4 ms·

Why is there such a clamor to get girls to code? I never hear anyone say "We need more female lumberjacks|roofers|trash collectors|pilots" despite those being m

by cowbell 12y ago

Why is there such a clamor to get girls to code? I never hear anyone say "We need more female lumberjacks|roofers|trash collectors|pilots" despite those being male dominated professions as well.

ceras 12y ago
Coding is much safer, comfortable, low-stress, well-paying, flexible (esp. for mothers), and employable than those jobs.
- wyager 12y ago
  >Coding is much safer, comfortable, low-stress, well-paying, flexible (esp. for mothers), and employable than those jobs. So we're back to the good ol' days of "women shouldn't do hard labor"?
  - vdaniuk 12y ago
    What a red herring. We're in a good future days of "nearly no one should do hard labor".
    - wyager 12y ago
      >What a red herring. I don't think that means what you think it means. Regardless, it seems strange to me that people are pushing for advertising coding to women in the name of gender equality, but then they seem not to care about the number of women in fields that aren't perceived so highly. I think it really throws their motivations into question.
      - vdaniuk 12y ago
        Perhaps, strawman would be a better characteristic of your post as you were trying to distort the argument of other party. And no, it doesn't seem strange to me that people are pushing women to learn coding. Coding skills provide great income, stability, mobility and independence. So yeah, thanks Google and others, who are trying to get more women in coding and increase their quality of life.
        wyager 12y ago
        >Coding skills provide great income, stability, mobility and independence. So why not try to make these skills more accessible to everyone?
        vdaniuk 12y ago
        Isn't it obvious? Adoption of skills depends on the ecosystem of practitioners. Empirically, we are observing that women do not copy social behavior of the male part of the ecosystem and do not engage the subject of programming/coding/compsci. We need to reach a threshold value, a tipping point where girls and women would see enough role models and would have enough support networks to progress in the technology industry. This may be achieved by reaching a critical mass and that is exactly what Google and others are doing.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
adrianN 12y ago
Similarly there is no drive to get more men into early childhood education or nursing.
- arikrak 12y ago
  Nurses can actually earn high salaries, but there are no nurse billionaires.
- andylei 12y ago
  a false statement. a simple google search shows that gender imbalance in nursing is something people care about.
- itafroma 12y ago
  > Similarly there is no drive to get more men into early childhood education or nursing. This is an oft-repeated canard in these discussions, but it's patently and demonstratively not true: getting men interested in nursing and ECE has been a large focus of those fields for years. Even a quick Google search would produce tons of information on various initiatives, studies, and scholarly articles, but here's a small sampling: http://aamn.org/ http://aamn.org/ http://web.jhu.edu/jhnmagazine/summer2009/features/men_in_nursing.html http://web.jhu.edu/jhnmagazine/summer2009/features/men_in_nu... https://www.discovernursing.com/men-in-nursing https://www.discovernursing.com/men-in-nursing http://folk.uio.no/olegmo/Men%20in%20Nursing/Evans%20J%201997.pdf http://folk.uio.no/olegmo/Men%20in%20Nursing/Evans%20J%20199... http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/12710806 http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/12710806 http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ618681 http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ618681 http://www.meninchildcare.co.uk/index.htm http://www.meninchildcare.co.uk/index.htm http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/61263553/male-preservice-teachers-discouragement-from-teaching http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/61263553/male-pre... http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1012564610349 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1012564610349
  - clockworkelf 12y ago
    People choose jobs that make more money. Engineering jobs pay more than ECE.
railsdude 12y ago
The cynic in me says that by increasing the number of programmers available they can pay less. The same reason, I believe, why FB is so keen about immigration.
- magicalist 12y ago
  This is seriously the dumbest theory yet in these threads. Maybe it's just making the rounds now? (it's not even the first time in this very discussion!) Not only would it be a horrible return on investment (and one that would take years to come to fruition), it's also never brought up about every other coding initiative out there. Let me know when you start bringing this up in every thread about corporate-sponsored hackathons, education events, scholarship programs, or just plain old "getting started" guides. Good news: I see three on the front page right now! I'll wait.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Anechoic 12y ago
I never hear anyone say "We need more female lumberjacks|roofers|trash collectors|pilots" There actually is a push to attack more female pilots, this for example: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2510471/British-Airways-drive-recruit-female-pilots.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2510471/British-Ai.... The fact you haven't heard of it probably means you don't follow that aviation market as closely as you do the tech market. WRT to lumberjacks/roofers/trash collectors, those are the jobs that are rapidly being automated out of existence, so it's not surprising that there isn't a lot of effort to attack women to a dying industry. But there is a push to train women heavy equipment operation and some other trades: http://www.heavyconstructionacademy.com/2012/01/19/women-thriving-heavy-equipment/ http://www.heavyconstructionacademy.com/2012/01/19/women-thr... http://www.womenbuildingfutures.com http://www.womenbuildingfutures.com We see the push for women in tech because it's a lucrative, growing field and that the lack of women in the field is caused in large part by various obstacles as indicated in any number of HN submittals. We'll see how it pans out.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Why is there such a clamor to get girls to code? From the side of people concerned about sex discrimination in society, because the perception that both the source and the effect of the problem is discrimination (on the source side, often subtle and potentially not conscious), which on the effect side leads to poorer range of opportunities and outcomes for females with similar natural abilities. From the employer side, because programming is a high-cost labor pool and increasing the supply is expected to drive down the market clearing price, and because it is believed that (largely because the employer side sees the source as not too different from the discrimination-concern side) there is a substantial capable workforce for the field that is being pushed out but could be drawn in. > I never hear anyone say "We need more female lumberjacks|roofers|trash collectors|pilots" despite those being male dominated professions as well. Do you spend as much time on lumberjack/roofer/trash collector/pilot focussed forums as on places like HN? It may be that what you hear is in part a reflection of what people say -- the factors noted above do not apply equal to all those professions -- but it could also be that what you hear is a product of where you are listening.

