
The power of role models - max_
https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-power-of-role-models.html
======
skywhopper
Programming used to be a field with significant numbers of women, including
true pioneers like Grace Hopper. IIRC, female computer science majors peaked
in the 80s, and have been declining since.

Even with those low numbers these days, a lot of women who are interested in
programming and computer science are chased away early on, or they quickly
move into more welcoming fields. So it's true that among senior staff, women
are even less well represented.

This isn't just a bad thing for the women who are harassed, mistreated, or
just made to feel unwelcome. It's a bad thing for the industry. If women are
unwelcome, we're throwing away half of the talented engineers before they even
get started.

For all those reasons, Rob is right that role models are important. But even
more important: we need to stop chasing women from the field. You have to stop
the bleeding before you can start improving. The recent stories out of Uber
make it clear that the technology industry is at risk of moving backwards if
we aren't already.

~~~
tbirdz
>Rob is right that role models are important.

I've heard this thought expressed a lot, but I have to ask a genuine question:
Does anyone here really have any role models that were influential to their
interest in the field?

I'm a man, so maybe it is different for women. But I never really had any role
models in programming that I looked up to/wanted to emulate. Personally, I was
always interested in computers, software, technology for its own sake, and
never really paid too much attention to the people behind the scenes. I don't
recall any particular person who I saw in programming and thought "I want to
be like them", or thought of as a role model.

I suppose this could have happened on a subconscious level, when I was unaware
of it. But at least on a conscious level I can't point out any particular
individual who I viewed as a role model and inspired me to continue in the
field.

Is there anyone else who never had a role-model type relationship with
someone? And for those who have experienced it, would you mind sharing a story
about a significant role model in programming from your life?

~~~
tptacek
"Role model" doesn't simply mean "someone you look up to". It also means
"cognitively available success cases". This message board is practically a
personification of that phenomenon. Among those of us running startups, most
wouldn't have done so had many others not done so before us.

~~~
tbirdz
That's very interesting. I had always thought of role model as referring to a
specific individual, I haven't encountered the idea of collective role models
forming "cognitively available success cases" before.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Well for example, why would a boy ever believe he is even capable of certain
career paths if he's only ever seen females in those roles? When there is
little representation, the idea becomes that only that demographic is capable
of the career. An example can be seen in esports like Starcraft. When the
Koreans began to dominate the competitive Starcraft field, other nationalities
began to cease even believing they were capable of equal success. A similar
view has been common with, say, black people and track+field sports like
sprinting in the Olympics.

------
throw_away_777
In my opinion, the solution proposed in the article of: " choosing a women
over a man when growing your team, just because" is counter-productive. These
kind of suggestions cause people to question why a minority got promoted, if
it was because of qualifications or because of reverse racism. Reverse racism
is still racism, and it breeds resentment.

~~~
msie
If it comes down to the flip of a coin, why not add more diverse opinions if
the team is male-heavy. Likewise if the team is female-heavy.

~~~
Oxitendwe
>If it comes down to the flip of a coin, why not add more diverse opinions if
the team is male-heavy. Likewise if the team is female-heavy.

What is the value of having an equal number of men and women? What is a
"diverse opinion"? If you hire a woman over a man because of the "diverse
opinion" you expect her to bring, and her opinions end up being the same as
the men on her team, will you be disappointed at the lack of ideological
diversity you expected her to provide? Will she feel marginalized for her
opinions not being "diverse" enough?

These feel like reasonable questions - you are implying having gender
diversity will bring ideological diversity, that is, men have different ideas
than women, and that this difference is valuable. However, won't that
assumption also lead to women feeling that their value is diminished if their
opinions aren't different enough from men, if that is the basis upon which you
hire them?

~~~
gaius
_If you hire a woman over a man because of the "diverse opinion" you expect
her to bring_

Right, this is what I like to call the Google Fallacy. If you have a team that
represents all genders, races, etc etc but they are all recent graduates of
the same handful of CS programmes, then where does the diversity of opinions
actually come from? This is why Google keeps making products and abandoning
them when they fail to gain traction, or produce public disgust like Glass. To
be actually diverse companies must move beyond the tickybox culture of just
looking at gender and colour and look at actual lived experiences.

~~~
Jabbles
Citation needed.

[http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/25/why-google-doesnt-care-
abo...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/25/why-google-doesnt-care-about-
college-degrees-in-5-quotes/)

~~~
gaius
This is a PR fluff piece. How else do you explain them continually making
products that appeal to no-one outside their demographic bubble?

