[unknown_var]

This is pure sexism,

Where are the grants for males? This is giving women an advantage over males wanting to get in to the field. And they are getting an advantage because of their gender that is sexism.

If women want to work in tech there is nothing stopping them, the issue (i believe) is that females are generally more attracted to social based working roles rather than tech problems. Example on avg men speak 2000 works a day (google facts), women speak on adv 7000. Females are drawn to more social enabling roles, where are men prefer to play/fix/tinker than be social. I do not understand this need to have balanced male and females in all roles when it is proven that we are biologically different and that male and females look for different things from employment. in fairness, males and females have very different base priorities.

Now becuase of hte above post, I will be labeled as a bigot and or Chauvinism male, oh well

[jkl32]

Agreed.

Where are the grants for women to work in the building trade? Or for men to work as nurses? Both are under-represented in those fields.

Plenty of fields have a gender imbalance, but they don't present it as a problem.

[sophacles]

Both of those exist. One example of each...

Women in building trades grants:

http://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/news/552012/approved/20...

Grants for men in nursing:

http://voices.yahoo.com/top-20-nursing-scholarships-grants-m...

(Note for the later its a top 20 list - implying there are more than 20 such grants).

If you would like to make an argument, please do the tiniest bit of fact checking before you make wild claims. I mean, I opened 2 tabs and typed into the search "grants for women in building trades" and "grants for male nurses". Basically your wanton ignorance is showing.

[Chris2048]

Two points on that 1) Are these grants on the same order as tech-industry grants? I don't think the implication was there there are literally no grants in the world, but that the scale differs considerably.

2) people on a tech forum are likely to be far more familiar with the issues and grant available within the tech industry. It does seem this issue is discussed a lot though.

On another note, your message is v. condescending.

[DanBC]

What do you mean "on the same order"? Similar amounts of discussion? Yes, there are government level grants and programmes to increase the numbers of women in the construction industry or men in nursing. Similar amounts of funding? I don't know. That's an interesting question. There is a huge amount of data around, and it'd be really interesting to see someone slurp it up and do some processing.

[sophacles]

Sorry, he asked where they were, and went on as if they didn't exist. I showed him that they do, with trivial research.

As for your points:

1) on the same order - what does this mean? How do you measure. Pure dollars? Some ratio related to size of the industry? Number of opportunities? I don't know the answers to any of these questions, but please, expand on your notion of differing scales. You are making the assertion, you need to show evidence, not just some conjecture.

2) Sure, I didn't know about those outside of "tech" grants either, yet I had the not-at-all-interesting insight to google. 14.8s later I was able to be informed. Choosing not to do so is wanton ignorance.

As for condescending: I don't cater to people who chose to be uniformed. That is not something I am willing to be polite about under any circumstance - it is 2013, google is everywhere, and holding an opinion that contradicts facts, or stating a "fact" that is simply false are mere agenda building disingenuities.

[Chris2048]

> Sorry, he asked where they were, and went on as if they didn't exist

He described them as 'under-represented', which isn't how you describe something you were claiming didn't exist.

> How do you measure..

Any of those examples could be used as a metric and provide meaning to the question of differing scale. Each one would be a different discussion - the only conclusion is there there is no simple metric that we can make the simple claim that one thing is the same as another, just because of these examples - which is what you're claiming, right?

And you're wrong, I'm not making a claim, I'm just questioning yours. You're trying to shift the burden of proof, but it was you that rudely asserted that your googled evidence showed parents' argument to be ignorant.

> I had the not-at-all-interesting insight to google

Again more snark, but who says you are now informed? You are of that impression, but what a googling? Do you have an education now? Does a 14.8s search-engine lookup make you an expert on the matter for which such arrogance is appropriate? Maybe parent did google, and considered the results weak evidence compared to other sources.

Again, your attack is based entirely on beating the straw-man of "parent claimed there where no grants for men", a claim never made.

> I don't cater to people who chose to be uniformed

What did parent choose? what do you know of parent?

> That is not something I am willing to be polite about under any circumstance

I subscribe to a less conditional for of politeness - especially to those I have no need to respond to at all. And, as I'm arguing, I think you have read unduly into parents post, and your attitude only serves to jump the gun after a hasty mis-judgement.

> holding an opinion that contradicts facts, or stating a "fact" that is simply false are mere agenda building disingenuities

Google = facts? and yet no fact were stated, and now you read a "disingenuous" "agenda" into parents post - isn't this clear that you are reading into parents post more than can be reasonably inferred - that you are applying a stereotype, and fighting a perception that exists within your own biases.

[sophacles]

First of all - the sentence talking about underrepresentation is easily interpretable as "men are underrepresented in nursing and women are underrepresented in building trades" not that grants are. (men and women are the subjects of the sentence, and pronouns usually to refer to the subjects when unqualified in english) I'll allow that its an ambiguous sentence.

Second - I don't claim expert status. I just claim that a small amount of research shows that pure ignorance is a moronic position. Googling doesn't equal facts, but certainly the links I chose - a news organization and a top 20 list to sites that look legit - are enough evidence that an assertion of "where are they" needs some backing beyond "i don't think they exist".