by cowbell 12y ago

Why is there such a clamor to get girls to code? I never hear anyone say "We need more female lumberjacks|roofers|trash collectors|pilots" despite those being male dominated professions as well.

ceras 12y ago

Coding is much safer, comfortable, low-stress, well-paying, flexible (esp. for mothers), and employable than those jobs.

wyager 12y ago
>Coding is much safer, comfortable, low-stress, well-paying, flexible (esp. for mothers), and employable than those jobs. So we're back to the good ol' days of "women shouldn't do hard labor"?
- vdaniuk 12y ago
  What a red herring. We're in a good future days of "nearly no one should do hard labor".
  - wyager 12y ago
    >What a red herring. I don't think that means what you think it means. Regardless, it seems strange to me that people are pushing for advertising coding to women in the name of gender equality, but then they seem not to care about the number of women in fields that aren't perceived so highly. I think it really throws their motivations into question.
    - vdaniuk 12y ago
      Perhaps, strawman would be a better characteristic of your post as you were trying to distort the argument of other party. And no, it doesn't seem strange to me that people are pushing women to learn coding. Coding skills provide great income, stability, mobility and independence. So yeah, thanks Google and others, who are trying to get more women in coding and increase their quality of life.
      - wyager 12y ago
        >Coding skills provide great income, stability, mobility and independence. So why not try to make these skills more accessible to everyone?
        vdaniuk 12y ago
        Isn't it obvious? Adoption of skills depends on the ecosystem of practitioners. Empirically, we are observing that women do not copy social behavior of the male part of the ecosystem and do not engage the subject of programming/coding/compsci. We need to reach a threshold value, a tipping point where girls and women would see enough role models and would have enough support networks to progress in the technology industry. This may be achieved by reaching a critical mass and that is exactly what Google and others are doing.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

adrianN 12y ago

Similarly there is no drive to get more men into early childhood education or nursing.

