The article briefly points out the benefits of inclusivity and the detriment of bias, but not enough to stifle the question of "why does it matter?" One side of this stems from the users and...
The article briefly points out the benefits of inclusivity and the detriment of bias, but not enough to stifle the question of "why does it matter?"
One side of this stems from the users and consumers of Stack Overflow. Everytime I see a result pop in Google from that site after hours of queries, I know I'm getting closer to the answer. The verbosity of the answers, the creativity of their solutions, and up until recently the strict nature of their questions and responses boiled the answer to a succinct solution of good code.
But coding languages are cold neutral things. Woman, man, the answer doesn't care. At least, I don't care, does the answer solve my problem? Great. Even deeper, does the answer solve my problem in the leanest way possible? Great.
I acknowledge the creativity and style of cultures when it comes to coding. The way some cultures approach hard problems and solve them is not uniform and sometimes you do need a pair of eyes from another part of the planet to crack what seems impossible to you.
I acknowledge a woman's perspective would bring the same thing to the table. You can see this in every other industry.
So I wonder what areas of development could a woman's "womanness" succeed where men have failed? Where would a woman's code be more performant or where would a woman's insight solve tough mathematical and logical problems?
What does a woman only developed operating system do different than one developed by men?
I personally think, as someone who codes and develops, the skills needed to do this activity favor a certain type of human. The women I've asked in coding classes hate it, are only there because they're required to be, and dislike it because they don't like the unforgiving nature of coding. The cold brutal and granular rules of coding aren't something they enjoy. Some do, of course, there's always exceptions, but anecdotally it's just not up their alley.
Some women want to go drive trucks, work in oil rigs, be handymen, electricians, plumbers, etc. Some women like to code too and they like AI. Some men want to be kindergarten teachers and nurses and whatever else.
But them wanting it is what I'm focusing on. If women wanted to code en masse, they'd be applying and working in places where they could code.
Is Stack Overflows issue they don't take on women? That their application process excludes women? That to sign up as a user you need to be a man? Is it tech industry related where advertisements for their platform never arrive at women populated places?
It doesn't sound like it. There doesn't seem to be foul play in that regard.
So if coding seldom benefits from different genders, if the platform isn't excluding women, if women don't care to code, why are people coming down on Stack Overflow to point out a "problem" they should fix?
It's one thing to exclude women from leadership or operating heavy machinery on some outdated and unsupported notion that men are better designed for the acts, they're not. It's another to inject women into a field that doesn't need them and a field they don't want to be in in the first place.
Similarly, to argue women are better at nursing and at teaching children is a false argument. Both sexes can do the activity should they want, but to argue women are somehow better is a very hard argument to make.
In the case of coding, show me female only code versus male only code and point out the differences and how it's better.
If you can, then tech is missing out and there should be more women involvement. If not...then is the thing actually broken?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/history-human-computers-180972202/ I understand that you are reporting your true anecdotal experience, but women being discouraged and discouraging...
I understand that you are reporting your true anecdotal experience, but women being discouraged and discouraging themselves from participating in coding, math and physics is a complex social phenomenon that has some roots in overt sexism. I am far from expert but the article I linked points to one piece of the puzzle.
If the issue is the toxicity exuded by men grounded in false notions of what a woman can't and can't do, or some sort of tribal boys only club that actively fends off women then yes, there's a...
If the issue is the toxicity exuded by men grounded in false notions of what a woman can't and can't do, or some sort of tribal boys only club that actively fends off women then yes, there's a problem and it needs to be corrected. I acknowledge that as a widespread issue in tech and in STEM fields.
But that's not a "women would make this field better" issue it's a "men have created a toxic environment that's deeply exist" issue. Flooding the field with women won't suddenly change that.
The article doesn't touch on the why it's a problem all that much. Only that it is.
That's fair although there is a role for lived experience changing prejudices. Much like acceptance of lgbt gained popularity when straight people learned how many of their friends and relatives...
That's fair although there is a role for lived experience changing prejudices. Much like acceptance of lgbt gained popularity when straight people learned how many of their friends and relatives are not straight.
Edit, this is a sensitive complex topic. I am just trying to mention a perspective, not teach you personally things that you already know.
