We can agree that it would be good to increase gender diversity in the industry. But you are making a leap without enough evidence to say that the reason it exists is because of "our culture's discrimination against women who program."

It is an assumption I've made because of a personal belief and a fact: I believe that women are just as qualified as men in the field of software engineering, and women are outnumbered by men 5:1 in that field [0]. There are many reasons why this might be true, but I think the one that makes the most sense to me is that our culture discriminates against women who program (and women in science and tech in general).

[0] http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/programming-and-development...

I think its funny I'm getting downvoted because people are projecting onto what I said. Hint: there are more possible answers to the question "Why aren't there more women programmers?" other than "the industry discriminates against them" and "they are not qualified."

There's an embarrassing amount of circumstantial evidence.

There's an embarrassing amount of douchebaggery, for sure. But I'm not convinced that the reason women are misrepresented in programming is as simple as stopping a few assholes from putting slides with misogynist garbage on them at conferences, etc. If only it were so simple. I think it is rooted in deeper problems that expand well beyond the realms of our little bubble of software engineering. The same could be said of many fields that men are largely absent from as well by way of self-exclusion.

To be clear I support the Hacker School/Etsy program completely but took issue with the fact that the parent claimed that it's completely obvious that the reason women have a small presence in software engineering is because of discrimination by a minority of people in our field. I think a lot more women than men simply end up not having an interest in the field due to larger societal issues with gender roles and the way we raise our children and the paths put in front of them, and this is a problem worth solving and programs like this help break those assumptions down. The fact that there are dumbasses who think because there aren't many women in the room they can act like children is a symptom that happens way late in the game. The assholes will evaporate once the deeper problems are solved.

The right solution would be to get women interested in technology from an early age, not by raising the numbers artificially by creating a sexist scholarship.

When you want to solve a problem, is it better to wait until someone else implements what you believe to be the "right" solution (assuming you don't have the resources to do it yourself, which in this case neither etsy nor hacker school do), or is it better to simply do what you can with the resources you have to try to solve it?

"The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today."