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.
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.
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."
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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