arikrak 12y ago
Nurses can actually earn high salaries, but there are no nurse billionaires.
andylei 12y ago
a false statement. a simple google search shows that gender imbalance in nursing is something people care about.
itafroma 12y ago
> Similarly there is no drive to get more men into early childhood education or nursing. This is an oft-repeated canard in these discussions, but it's patently and demonstratively not true: getting men interested in nursing and ECE has been a large focus of those fields for years. Even a quick Google search would produce tons of information on various initiatives, studies, and scholarly articles, but here's a small sampling: http://aamn.org/ http://aamn.org/ http://web.jhu.edu/jhnmagazine/summer2009/features/men_in_nursing.html http://web.jhu.edu/jhnmagazine/summer2009/features/men_in_nu... https://www.discovernursing.com/men-in-nursing https://www.discovernursing.com/men-in-nursing http://folk.uio.no/olegmo/Men%20in%20Nursing/Evans%20J%201997.pdf http://folk.uio.no/olegmo/Men%20in%20Nursing/Evans%20J%20199... http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/12710806 http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/12710806 http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ618681 http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ618681 http://www.meninchildcare.co.uk/index.htm http://www.meninchildcare.co.uk/index.htm http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/61263553/male-preservice-teachers-discouragement-from-teaching http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/61263553/male-pre... http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1012564610349 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1012564610349
- clockworkelf 12y ago
  People choose jobs that make more money. Engineering jobs pay more than ECE.

railsdude 12y ago

The cynic in me says that by increasing the number of programmers available they can pay less. The same reason, I believe, why FB is so keen about immigration.

magicalist 12y ago
This is seriously the dumbest theory yet in these threads. Maybe it's just making the rounds now? (it's not even the first time in this very discussion!) Not only would it be a horrible return on investment (and one that would take years to come to fruition), it's also never brought up about every other coding initiative out there. Let me know when you start bringing this up in every thread about corporate-sponsored hackathons, education events, scholarship programs, or just plain old "getting started" guides. Good news: I see three on the front page right now! I'll wait.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Anechoic 12y ago

I never hear anyone say "We need more female lumberjacks|roofers|trash collectors|pilots" There actually is a push to attack more female pilots, this for example: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2510471/British-Airways-drive-recruit-female-pilots.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2510471/British-Ai.... The fact you haven't heard of it probably means you don't follow that aviation market as closely as you do the tech market. WRT to lumberjacks/roofers/trash collectors, those are the jobs that are rapidly being automated out of existence, so it's not surprising that there isn't a lot of effort to attack women to a dying industry. But there is a push to train women heavy equipment operation and some other trades: http://www.heavyconstructionacademy.com/2012/01/19/women-thriving-heavy-equipment/ http://www.heavyconstructionacademy.com/2012/01/19/women-thr... http://www.womenbuildingfutures.com http://www.womenbuildingfutures.com We see the push for women in tech because it's a lucrative, growing field and that the lack of women in the field is caused in large part by various obstacles as indicated in any number of HN submittals. We'll see how it pans out.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Why is there such a clamor to get girls to code? From the side of people concerned about sex discrimination in society, because the perception that both the source and the effect of the problem is discrimination (on the source side, often subtle and potentially not conscious), which on the effect side leads to poorer range of opportunities and outcomes for females with similar natural abilities. From the employer side, because programming is a high-cost labor pool and increasing the supply is expected to drive down the market clearing price, and because it is believed that (largely because the employer side sees the source as not too different from the discrimination-concern side) there is a substantial capable workforce for the field that is being pushed out but could be drawn in. > I never hear anyone say "We need more female lumberjacks|roofers|trash collectors|pilots" despite those being male dominated professions as well. Do you spend as much time on lumberjack/roofer/trash collector/pilot focussed forums as on places like HN? It may be that what you hear is in part a reflection of what people say -- the factors noted above do not apply equal to all those professions -- but it could also be that what you hear is a product of where you are listening.