Also fair. Personally the solution starts when the issue of socially isolated men that are poorly educated in sex and have little world experience is addressed. This goes all the way back to...
Also fair. Personally the solution starts when the issue of socially isolated men that are poorly educated in sex and have little world experience is addressed.
This goes all the way back to childhood and poorly raised children with a lack of social skills.
So we’ve circled back to the solution being that men, not women, need help. Women are excluded and talk themselves out of these fields due to generations of sexism passed down about a woman can...
So we’ve circled back to the solution being that men, not women, need help.
Women are excluded and talk themselves out of these fields due to generations of sexism passed down about a woman can and should do, and the solution is to help men.
In all fairness, SO's contributors (i can't say much about the employees) are semi-anonymous. I feel like the issue there stems less from programming/STEM and more from the internet-wide...
In all fairness, SO's contributors (i can't say much about the employees) are semi-anonymous. I feel like the issue there stems less from programming/STEM and more from the internet-wide phenomenon on how men tend to comment more.
Could that still be rooted in sexism? Potentially, I wouldn't be surprised. But it's a much different, wider question.
I don't buy this notion. Many woman want to code. Not many women want to deal with the toxic environment. As a woman who's been working in the machine learning space, I've found that I love the...
If women wanted to code en masse, they'd be applying and working in places where they could code.
I don't buy this notion. Many woman want to code. Not many women want to deal with the toxic environment. As a woman who's been working in the machine learning space, I've found that I love the work but hate the people (I dislike the people in computer science specifically-- the adjacent fields I work with all seem fine). I'm planning on pivoting my career in a direction that explicitly avoids these people. I can't possibly be the only one.
The male toxicity is a huge problem, absolutely. I'm sorry your experience in the field is soured by just being around the people you work with. I'm sure many women are aware the field is ripe...
The male toxicity is a huge problem, absolutely. I'm sorry your experience in the field is soured by just being around the people you work with.
I'm sure many women are aware the field is ripe with land mines and avoid it for more woman friendly fields, but it's not a binary thing. In addition to this line of thinking, coding requires a lot of patience, endurance, and ample time sitting in front of a computer. While both sexes experience this to some degree, poorly educated boys who find solace in computers and spend years in their room on computers favor developing and coding afterwards.
I'm sure girls spend a lot of time in front of computers too, especially in this day and age, but I would like to see the metric for how many socially inept women there are versus men, how likely is it for a girl to stay in her room throughout her childhood versus a boy, and maybe a poll to see what percentage of women genuinely like to code. On the last note, I'd say that amount is significantly less because I'm inclined to think there are more men who spend time in front of a computer for years on end than women.
If we want to take it one step further, men with poor emotional depth and education favor coding and computers because it's a space devoid of such things where there are clear and rigid rules. Women mature at a younger age and come to terms with their hormones more so than men, which includes emotions. They don't need a safe space devoid of emotions as much but the field would seem attractiveness to those looking to just focus on logical work.
So, I've recently had this out in my chapter at work with some of the male leadership. It's not the code itself that women are important for. It's the products they create. In an all straight,...
So, I've recently had this out in my chapter at work with some of the male leadership.
It's not the code itself that women are important for. It's the products they create. In an all straight, white, male team... You miss huge swathes of products that accommodate for those who aren't represented by the team.
I work in data specifically and we do have women who challenge the status quo for the data and tech products that we create and manage. That includes things like, how we process and read information in Ides through to data models that the business uses. Some of these women have challenged the fundamental principles behind the way we create data models and ensure that they are more accessible to more people.
The issue people seem to have with the removal is the loss of data
The issue people seem to have with the removal is the loss of data
“Removing gender from the annual survey is an egregious erasure of the problems of the gender gap that pervade the tech industry. And worse, it removes important context for the data that is scraped and fed into large language models,” says Catherine Flick, a computing and social responsibility scholar at De Montfort University. “Without that context, the bias of the data set is unknown, and it’s well documented that gender bias is frequently built into technology, from variable names to form fields to assumptions about occupations, roles, and capabilities.”
Blame that on marketing and PR. If they're already being hounded for a lack of inclusivity and they know they made no progress, of course they'd hide the results of the survey. But what's their...
