[dahart]

> When the industry is only 20-25% female, such a target is effectively impossible without discrimination.

This type of discrimination has a name, it’s called “affirmative action”. This argument that fixing an imbalance is discrimination and therefore somehow worse seems to be really common but I think it’s a little misguided to say we shouldn’t use it, and here’s why.

The imbalance we have is an imbalance that was caused by cultural discrimination against women, and it’s a type of discrimination that is often unseen and is hard and time consuming to fix. (Not to mention, nobody actually knows how.)

The idea for affirmative action is to provide a counter-acting force to the already existing discrimination. Furthermore, the idea is to use this force gently and, most importantly, temporarily, until some balance is restored.

We already know what happens if we take no action at all: we get discrimination against women. The industry used to be a much higher percentage of women 40 years ago. Why has it declined? It’s obviously cultural because it used to be higher in the recent past, and just before that it was near zero and women weren’t allowed to vote. The numbers have been swinging all over the map in just 100 years, so it clearly has not settled from the perspective of history.

So what would you do to fix an imbalance? What is your suggestion? Doing nothing already has a known, negative outcome. There are other ideas besides affirmative action. How well have they worked in the past?

[cc81]

Why do you think it is discrimination and not just women not choosing that career?

Look at other previously male dominated positions like doctors and law where you now in Sweden have more women graduating those fields than men. Something changed there. I doubt software development has been more hostile and conservative than for example law.

The thing is that women are studying at university at a larger degree than men in Sweden but they are not selecting STEM fields, especially not computer science.

Maybe it will change with role models, culture and different initiatives but I suspect that most young women right now think it is a boring as fuck career (at least those I talk to).

It would be like someone asking me if I would like to study to teach kindergarten. Maybe I as a male have been conditioned not to see that as an option and maybe many more would choose that career if we were raised differently but for me it just sounds like something I would really really not like. I respect the work but for me taking care of tons of kids all day sounds incredibly boring and rough. The idea that there is discrimination (which there is and some men suffer from) is not near my mind.

Most women I talk to express similar thoughts about software development.

[dahart]

> Why do you think it is discrimination and not just women not choosing that career?

Why do you think those two things are mutually exclusive? What if women are choosing to leave computer science because it's somewhere between subtly discriminatory and outright hostile?

I'm sure it's cultural because: in the US women in CS was ~37%, today it's 18%. Why the huge swing? There have been times in recent history when many many more women chose computer science. In India, there have been years when the participation rate was above 50%. There are places on earth today where many many more women chose STEM.

So, it's obvious based on the data we already have that today's low participation rates by women in the US and Europe is not an intrinsic property of women, rates are neither fixed nor the natural state of things.

All the rest of what you said is that maybe it's attitudes, and sure, maybe it is. Maybe that's the problem?

I've spoken with women too, and anecdotally, most women say the exact same thing as most men when they say computer programming sounds super boring. Some women I know confirm that discrimination and hostile behavior exists and is alive and well, especially the higher you go in an organization.

[cc81]

I don't think the problem is that they are leaving computer science, it is that they are not choosing it.

Participation used to be higher but now it is less; despite women getting more agency, doing better at school and getting high education than men. If you look at the most equal and rich countries where women are doing as well or in some areas better than men you don't have many who chooses software development as a career.

It could be just that fewer women want to be software developers and that is all that there is. And that more choice and more opportunities just makes other career paths more alluring.

Of course there can still be sexism and discrimination in certain cases but it is also very possible that it does not affect the number of women in tech much at all.

[dahart]

Yes, "leaving computer science" means that participation rates are going down, that fewer women are choosing it now versus in the recent past. The phrase always meant women as a group are leaving, it never meant that lots of individual women were starting CS careers and then quitting.

> If you look at the most equal and rich countries where women are doing as well or in some areas better than men you don't have many who chooses software development as a career.

That is not true. Participation rates have been very high in some of the countries that are now low. Participation rates in some of those countries are currently high.

You're trying to suggest that women as a group don't want computer science, by their nature as women, but to make that claim you have to deny history and ignore facts.

> It could be just that fewer women want to be software developers and that is all that there is.

The numbers changed a lot, and there is a reason. What you're saying is you don't know the reason, and I agree with you.

> it is also very possible that it [discrimination] does not affect the number of women in tech much at all.

I think it's extremely, extremely unlikely. It's demonstrated that the choices are cultural and not intrinsic to gender. So, your job then is to show that cultural attitudes are not affected by cultural discrimination. You're setting yourself up for an impossible task.

[cc81]

>That is not true. Participation rates have been very high in some of the countries that are now low. Participation rates in some of those countries are currently high.

Yes, and my point is that when those women got more power, more choice, more money and more freedom they started to become less likely to choose software development and more likely to select other professions. Other professions that had historically been male dominated.

So it could be that if you are free to choose there are certain professions that will have a larger part male or female and that will amplify in a culture of freedom. You will choose what your friends choose.

For example I don't think that you would ever have 50% men/women that are interested in working in kindergarten. I think there is some biology in that and then it is amplified by most men not wanting it making it less likely for those that might want it to actually choose.

[dahart]

> when those women got more power, more choice, more money and more freedom they started to become less likely to choose software development

You're cherry-picking there, and incorrectly assigning causation to correlation. Before 1984 in the US, women's choice and power was increasing, and so what their participation in CS. In some other countries, women's participation rates in STEM have continued to increase as they integrate with the workforce. So you could use the very same argument you used to come to the opposite conclusion.

> You will choose what your friends choose.

Totally agree there! That may or may not have to do with discrimination, but you're right about that.

> I think there is some biology

This is the root of it. You've decided that women intrinsically don't want to do math or engineering.

There's data that shows otherwise, but it is indeed difficult to prove anything concrete. Nonetheless, we have strong indicators that today's ratios are not natural. And why would they have settled yet? It's barely been 3-4 generations since women were allowed to even vote. It's clearly still in flux, so suggesting that biology explains today's difference is obviously stretching.

Bottom line is I don't doubt preferences are at play, and what I'm saying is that biology can't explain the current preferences in the US or in Sweden either. Biology is not fluctuating on the 100 year time scale, and cultural norms are. Assuming that the known, documented sexism during the last century is fixed now and that cultural attitudes have settles and job choices reflect intrinsic gender differences... well it's my opinion, but looking at all the facts we do have, that seems so unlikely I believe it's impossible.

[manfredo]

> The imbalance we have is an imbalance that was caused by cultural discrimination against women

This is a very bold assumption on your part. For one, representation of women in technology was actually higher when discrimination against women was more prevalent, during the 1970s and 80s. This inverse relationship between gender equality and representation of women in technology is reproduced today. Countries with less gender equality actually see higher rates of women in tech as compared to countries with more gender equality.

The notion that discriminating against men will somehow end discrimination against women is similarly naive. When discrimination in the workplace occurs, employees are aware of it. Putting women in a situation where the majority of their coworkers know that they are being held to a different standard is an exceedingly easy way to foster a toxic workplace.

> So what would you do to fix an imbalance? What is your suggestion? Doing nothing already has a known, negative outcome. There are other ideas besides affirmative action. How well have they worked in the past?

Rethink whether there's anything that needs to be fixed. We should see women as individuals capable of making their own career choices, instead of as objects to be herded into one field or another.