Why do people care about the numbers of women in Computer Science classes? Because, they say, it shows some inherent discrimination against women in the industry. (which totally exists, but mainly as a bigger cultural issue that affects everyone along gender lines) If you ask how that could be (as nobody is actually barring women from signing up for classes) the most popular theory is that gender stereotypes combined with an antagonistic male environment leaves women with little choice but to abandon the field.
So the answer has been to make more opportunity for women to join the industry by making it more attractive to them or reducing gender-related friction. Many employers are pushing to find more women in technology/computer science and give incentives to hire them, and in cases like this, change curriculum for schools to make the subject seem more "beautiful & joyful". And it seems like it might be working - more women are now in classes, and one would assume, may some day soon be evening the gender gap in tech jobs.
But what's the end result to merely bringing more women into the industry? Has the culture shifted? Are salaries evening out? Is sexism dead? The people pushing for more women in technology seem to think that by merely increasing the number of women in the field, all of these things will happen. But realistically, none of these things are accomplished just because there's more women in technology.
Compare it to when President Obama was elected, and certain people claimed "racism is dead" because we finally elected a black President. Is racism really dead? Did the culture shift to become more understanding? Did the overall quality of life for black people increase? Did they get higher salaries, or more economic or political power? My casual observation indicates these things did not happen. The culture was not affected, and so, the same institutional problems caused by problems in the culture persist.
And this is what will happen regarding women in technology. Anyone can change their experiment to fit their expected results, and then when they get those results claim they had success. But that's not a cause for celebration. What would be good is if we actually attack the cause of inequality - our cultural differences and biases - to make it so that women are not an exception to a rule, but an equal part of a common community. Merely adding more women to computer science classes is the equivalent of a misogynist saying "Sure, you can have a computer - in the kitchen." The sexism, gender stereotypes, and cultural conflicts will continue to exist until those are addressed directly.
No one is saying that more women in CS courses will eliminate sexism everywhere. There is intrinsic value to having gender diversity in any field, and CS is one with a notable lack of it.
This is a classic example of "moving the goalposts". By claiming that incremental progress doesn't matter (or is somehow detrimental[1]) because of sexism elsewhere, you inhibit progress everywhere. By relying on strawman arguments and a false comparison to the election of Barack Obama, you implicitly frame any incremental achievement for women in CS as a failure.
[1] Referring to your, frankly, bizarre comment about a misogynist saying "you can have a computer in the kitchen". No idea what this is supposed to imply, or who exactly is saying it.
No interest in debating philosophy in a HN comment thread, but saying that gender diversity has intrinsic value (and I'd argue it does, especially from a deontological/Rawlsian perspective which considers fairness an intrinsically moral good) does not negate its extrinsic value (positive social/interpersonal benefits). Either way, I don't care. My point is that the previous comment reduces the value of gender diversity in the workplace only to the degree it can solve sexism globally. Which is a textbook example of "moving the goalposts".
P.S., gender balance is "nice" for reasons that don't involve you as well. Really more about equal opportunity for women in this case, who face constant discrimination in CS, among many other fields.
I'm not inhibiting any progress by pointing out the fallacy of "more jobs = less inequality". That, by the way, is a classic example of syllogistic reasoning. We need more women to get CS jobs to increase equality, and i'm suggesting we don't need to focus on just getting them CS jobs, so I must be advocating women should have less equality.
But people claiming each other is giving strawman arguments is an infinite loop. So let me just address your point about gender diversity. Is it useful in general? Sure. Will it help you understand an algorithm's efficiency? Probably not.
There's a lot of different kinds of diversity we could be pushing for, like political, religious, economic, cultural, and racial diversity, but nobody's pushing for them. I suspect it's less that tech workers are inherently more sensitive to the needs of women, and more likely that lonely male nerds want women to gawk at in the workplace. This could be why none of them are actually discussing the issues that cause inequality and seemingly just want to get them to work in nearby cubicles. But that might be a big leap.
