[pliptvo]

> Well that's just discriminating against nerds

This is exactly the problem. You've assumed that 'nerds' -- people who are skilled and passionate about tech things -- are male. It's that kind of assumption which enforces a massive mental barrier for women to be able to consider themselves legitimately passionate and skilled about tech, and also for men to recognise them as such too.

Until the association of nerds with masculinity is broken up, boys and men will dominate tech at the expense of others. And until that that point, programs like Google's which foster different ('minoritean') associations with being passionate and skilled with tech will be needed.

[reader5000]

"Stereotypes" come from patterns in empirical reality. They are not created and administered by some Evil White Male committee as you seem to think. Women are in no way discriminated against in tech, nor have they ever been. Passionate and skilled women in tech certainly exist, they are just relatively rare. Withholding resources from boys because of their gender actually is discrimination, and should not be encouraged.

[macintux]

> Women are in no way discriminated against in tech, nor have they ever been.

I don't even.

[digler999]

> Passionate and skilled women in tech certainly exist, they are just relatively rare.

exactly. I dont agree with you that women have "never been" discriminated against, but I do agree that vocational fields are not homogeneously populated (and that is not the result of discrimination).

* I dont see very many women police officers

* (this was mentioned on HN last week) not very many oil-rig workers are women

* I dont see many heterosexual men working as hair dressers or bridal shop/wedding planners/fashion designers/makeup artists ("this is clearly a glass door organized by the Gay Male Establishment to prevent heterosexual men from breaking into this field. Such abuse of privilege" /s).

* I don't see many women working as bouncers at night clubs

* I don't see many women working as commercial pilots.

But you know, for all the "I don't see"'s , when I do see one that defies the norm, I dont think much of it. They're people just like anyone else, free to pursue whatever they want. But it's not automatically discrimination when groups of people gravitate to certain fields.