[ccc111]

Please read all the way it does sound pretty blunt, kinda a rant. I'm a guy. Not a very liberal response.

Men make money.

Women look good.

As terrible as that sounds. It is true. We are different species and have different advantages as the other.

A pretty girl can literally take pics of themselves and marry in to wealth. We see this all the time. A actress is now dating Prince Harry, she is not a programmer or engineer. Bieber "finds" Instagram models and you know... he doesn't look in a cubicle of his agents company.

A pretty guy gets no same benefits. There are girls on Instagram with literally millions of followers, even pretty male models barley crack a million.

A smart girl who is not pretty gets no real benefits unless she works like a dog and turns her personality in to a man. Look at CEOs, almost +90% male. Leadership trait of males?

A smart guy who is ugly has no problems being a star in the work force.

These are the way things are. Should they be changed? Absolutely. But let me tell you how...

but first a side note -- I do not approve of women in the military. Unless they can do their job as good or better then their male cohorts. I do not approve of slower lap times or lighter weights just because of gender. The enemy doesn't care about your gender, they will not go easy on you or slower. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/22/letter-to-th...

Using this same liberal premise, in high school we had 2 girls on the football team, because they wanted to be equal. one was actually bigger than some guys, but still not as skilled, the other was a "pretty girl". How do you expect a 200lb guy to treat the girls the same? As you know they quit in a couple months and practice was back to "normal". We lost a game because the coach had to put one of them in because their parents we upset.... --

So lets take this in to corporate america. If woman are as equal or better than a male candidate no problem they are good for the job. it is in the companies interest to hire them. But im sure in a extremely male dominated field it makes it very hard. I would assume, and from my own experience, guys get along with guys more than guys and girls. This is just fact. It is the same for women too. They feel more comfortable.

So now we have a male dominated industry where many more men are hired than women and this further makes it harder for women to be in the industry. It seems pretty f tough.

A short fix, a near sighted fix, is to start your own company, make your own "club" your rules, hire who you want. You can now be biased and shape things to your whim. Sorry if this is a let down but big companies are "club" and then the labor. big difference.

So why dont we ask another question, this will be extremely unpopular but the truth.

Why dont we each do what we are good at? Why dont we do what we have the best advantage in?

Woman outnumber men in many industries.

http://www.businessinsider.com/pink-collar-jobs-dominated-by...

Now your question will be, but i dont want to be a nurse i want to be a programmer! I dont want to be x i want to be y!

Then you shouldn't complain when it is difficult because you are swimming upstream.

I really wanted to be a basketball player when i was young you have no idea. Well guess what? im not above 6 ft, let alone a proper 6,6 so you know what i did?

I accepted that i could be a basket ball player and moved on with my life.

To be quite honest with you there are many more things i would rather be that a programmer.

I would love to be an actor. but i dont think im 9/10 pretty, nor tall.

I would love to be a doctor, but i couldn't think of doing surgery

I would love to be a race car driver, but im not rich enough to start.

I would love to be an entrepreneur, im working on that one.

I would love to be a better developer, im working on that one.

I would love to be free of debt, closer by the day.

what i do now is merely what i believe to be the easiest and most enjoyable path to what i deem a better future for myself.

if i had a million dollars i would not be doing much of what im doing now.

TLDR; kinda hard to do without sounding like an a$$, but do what you are good at and what is realistic. If you are good technically you will get the job but realize it is an extremely upward battle compared to numerous other "paths". Understand that, don't push for unrealistic compensations for it.

Would love to hear everyone's opinions. Sorry if blunt but sometimes i believe the truth gets shot down that only similar comments ever get read on grounds of "approval bias".

[throwaway729]

> Please read all the way it does sound pretty blunt, kinda a rant. I'm a guy. Not a very liberal response.

I approach this sort of writing with a stern charity.

Asking questions is never wrong. And I even entertain discriminatory assertions that have a compelling basis in reality. This is the charity.

But you damn well better be right, or at least not obviously wrong. If you have no compelling reason to believe what you preach -- if even the most cursory investigation would disposes you of a controversial and harmful if incorrect belief -- then you're just a bigot. This is the sternness.

So, let us evaluate your claims. Namely, that "you [women] shouldn't complain when it is difficult because you [they] are swimming upstream". I.e., that women are somehow naturally predisposed to poor software engineering.

Engineering requires a combination of technical aptitude and clear communication.

Let us first consider technical aptitude. It is instructive to consider other fields that over-lap with Computer Science and Software Engineering -- Mathematics (obviously important in CS and SE), medicine (requires systems-oriented thinking), and other sciences (requiring general technical skills).

Mathematics is more gender balanced than Computer Science. The most technically difficult aspects of Computer Science are basically applied mathematics. So technical competence cannot explain the CS gender disparity.

