One thing that came out of the discussion in the last article on this topic, was the people who support this kind of affirmative action were very interested in

One thing that came out of the discussion in the last article on this topic, was the people who support this kind of affirmative action were very interested in hearing from HN posters who opposed it (especially men), so they could understand what our reasons were, and a respectful discussion could be had. In response to this request, here is my opinion on the matter. In fact, I think there is truth to what both sides say. On the pro AA side, it is true that women probably feel unwelcome in the tech industry. Even when men don't do anything consciously to exclude women, programming culture revolves around certain attitudes and mindsets that are associated with young men in our culture. E.g. being interested in science fiction, being obsessive about one's work and hobbies, . None of these things are strictly related to programming, and an excessive focus on them makes it harder for women (and minorities) to enter the field. The fact that male programmers are attracted to the minority of female programmers doesn't help with this feeling of unwelcomeness, in fact it adds to the awkwardness (although I think that most of this is completely innocent and could not be called harassment, and actual harassment is rarer in our industry than others). On the anti-AA side, I think that women, due to reverse-discrimination and old fashion chivalry, are objectively advantaged in every field. Furthermore, some things that would seem to advantage men like long hours, stressful work, and being judged on results, are not bad or discriminatory in themselves. But they will tend to favor men over women because our society provides greater incentives for men to obtain money and positions of power. When people talk about work life balance, what they really mean is that the industry should stop providing people with an opportunity to advance their career by putting in extra time and effort. Thank you for hearing my opinions on the issue, and I hope more people who oppose AA will answer the call to explain their viewpoints.