honest question: why is the lack of diversity in tech a problem from your point of view ? I don't know any other field where people perceive these kind of problems. (I never heard anyone wanting more women in construction or plumbing nor more men in nursing for exemple)
I used to think it wasn't a problem at all. There were several reasons for that but two stand out.
1. I'm a white male. I kinda don't have to worry about it.
2. I came from somewhere where this was less of a problem. Ironically, "lack of diversity" wasn't as much of an issue in the bigger corporations I worked for in Houston. The "boys club" thing is just worse in Silicon Valley than in Texas, from what I remember. I know it's probably tough for some Californians to hear this, but I'm just going to lay it out there from a Texan: between the frat-like feeling of some startups and the amount of cat calling I see on the streets of SF (that I never saw in Texas), y'all have a sexism problem.
Ultimately, though, the women in tech in SF with whom I work say it is a problem and they tell me (and other men) that they work in tech because they love it, but that it certainly isn't easy. I'm choosing to take them at their word.
You hear about it more in this field because - in part - there's a belief that diversity of origin and diversity of life experience leads to more creative solutions, products, and ways of working. I'm not quite sold on this idea, yet, but I'm open to the concept.
I still get angry at the suggestions that people sometimes make that amount to affirmative action or quotas for hiring, but that's why I think the ultimate solution is to stop pigeon-holing children from birth. We wouldn't have to jump through all these hoops in the first place.
Twenty years ago, when Ruth Bader Ginsberg was appointed to the Supreme Court, people were talking about the lack of diversity in the legal field, and it was an extremely important discussion because why on earth should the laws that govern everyone be made solely by men? The lack of diversity in tech is a problem today for precisely the same reason. The industry is going to shape what the world looks like 50 years from now. Who does that shaping is important.
I understand that laws should be made in a more democratic and representative way but traditionally the capitalist enterprises are fascist in nature. They are governed by a top-down authoritative hierarchy that is not democratic nor representative. The employees don't elect their bosses and the business owners don't hire their employees based on representativity or diversity but based on skills. So if an enterprise functions in an area where 60% of the people have no college diplomas, I find it strange to put pressure on that enterprise to have 60% of its employees without diplomas and I find at least as strange to put pressure on 60% of people in that area to get diplomas in order to be better represented in a particular enterprise or sector.
> traditionally the capitalist enterprises are fascist in nature. They are governed by a top-down authoritative hierarchy that is not democratic nor representative.
I don't particularly see a point to making sure that we continue with fascist practices in specific sectors of our lives. If democracy, and consequently diversity, is a good thing for our legal system, then why is it a bad thing for our corporate structure?
Your intentions are noble but the implementation is tricky. The last time (I know) someone changed in mass the way people get hired was during communism when the enterprises hired people primarily based on social class, party affiliation and family ties rather than merit and skill and you know how it ended.
Supreme laffo if you don't think people hire in this country based on social class and family ties (c.f. all those studies where identical resumes get called back at different rates depending on the presumed race/gender of the applicant, also "looks like Zuckerberg")
Twenty years ago women were almost half of law students and rising. Lawyers knew that time alone would dissolve lack of diversity. And the diversity had arrived in the face of extreme open bias against women by incumbent lawyers from an age where that bias was expected; older lawyers didn't even have to quit open discrimination to bring women into the field. It was a comfortable thing to worry about since it solved itself.
Women form a much smaller proportion of computer science students and it's shrinking every generation. And we're a generation further on from any kind of real organized social pressure against professional women in general while the field gets less and less diverse.
So it's a lot more uncomfortable for programmers than it ever was for lawyers.
If money were the only or even primary issue, the underrepresentation of women in the trades would get a lot more coverage. The trades are a key source of well-paying jobs, and women are dramatically underrepresented there.
Perhaps the difference is that tech is perceived by the general public as well paying, but the trades are perceived by the general public as crappy jobs for people who don't get accepted by college.
Mike Rowe (who has agendas of his own I am sure), has commented on this discrimination/vilification of the trades many times in the past. Parents and teachers will frequently discourage teens from pursuing careers in the trades because they believe the only way to be successful is to go to college.
If the trades are incorrectly perceived as low-paying, that could help explain why calls for more women in the trades seem to be underrepresented.
That's certainly true. Part of the issue is that the media is largely from the middle/upper middle class, and so doesn't really know that trades are good work if you can get it.
Still, it's pretty frustrating to hear people talk about the gender disparity in the trades as if they're talking about ditch digging--i.e. as a benefit rather than hindrance to women. Teaching and nursing both require education, so the options available to women without education are measurably worse.
oh, it makes sense now. In my area (EU) programming and IT in general is considered difficult, unhealthy, extremely boring and not necessarily well paid job (very little above the national average salary). On several occasions I met parents explicitly discouraging their kids from a career in programming.
