Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by wyager 3450 days ago
> people frequently argue that it is impossible to build a gender-equal team.

No one argues that. What is true is that it's impossible for everyone to have a 50/50 teams (because most fields don't attract precisely 50/50 men/women), and it also makes recruiting substantially more expensive if you hope to maintain a high and equal standard for both men and women. This is a consequence of the fact that, assuming skill distributions are roughly the same across genders, there are simply much fewer (in absolute terms) women of a given skill level than men of a given skill level in CS or engineering.

1 comments

> No one argues that.

I've encountered this argument in real life. I agree it sounds a lot like a straw man though and doesn't help much with my argument -- thanks.

And I agree that it is more expensive to hire this way because of how diverse CS graduates are. Do you think it might be worth it in order to help nudge the industry at large in a more positive direction?