------
mzzter
> It may take proactive behavior, like choosing a women over a man when
> growing your team, just because, or promoting women more freely.

They don't need to be chosen "just because" :/ they should be chosen based on
merit, otherwise, how good of a role model would that person become?

~~~
Rusky
I read that as "just because" _among otherwise equally-qualified candidates_ ,
as a counter to an unintentional bias in the other direction.

------
skookumchuck
The article suggests that power in computing is something men have to give. It
isn't. Computing is a market based economy. Anyone can start a computing
company, and run it as they please.

I.e. women can start computing companies, and hire women. Women do not need
permission from men to do this, nor do they need favor from men.

~~~
afarrell
But they do need capital.

~~~
skookumchuck
There's no shortage of women with money.

~~~
SwellJoe
Compared to the number of men with money, there sure as hell is. 95% (that
number is me talking out of my ass, but, I can tell you I only met one female
investing partner at a VC, and no female angels, the entire time I lived
there, and countless men) of investors in Silicon Valley are men.

The whole ecosystem is hugely weighted toward men making decisions.

~~~
superioritycplx
Are you saying male investors won't invest in a promising start up because
it's female-run?

~~~
SwellJoe
I responded to someone who said "There's no shortage of women with money." So,
in this particular comment, I am saying _exactly_ what I said: There is a
severe shortage of women with money who are making decisions in the tech
funding industry. I'll go even further to suggest that the gap is even larger
in tech investing than it is in tech in the general case.

But, since you asked: I will now say that there are biases in our industry
that perhaps those of us not subject to them do not see. Those biases
adversely impact the ability of women (and some people of color) to rise to
positions of influence in the tech industry. I don't believe this is a
controversial assertion (despite all of my comments to this effect being voted
down). I consider the matter well-known to anyone who's willing to listen to
the people it affects.

~~~
skookumchuck
I personally know lots of women who are multimillionaires. Maybe you should be
asking them why they don't start VC funds. There is nobody to tell them they
can't. Why doesn't Marissa Meyers start one? or Melinda Gates? or Chelsea
Clinton? or Madonna? or Ellen Pao? or Oprah?

~~~
SwellJoe
I can't ask them, because I don't personally know any women who are
multimillionaires (except Jessica Livingston, who already does more than
nearly anyone on this front). I do personally know a number of men who are
multi-millionaires (even a few billionaires). All of them invest in tech; for
most of them, I do not know their criteria for choosing what to invest in, but
I would guess they try to avoid gender and racial bias...but, what we do not
see and understand we can't necessarily address.

~~~
skookumchuck
Talk to any stock broker. You'll find there are plenty of women with
substantial investment portfolios. I don't see how it is the fault of men if
those women choose not to fund women startups.

~~~
grzm
I'm trying to understand where you're coming from with "I don't see how it is
the fault of men if those women choose not to fund women startups."

I can follow a chain of logic that goes something like:

\- there's a lack of gender diversity in tech, in that there are
disproportionately fewer women.

\- this is a problem we should solve

\- given that there's more men in tech, they're somehow to blame

Is this an accurate representation of how you get to "I don't see how it is
the fault of men"?

I don't see (most) people blaming men as intentionally causing this problem. I
see plenty of people, men and women, at trying to figure out how to understand
the disproportionate lack of women and do something about it. Similarly, I
don't see it as the responsibility of women to do this on their own.

If I've completely misinterpreted your comment, it wouldn't be the first time.
I don't mean to put words in your mouth. Please do elaborate and correct me if
and where I've misunderstood.

~~~
skookumchuck
I see men being blamed, whether they are intentional or not. I also see men
being put forward as being responsible for a solution. I.e. that women cannot
succeed without the aid, approval, and encouragement of men.

I view this as an unfortunate sexist and patronizing attitude, and is
ultimately a destructive one.

Women do not need the aid, approval, or encouragement from men to succeed in
tech. This applies to everyone else, too. There's never been a time of more
opportunity for everyone in the US.

If people need excuses for failure, there's an endless list of them. There is
no fixing that (like how my coming up with a few thousand to start a business
was dismissed.) Successful people don't look for excuses and don't make
excuses. They go out and get things done.

