do the tests for everyone.
- philwelch 13y ago
  Historically, programming was low-prestige as well.
  - belorn 13y ago
    And sysadmins are basically a combination of an janitor and mechanic that works on computers, keeping the lights working and the machine buzzing.
calibraxis 13y ago
You claim to "risk downvotes". Women like Kathy Sierra risk — no, get — death and assault threats against their families. (http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindness-weev-and-the-cult-of-the-angry-young-man http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes...) "I don't have the answers..." Well, evidence is but a google away. We might discover commonsense answers, like from the founder of MenTeach: "If you started paying teachers $150,000 per year, you'd see a lot of guys going into the field". (http://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage http://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage) I know many closeminded software devs who turn out bad product. Why would they turn down their cushy programming job, to be a deunionized elementary schoolteacher? And if we know that males dominate well-paying jobs like software dev... is it surprising that females get a higher proportion of lower-status jobs? The claim, "if we find successes in some areas we may be able to replicate them in others", doesn't map to the real world. When females couldn't serve jury duty, were males merely waiting for female jury-duty successes? Or did it require firm activism to force humanity to improve?
- Dewie 13y ago
  > "I don't have the answers..." Well, evidence is but a google away. We might discover commonsense answers, like from the founder of MenTeach: "If you started paying teachers $150,000 per year, you'd see a lot of guys going into the field". (http://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage http://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage) And who knows where he got that number from, based on that article. High school teachers are payed more than elementary teachers? Fine, but is that the only difference between teaching in elementary school and high school? Of course not. > I know many closeminded software devs who turn out bad product. Why would they turn down their cushy programming job, to be a deunionized elementary schoolteacher? And if we know that males dominate well-paying jobs like software dev... is it surprising that females get a higher proportion of lower-status jobs? Whether being a software developer is higher status than being a teacher is debatable. Teachers are seen as the people that mold the up and coming generations, by some. Programmers? More like the unseen maintenance workers of a subway station: as long as everything works as expected, no one cares. Well, they might appreciate some flashy mobile app these days, though. Women don't seem to have any problems pursuing careers as doctors and lawyers, professions with both good pay and status. While the those money-hungry men seem to be falling a little behind compared to them, either falling behind academically or quitting the academic route entirely, going into a more hands-on profession (that might be lucrative, or might 'break your back' prematurely, or both).
scott_s 13y ago
Please don't mention how you think people will vote on your comment. It essentially becomes a dare.

by spodek 13y ago

DanBC 13y ago

> This is a common topic of discussion on HN. All of your questions have been answered, very many times, in all of those other threads.

Impossible 13y ago

There are efforts to recruit men as teachers, nurses, therapists and other female dominated professions. There are efforts to recruit women in construction. Garbage collection is seen as an undesirable job (for both men and women) so I don't think there are efforts to recruit anyone :).

judk 13y ago
Desirable jobs don't need to recruit, because they are desirable.

erikpukinskis 13y ago

> Are there efforts to recruit men to become elementary school teachers on the scale to promote women in STEM field? Are there efforts to recruit women into construction and collecting garbage? If there aren't there should be. The world is magic. Programming is amazing. Building houses is an incredibly powerful experience. Learning from someone who looks like you and knows more than you can be transformative. These are experiences that every person deserves, and any person of any race or gender, should they be interested in these experiences, deserves a shot at them. Any time we see a phenomenon breaking down along gender or race lines, when skin color and genitals are not involved, that's a red flag that people are being excluded for silly reasons.

sliverstorm 13y ago
Any time we see a phenomenon breaking down along gender or race lines, when skin color and genitals are not involved, that's a red flag that people are being excluded for silly reasons. Well that's a sweeping statement if I ever saw one. Are you prepared to stand behind it? I'll give you a moment to reconsider. Edit: Seriously, you all believe that any time there is a gender disparity not involving genitals, it is happening for "silly reasons"? There is not one job where gender-related phenotypes might naturally result in skewed distribution?
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  I have to agree with you here (mostly with the edit). Differences between genders do not boil down to just the shape of the genitals; there are significant physical and psychological differences, so it is only to be expected that there will be gender disparities occuring. It seems to me that the very talk about sexism is starting to be a "silly reason" for changing things.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Yeah, I admit the comment pre-edit was pretty snarky. The edit expanded on what I was referring to.
  - erikpukinskis 13y ago
    There are certainly differences between the sexes beyond genitals. But that's not the hypothesis that's being pushed. The hypothesis being pushed is "the percentage of programmers is skewed because of genetic differences between men and women" The trouble is no evidence, nor can I even imagine a study that could gather evidence, which could validate that hypothesis over this one: "the percentage of programmers is skewed because of differences in how men and women are treated" Maybe you don't care about having scientific evidence for your belief and it's coming from elsewhere. I respect that... I think there are lots of valid ways of knowing and I'd be excited to hear about yours. But my strategy is to assume different "kinds" of people are equivalent unless there is some scientifically sound evidence to the contrary. And there is simply no solid evidence that genetic differences between men and women (or different races) are a factor in the kinds of distribution differences that we're talking about. Some people like to chain together a set of very tenuous conclusions from very shaky studies to support that idea, but for me as a scholar it just doesn't hold water.

