[titraprutr]

> Large companies are judged by the diversity of their employees

And here is the problem - diversity has become a goal rather than a natural consequence of everyone having equal chances.

It's not the lack of diversity that those companies should focus on - much more important is an elimination of any kind of discrimination based on gender/race/religion etc.

[hdctambien]

I see it as more of a temporary compensation for earlier gender based biases.

In a world where boys and girls are given the same opportunities at (even) younger ages, you wouldn't need something like this.

As it stands right now, it is intimidating for a girl to sign up for her first computer science class knowing that it will be full of boys that have been encouraged to do computer sciencey things from an earlier age. There is the perception that the girl will come in at a disadvantage.

Allowing a them to sign up for a class with the perception that they all have equal footing/previous knowledge could give them the confidence they need to join the classes with boys that are perceived to have more experience.

When the time comes that girls are signing up for computer science classes at the same rate as boys, then classes like this would no longer be necessary.

That being said, public schools cannot create X-only classes. There is no discrimination in which students can signup for my computer science classes and I have unfortunately low female enrollment.

[wolfgke]

> I see it as more of a temporary compensation for earlier gender based biases.

So you tolerate that a complete sex shall be punished for former sins. Clearly not my sense of justice.

> In a world where boys and girls are given the same opportunities at (even) younger ages, you wouldn't need something like this.

Everybody can use the internet to learn coding. But at least to me it seems that mostly boys (with few exceptions) seem to love doing this - in particular from young age on.

[hdctambien]

> So you tolerate that a complete sex shall be punished for former sins

This is not a zero-sum game. Creating a new opportunity for girls does not remove an existing opportunity for a boy.

> But at least to me it seems that mostly boys (with few exceptions) seem to love doing this - in particular from young age on

Maybe you should try talking to more girls and asking them what they are interested in.

[wolfgke]

> > So you tolerate that a complete sex shall be punished for former sins

> This is not a zero-sum game. Creating a new opportunity for girls does not remove an existing opportunity for a boy.

Not when quotas are involved. In Germany, where I live, every few years serious attempts to introduce women quota for companies are attempted to pass as a law (which typically are only prevented in the last moment because of massive protests of business associations).

[metaobject]

So are there any gender quotas currently in place?

[wolfgke]

Some political parties already have quotas in their statutes for a long time (Die Grünen (Green Party) - 50%; SPD - 30% I think).

Since Januar 2016 gender quotas for the supervisory council of the 106 largest market-listed companies were introduced. For restaffing in the supervisory council there is a quota of 30% for both gender (or the position has to be left vacant).

Wikipedia link:

> https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frauenquote&oldid...

Here a Reuters article about the topic:

> http://web.archive.org/web/20160619090749/http://de.reuters....

Here an "official" article by the Federal Minestry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth ["Federal Minestry for everybody except men" ;-) ]:

> https://www.bmfsfj.de/bmfsfj/themen/gleichstellung/frauen-un...

[FT_intern]

> This is not a zero-sum game. Creating a new opportunity for girls does not remove an existing opportunity for a boy.

Head count is orthogonal to gender make up of the company

[cdmcmahon]

> So you tolerate that a complete sex shall be punished for former sins.

You are not inoculated from the past sins of gender discrimination. So simply because you did not discriminate does not mean you did not benefit from past discrimination. While this fact should not be used to hold you accountable, it should be used to pursue policies that offset that advantage.

A company offering a program for girls is not punishing boys. It's giving girls a boost that was given to boys of previous generations.

Simply giving equal opportunity after decades (longer, really) of inequality is not truly equal. As an analogy, imagine if a government gave extremely preferential treatment to one company over another for an extended period of time (lower taxes, looser regulation, etc.) and all of the sudden started treating the two companies the same. Would you expect them to have an equal chance of success? Surely the accumulated benefits of the one company would still provide a significant advantage that would have to be remedied before the companies have an equal chance of success.

Edit: I realize I assumed you are male, which your comment does not state. Mea culpa. Read this comment as directed at any male who opposes policies that promote gender equality in STEM education.

[reitanqild]

of boys that have been encouraged to do computer sciencey things from an earlier age.

YMMW but IIRC my experience has been a bit different :-/

Edit: added IIRC

[FT_intern]

>I see it as more of a temporary compensation for earlier gender based biases.

That hasn't been proven or quantified. If you're going to use sexism to fix perceived sexism, you should quantify and prove the original sexism first.

[sh_tinh_hair]

Apologetics only gets you so far. In this case I don't care for the attempt. Let those who have an interest take advantage and the rest catch as catch can. This marketed approach is badly conceived.

[mcguire]

You cannot stop an object in motion without applying a force in the direction opposite the motion. And you cannot eliminate a large scale social trend by declaring it over.

[NetStrikeForce]

> And here is the problem - diversity has become a goal rather than a natural consequence of everyone having equal chances.

And here is the problem - people think diversity is a goal per se, while it is actually a competitive advantage.

[RUG3Y]

It's a wrong assumption that diversity of demographics is the same as diversity of thought. It's also wrong to assume that a lack of diversity in demographics automatically equates to a lack of diversity in thought.

A competitive advantage would be gained through diversity of thought. Making gender, skin color or any other superficial characteristic into a numbers game in order to look diverse is in no way a competitive advantage.

[NetStrikeForce]

> It's a wrong assumption that diversity of demographics is the same as diversity of thought. It's also wrong to assume that a lack of diversity in demographics automatically equates to a lack of diversity in thought. > A competitive advantage would be gained through diversity of thought. Making gender, skin color or any other superficial characteristic into a numbers game in order to look diverse is in no way a competitive advantage.

Well, not really. I mean, not at all. I appreciate you took your time to tell me I'm wrong, but you might want to support it with something more solid. Diversity of thought is not just what happens when you get two people together. If those people have a very similar upbringing, chances are they think in a similar way. They might reach different conclusions and one of them might reach the right one, but they might be missing points of view that could increase their accuracy when making decisions.

Your upbringing shapes how you think, what you fear, what you wish. Of course even inside the same communities very similar people might have completely different trains of thought, but what you call "superficial characteristics" as gender or skin colour it is (unfortunately) not superficial in many places. Many men can't even imagine the things a woman has to endure at the workplace, or your skin colour when you're a minority.

Even things like being a native speaker of a foreign tongue shapes how you think. The culture of your hometown, province, region, country defines you, too.

If you've lived a different life because of your gender, ethnicity, passport, disability, country of birth or even family wealth chances are you can bring quite different points of view than people with different gender, ethnicity, passport, disability, country of birth or even family wealth.

There are studies that show correlation between higher diversity and better performance (Forbes, McKinsey).

P.S.: I suspect you're the one that downvoted me (just above 500 karma, only reply to my comment). I appreciate you followed up with a comment, but downvotes are not "I disagree" signals. Please learn to be a bit more tolerant with people that does not think like you, instead of trying to shut their voice down.