[azangru]

Not the author of the previous post, but I wholeheartedly support them, so I would also like to address your question.

When you ask, "Does it reflect a genuine worry that men are being excluded from the software industry?", the answer is, no of course not. I don't think we worry that men are being excluded from the industry. What I worry about is that the tool to correct the perceived gender imbalance is inherently sexist. I can't imagine how one can believe that sexual discrimination in any form is bad and at the same time discriminate against applicants on the basis of their gender. It does not matter that the tech industry is currently dominated by males — fighting a wrong (gender inequality on a large scale) with another wrong (sexual discrimination on a small scale) feels... well... not right.

[will_brown]

>I can't imagine how one can believe that sexual discrimination in any form is bad and at the same time discriminate against applicants on the basis of their gender.

Read the SCOTUS cases on point, in particular read the University of Michigan cases. The issues you raise are discussed at length, especially in reference to past harms and studies on what it would take to correct these past harms. All such affirmative action cases I am aware of, if upheld (and not all are upheld), the courts acknowledge these are temporary measures to address historical discrimination to level the playing field.

In other words if a certain race, religion or sex has been historically and systematically discriminated against, the effects of that discrimination are not cured by removing the discriminatory laws on its own. I don’t necessarily wholly agree with all these studies but I also can’t say playing fields are self leveling.

[solidsnack9000]

The effect of support for women in tech is too often to hand resources to people who are already very privileged. A recent example is a reception held for women in CS from Stanford, to help them have more equal access to careers in technology.

Correcting historical injustice is important and necessary, but to do so through the courts is at variance with a basic principle of human rights: that we are considered as individuals before the law, not as members of one or another group (always one of many possible groups).