Melinda Gates' new mission: getting more women in tech

https://backchannel.com/melinda-gates-has-a-new-mission-women-in-tech-8eb706d0a903#.te5y83cnv

by steven • 10 years ago

9 11 10 years ago

advantark25• 10 years ago

Nothing is keeping women from going into tech right now. In fact, there are all sorts of incentives for them to go into tech and they're STILL not going. I think it's time to accept the fact that men and women are psychologically different in some ways. That's not a good or bad thing, it's just reality.

DenisM• 10 years ago

Straight from the article:

When I was in school in the 1980s, women got about 37 percent of computer science degrees and law degrees then. Law went up to 47 percent now. In medicine, we were at 28 percent in 1984. That’s gone up to 48 percent. Computer science went from 37 percent to 18 percent.

advantark25• 10 years ago

That is a good point. I've tried to think of a good argument against this, but I haven't been able to come up with one. It's an odd statistic, since the ratio of women to men in college has been going up & women have been encouraged to go into STEM fields for a while now.

untog2• 10 years ago

there are all sorts of incentives for them to go into tech and they're STILL not going

You don't think it's worth at least looking at why that is? What does "psychologically different" mean? If we're saying they are genetically less disposed to enter tech as career then no, I doubt there's a lot we can do. But something tells me that isn't the case at all.

What if they're "psychologically different" because our education system and culture drives them away from engineering-y, logical careers and into more personable, "soft" industries? Shouldn't we be able to take a second look at that culture and that education system?

Note that this goes both ways. How many boys out there would make fantastic fashion designers, carers or teachers, but are dissuaded from those careers because they're not "masculine" enough?

advantark25• 10 years ago

So what if the differences in gender are because of educational and cultural reasons? There's always this assumption that all differences between genders are terrible, but I don't really see why this is the case.

Honestly, the only reason I see this being done is so the labor pool for tech workers can go up(and thus pay would go down).

jtlien2• 10 years ago

How bout not making tech careers that end at age 40? Or that are less likely to outsourced? I was a tech person and based on my experience cannot recommend it to anyone. The only stable jobs are working for the government or a power utility.

throwaway2016a• 10 years ago

Previous discussion, same article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12597442

Melinda Gates' new mission: getting more women in tech

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