Some of them play this game very aggressively. Once they are there, immediately organize into diversity projects and groups to push for quotas in promotions, project leads, etc. Despite these fast-track opportunities, they fully believe they are continuously being held back, at every level, and everything will be interpreted that way.

I think it will eventually break the org but I don't plan on staying.

You’re obviously able to organise in the workplace for basically whatever goals you want if you like (though in the US this organisation is only protected if more than one person is involved.)

That's not what's happening. They just demand explicit quotas for themselves.

The whole 'diversity and inclusion/feminism makes things better for everyone' is largely a myth, it's just identity groups out for themselves in corporate America.

That said, FAANG companies have provided countless textbook examples of what HR departments should not do in almost every imaginable situation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18524333

I’d love to see the aclu sue FANG over their Diversity programs. I highly suspect they are illegal in one way shape or form.

A uniform decision regarding all interns across an entire company targeting specific racial charactaristics is very different from a policy that bases decisions on objective measurements done in good faith with intent to correct for some form of bias.

Edit: btw the thing that annoys me about this is that I already won some tough and prestigious merit scholarships so I actually would have a good shot at these and probably get one if I applied to several. So it's more direct here for me.

And I don't think this can be achieved by accident. There must be intentionality to achieve this.

Just look at this NYT hit piece on Coinbase yesterday and all the data available from big tech like Google and Facebook: https://twitter.com/nathanielpopper/status/13440449092006952...

I'm not endorsing it. I'm just noting that it's happening.

Here's an article that discusses one recent study:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bias-hiring-0504-...

The problem with the original study was that it used names that denoted socio-economic status as much as race (ie, "Dahntay Smith" or "Shaniqua Thomas"). That's a problem, too, but I suspect a similar effect for professional job applicants can be shown using "lower" socio-economic status white names (ie, "Bobby Lee Jones" or "Tommy Ray Brown").

Regardless, I would be strongly in favor of anonymized job applications, since that would eliminate any suggestion of such bias in whichever direction.

Evey beyond names people tend to assign class, gender, and race to surprisingly mundane things that are found on resumes.

I assumed this was fairly typical.

Either way I was responding to "if we took sex and race off... job apps... it would really help."

A more likely explanation which is backed up by evidence is that generalized perception of a group by the teacher will yield grades accordingly, so the more research that shows girls being better at school will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Teachers have to work hard to counter this bias (and many do).

There is also a possibility that there is some biological difference that makes certain teaching methods that just so happen to be favored by teachers at the moment are a tiny bit easier for one gender over others. However I would like to see some research before I subscribe to that, but remain open for the possibility meanwhile.

That all said, if there is a difference, but the effect size is small, then honestly: Does it matter?

That's not what the parent comment is saying - it's saying that earned praise is not given at the same rate for males as for females.

There were half a dozen of them and none of them even considered what they were about to do was wrong. I wonder how often this happens in other areas.

Even the "boy scouts" are just the scouts now: https://www.scouting.org/

There is very much a need for boys to have a space to be boys: where they can let their boisterousness out, where they can act a little crazy, or just act closer to their true selves etc. without having to worry about how they're perceived by the girls. As soon as puberty kicks in, all co-ed events are affected by sexual dynamics; it's been a standard in every human society to provide plenty of contexts for boys where that is removed from the mix as much as possible in order to get better / different behaviour from the young cadre.

As the father of several boys, I agree. For anyone interested more in this concept, I recommend "Boys Adrift" by Leonard Sax (a psychologist) and "Boys Should Be Boys" by Dr. Meg Meeker (a pediatrician). Both books are very enlightening about some of the problems our boys face in America.

[1] https://www.meekerparenting.com/podcast

Basically, different safe spaces exist for different demographics, but are only marked for certain groups.

I'll add that one of the best things about Boy Scouts was that we could do stuff that was dangerous, but not too dangerous. We didn't have any moms come along either, and I think that helped. Dads would stop us from doing something truly stupid (like permanent injury type stupid), but not something dumb that would bruise us and teach us a lesson. It also allowed us to do lots more fun stuff.

These days, tree forts are a no-no, apparently. Some guys from my old troop were building one at a mixed event recently. Some girls from another troop came over and said it wasn't safe, then got some karen from their troop to come yell at the boys. Oh, and and apparently it's no longer okay to climb above chest height these days, because it's "not safe". I'm way too young to be saying, "Back when I was young, we did $UNSAFE_THING all the time! We liked it, and never got hurt." Or at least, I thought I was.

1. this gender gap begins very early (kindergarden), before the majority of "women in STEM" programs begin

2. are international (i'm fairly certain they don't have women in STEM programs in China, for example)

3. it doesn't explain why the differences are inversely related to income level (do you think there are more "women in STEM" programs at lower income levels?)

4. this difference is very old (>50 years of this effect)

About 100 years ago, women were explicitly forbidden from most colleges and universities. The attitude that women aren't cut out for, and should be excluded from STEM dates back to Socrates (~400 bce), at least. I'm not a historian but that wasn't terribly long after Greeks started writing things down.

The issue is that a lot of people don't really define stem as stem, they define it as RCE-research, computers, and engineering.

Linking the pew article for more detail: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/01/09/diversity-in-the-...

Besides the point. Have you ever had a favorite teacher who told you that you were destined for failure? Probably not, that teacher is never gonna be your favorite -- and spending a semester, or even years, with that teacher might well sour you on the subject even if it was your favorite.

I'm optimistic that we will eventually reach a fully egalitarian future, but pessimistic at how much work is left to do.

this wasn't true 50 years ago

could it be that simple? yeah I think it is actually

Probably not, no. Setting aside the deliberately inflammatory description you chose to use here, this is a complex phenomenon observed over quite a long period in a variety of different locations and social backgrounds globally, and the suggestion that it could be simplified to "uneven praise" doesn't seem to correlate with any research I've seen.