~~~
grzm
Thanks for taking the time to respond. In this thread, can you provide
examples of men being blamed or being held solely responsible for a solution?
What percentage of the comments do so?

~~~
skookumchuck
> The women in tech pipeline is a leaky, toxic pipeline that results in
> talented women being driven out of the industry.

This thread is about men being the gatekeepers of financing. The parent
article says:

> Men have the power to help fix those things, but they also should have the
> courage to cede the stage to women more often, to fight the stupid bias that
> keeps women from excelling in the field. It may take proactive behavior,
> like choosing a women over a man when growing your team, just because, or
> promoting women more freely.

~~~
grzm
I guess I don't read either of those as blaming men solely or saying that it's
solely men's responsibility to do something about it. It's pointing out that
there are things men can do, which I think is valid, but it doesn't imply that
it's only up to men.

Perhaps we're talking past each other.

------
DelaneyM
To those expressing concern that this proposal represents "reverse sexism" or
is anti-meritocratic:

Merit is equal parts nature and nurture. "Pushing women into positions of
influence" can also be interpreted as identifying high-performers capable of
filling senior roles and then helping them get there.

This does mean giving them an unfair advantage, but only in the sense that
life is unfair in general. Ultimately they are the most capable individuals
for the roles they assume, and lifting them to that level pays dividends for
our entire industry.

If you believe in both bolstering the meritocracy and furthering gender
equality (as I do), this should be your reaction. Positioning a meritocratic
ideal as in opposition to equal representation is just veiled misogyny.

~~~
Oxitendwe
>To those expressing concern that this proposal represents "reverse sexism" or
is anti-meritocratic:

Nobody is arguing that this is "reverse sexism", merely sexism. If you don't
think disadvantaging men in particular is sexism, then I don't think it's
possible for us to have meaningful discourse on this if we can't even agree on
what words mean.

>"Pushing women into positions of influence" can also be interpreted as
identifying high-performers capable of filling senior roles and then helping
them get there.

He specifically used the phrasing "It may take proactive behavior, like
choosing a women over a man when growing your team". That is not consistent
with your interpretation - yours is that he is advocating for identifying
people who are fit for management roles, who happen to be women, and then
using their resources to make it easier for them to get there. Instead, his
phrasing quite unambiguously advocates selecting women over men when hiring. I
would love to hear your argument for why this is both not sexist and also
valuable to society at large.

>This does mean giving them an unfair advantage, but only in the sense that
life is unfair in general. Ultimately they are the most capable individuals
for the roles they assume, and lifting them to that level pays dividends for
our entire industry.

So, unfairly discriminating against people makes them "the most capable
individuals for the roles they assume"?

>If you believe in both bolstering the meritocracy and furthering gender
equality (as I do), this should be your reaction. Positioning a meritocratic
ideal as in opposition to equal representation is just veiled misogyny.

As I have said in innumerable other comments, that equal representation is
even desirable, much less possible, rests on the assumption that all
demographics have equal interest and potential. This has not been proven, and
to advocate intentionally disadvantaging people based on their sex when you
don't even know if the group to whose benefit this is all for even wants to be
here I find naive at best and bigoted at worst.

~~~
DelaneyM
I'll just cut to the only relevant question in your reply:

> So, unfairly discriminating against people makes them "the most capable
> individuals for the roles they assume"?

Yes, it does. If you find a woman with ambition and potential, then train and
mentor her to succeed, you'll create in that nurturing the manager you need.

Choosing a high-potential candidate based on gender is no more "wrong" than
choosing someone for their school affiliation, their shared hobbies or how
they "remind one of themselves at that age"; all of which are common, and all
of which privilege the status quo (men).

------
chroma
The idea of publicizing more role models seems fine, but Pike crossed a line
here:

> It may take proactive behavior, like choosing a women over a man when
> growing your team, just because, or promoting women more freely.

Doing this would violate the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits hiring
discrimination based on, "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin".[1]
I'm also sure such a practice would be extremely counterproductive.

1\.
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e-2](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e-2)

~~~
justin66
Hiring to correct a disparity in the proportion of men vs women on a team, to
make it somewhat less ridiculously uneven in its tilt toward men, would be
quite easy to defend in court. I'd be interested in knowing if any court cases
of "zomg reverse discrimination" have _ever_ been won by white dudes under
those circumstances.

~~~
zigzigzag
Either the courts would apply the law and Pike/Google would receive the
punishment, or they wouldn't and the clear written intent of the law would
have been subverted.

