Because we don't completely know whether preferences differ, or whether cultural biases cause those preferences to differ.
I have a young boy and a girl. They are pushed into so many gendered roles from such a young age I have a really hard time trying to figure out what they actually like, versus what society tells them they should like.
My son recently picked up a pink toy in a store and said "I can't have this one because it's for girls, daddy." He used to love the colour pink. I wanted to scream in frustration because society has pushed him to rate a wavelength of light as "for girls" or "for boys." I told him that anyone can like whatever colour they want. But he now refuses to play with pink toys, because society has made it very clear that he's not supposed to touch them.
So yeah, maybe women would make fine plumbers and miners. We have typically pushed men into those roles. So we'll never know.
To add to the amusement/despair value, pink used to be considered a boy's colour during Victorian times, because it was considered a stronger, bolder colour, whereas blue was more delicate and feminine and thus suitable for girls.
It sounds like your son exercised his free will. Whether you influence him or society does, he ultimately has to be responsible for his choices. Some will be easy, some hard but it's a cliche to disagree with your child's choices.
Maybe he's comfortable with his gender and gender roles? Maybe that will help him get a wife someday and you grandchildren. It's not for everyone but maybe it will be for him.
I don’t “disagree with his choices.” I find it frustrating that our culture made him feel ashamed of liking his favourite colour. I find it frustrating that he is made to believe something as arbitrary as a wavelength of light is “for girls.”
A child should never feel ashamed of liking something as simple as a colour. That is ridiculous.
> Maybe he's comfortable with his gender and gender roles? Maybe that will help him get a wife someday and you grandchildren. It's not for everyone but maybe it will be for him.
Are you serious? He can get a wife or whatever he wants when he knows what that is. It is amusing to think that traditional "gender roles" would help in any way with that.
A lot of preferences don't differ; no one likes to be discriminated against, harassed, intimidated, made to feel stupid, etc.
Yet we know from data and endless personal stories that many women start out performing well and enjoying math and science in school, but then leave computing fields for cultural reasons--they feel uncomfortable or like there is a hard glass ceiling.
That is the problem--not the raw participation numbers, but the reasons behind the numbers.
If there was some natural preference of women away from computing, then the percentage of women in programming would be relatively fixed over time. What the data shows is that women have left computing fields in dramatic number over the last 30 years. Every study into why has shown that, to some extent, they have been driven out.
I agree that no one likes to be discriminated against which is why I take issue with the "too many white males in tech" narrative. The proposed solution is to discriminate against people like me.
I've never once worked somewhere where everybody didn't walk on eggshells to ensure not to offend anyone. Women who are being harassed and intimidated have legal recourse. It's practically career ending to end up on the wrong end of a sexual harassment complaint to HR.
>What the data shows is that women have left computing fields in dramatic number over the last 30 years. Every study into why has shown that, to some extent, they have been driven out.
It feels awful to think that you might not get a job you wanted because of your gender or the color of your skin doesn't it? This can be a moment of introspection if you let it. Imagine feeling that way almost every day of your life.
There's a positive way and a negative to resolve the situation. The negative way is to impose hiring quotas, so that everyone--even white guys--feel the same fear of unfair denial. That's what you're talking about when you say:
> The proposed solution is to discriminate against people like me.
But there's another way. The positive way is for people to use their conscious intelligent mind to analyze and overrule the unconscious implicit biases that they grew up with, so everyone gets a fairer chance based on merit. For that to happen, a lot of people will need to a) believe it's a problem, and b) work out loud to fix it. Your comments are not moving the ball in that more positive direction, unfortunately.
Thanks for the snarky link to your sources. That was uncalled for and entirely unhelpful. Most of the links I encountered cited that women left because it's a demanding work environment without a clear career path.
I have been in a position where I was overtly discriminated against because of my race and gender. It was in the early 90s and I was denied admission to a magnet elementary school that my older sister attended. The year I applied they took 50 out of 200. I scored 37th, but I wasn't chosen because diversity. There were lawsuits, and the practice was stopped. Now admissions are blind to race and gender. My younger brother also ended up attending that magnet program. It made a significant impact on the trajectory of my life, and it didn't feel any less terrible to be discriminated against because I am a white male.
A fairer chance based on merit isn't going to solve the gender / racial imbalance in tech. Tech is a meritocracy. Either your program works or it doesn't. The computer doesn't care at all whether or not you have "privilege."
I'm asking you to care. Part of caring is doing the least bit of homework on this stuff, on your own. Here are some excerpts from within the first 5 links in that SERP:
-------
> One-hundred-ninety-two women cited discomfort working in environments that felt overtly or implicitly discriminatory as a primary factor in their decision to leave tech. That’s just over a quarter of the women surveyed. Several of them mention discrimination related to their age, race, or sexuality in addition to gender and motherhood.
> A Harvard Business Review study from 2008 found that as many as 50% of women working in science, engineering and technology will, over time, leave because of hostile work environments.
> I first learned to code at age 16, and am now in my 30s. I have a math PhD from Duke. I still remember my pride in a “knight’s tour” algorithm that I wrote in C++ in high school; the awesome mind warp of an interpreter that can interpret itself (a Scheme course my first semester of college); my fascination with numerous types of matrix factorizations in C in grad school; and my excitement about relational databases and web scrapers in my first real job.
> Over a decade after I first learned to program, I still loved algorithms, but felt alienated and depressed by tech culture. While at a company that was a particularly poor culture fit, I was so unhappy that I hired a career counselor to discuss alternative career paths. Leaving tech would have been devastating, but staying was tough.
> ....
> Here is a sampling of just a few of the studies on unconscious gender bias:
> Investors preferred entrepreneurial ventures pitched by a man than an identical pitch from a woman by a rate of 68% to 32% in a study conducted jointly by HBS, Wharton, and MIT Sloan. “Male-narrated pitches were rated as more persuasive, logical and fact-based than were the same pitches narrated by a female voice.”
> In a randomized, double-blind study by Yale researchers, science faculty at 6 major institutions evaluated applications for a lab manager position. Applications randomly assigned a male name were rated as significantly more competent and hirable and offered a higher starting salary and more career mentoring, compared to identical applications assigned female names.
> When men and women negotiated a job offer by reading identical scripts for a Harvard and CMU study, women who asked for a higher salary were rated as being more difficult to work with and less nice, but men were not perceived negatively for negotiating.
> Psychology faculty were sent CVs for an applicant (randomly assigned male or female name), and both men and women were significantly more likely to hire a male applicant than a female applicant with an identical record.
> In 248 performance reviews of high-performers in tech, negative personality criticism (such as abrasive, strident, or irrational) showed up in 85% of reviews for women and just 2% of reviews for men. It is ridiculous to assume that 85% of women have personality problems and that only 2% of men do.
> I have been in a position where I was overtly discriminated against because of my race and gender.
Then you should be more empathetic to what women experience in the tech industry, but apparently it has made you less empathetic. Which is a shame because success is not zero-sum. In fact, the easier it is for smart women and minorities to succeed, the more great companies and coworkers we will all have.
I have a young boy and a girl. They are pushed into so many gendered roles from such a young age I have a really hard time trying to figure out what they actually like, versus what society tells them they should like.
My son recently picked up a pink toy in a store and said "I can't have this one because it's for girls, daddy." He used to love the colour pink. I wanted to scream in frustration because society has pushed him to rate a wavelength of light as "for girls" or "for boys." I told him that anyone can like whatever colour they want. But he now refuses to play with pink toys, because society has made it very clear that he's not supposed to touch them.
So yeah, maybe women would make fine plumbers and miners. We have typically pushed men into those roles. So we'll never know.