To elaborate on the misogynist comment, i'm saying getting more women into tech jobs won't make for a better working/living condition - they're still subject to the same problems that prevented them from going into the job in the first place. Example, when men started allowing women into the workplace (in general) in greater numbers. They allowed them in, sure, but still treated them like shit - and still do, for reasons other than simply access to the job. So pushing women into more tech jobs without working on the more important issues (inequality) just subjects them to more abuse, for example the misogynist kind.
I'm not inhibiting any progress by pointing out the fallacy of "more jobs = less inequality". That, by the way, is a classic example of syllogistic reasoning. We need more women to get CS jobs to increase equality, and i'm suggesting we don't need to focus on just getting them CS jobs, so I must be advocating women should have less equality.
That's not what I said, and your logic is also a poor example of syllogistic reasoning, which just refers to deducing a conclusion from two premises and is not fallacious by nature. I'm criticizing the part where you assume an indicator of progress (more women in CS courses) is unimportant or negative because of structural problems elsewhere. This is a defeatist attitude that's used over and over again to shut down social progress (we shouldn't help advance the careers of women in CS because there's sexism elsewhere!). Note that I am criticizing the logic of your post and not claiming that your singular comment has affected anyone anywhere.
...about gender diversity. Is it useful in general? Sure. Will it help you understand an algorithm's efficiency? Probably not.
So? That's not the issue at stake (although there is plenty of evidence that gender-diverse workplaces are more effective[1]).
There's a lot of different kinds of diversity we could be pushing for, like political, religious, economic, cultural, and racial diversity, but nobody's pushing for them.
People are absolutely pushing for those things as well[2,3]. I have not heard much about political or religious discrimination in the tech world. I would be curious to see any evidence on the extent of those problems.
I suspect it's less that tech workers are inherently more sensitive to the needs of women, and more likely that lonely male nerds want women to gawk at in the workplace. This could be why none of them are actually discussing the issues that cause inequality and seemingly just want to get them to work in nearby cubicles. But that might be a big leap.
That is a mightily limited assumption (which also seems to imply that none of the people fighting for gender diversity in tech companies are women!) that I strongly disagree with. Think about how the current situation came about -- male-dominated cultures emerged at tech companies because the employees were almost all men. A workforce with a more balanced gender ratio would help bring about a more welcoming and equal culture, but since the culture discourages women from joining in the first place, it's necessary to have proactive measures to improve the balance. There are other factors in play, but it's really not too much more complicated than that.
So pushing women into more tech jobs without working on the more important issues (inequality) just subjects them to more abuse, for example the misogynist kind.
This, to me, epitomizes what I find so very wrong with your attitude, which screams "keep women out for their own good, because we're too hopelessly misogynistic to create a good culture for them." Punishing women by keeping them out of tech companies isn't a recompense for misogyny, it is an expression of misogyny. Tech companies ought to actively change their cultures by recruiting and hiring more women, not give up and use their own sexism as an excuse for keeping women away.
> I'm criticizing the part where you assume an indicator of progress (more women in CS courses) is unimportant or negative
That's not what I was doing, actually.
> I have not heard much about political or religious discrimination in the tech world.
I didn't say there was discrimination on those fronts, I said there was a lack of diversity.
> Think about how the current situation came about -- male-dominated cultures emerged at tech companies because the employees were almost all men. A workforce with a more balanced gender ratio would help bring about a more welcoming and equal culture, but since the culture discourages women from joining in the first place, it's necessary to have proactive measures to improve the balance. There are other factors in play, but it's really not too much more complicated than that.
Other factors... like gender roles, sexism, rape culture, inherently lower salaries, and every other form of discrimination against women? I guess it is easier to simplify everything into "there were more men than women, and so we should just add more women, which will make everything else okay" and ignore all the "other factors". But since it's all the "other factors" that led to this situation in the first place, perhaps they should be addressed, and not dismissed to make it easier for you to think about.
