>Okay, I understand the 'reality' that you don't want to listen to the experience of a woman who has been programming since she was 9,
I am not in CS, I do not know what companies look for in CS. I however do not have a college degree and this week alone have been rejected for 3 jobs I applied to, despite having 12 years of experience doing 1, because "there is a minimum requirement of a Bachelor's".
In my experience, outside of early-stage startups, companies want a degree not hobbyist experience. In the case of the job in my field where I have more years of experience than the company has in existence, they wanted a degree over experience.
"Ryan! I wanted to extend a virtual wave and thank you for your interest in joining our team. You obviously have many of the skills we're looking for. However, for the Customs Brokerage role we require a BA/BS degree as well as previous experience". I literally have over 12 years of experience doing the exact job, at a company that is 105 years old vs the company that is 5 years old, and I was rejected before even getting an interview because I lacked a 4-year degree (in any field).
We all have our struggles. There's no need to put out information that oversimplifies the problem women have in technology and reduces it down to an analogy that retains biased sentiment.
I personally don't think I'd do well walking into an interview for a startup, even though that's something I might have wanted to do when I was younger. We all have regrets and struggles we live with and have to work with, no matter how many pieces of paper are attached to us.
>There's no need to put out information that oversimplifies the problem women have in technology and reduces it down to an analogy
There's literally less qualified women than there are men. Fact. Period. End of story.
That means fewer applicants.
That means fewer hires.
Should Facebook go hire unqualified people then spend considerable amounts of times training them like some military occupational training where you're i class all day every day getting paid for 3-18 months while you learn what is necessary to do the job?
They could do that, you'd have to sign a contract though guaranteeing so many years of service or repay the money if you self-terminate.
When 20% of the people pursing the degrees are women, you can't expect 50% of the new-hires to be female.
You are throwing out figures you don't have access to.
The article's figures come in the form of a metric of change, a delta value indicating the passage of time. That is the foundation to reason and measure with. That is where there is complaint and room for improvement because that measurement is a useful measurement to the whole system as a dynamic system.
>You are throwing out figures you don't have access to.
Erm. I linked where the figures came from. There are considerably more white people in the U.S. than any other race, fact. Numbers of women majoring in CS degrees has fallen considerably, fact.
Less than 20% of CS degrees are being pursued by women per the source I cited. Women would be a minority at anything less than 50%.
You can't expect 20% of the degree holders to fill 50% of the jobs.
Yay, so neither of us want to read what the other wants to say! That's surely going to fix the problem!
From the linked article:
'Unless companies fire everyone and start over, we’re not going to see drastic improvements anytime soon.'
People who are saying 'there is a problem' are well aware this isn't something you can just measure today and fix with just the information that exists as it exists presently.
Why do I care? Because, I was once a little girl reading hacker stuff on the internet. It is part of the problem. If you can't admit to the subtext implied by your original post, or even get a sense that maybe it's not the right kind of analogy to use, I don't have anything left to say.
I'd be lying if I have to say I'm happy to infer that your point here is to discredit and silence the perspective of the article, but that's how all of this is coming across. Also a point from the article:
'That’s because homogenous cultures lead to limited perspectives and potential lack of awareness of things that may be more obvious to diverse groups of people.'
I am not in CS, I do not know what companies look for in CS. I however do not have a college degree and this week alone have been rejected for 3 jobs I applied to, despite having 12 years of experience doing 1, because "there is a minimum requirement of a Bachelor's".
In my experience, outside of early-stage startups, companies want a degree not hobbyist experience. In the case of the job in my field where I have more years of experience than the company has in existence, they wanted a degree over experience.
"Ryan! I wanted to extend a virtual wave and thank you for your interest in joining our team. You obviously have many of the skills we're looking for. However, for the Customs Brokerage role we require a BA/BS degree as well as previous experience". I literally have over 12 years of experience doing the exact job, at a company that is 105 years old vs the company that is 5 years old, and I was rejected before even getting an interview because I lacked a 4-year degree (in any field).