If Congress wanted to systematically disadvantage men in favour of women they
should have called it the "Female Rights Act".

With respect to your question the answer is yes, such cases have been won,
like this one:

[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/01/men-rights-
unruh...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/01/men-rights-unruh-act-
women-discrimination)

~~~
justin66
I'm looking at the article, and the material: 1) Doesn't involve the Civil
Rights Act 2) Doesn't involve hiring at all 3) Involves settlements rather
than court wins

I strongly suspect that you don't like quotas, or intentional correction of a
massive gender disparity in hiring, and so on, but I'm pretty sure you're
wrong about the limits of the Civil Rights Act with regards to hiring.

Hiring more women after realizing "we have a huge gender disparity problem"
seems to me (not a lawyer) the sort of thing a company's employment lawyers
would be _happy_ to defend in court. If there are any real counterexamples,
yeah, that'd be interesting to read about.

------
factsaresacred
> It may take proactive behavior, like choosing a women over a man when
> growing your team, just because, or promoting women more freely.

'Just because' what? You're asking for 'more women excelling in the field' but
promoting somebody _just because_ isn't going to make them excel.

If, on the other hand, brilliant women were not being promoted 'just because'
that would suggest a problem. But is this so?

~~~
geofft
Most of the people I've worked with who have been given promotions have been
given promotions "just because," i.e., they've been there for a while, they
seem to do good work, and more work needs to be done.

See also McKinsey's finding: "Several diversity officers and experts told us
that despite their best efforts, women are often evaluated for promotions
primarily on performance, while men are often promoted on potential."
[https://www.mckinsey.com/womenineconomy](https://www.mckinsey.com/womenineconomy)
(PDF)

------
rdtsc
Great point on role models. I like
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper).
I can't tell how much she appeals to women but I find her inspiring. One thing
I like about her is she worked within an a huge bureaucratic organization, the
Navy, and she figured out how to get things done. She is the one who came up
with a principle of "It is easier to ask forgiveness than get permission".

------
srssays
Is 'diversity' selfish? Perhaps women/teenage girls aren't interested in
becoming programmers, because they don't find it to be an interesting or
fulfilling career.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
As anecdata, one daughter felt that pursuing computing wasn't socially
acceptable ( she was a cheerleader and all ) and another felt the first
instructor was an abject misogynist.

Perhaps women find better things to do :) I'm starting to think there is
something wrong with those of us who pursue this.

~~~
zigzigzag
And was it men who made your daughter feel like computing wasn't socially
acceptable? Or was it her female friends in the cheerleading squad?

~~~
ArkyBeagle
Yes. And it was her, her ... calculus of status.

------
tonyedgecombe
"In my long career, I had never before been in a room like that, and the
difference in tone, conversation, respect, and professionalism was unlike any
I have experienced."

Back when I was contracting I visited a lot of sites, my heart would sink when
it was an all male team, you just knew the tone would be different.

~~~
kachnuv_ocasek
Yeah, let's just shun these people solely because of our prejudice based on
gender.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Nobody was shunned, this was just a reflection on my experience, it may have
been the same if it was an all female team although I didn't encounter that.

------
hd4
This is a fine and good idea, as long as the central pillar is that we remain
meritocratic first, everything else should come after that.

~~~
jordanlev
What if we start from an assumption though that things are currently _not_
meritocrous? Doesn't that then imply if we want to get to a place of full
meritocracy some things need to be done that are different than the status
quo?

~~~
trentnix
I would assume that the solution wouldn't be to double down on bias hoping
that bias in the opposite direction will somehow result in harmony. That's
like a cable news network letting polemics on opposite sides of an issue (as
if there are only to ways to look at an issue in the first place) scream at
each other for a segment and then patting themselves on the back for their
"balance". After all, they "presented both sides"!

If some organization isn't meritocrous in how it promotes people and
participation, the solution is to make it so. And it will take time for the
effects of the previous bias to unwind.

~~~
CJefferson
I disagree.

There are a number of papers (and I'm very afraid I'm on my phone right now,
so I can't cite them. I am sorry for that) which show that things like severe
gender imbalance are not self-correcting systems in the case of extreme bias
-- you have to push them back closer to 50/50, but then the system will remain
balanced.

