Yes I realize that most of the people want that. But I believe that if we try and take the quick route it will over time only make the situation worse.
Of course, you are correct in your statement that men outnumber women in the field of IT. But I disagree with the statement that we have to do anything special about that unless that special thing is the golden rule to treat others how you want be treated yourself.
I don't want to be put aside, or left behind just because there is less women in the job that I may apply to in the future. So I treat any such endeavor to endorse gender-promotion as a hostile action, because it is unless the goal isn't equality. I want people to have equal chance and the route we're on now is not heading in that way at all.
The goal is clear and so should the message be, the goal will be reached as any other goal gets reached. You take one step in the right direction and educate people on why it's important to treat each other as equals. If this path won't change, I will get older with the same views on the society I have now. Who knows, perhaps I will employ people in the future and I will bring my experience with it. As will a lot of other people with the same experience of getting put aside, left behind or not valued as they should because of their gender.
From my experience and if it carries on and get worse do you really think women (in this case) will benefit from that? All it says to me right now is to have suspicion against women in IT, since they're getting all kind of help to be promoted and their skills or experience may very well not be real. How may I know the difference? Will she deliver? All those questions and certainly there are a few will just make it easier for the employer to pick the employ the other gender. This is as well as true for women-dominated work environments.
I'm not saying I actually will do that if I become an employer, but as it is right now that's unfortunately the way it's headed and is the hard truth. There is a lot of people that feels like this, probably on both sides of the gender. Even if we get downvoted on community sites just because right now our thoughts are "wrong" it won't change the fact that endorsing a gender in the name of equality is not just a cruel thing to do, it's counter effective. It is easy to breed hate, it's a lot harder to get rid of it. Trust me, I am one of those people that will hate if it just continues.
> that special thing is the golden rule to treat others how you want be treated yourself.
Unless you have some magical way of forcing everyone to suddenly drop their prejudices, then there is a need for social activism. Sorry if that inconveniences you.
Your entire argument is a straw man. Who are these women being given more than a fair chance?
Bear in mind that the purpose of this "Female Founders" event is to show other women that there are successful women in technology. The idea is to inspire other women to get involved. We don't have "Male Founders" events because almost all "Founders" events would qualify.
>Unless you have some magical way of forcing everyone to suddenly drop their prejudices, then there is a need for social activism.
Predicated on what? What's your proof that such prejudices exist, or that they're applied more so to women than men? Furthermore, what's your proof that discrimination is the form of social activism required to fix this unproved prejudice?
In any debate around this issue there seems to be a lot of working backwards from the evidence to whatever theory the commenter personally supports. People who want to believe that prejudice and sexism 'keep women down' cite the fact that men are predominant in tech. People who want to believe that men are more predisposed to enter tech than women cite the exact same evidence. This isn't how logic works. Unfortunately for the latter group, it's not possible to prove a negative (i.e. the absence of sexism), so the former group will actually have to present evidence showing that prejudice is the best explanation for the gender gap in tech.
>Who are these women being given more than a fair chance?
Ignoring the facile pretense that every tech event is somehow exclusive to men simply because more men choose to attend, I'd start off by saying that this event -- this event which is enforced as exclusively women-only -- is evidence of women being given gender-based advantages. It requires Orwellian levels of double-think to look at a female-only event and pretend such a thing isn't sexist, while at the same time decrying the sexism in tech from the mere unexplained fact that tech contains more men than women. But this event is too hot an issue for both sides for either party to concede that it's proof or disproof of a female advantage in tech.
Instead, I'd ask what you think constitutes fair, and what constitutes equality? It seems that the answer to this question is what really divides the two sides in this debate. I -- and I assume most who think events like this are destructive -- would answer that fairness and equality relate to negative freedom: the freedom from someone restraining you from pursuing your goals i.e. we would all be more equal if the only thing which stood between us and our goals were our own skill (or lack thereof). If you disagree with this goal, could explain why? And if you do not disagree with this goal, could you explain how you justify discriminatory events? (And if you could do so without sarcasm, that'd be fantastic, thanks.)
This guys has a point. Yea women where is the proof that you are prejudiced against except centuries of discrimination? The last western country to give women right to vote was in 1960s. Almost 50 years ago. The fact that you make 80 cents to every dollar a man makes is not a proof of any prejudice but a proof that women are genetically pre-disposed to making less money than men. Also, feminism is bad.
\sarcasm
>I assume most who think events like this are destructive -- would answer that fairness and equality relate to negative freedom: the freedom from someone restraining you from pursuing your goals i.e. we would all be more equal if the only thing which stood between us and our goals were our own skill (or lack thereof).
Because this argument assumes a level playing field for everybody including no intrinsic factors like lack of role models, lack of representation and lack of societal support.