Unfortunately it's the boys getting the shaft right now.

It's pretty difficult to make any real progress on issues of equal access if any targeted efforts to improve access for particular groups are going to be characterised as "giving others the shaft".

It depends on whether the efforts go from "equal access" to positive discrimination, and I'm not sure where that line is drawn or if people are interested in drawing it

If "equal access" is the goal (which I agree it should be), why are we excluding a group based on immutable characteristics? You really see that as equal?

There's a pop theory / crackpot idea that men tend to be on average "dumber" than women, but with a higher standard distribution, so they will have more "geniuses".

Women will be on average "smarter", but lower standard deviation.

If true, the disposable male theory might explain aspects of that, since while women will have a high chance of reproduction, male biology will need to have more variance and "risk" to achieve some sort of distinction to get to the comparatively lower reproductive success rate of males.

In reality, our schooling is now so screwed up between grade inflation, teaching for the test, over-prescribing ADD drugs (which is opioid dependence grooming by the drug companies), reduced funding, destruction of the middle class, and a host of other changes to society and policy.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26158978/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/dr-paul-...

The current understanding is that the average is generally similar, and males have greater variability. So yes, vastly more male geniuses. But men have larger brains for a reason, so it might be we're biased against measuring anything men are better at.

> If true, the disposable male theory might explain aspects of that

It doesn't. The main reason is because female mammals have duplicate sex chromosomes, and the effects get combined together. In some other kinds of animals (such as birds) females tend to have greater variability. So it's a haphazard consequence of some evolutionary split way back when. (Who knows, maybe the causation of disposable males is there, but in the other direction.)

Definitely not, because this gender difference far predates our belief as a society that women are as capable as men in STEM subjects and careers.

[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360

However, if we are going to solve a problem (eg non biodegradeable plastic) we must do it upstream (eg taxing non biodegradeable plastic and nudging corporations into switching to biodegradeable materials), rather than expend tons of effort downstream (eg banning plastic bags, straws and blaming individuals).

Same here... if we are going to be doing something about girls in STEM as a society, I’d rather do it upstream — earlier in life — because otherwise trying to fiddle around the edges later is just a bandaid.

PS: as an aside, I found the expression “it’s the boys getting the shaft right now” a bit ironic, given the origins of the phrase https://www.etymonline.com/word/shaft

[Race] may not own houses. -- Illegal. [Race] is given extra help to own houses. -- Legal

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html#:~:te....

You do see anger when individuals perceive they can't afford homes, school, or other big ticket items and perceive that they aren't given help - but that isn't quite the same as denying people something.

Which is fine if you're part of that the well-off, but if you're just a person and not benefitted by the categroy association with rich people who happen to be the same race -- a simplistic association that discriminatory, racist people make -- then you're shit out of luck.

Discriminating against people is denying them something, it's denying them a fair shot, fair treatment by the government. Regardless of their sex or skin colour they deserve fair opportunity.

How is that not denying them help?

> On average [Not-Race] has more wealth to afford houses, or home ownership is more common than [Race] in these programs.

So why not just have your aid program be based on wealth, rather than race?

However the organization’s programming can be very feminist, turning off boys.

They seem completely unrelated to overall academic performance however, and your complaint sounds a little whiny. I'm as tired of woke nonsense as anyone, but these programs are a great idea.

Being cool is a chump thing

Is this a public school? What does "for girls" mean? Like, can you enroll a boy?

The description of the program specifically says, "for girls" and it has a cartoon graphic with a few different female characters of different skin colors, each dressed as some profession. It doesn't say, "no boys" or anything like that, but as I said above I'm hesitant to try with my son. If it were me I would do it.

And I'm afraid this increases the perception that men are naturally fine at STEM and women need special support because of inherent gender attributes (and not because of social problems that we could just address at the root)... which at the end of the day makes life harder for women in their careers.

I mean, I suppose it's also possible that these programs just don't do anything and we should scrap them due to lack of results, but I'm inclined to believe they're helping somewhat.

(Semi-disclaimer: Prior to COVID I used to volunteer at Girls Who Code.)

Because there's a lot of evidence to suggest that's what happens. As measured by the Global Gender Gap Index , the countries with the highest levels of gender equality, such as Scandanavia, have the lowest levels of female programmers and engineers, whereas countries with much lower scores and more traditional views on genders (such as Iran UAE) have some of the highest levels of female programmers and engineers.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...

https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-gir...

On the other hand how do you get more girls into STEM without programs like this? Maybe it's the best of bad options.

I think addressing group 2 is a desirable and valid goal.

Societal gender roles say nurses and teachers are women's work and STEM is man's work. That's the thing one would need to address, and at a young age. It's not entirely clear how one can do that. One "only" has to challenge the societal norms that define gender roles themselves. Not an easy problem.

That is in my opinion an unjustified assumption. Huge numbers of men and women are uninterested in programming. In fact, virtually everyone I know of either gender is uninterested in programming. The number of people who don't program because they're not interested anecdotally dwarfs the number of people who don't program for any other reason.

And on a tangent, as for "girls in STEM" programs, I'm not really sure why they need to exist. I think a "girls in STEM" program is as necessary as a "boys in teaching" program, and that is, not at all. Different genders will naturally gravitate towards different fields, and we don't need to fight that.

Downvoters: why is this not interesting? Traditional textbook way of learning might be better than making things too much fun. (it still has to be fun, but intrinsic motivation is better than extrinsic). We will never know if we don't measure the outcome.