We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14950209 and marked it off-topic.
http://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-news/2011/09/mal...
Quotes from the article: "Through this initiative, called 20 x 20: Choose Nursing, it awards scholarships to undergraduate and graduate male nursing students; recognizes excellent nursing schools for men; and has created a poster advertising campaign designed to appeal to men."
“One day, men might actually make up 50 percent of the nursing workforce, in a similar way that women have been able to enroll and work in law, engineering and medicine,” Lecher says. “That would be true gender inclusion and balance.”
And, there are some really good reasons to have more men in nursing -- as nurses take over more and more primary care duties from physicians, it's a really good idea to have gender diversity in providers, especially for sensitive issues like prostate care and STD's.
With nursing it's very clearly a social issue. Nursing is seen as a women's job even though having more male nurses would improve the quality of health care.
There are also other female heavy professions where there it is seen as important to bring more men in to increase diversity. Generally anything that has to do with working with children (childcare, especially teaching). In education getting more male teachers, especially minority male teachers is seen as important to provide young men with role models.
Ever think maybe men generally dont want to be a nurse and women generally dont want to be a nerd ?
The "men just don't want to be nurses and women just don't want to be programmers" standpoint usually assumes some immutable property (often genetics) that defends the status quo, and ignores mountains of other obvious problems that might lead to gender imbalances in a given profession. Obviously men and women are different, but there are many people that might enjoy and thrive in a profession they wouldn't otherwise consider because it's "not for them."
The issue in question is that women (and minorities) are underrepresented and sometimes experience discrimination/unfair treatment in the IT industry. Why is that, and what are some solutions to that? Do we need solutions to that?
If the nursing profession addressed gender disparity in some way that can be applied to tech, then that is worthy of inclusion in this discussion. If not, it's not particularly relevant.
There is, indeed, a movement to bring more men into the nursing profession.
"Although all of the benefits of becoming a nurse would plausibly outshine any kind of challenges nurses face...there are still reasons that prevent men from eagerly pursuing a career in nursing. Even today, despite the growth in healthcare, nursing is still perceived as a field that is less prestigious, and so requires less training and education. One male student, named Gillis, noted that a recent graduate of Stanford, who was interested in a nursing program, was told, “Stanford grads don’t become nurses.” There were also students, ones who excelled in school, but were also told something along the lines of, “You’re too smart to become a nurse.” Also, there’s that old sense that men still feel as if nursing is a female profession, and so men choose to pursue a field that’ll be viewed as more appropriate for men.
"Of the nearly five hundred [male nurses] who participated [in a survey] 73 percent claimed that negative stereotypes of men working as nurses realistically contributed to the shortage, 59 percent noted that what might deter men was that nursing has always, especially in previous generations, been seen as a female profession, and the rest, 42 percent felt that men lacked male models and mentors within the field."
http://everynurse.org/men-entering-predominantly-female-care...
https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2017/mar/01/w...
Even more, men have some advantages in the nursing profession.
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2015/03/124266/male-registered-nur...
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/blog/2014/04/why-do-...
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/blog/2014/08/women-i...
As of 2011, 90% of nurses in the US were women[0]. That's even more skewed than tech. Moreover, the average income of a nurse in Silicon Valley is $100k. To my knowledge, there is no outcry or movement to bring more men into the nursing profession.
[0] https://www.census.gov/people/io/files/Men_in_Nursing_Occupa...