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In 1984, 37 percent of computer science majors were women, but by 2014 that number had dropped to 18 percent.
As of July 2016, White Americans are the racial majority with the White population being 76.9% of the country.
Statistically, an applicant with a computer science degree is likely to be a white male so logically a company that employees mostly CS types would be heavy on white males and white on women and other races.
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Please don't treat me like an idiot because ambiguity is convenient.
There's the expectation that people will just fill in the gaps because that's how we think when we code large projects. But here, I must say no. I will not fill in these gaps for you. I work hard to be good at what I do and if it continues to be insisted that sex differences serve as a concrete foundation for technical, mathematical skill, that simply isn't true. My life is proof enough to me. It may not be proof to you, but that's what I get to live with, because of lazy thought patterns like this. The near constant need to prove myself to people who are privileged enough to not have to go to such extremes.
Expectations and roles, yes, I've heard all these arguments before. How does stuff like that change? Surely, you must be aware that repeating the same points will only serve to reinforce such a perspective?
Let me fill in the gaps for you. I never once said or implied that women are inferior in any way and unable to do what men do in software. Read my comment again. I'm saying that women THEMSELVES do not prefer to do the work, regardless of ability, due to societal conditioning. I'm not talking about all women either, just on average. And I'm talking about gender here, not sex. You seem to have some old ideas about gender. I would suspect that a trans individual might have some of the same biases and cis-women, as many trans-women pick up a lot of the social and cultural behaviors and preferences of cis-women, so hopefully that makes it clear to you that I'm not talking about fundamental physical differences.
Also, let me make clear that I agree with the goal of a blended, equal workplace. I'm only discussing the effectiveness about how and where we go about doing it, not whether we should do it at all. Don't misplace your anger toward me.
Everything. If people aren't applying to the jobs, they can't be hired.
Then of course even if the minority/gender a company is lacking on applies for a job, if they aren't the most qualified candidate a company shouldn't be expected to hire them.
>Are you actually suggesting women have some physical attribute that makes them less applicable for programming, mathematics, or computer science jobs?
No, clean your display off, I said "Example: Women are GENERALLY more petite, they struggle carrying firefighter gear".
It's an example, an analogy. Firefighters often have the exact same diversity issues, fact is more Caucasian men apply than other races and genders. In the case of a firefighter a man selected at random is more likely to be more physically cable to do the job than a woman, with firefighting strength comes first then firefighting theory.
With computer sciences, you have a far larger pool of men to draw on than women. n 1984, 37 percent of computer science majors were women, but by 2014 that number had dropped to 18 percent (https://www.usnews.com/news/data-mine/articles/2016-10-20/st...).
That means out of a pool of applicants, roughly 1 out of every 5 (with a degree in the field) will be female. Add to that the fact that white Americans make up the racial majority of the country and what happens? Your pool of applicants is far more likely to be male and white than female and any other race.
Someone with a computer science degree in the U.S. is statistically likely to be a white male. That's not racism, that's not sexism, that's reality.
The world changes, I'm assuming you know that. That's reality too.
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).
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 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.
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.
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.
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.'
But perhaps all of this is pointless.
I am tired of playing nice and assuming everyone has good intentions when this sexist passive BS crops up. This is not a good argument. 'Who applies' is a perspective offered very clearly from only one side of the application pool - and it's severely limited because the only people that get listened to about the problem are the ones that retain authority over the business dynamic.
It is incomplete information. I don't know how to make this more clear or obvious, but if people who value reason and logic and hard facts so intimately want to shoot themselves in the foot, well, cest la vie
This reasoning is part of the problem. It's not rigorously inspected or accepted, because it's circular logic that can be self proving given one dominant party enforcing such a reasoning structure as 'the rules'.