It's a complicated problem, and so people try to find simple solutions. But if the only thing you do is hire more women, the problem will not get solved. It will perhaps become a way to ignore the problem ("we have all these women in technology now! what gender stereotype?") or cover up the problem ("my best friend at work is a chick and loves making fun of women! what sexism?") or use the situation for more discrimination ("man, ever since all these women joined the job i can't get anything done"), etc. There are so, so many ways that things could get worse by ignoring the bigger picture and only focusing on job numbers.
There's a lot of discrimination out there. Try telling black people they need to wait until there are more women in IT. Try telling gay people that. Or try telling indian workers they need to wait until women get a higher salary before they're allowed to be paid the same wages as white people. These problems all need solutions, but they all have different origins. Just hiring an equal amount of all kinds of people would still leave institutionalized racism, sexism, and all other kinds of isms, because all the origins of the problems would still exist in the culture.
> This, to me, epitomizes what I find so very wrong with your attitude, which screams "keep women out for their own good, because we're too hopelessly misogynistic to create a good culture for them."
You have it backwards. I was saying that because we're (currently) hopelessly misogynistic (amongst other things), we are keeping women out, and we should fix the former to help fix the latter. Did I at any time advocate keeping women out of a job? If that's what you read, you were only interpreting what you wanted to. We're trying to accomplish the same thing and you're making me out to be an oppressor.
I want everybody to have a job, and I want nobody to be discriminated against. So I want all people to have an equal opportunity in all fields. But are HR departments going to start hiring exactly equal quotients of every single kind of background? Fuck no, that would make no sense... Even if you could find an female irish black gay republican and a male asian transgender hindutva and a russian cis male muslim, you're probably not going to find enough of all these people to hire exactly proportional to make sure everyone is represented.
Now, if you want to make sure there are more women (or any kind of person) to hire from, you get more of them interested in school and a career. And how do you accomplish that? By reducing the sexism and gender bias from video games, television, movies, computer labs/irc/forums, and challenge both boys and girls to rethink how they relate to one another so that they don't polarize on socialization or special interests. If you think just hiring more people today will accomplish that, I disagree.
Why do people care about the numbers of women in Computer Science classes? Because, they say, it shows some inherent discrimination against women in the industry. (which totally exists, but mainly as a bigger cultural issue that affects everyone along gender lines) If you ask how that could be (as nobody is actually barring women from signing up for classes) the most popular theory is that gender stereotypes combined with an antagonistic male environment leaves women with little choice but to abandon the field.
So the answer has been to make more opportunity for women to join the industry by making it more attractive to them or reducing gender-related friction. Many employers are pushing to find more women in technology/computer science and give incentives to hire them, and in cases like this, change curriculum for schools to make the subject seem more "beautiful & joyful". And it seems like it might be working - more women are now in classes, and one would assume, may some day soon be evening the gender gap in tech jobs.
But what's the end result to merely bringing more women into the industry? Has the culture shifted? Are salaries evening out? Is sexism dead? The people pushing for more women in technology seem to think that by merely increasing the number of women in the field, all of these things will happen. But realistically, none of these things are accomplished just because there's more women in technology.
Compare it to when President Obama was elected, and certain people claimed "racism is dead" because we finally elected a black President. Is racism really dead? Did the culture shift to become more understanding? Did the overall quality of life for black people increase? Did they get higher salaries, or more economic or political power? My casual observation indicates these things did not happen. The culture was not affected, and so, the same institutional problems caused by problems in the culture persist.
And this is what will happen regarding women in technology. Anyone can change their experiment to fit their expected results, and then when they get those results claim they had success. But that's not a cause for celebration. What would be good is if we actually attack the cause of inequality - our cultural differences and biases - to make it so that women are not an exception to a rule, but an equal part of a common community. Merely adding more women to computer science classes is the equivalent of a misogynist saying "Sure, you can have a computer - in the kitchen." The sexism, gender stereotypes, and cultural conflicts will continue to exist until those are addressed directly.