Here's another advice for you, what you are thinking are well-reasoned arguments are all the same arguments that come up time and again in Sociology 101 to being stated in every argument on gender and race related issues on Hacker News. So, go do some research make some new (but probably) misinformed arguments about how we live in a post-gender society instead rehashing the same bigoted crap all the time.
> The last western country to give women right to vote was in 1960s.
Women got the right to vote at a federal level in Switzerland in 1971.
> The fact that you make 80 cents to every dollar a man makes is not a proof of any prejudice but a proof that women are genetically pre-disposed to making less money than men.
No. You talk about sociology 101, so how about this nugget; making less money than someone has many more variables associated with it than discrimination (for example; part time vs. full time). This is practically an urban myth at this point. You can Google for refutations of it if you want (either 80 cents, or 77 cents) and you should be able to find a dozen decent ones.
Actually if you look at the US office of government accountability study, you'd see a completely different view.
Considering that the two cited articles are from 1993 and 1999 respectively, it might be worth it to attach more weight to a wide ranging government study from 2009.
Two things about this study: First, it only covers people in government jobs. Second, the title of the study is "Gender Pay Gap in the Federal Workforce Narrows..." meaning there IS STILL a gender pay gap. And if you read the study, about 7 cents worth of the gap was unexplained by any of the factors they analyzed.
So okay, women don't make $0.77 for every dollar men earn. If we discard all the stuff the GAO found that definitely isn't related, women make $0.93 for every dollar men earn. So, is that somehow okay because it's "only" 7 cents?
Nope, I'm just drawing your attention to the fact that it's narrowed from (the previously) stated 77 cents, and that perhaps the issue needs to be examined from a new perspective in order to continue to achieve returns.
As the previous studies cited were a 1993 study and a 1999 study covering Sweden, I thought it might be important to add some modern statistics into the mix.
The interesting part to me is on pages 84-86. If you look, you'll see the pay gap resulting from characteristics such as experience, difference in education, and difference in occupation (the three most usually cited to explain the wage gap) have narrowed significantly.
This is important because it showcases a societal shift in workforce population, from a 'glass ceiling' problem to a far more difficult one that is harder to define and fix.
> Predicated on what? What's your proof that such prejudices exist, or that they're applied more so to women than men? Furthermore, what's your proof that discrimination is the form of social activism required to fix this unproved prejudice?
No, my entire argument is about convincing people that events like these are sexist events and does not belong in an equal society. My experience is not that people have prejudices against females. My experience is that people rely on prejudices to exist in order to make sexist events "ok" or even "good".
Maybe female founders inspire women which is completely fine and maybe almost all the other founders events would qualify for a "male founders" event. But it doesn't change that there probably is a lot people that want to attend and being recognized not welcomed since they have the wrong gender which is kind of the core of sexism.
My absolute main point is that sexist events are not ok whatever you like to dress it up as. My second main point is that I felt the sexism my entire life and every time it happens it disgusts me and if it continues I am afraid that I will become very sexist myself even if I'd like not to. I am seriously afraid for it to come to a point were protecting my interests means being sexist to people that did not have anything to do with the sexism inflicted on me.
Of course, you are correct in your statement that men outnumber women in the field of IT. But I disagree with the statement that we have to do anything special about that unless that special thing is the golden rule to treat others how you want be treated yourself.
I don't want to be put aside, or left behind just because there is less women in the job that I may apply to in the future. So I treat any such endeavor to endorse gender-promotion as a hostile action, because it is unless the goal isn't equality. I want people to have equal chance and the route we're on now is not heading in that way at all.
The goal is clear and so should the message be, the goal will be reached as any other goal gets reached. You take one step in the right direction and educate people on why it's important to treat each other as equals. If this path won't change, I will get older with the same views on the society I have now. Who knows, perhaps I will employ people in the future and I will bring my experience with it. As will a lot of other people with the same experience of getting put aside, left behind or not valued as they should because of their gender.
From my experience and if it carries on and get worse do you really think women (in this case) will benefit from that? All it says to me right now is to have suspicion against women in IT, since they're getting all kind of help to be promoted and their skills or experience may very well not be real. How may I know the difference? Will she deliver? All those questions and certainly there are a few will just make it easier for the employer to pick the employ the other gender. This is as well as true for women-dominated work environments.
I'm not saying I actually will do that if I become an employer, but as it is right now that's unfortunately the way it's headed and is the hard truth. There is a lot of people that feels like this, probably on both sides of the gender. Even if we get downvoted on community sites just because right now our thoughts are "wrong" it won't change the fact that endorsing a gender in the name of equality is not just a cruel thing to do, it's counter effective. It is easy to breed hate, it's a lot harder to get rid of it. Trust me, I am one of those people that will hate if it just continues.