[obviouslygreen]

This is the same quota issue we deal with in all sorts of fields for all sorts of minorities. In my opinion the only effective course of action is to continually improve equality of opportunity, not by promoting some people at the expense of others because of minority status, but by concentrating and encouraging/requiring others to concentrate on qualifications to the exclusion of ethnic, sexual, etc. factors.

Yes, definitely, too much (over)sensitivity. There will always be people who discriminate, and there will always be someone out there -- no matter who you are -- that will actively discriminate against you given the opportunity. Those people will never change. For the rest of us, what the world needs is to lighten up and give things some time: In the grander scheme of things, all this equality talk started up relatively recently. People don't change overnight, and the institutions we build change far more slowly.

Patience, people. Patience, tempered expectations, and realism. Not all of this will ever be "fixed," and that which is will pretty much asymptotically approach our best case expectations, so learning to be happy with what we get and work to improve things without pissing everyone off all the time seems like a pretty reasonable goal to me.

[soup10]

The only people that complain that there aren't enough women in tech are men. Women complain about female unfriendly work environments and conferences. But tech people don't understand the difference between "female unfriendly" and "needs more women". All there needs to be is a smart woman whose input is taken seriously when organizing conferences and establishing workplace culture.

[katherineparker]

I essentially agree with you.

Here's my input on the "need more women"/"female unfriendly" work environment in IT debate:

There's nothing wrong with working with and coding with only men. That's been my only experience so far as a noob who's had two programming internships.

I think most men are easy to get along with and I enjoy their friendships. The only female unfriendly experiences I've had on the job have been due to sexual harassment (as in someone actively trying to sleep with a person, not a stupid off-handed joke). In class it's been the more condescending "you only got that job because you're a girl and you look like this". I think that needs to stop. It's completely fucked up behaviour. But being on an all male team is fine. I think to say we need to get tech to a completely even score is pointless. Most nurses are women and a few are men and they carry on fine? Not a lot of girls are into coding (at least as of yet) and that's fine too. They're being influenced at a younger age to have an interest in tech now by different organizations and that is great, but if after campaigns such as those are completed and women still don't get to 50% of IT - meh, who cares. Given most women who get into tech enjoy tech related hobbies (video games etc.) it's easy to be friendly to coworkers and others in the industry. It's not like women in tech all feel completely disconnected from the men. The women in my class and I have spoke about this and we generally have all had the same experience (unfortunately that includes the sexual harassment too though).

tdlr; most women are not overly sensitive like Adria Richards and we'll be fine. We're too busy coding up stuff to care about this (minus the sexual harassment - which is commenting on boobs and trying to sleep with the girl etc., not dongle jokes lol but actual serious stuff)

/rant

[katherineparker]

I want to add too that sexual harassment happens in all industries and it's a separate issue. Most guys in IT are not like that. I have dealt with this problem prior to IT as well. Certain men need to learn how to take a hint... if someone wants to sleep with you in return you'll know, in the mean time, relax about it and take the option of acting like a friend/coworker more than a sex deprived p.o.s.

[Evbn]

This is not true, in practice. Women report having better experiences when there are many women around, vs being the only one in the group.

[soup10]

It's the same thing in practice. It's harder to have a female friendly workplace when its a brofest.