This makes (to me) intuitive sense -- current staff / managers will tend to
employ, and promote, people "like them", creating a self-perpetuating system.

~~~
GauntletWizard
I'd love to see those papers; I intuit the same result, but I don't trust my
intuition on social issues.

The problem is going to remain - Where do we draw the line? Where does
pressure towards the center start to hurt progress because of pushback? I'd
posit that much of the "Black Lives Matter" debate is actually this debate -
But that the communities are speaking past one another. The places where Black
Lives Matter is considered axiomatic are already past that line, while the
places where it's viewed with disdain are where racism is still firmly rooted.

------
ArkyBeagle
The problem isn't gender per se; the problem is how we define success and how
leadership works. We're up to our neck in all sort of hubris sprung from the
cultural emphasis on ambition at any cost. As Charlie Sheen might say,
"Winning."[1]

[1] if you don't see his story as a parody, intentional or otherwise, look
again...

But if diversity is your yardstick, then it's surprising how much better the
military services are at it than tech. Indeed, if I were an ambitious woman, I
am not sure that's not the path to take _for_ tech.

~~~
facepalm
Why would diversity the yardstick? The yardstick is creating useful products.
(Edit: no there can not be more yardsticks in the long run - a company needs
to survive. It gets paid for great products, not for virtue signalling).

~~~
grzm
There can easily be more than one yardstick.

Edit: Yes, a company needs to survive. Which products or services a company
provides are simple examples of choices that are not purely based on profit.
Similarly, there's plenty of variety in how companies are run while still
being able to survive. Maximizing profit at the expense of all else is a
choice some do make, but that's not the only way to run a business.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
Since we cannot disentangle rents from non-rents profits, I doubt there will
ever be a coherent set of ideas on the subject.

~~~
grzm
Would you elaborate? I think it's often the case that complicated, entangled
subjects can be understood once an attempt is made to do so. First attempts
may miss the mark, but eventually useful progress can be made. And such
disentanglement doesn't need to be complete or perfect to be useful. Or am I
completely missing the mark?

Do I understand you to mean that as there's currently no method for
disentanglement that one can _only_ use profit as a yardstick? That other
values a business owner may have, such as employee satisfaction, or health, or
retention, can't be measured or discussed? I don't mean to put words in your
mouth. I'm trying to unpack what you've said.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
All those things are much easier to use as values than profit, since profit
may include some fairly innocent or some fairly egregious rent-seeking. There
is absolutely nothing wrong with any of that - but with one caution - one must
still be "competitive".

The problem is that what we mark down on the books as profit may or may not
actually reflect any social benefit to the larger society through the
mechanism of consumer surplus.

This state of affairs means that any discussion on profit may or may not be
all that coherent because we would have to clarify if we mean rent-profit or
consumer-surplus-profit.

"consumer-surplus-profit" is a signal to do more. "rent-profit" means you're
not both doing good while doing well.

This is a much larger point than designing a corporate architecture. This goes
to how we evaluate ethical behavior.

~~~
grzm
Thanks for taking the time to put all this down. I'm having a hard time
figuring out if you're disagreeing with what I've said above or adding
additional context. In particular, I think I've been clear that _one must
still be "competitive"_ is something that needs to be taken into account.
(That said, I can imagine a company put together with the explicit goal of
"going out of business" when it's other, non-profit goals have been reached.)
Indeed, I think implicit in what I've been saying is that going into business
can (and probably should) include determinations of ethical behavior.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
And thank you for your thoughts as well. Your last sentence caps it; what I am
saying is that there is a broken tool in the toolbox - we _should_ be able to
make profit an ethical value - as an estimator of how much good we do on the
world - but because accounting practices don't isolate rents ( SFAIK ) from
consumer surplus, then that makes profitability a shakier ethical metric.

But yes - the ethics of a company are a serious part of the architecture. Good
ethics are of self-interest even more than they are a collective good.

------
chrismealy
If you look at what happened in law and medicine (IIRC they're at about parity
now, up from nearly zero women 50 years ago), things can change incredibly
fast.

------
alphapapa
An interesting analogy: a workplace or professional field is like a jar of
water. Injustice is like tinted water (injustice being hiring or promoting
someone less qualified at the expense of someone more qualified). Some blue-
tinted water has been added to the jar. There are two proposed solutions to
fix the problem:

1\. Add red-tinted water to the jar to counter-balance the existing blue-
tinted water in the jar.

2\. Add more clean water to the jar to dilute the blue-tinted water.

Question: Which solution would result in clearer water?

------
jeffdavis
Do aspiring computer scientists and engineers look up to managers? If not,
then how does promoting them help?

------
ryanmarsh
"but it seemed to me that the difference stemmed from the demographics"

feminine social primacy != equality

Why is this part of the narrative of women in STEM? Do people not realize this
language is counterproductive?

------
codewiz
No mention of Margherita Hack?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margherita_Hack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margherita_Hack)

------
dominotw
>Nor were they wallflowers.

what does wallflowers mean here?

definition 3 ?
[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wallflower](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wallflower)

