4 ms·

Could it be that women are leaving every equivalent industry in droves? Maybe educated technical women are likely to value things outside of their career a few

by toolz 12y ago

Could it be that women are leaving every equivalent industry in droves? Maybe educated technical women are likely to value things outside of their career a few years in? I live in my own little bubble, but personally I see nothing but love for technically capable women. Sure, everyone loves to play immature every now and again and make crude jokes. This includes women, but generally I feel like everyone I work with and around would be delighted to have more diverse insight in their technical projects.

rdlecler1 12y ago
This seems to be the case for female Yale grads: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html I feel that we would be a better company if we're able to hire more women, but on the engineering side it's challenging. The number of women in engineering programs is just not large enough. Do a search on AngelList and 9/10 people with a given skillet are men. The industry demographic makeup can't increase the proportion of women without increasing the proportion of incoming talent.
faitswulff 12y ago
I remember a few sources saying that equivalent engineering fields have not been hemorrhaging women like CS. In fact, other engineering disciplines have been increasing their proportional representation of women. Here's one such source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-wom...
hackuser 12y ago
> I see nothing but love for technically capable women. Sure, everyone loves to play immature every now and again and make crude jokes. This includes women ... (I don't know toolz and a couple sentences written one Sunday on Hacker News don't represent him as a person. The following is only about the words, which are a good example to work from.) It's hard to escape our own perspectives; it's a skill that takes learning and work. For example, these words are meant well and on one level seem fine, but unfortunately in my experience they are just another roadblock: * "love for ... women": 'Love' probably isn't the best word to use in this context! Combined with the rest, it conveys that the women still are primarily objects of sex or romance, not engineers to be taken seriously, not people you respect and don't want to mess around with. * "I see nothing but love for technically capable women." This objectifies the women. (If you don't know the concept, it's one of the most powerful, important, revelatory ideas I've learned regarding understanding others.) First, someone else is taking a bunch of individuals, putting them in a box, and slapping a label on; whether it's a positive or negative label makes little difference. Imagine if someone said 'we love black people here', that would suck if you were black. Some people are assholes, some are funny, some flakey, some arrogant, some kind, some don't want your "love" ... form opinions on and relationships with one person at a time, just like guys. * "Sure, everyone loves to play immature every now and again and make crude jokes. This includes women ..." People make this mistake all the time. Yes, the minority laughs and say it's all right, but they have no choice. Nobody wants to be the one person complaining when everyone else is having fun (and usually it's fruitless anyway), nobody wants to be labeled a whiner or trouble-maker, and if you are in the minority your social status is tenuous anyway -- you have to constantly prove yourself to be 'one of the guys'. Object and will you find yourself on the inside on the next project? Promoted? Find someone who has been in that position, who would confide in you, and ask how they liked it; in my experience, they have not liked it at all. Also, people get their morals from their peers (we're sheep, we follow the herd; again, nobody wants to be the lone objecter). Every time you make that sexist joke and everyone laughs, it communicates a standard: It's ok to discriminate against women. I love crude jokes, but maybe play them on the majority or play non-gender-oriented crude jokes on the women (maybe a fart joke?).

by toolz 12y ago

rdlecler1 12y ago

This seems to be the case for female Yale grads: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html I feel that we would be a better company if we're able to hire more women, but on the engineering side it's challenging. The number of women in engineering programs is just not large enough. Do a search on AngelList and 9/10 people with a given skillet are men. The industry demographic makeup can't increase the proportion of women without increasing the proportion of incoming talent.

faitswulff 12y ago

I remember a few sources saying that equivalent engineering fields have not been hemorrhaging women like CS. In fact, other engineering disciplines have been increasing their proportional representation of women. Here's one such source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-wom...

hackuser 12y ago

> I see nothing but love for technically capable women. Sure, everyone loves to play immature every now and again and make crude jokes. This includes women ... (I don't know toolz and a couple sentences written one Sunday on Hacker News don't represent him as a person. The following is only about the words, which are a good example to work from.) It's hard to escape our own perspectives; it's a skill that takes learning and work. For example, these words are meant well and on one level seem fine, but unfortunately in my experience they are just another roadblock: * "love for ... women": 'Love' probably isn't the best word to use in this context! Combined with the rest, it conveys that the women still are primarily objects of sex or romance, not engineers to be taken seriously, not people you respect and don't want to mess around with. * "I see nothing but love for technically capable women." This objectifies the women. (If you don't know the concept, it's one of the most powerful, important, revelatory ideas I've learned regarding understanding others.) First, someone else is taking a bunch of individuals, putting them in a box, and slapping a label on; whether it's a positive or negative label makes little difference. Imagine if someone said 'we love black people here', that would suck if you were black. Some people are assholes, some are funny, some flakey, some arrogant, some kind, some don't want your "love" ... form opinions on and relationships with one person at a time, just like guys. * "Sure, everyone loves to play immature every now and again and make crude jokes. This includes women ..." People make this mistake all the time. Yes, the minority laughs and say it's all right, but they have no choice. Nobody wants to be the one person complaining when everyone else is having fun (and usually it's fruitless anyway), nobody wants to be labeled a whiner or trouble-maker, and if you are in the minority your social status is tenuous anyway -- you have to constantly prove yourself to be 'one of the guys'. Object and will you find yourself on the inside on the next project? Promoted? Find someone who has been in that position, who would confide in you, and ask how they liked it; in my experience, they have not liked it at all. Also, people get their morals from their peers (we're sheep, we follow the herd; again, nobody wants to be the lone objecter). Every time you make that sexist joke and everyone laughs, it communicates a standard: It's ok to discriminate against women. I love crude jokes, but maybe play them on the majority or play non-gender-oriented crude jokes on the women (maybe a fart joke?).