Third: because context matters, this is in response to a comment about the lack of male only tech scholarships, and its sexism to fix the underrepresentation of women in tech with women only scholarships. The post as a response (particularly since it starts with "Agreed.") in support of that notion. Supporting statements about "where are the men only scholarships in nursing". So I answered the question. If you want to switch the subject to grants are being underrepresented (which isn't about the sexism of the existence of gender specific grants, but about the sexism of volume) the onus is on you to evidence your claims. Otherwise it is mere goalpost moving.

Fourth - your evidentiary requirements are amusingly inconsistent. You want to require extra evidence from me, because you don't like me answering the question that was asked about "where are the grants", and question my method of finding the evidence, and provide tons of conjecture (but no real counter evidence) that I'm not making a good argument. Yet you are blindly accepting the claim that they are underrepresented. Even defending it. Yet that claim has 0 supporting evidence (which is less than "flimsy" evidence). Such a set of actions suggest a beginning bias - that you think there is an underrepresentation of grants. Like I said - its amusing, hypocritical and honestly, kind of stupid.

Fifth - since you have chosen to ignore the core of the argument and instead attack my presentation of them, I will assume you are using the fallacy fallacy and ad hominem to try and discredit my point rather than responding to the point itself. Usually (note, because you seem to have problems with this sort of thing - the word usually is distinctly different than always dictionaries may be able to help if you need some explanation) this means you have no actual argument towards the point.

Sixth - you can approach politeness however you want. Fortunately, so can I. It has no relevance to the actual discussion about sexism tho.

[DanBC]

> Plenty of fields have a gender imbalance, but they don't present it as a problem.

Did you look, or are you reacting to a cognitive bias?

(http://www.heatingandventilating.net/news/news.asp?id=6255&t...)

> A successful initiative set up to support women working in the construction sector, has been granted £420,750 further funding to continue.

> The government-funded Women and Work: Sector Pathways Initiative is led by Construction Skills and aims to help get women into construction work and supports women already working in the sector to get further training.

(http://civilconstructioncareers.com/women-in-construction.ph...)

> The Women in Civil Construction Initiative will directly address the skills required for entry to the civil infrastructure sector of the industry. The Civil Contractors Federation (CCF), in collaboration with their funding partners Construction Skills Queensland, is delivering a flexible based program designed to deliver the entry level skills required to participants who wish to pursue a career in the Civil infrastructure sector. The WIC program is already underway within Queensland.

(http://www.build.co.uk/construction_news.asp?newsid=75823)

> ConstructionSkills, the Sector Skills Council for the industry, took part in the government funded Women and Work: Sector Pathways Initiative. In Phase 1, over 2,200 women were helped to access work related training and support initiatives in the construction industry – beating the target of 1,800.

(http://manhattan.ny1.com/content/top_stories/136592/new-prog...)

> A new program is launched to boost business for minorities and women in the construction industry.

> The New York Association of Hispanics in Real Estate and Construction is helping to finance labor costs for these companies.

(http://www.collegescholarships.org/scholarships/nursing/male...)

(http://aamn.org/scholarships.shtml)

[unknown_var]

Bad luck dude

Both the examples you have given in this case have been discussed in this thread, making me think you are trying to highlight that there are male only grants as well to undermine my argument. I fully accept that there are male only grants, but I also call those sexist. Everyone who replied to your message seems to think that because there are a few instances of this happening that it is now an accepted practice. Basically what people here seem to be saying are saying is that because sexism has happened before (regardless of who is affected) then we can do it again. What i am saying is that should not be the case and in relation to this discussion Google’s moves are sexist and a bad precedent.

Just flip it, what if Google offered only male grants how much rage would there be?

[sophacles]

Your argument suffers several flaws. First of all you are assuming that equality currently exists, and therefore anything that might have show a bias is inherently unequal. If your assumption were true, you'd have a point. However, it is not true: there are lots of places where imbalance exists.

Second you are assuming that the imbalances are based on some inherent gender differences (in a previous point you make some claim about "socialness"). This point is somewhat contentious, and not well evidenced (that is to say, there is at least as much evidence for as against such points), or just plain shown to be false. If you can show a preponderance of agreement in facts, I will change my position. Evidence required for such.

Third, your claims that, corrective actions to an existing imbalance are the same as those same actions when furthering an imbalance or creating an imbalance. This is true in the pedantic sense - the actions are the same. However, the consequences and motivation for the actions must be taken into account. If the motive is to correct an imbalance, and the consequence is imbalance correction, then different considerations must be made. If I use a scalpel to remove someone's kidney, the circumstances surrounding the action matter a lot - as a surgeon performing a transplant it's ok, as a psychopath getting his jollies it isn't.

Finally you are using a slightly different definition of sexism than many. You will argue till you're breathless, use annoying semantic pedantry, general point missing, and other disingenuous BS to try and counter me, but here it is: the sexism people are talking about is systemic, the fact that statistically speaking, women are faced with an imbalance that seems only to apply because of gender. The sexism you are using is "acknowledges gender in actions". They are different and have different implications. Too bad you keep demonstrating a basic choice to ignore things like implication, multi-step reasoning, and acknowledgement of definitions of words that you don't like.

[saalweachter]

Maybe if you typed www dot malenursingscholarships dot com into your browser ... ?