~~~
pdq
[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wallflower](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/wallflower)

Definition 2

~~~
dominotw
oh ok. What is wrong with being shy. 'none of them were wallflowers' seems
like such an odd thing to say. As a shy person myself, hate this .

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Pike was pointing out that the women present participated as one would expect
of any professional in such a meeting.

Do you think there are benefits to being shy in such a context?

~~~
dominotw
>Do you think there are benefits to being shy in such a context?

One doesn't decide to be shy after doing cost/benefit analysis of a situation,
it's a character trait.

In this particular context women have 'confidence gap'[1] so its kind of
stange to brush them off as 'wallflowers'

1\. [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-
con...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-confidence-
gap/359815/)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I used to be shy, now I'm not. Something happened. Character traits aren't
fixed.

------
Oxitendwe
>The best way to improve the representation of women in the field is not to
recruit them, important though that is, but to promote them. To create role
models. To push them into positions of influence.

I find the idea that we should "push them into positions of influence"
abhorrent. These are zero sum games, to give them a special advantage over any
other demographic is to disadvantage another. This is antithetical to
everything most people believe about fairness and equality. And what of the
girls who learn that their role models have been given a handicap, pushed
upwards beyond their skill by well-meaning but naive men? What sort of message
will that send to them?

None of this is even mentioning the basic question of, what do we even get out
of trying to "correct" disparities in employment demographics? How do we even
know that women as a demographic have an equal interest in computer science to
men? If they don't, what do we get out of "correcting" the disparity by given
them special treatment, handicaps, incentives, etc?

Pushing people into positions of influence based on their gender is nothing
other than deeply sexist, discriminatory to people who don't need to be
pushed, and should be absolutely unacceptable to anyone who actually cares
about equality.

~~~
tptacek
If you disagree with Pike's implied priors, do so directly; don't huff about
how logic that starts from a different set of premises to yours ends at a bad
place when you swap the premises out from under it.

One very simple, coherent way to arrive at Pike's position without sacrificing
the notion of merit is to accept the idea that it's very unlikely that
computer technology is unique among the professions in being suited to men,
and thus the gender gap must itself be an indication that _something other
that merit_ is systematically advantaging men and disadvantaging women.

You're welcome to argue that point (or any other), but don't pretend that
you've beaten it by default.

~~~
watwut
This women think that tech would do itself very good if it stopped to
constantly congratulate itself on being best meritocracy in the world and
attempted to make itself meritocracy.

To tell it flat out, tech to me seems to be signalintocracy much more then
meritocracy. We don't even talk about what merit is - like ever. We don\t
know. If you broadcast the right set of signals and are confident, then you go
up. If you are humble or fail at whatever signals are in fashion that time,
you go down. I remember quite a few dudes (whether in school or work) who were
total respected geniuses doing completely difficult things - until I had to do
the same thing and it turned out to be easy. It would be also super awesome if
the best argued for ideas would win instead of most confidently and
aggressively pronounced ideas.

I also think that lack of women in tech has more to do with how strongly
little kids learn to associate being boy with anything tech related. It has
nothing to do with math abilities, at least here boys who go to engineering
and rarely really good in math (compared to pool of people who go to college).
However, it is a good job for a boy that wants a job and does not have any
special interest or hobby. It is not seen as good job for girl that dont
really are.

~~~
watwut
I wonder why would someone downvote this.

To expand on the idea: in meritocracy, networking would matter much less then
it matters in tech. Meritocracy would not see "culture fit" as so important as
tech have it. Ability to work with others would matter, but there would be no
beer test and crap like that. In meritocracy, your ability to socialize after
work would matter less. Ability to organize own work would matter more then
ability to sit there 80 hour a week being ineffective.

I also think meritocracy would lead to less fads nobody criticize until they
are out of fashion at which point everyone criticizes.

So yeah, I stand by tech is not meritocratic and if it stopped being so self-
confident about it, it could move closer to that ideal.