Medical Doctors are, on average, smarter, better credentialed, harder workers, and even better compensated than software engineers. And yet, the gender disparity among MD's is much lower than among software engineers.

Women outnumber men in several sciences, none of which you could reasonably call "pink-collar" fields without completely ignoring a good 20 years of history (let alone 100 years).

So, is it possible that women are somehow innately impoverished in the technical aptitude required in Software Engineering? I don't think so. But even if they are, this alone does not explain the gender gap in Computer Science.

Technical aptitude does not provide a compelling justification for your viewpoint.

That leaves us with communication. A technical genius who cannot communicate -- in code, in documentation, and in conversation -- makes for a dreadful engineer.

Perhaps innate communication ability explains the gap between men and women in software engineering? But all the women I know write much more clearly than you have in this post! And surely you are an excellent engineer.

So it seems I've run out of charity.

[ccc111]

Hello and thank you for your response :)

Actually i am quite an average programmer at best but thanks for thinking highly of me for your response.

To be quite frank, and ill add another point to this discussion, i got the job i currently have because i believe i just have more personality than most, me and my higher ups get along quite well.

I find this friendship to be almost impossible from a woman's point of view. There are so many hints of sexuality it make a genuine friendship from an older man to a younger girl so to speak almost taboo? really? no sex or favors?

My second point which i might not of elaborated as much in the first is that, perhaps we have reached "critical MA(n)SS", where the tech industry is so populated by men, hiring more men that it makes these friendships from a woman's standpoint increasingly hard to get. Let alone the reasons mentioned previous.

Men hiring men because they get along with them better? Sexism they cry!

Promotions are made in the bar and the golf course. I like to think of companies as 2 separate populations groups, the management and the help.i believe to cross the line would be extremely hard in late stage companies , without being quite the star.

Thoughts?

[throwaway729]

So now women don't belong in tech not because they're under qualified, because you can't imagine not wanting to have sex with them?

At least we are all clear on what the actual problem is.

[ccc111]

You are ignoring the fact that i said males like to hang around other males, and it makes it exponentially hard for a woman to enter the "club".

I assume you are a woman. Is your best friend a man or girl?

[sudosteph]

I'm a woman, and my best friend is a man. I have many more male friends than female ones in general, just due to my interests.

I've never once had the faintest idea of sex cross my mind when making relationships with co-workers or other male friends (I've been in a steady relationship for 7 years though, so it's not like I'm looking). Never once. And all my male friends I've made have never once conveyed anything sexual to me because they either don't feel that way, or if they ever did, they respect me enough to not make me feel uncomfortable (with the exception of one former coworker who I refer to as a harasser for his continual flirting + uncomfortable advances. I cut off all contact with him)

You're projecting tbh, many women are perfectly capable of creating strong platonic relationships with men. Usually it's the man who has an issue there, but that's not really my problem is it? If you think of sex any time a female befriends you and you let it get to you and damage your friendship, that's something you need to work on personally.

Also, do you think Gay dudes are unable to make friendships with straight guys for this reason too?

[ccc111]

somewhat yes.

I really dont believe your best friend is a guy.

[throwaway729]

I'm a man and work in a sane work environment where genitals and drinking habits don't effect promotions -- especially among engineering staff where the whole point is to minimize the impact of those sorts of petty politics and instead focus on shipping product.

It's a shame we probably aren't in competing companies.

[watwut]

I used to defend tech against radfem until I realised I was just lucky and guys like him exist and do well there.

[micahbright]

Your whole objection is to his statement, "you [women] shouldn't complain when it is difficult because you [they] are swimming upstream", but you misunderstood what he was saying. "When it is difficult because you are swimming upstream", he is talking about a case...in the case that it is difficult. It may not be difficult for all women. For a stubborn woman who doesn't have the skills, she shouldn't complain. So his statement isn't bigoted. Not in the least.

[throwaway729]

Then his whole post is off topic nonsensical rambling...?

Parent pretty much doubles down rather than correct me, so I don't think you're correct.

[micahbright]

You said his whole argument hinged on a point that you chose to interpret one way...and then you did it again:

"So now women don't belong in tech not because they're under qualified, because you can't imagine not wanting to have sex with them?"

You choose to draw conclusions that he never made. He said:

"I find this friendship to be almost impossible from a woman's point of view. There are so many hints of sexuality it make a genuine friendship from an older man to a younger girl so to speak almost taboo? really? no sex or favors?"

He's clearly talking about what outside people think of an older man befriending a younger woman, and you draw the conclusion that he "can't imagine not wanting to have sex with them". This is an entirely different thing than articulating what other people think(liberals AND conservatives FYI).

Making it personal doesn't help your argument.

[ccc111]

Is it only because it doesnt fit with your opinions?

I am pretty broad with this.

Do you care to defend the military or football premise? - i will admit i am extrapolating a little

What is your current position/job if i may ask?