[adjkant]

Equal opportunity is reflective of the applicant pool given, which can kick the problem down to lower levels. The problem with women in tech is that seeing strong female role models will change the lower levels and society's conceptions, but it seems the only way to change those conceptions is to have them there in the first place.

There's plenty of people focused on early education, but I don't know if we're going to see those results for even as much as a decade, and the cultural problems in high school and college are still there too, even if we solve early education. This type of hiring is a positive step, not a perfect one.

All that said, it appears this tech team is not apples to apples with the roles of big SV firms it's being compared to, and I fully agree with other posters that other factors (such as the brand itself) are at play here. There are positive lessons to learn here still.

These types of policies are similar to affirmative action - they are trying to correct a problem at the symptom, not the source. While correcting the source is more important, and I understand why you have the objection to correcting the symptom, I think the effect is far more positive than negative. I don't expect you to be convinced by this or agree, but I think it's important to have the understanding behind why the policy is not applied uniformly, agreement or not. I think your categorization of "virtue signaling" is inaccurate here.

[symlinkk]

Most nurses are women, maybe we should favor men in the hiring process there?

Most garbage collectors and construction workers are men, maybe we should favor women in the hiring process there?

[dang]

There is a never-ending stream of users ready to step up to the plate to post this canard to HN, no matter how many times we've chided their predecessors.

It has been repeated a thousand times, never changes, and provokes degraded discussion that also is always the same. That makes it royally off topic here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[adjkant]

This is obviously a huge can of worms being opened up here by the topic itself, but to keep it short and general, here are a few considerations, by no means exhaustive:

1. Are there cultural factors and discrimination preventing men from being nurses or women from garbage/construction like there are in tech?

2. Say there should be an aim for other thing X - whichever leads to more equality in power (aka is currently a big inequality of power) should be a focus, yes? Do women have less power because they are not garbage collectors? I think the answer is no.

Tech is focused on because of the reasons for the imbalance, and the resulting unjust power imbalance.

[dhimes]

Are there cultural factors and discrimination preventing men from...

I think we need to be clear on what we mean by "cultural factors." When I told my father that I wasn't going to pursue a career as a tenure-track physics professor at a research lab he was clearly and obviously disappointed, and was always apologetic about me and let me know he had 'covered for me' when talking about me to his peers. I'm simply not smart enough to have done that without being completely consumed by it.

I would call that a cultural bias. Do women suffer that same cultural bias? I don't have sisters so I don't know.

I do know that the doors have been opened for women in sci/tech since the early 1980s, if not before. Nobody has been trying to keep them out. The ones I know who didn't pursue it got out because it wasn't a lifestyle they wanted. When it comes to misogyny, harassment, and all of the other factors that can get in the way of outstanding females, we see nearly every day that this happens in other fields too- even Hollywood (thinking Weinstein 2017-Oct-08 for future eyes). That doesn't seem to keep females out of the field, because they want to do that work.

I wonder how much of the dearth of women in tech is because women actually feel like they have more options than the men do. One of the most brilliant women I knew (as a graduate student) was also Victoria-secret-model attractive. She said to me while in her Ph.D. (physics) program: "I'm too smart for this."

[throwawayknecht]

> Most nurses are women, maybe we should favor men in the hiring process there?

Ah yes, the inevitable "I didn't do any researching at all but WHAT ABOUT THE NURSES" post.

Most areas in North America and Europe want more male nurses. How to attract and keep them is a major area of discussion. Many nursing scholarships are exclusively for men. Men in nursing get paid more than women in nursing.

And all this ignoring why the nursing gender imbalance exists. Here's a hint: It's not because women wanted to do the work of a doctor for a fraction of the pay.

[adjkant]

> Men in nursing get paid more than women in nursing.

I can't help but imagine the outrage if this happened in tech...

[symlinkk]

Nice condescending post, but I'm not sure what your point is.

Here is what I believe:

> Many nursing scholarships are exclusively for men. Men in nursing get paid more than women in nursing

Both of these practices are extremely unfair and should be eliminated. A nursing job should pay the same no matter what sexual organs you have on your body.

Likewise, it is unfair to hire women in tech over men simply to fill a quota, no matter how noble your intentions are.

[throwawayknecht]

> Both of these practices are extremely unfair and should be eliminated.

I realize this is Hacker News where everything must be rederived from first principles every single thread, but really, these practices exist especially to eliminate situations where extremely unfair hiring practices have existed, de facto or de jure, in the past.

If you don't like what the solution looks like, tough shit. Figure out how to avoid causing similar problems in the future rather than bemoaning the necessary recompense now.

[dang]

You've repeatedly posted unsubstantive and uncivil comments and are engaging in ideological flamewar. We ban accounts that do those things. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop doing them.

[sanswork]

They do for nurses. Same with male teachers in a lot of areas.

[mistermann]

> seeing strong female role models will change the lower levels and society's conceptions

Will it? How do you know?

> it seems the only way to change those conceptions is to have them there in the first place

Is it? Again, how do you know?

EDIT: Interesting, usually requesting proof for unsubstantiated claims is encouraged rather than downvoted on HN, I wonder if there's something special about this topic that makes people's mind's work differently.

[adjkant]

I don't have time to dig up research on the first, but the effects of representation have been studied at least a sufficient amount.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Representation

The above would be a good starting point.

On the second, I would retract the only for a "one of the few we know of". Early education work again is key, but there are still cultural struggles.

[mistermann]

In other words, there is a theory that seeing strong female role models will change the lower levels and society's conceptions.

It's a perfectly plausible theory, but of course it suffers from the same sexual discrimination "injustice" that causes all the arguments whenever this topic comes up.

Considering the human factor involved in this problem though, using temporary injustice to get through a logjam in an effort to see if that can "prime the pump" and get to a self-sustaining meritocracy seems worth a try, I'd personally prefer we don't pretend it's something other than what it is though (but again, considering this is a human problem, lying to ourselves may be a necessary part of the solution).

[adjkant]

A few responses:

Your initial comment is being downvoted because the research has been done, and it is a strongly supportive theory. It's viewed as lazily ignorant. To imply that it's the topic is missing the point.

If you already knew about this, you should be bringing something to the table in terms of an argument against it from the beginning.

> It's a perfectly plausible theory, but of course it suffers from the same sexual discrimination "injustice" that causes all the arguments whenever this topic comes up.

I don't see this as true at all. You're going to have to provide some good arguments for that.

It's not just "a theory". So is "gravity". That's just a bad argument. Degrees of proof is what should be discussed, and I have yet to see you bring up anything that would cause doubt. I am making a claim based on studies and evidence that have been vetted by a scientific community. Is it as strong as our evidence for gravity? Of course not. Is it plenty sufficient for using to inform actions? I think so.

> I'd personally prefer we don't pretend it's something other than what it is though.

I don't see where I made claim it was anything but this. As a society, I doubt we have this level of nuance in common conception, but I don't think we can expect that either, no matter what argument. We just don't have well-nuanced arguments for most things on average. Heck, most people still use evolution to argue for things it does not actually support, but I guess it's survival of the fittest (if that actually was an argument that held up in this context!).

[archagon]

Why not try it? Isn't SV all about "experimentation" and "innovation", after all?