[robwgibbons]

By making the "women in tech" conversation about anything other than talent, you are immediately creating another "affirmative action" situation.

Why should female applicants get a hand-out over more qualified male applicants? That doesn't do a damn thing other than even out some cosmetic "gender gap."

If I am passionate about programming, having done it from an early age, and I lose a position to a person who just discovered he/she could make a pretty penny at this "computer stuff," well, that really pisses me off.

[dtran]

I'm not advocating affirmative action or anything even remotely resembling that. In fact, I'm not offering any kind of solution at all. Just responding to having my eyes opened a little bit by a first-hand account of the struggles a woman in engineering faces.

I don't advocate affirmative action, but I acknowledge some of the reasoning/merit behind it. For example, I got into my dream school. Sure, I worked my ass off, and sure I wouldn't have been happy if someone else got in instead of me in part because of their race/gender/socio-economic status, but I also know that deep down, I'm really lucky/fortunate. I'm from a low-income family, but had tons of support/opportunities that a lot of other equally-deserving, equally-qualified people simply didn't. If affirmative action worked in a perfect world where out of two equally-qualified candidates, the upper hand went to the one who overcame more obstacles, then I wouldn't have any problem with it. Again, I'm not espousing choosing an applicant solely based on race/gender/socio-economic status, but if you turn a blind eye to an applicant's circumstances, your methods of evaluating candidates is extremely flawed.