mrxd 13y ago

I like Mike Monteiro's perspective: we have to give a hand up to the people who have been held down.

smtddr 13y ago

I'll jump into this touchy subject. The reason why there are not efforts to balance the other fields you mention is because of the "position of power"/"social prestige" of said jobs. I don't think anyone can debate that due to complicated social/economic issues, but significantly sexism/racism, the history of USA shows that jobs with power/prestige are usually held by white males. Oprah Winfrey crying at Obama's speech wouldn't of happened if Obama just became the first black garbage man. It was about the power/prestige of a black man being USA president. Sexism pretty much puts women as teachers & nurses and "men"(or society in general) is apparently fine with that. Road maintenance, garbage collection? Those are low-prestige & physical/dirty work. That's for minorities & men. Society(sexism) probably prevents most women from even considering those jobs and the few that do, I'm sure are greeted with an insane amount of inappropriate jokes/comments. Now, since positions of power/prestige tend to have a much greater impact on overall society, having some balance in those positions will help make products & laws more diverse to reflect the diverse society we're in. BTW, this is why I find it ridiculous the concept of exclusively men making laws on abortion. Anecdotal: When I was a kid, I had to take some kind of "development" test to see if I was generally progressing properly. I failed that test, the results stated things such as "No solid understanding of reality vs fantasy". My parents were livid. They went to school to complain. Turns out, a lot of parents were complaining. Also turns out, all the complaining parents were foreigners. And it also turned out that the questions on the test had a heavy assumption that you were an american child with american parents. I didn't know what a pizza was when I was a kid; that's one of the questions I bombed. My parents never got it for me; at least not yet. The school ended up having to put the test-questions through some kind of minority/foreign-parents verification process and re-do the tests for everyone.

philwelch 13y ago
Historically, programming was low-prestige as well.
- belorn 13y ago
  And sysadmins are basically a combination of an janitor and mechanic that works on computers, keeping the lights working and the machine buzzing.

calibraxis 13y ago

You claim to "risk downvotes". Women like Kathy Sierra risk — no, get — death and assault threats against their families. (http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindness-weev-and-the-cult-of-the-angry-young-man http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes...) "I don't have the answers..." Well, evidence is but a google away. We might discover commonsense answers, like from the founder of MenTeach: "If you started paying teachers $150,000 per year, you'd see a lot of guys going into the field". (http://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage http://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage) I know many closeminded software devs who turn out bad product. Why would they turn down their cushy programming job, to be a deunionized elementary schoolteacher? And if we know that males dominate well-paying jobs like software dev... is it surprising that females get a higher proportion of lower-status jobs? The claim, "if we find successes in some areas we may be able to replicate them in others", doesn't map to the real world. When females couldn't serve jury duty, were males merely waiting for female jury-duty successes? Or did it require firm activism to force humanity to improve?

Dewie 13y ago
> "I don't have the answers..." Well, evidence is but a google away. We might discover commonsense answers, like from the founder of MenTeach: "If you started paying teachers $150,000 per year, you'd see a lot of guys going into the field". (http://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage http://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage) And who knows where he got that number from, based on that article. High school teachers are payed more than elementary teachers? Fine, but is that the only difference between teaching in elementary school and high school? Of course not. > I know many closeminded software devs who turn out bad product. Why would they turn down their cushy programming job, to be a deunionized elementary schoolteacher? And if we know that males dominate well-paying jobs like software dev... is it surprising that females get a higher proportion of lower-status jobs? Whether being a software developer is higher status than being a teacher is debatable. Teachers are seen as the people that mold the up and coming generations, by some. Programmers? More like the unseen maintenance workers of a subway station: as long as everything works as expected, no one cares. Well, they might appreciate some flashy mobile app these days, though. Women don't seem to have any problems pursuing careers as doctors and lawyers, professions with both good pay and status. While the those money-hungry men seem to be falling a little behind compared to them, either falling behind academically or quitting the academic route entirely, going into a more hands-on profession (that might be lucrative, or might 'break your back' prematurely, or both).

scott_s 13y ago

Please don't mention how you think people will vote on your comment. It essentially becomes a dare.