~~~
tptacek
I don't know. I found the comment hard to parse (but didn't vote it). But in
general, remarking on downvotes on HN is an almost certain way to generate a
cascade of downvotes.

------
RodericDay
> In my long career, I had never before been in a room like that, and the
> difference in tone, conversation, respect, and professionalism was unlike
> any I have experienced. I can't prove it was the presence of women that made
> the difference - it could just be that astronomers are better people all
> around, a possibility I cannot really refute - but it seemed to me that the
> difference stemmed from the demographics.

I feel exactly the same way. After undergrad, I assembled a board game group
with my male friends. Some girls (girlfriends, invited drop-ins) became
regulars, and for a long while, the group was pretty much 50/50\. It had never
been so good.

Eventually some things happened, people moved away, and eventually the group
became 100% male, nerdy guys. It was a pale shadow of its own self. I
eventually lost interest in it altogether, and we get together very
infrequently now.

It had nothing to do with dating or romance. I never bothered figuring exactly
what it was that made the group better. As far as I'm concerned, diversity for
the sake of diversity is a noble goal.

Many other professional and educational anecdotes contribute to this last
belief, not just this board game example, but it is representative.

~~~
Shubley
>As far as I'm concerned, diversity for the sake of diversity is a noble goal.

Diversity of what?

Age? Political stance? Language? Accent? Socioeconomic status? Wealth?
Religion? Food preference? IQ? Personality traits?

Or - none of the above? How do you choose which are important and which
aren't? Or which come before the others? Do you dump a Catholic man to get
another atheist who happens to be a woman? How do you choose between a
Francophone young man, and an anglophone old man?

Or maybe it would be good to view individuals as individuals and not pre-judge
people based on their DNA?

------
4ad
> The best way to improve the representation of women in the field is [...] to
> promote them. [...] To push them into positions of influence.

I am all for equality in chances for all people, men and women, black and
white, gay and straight, anything really, but this affirmative action "promote
X because she is a women" (or black, or XXX) is something I will fight against
with all my being and all my forces until the day I die.

I strongly feel this type of insidious thinking is the most dangerous thing
facing humanity today, worse than global warming, the united states, or global
war. I will never be silent against this rampant so-called-positive sexism.

~~~
skrebbel
Why? I mean, you took two paragraphs to write "I disagree", but you forgot the
", because".

~~~
notamy
Not gp commenter, but I think the point is that while yes, having more women
(or <insert group here> for a different discussion) would be a good thing,
they shouldn't simply be put into these positions by virtue of the "minority"
(quoted for lack of a better word) traits ALONE. Rather, would it not be
better to have people with <whatever trait> who are incredibly competent /
qualified / etc. who would be a better role model to those with <whatever
trait> who want to get into the field?

~~~
projektir
Incredibly competent is a very high bar to place on a group of people that
already has trouble breaking in. That seems like a very good way to keep that
group out. I think we already have this problem: it sometimes seems like
nobody really wants women unless they are insanely competent.

I'm sorry, that's not how it works. You don't get to keep a giant population
down and then just extract the occasional diamonds and ignore the rest. You
need to pull the entire thing if you want those diamonds to be created.

> they shouldn't simply be put into these positions by virtue of the
> "minority" (quoted for lack of a better word) traits ALONE

Why do people always state this as if it's the only possible reality? You go
from "on minority basis ALONE" to "incredibly competent" in one fell swoop.

I seriously hope you don't have people in your organization that are so
incompetent that the only reason you could think of promoting them is because
they're in an underprivileged group. Because otherwise, your statement doesn't
make any sense. It's like you are already signing up for a reality where
members of underprivileged group cannot possibly be the kinds of members you'd
very much want to have.

That's not what we're saying. What we're saying is that among the group of
cool people that you have in your organization, maybe notice the women
sometimes. And don't expect them to be "incredibly competent". Just competent
enough. The same way you treat everyone else.

~~~
notamy
Alright, I just wanna say that, as a college student, I probably have no idea
what the hell I'm talking about, so take it with a truckload of salt :)

That being said, I do agree with what you say. I was guessing at what the
(ggg)gp comment meant. I'm sure I could have worded it better, but I don't
have much experience with any of this. Seriously, thank you for explaining it
to me.