Blame that on marketing and PR. If they're already being hounded for a lack of inclusivity and they know they made no progress, of course they'd hide the results of the survey. But what's their motivation to drastically change, police, and monitor their own platform? What benefit would they see other than relief from third party groups pressuring them?
what coding classes were you in where anyone was required to be there? and to be clear...precisely how many women are in this anecdotal sample size of yours? across how many coding classes? did...
The women I've asked in coding classes hate it, are only there because they're required to be, and dislike it because they don't like the unforgiving nature of coding. The cold brutal and granular rules of coding aren't something they enjoy. Some do, of course, there's always exceptions, but anecdotally it's just not up their alley.
what coding classes were you in where anyone was required to be there?
and to be clear...precisely how many women are in this anecdotal sample size of yours? across how many coding classes? did you talk to a similar number of men to ask about frustrations they had with the class?
and to be even more clear...based on those anecdotes of coding classes you've observed, are you making a general statement about the 4ish billion women in the world?
Being looked down upon for my gender is still an issue. In IT and in in other places. Thinking that I got hired to meet a quota and not my skill set. My opinion being ignored unless I make a...
Being looked down upon for my gender is still an issue. In IT and in in other places. Thinking that I got hired to meet a quota and not my skill set. My opinion being ignored unless I make a bigger noise about it then being judged for being pushy.
As a woman in STEM, I want to second this. I think men underestimate the extent to which people assume some of us are dumb because we are women. I'm a woman who is short, fat, and very nice (or...
As a woman in STEM, I want to second this. I think men underestimate the extent to which people assume some of us are dumb because we are women. I'm a woman who is short, fat, and very nice (or "sweet" as some people would call it). People tell me they think I'd make a great Kindergarden teacher, and while there's nothing wrong with being a Kindergarden teacher and I get it's meant as a compliment, I'd be bored as hell as a Kindergarden teacher. I'm getting a PhD from a math department for fucks sake! How about "I think you could code really well." Now that would be a compliment. But people simply don't picture a woman like me being a person like that.
I get talked over all the time by men who know less than me trying to help me. It's tiring. I love the field, but I totally understand women who want to avoid it. Personally I'm pivoting towards a similarly rigorous but less toxic adjacent area soon. It's so tiring being around men who lack self-awareness.
I'm not a woman, but I see this all the time and every time it infuriates me. There have been times when I was very clearly busy and a woman was free, a person would come in to ask for help and...
I'm not a woman, but I see this all the time and every time it infuriates me. There have been times when I was very clearly busy and a woman was free, a person would come in to ask for help and completely disregard the woman and insist on talking to me. And then when I'm able to help them it turns out they need assistance with something that the woman actually specializes in, so they reluctantly let them help them.
It's the main reason why I get upset about people complaining about "angry feminists" - they have many reasons to be angry!
Most of the female engineers I’ve worked with are undertitled and underpaid, when they are clearly superior to male counterparts at their level. By the time they actually make it to the...
Most of the female engineers I’ve worked with are undertitled and underpaid, when they are clearly superior to male counterparts at their level. By the time they actually make it to the professional level, that’s when they face the largest barriers.
That is extremely the opposite of my experience, and, frankly, I think you're making this up. At the very least because there are very few people outside of HR who have that kind of visibility...
That is extremely the opposite of my experience, and, frankly, I think you're making this up. At the very least because there are very few people outside of HR who have that kind of visibility into salary distributions.
Women engineers are the same as men. Some are really good. Some are mediocre. Some are bad.
There can be barriers to entry at the educational level, but once you get to the professional level, so very few people now a days are going to discriminate based on sex.
Good engineers are just too hard to find, and having good engineers on your team just makes your life so, so much easier.
I'm not sure what context has to do with it. This is purely a fact statement. You are certainly speaking anecdotally. I'm not though. I provided evidence, and I think you're factually incorrect.
I'm not sure what context has to do with it. This is purely a fact statement.
You are certainly speaking anecdotally. I'm not though. I provided evidence, and I think you're factually incorrect.
There is a factual lack of diversity in tech and STEM in general (outside of medicine, where lots of resources have been used to encourage representation). Tech is largely white males and Asians....
There is a factual lack of diversity in tech and STEM in general (outside of medicine, where lots of resources have been used to encourage representation).
Tech is largely white males and Asians. There are simply very few qualified applicants outside of those groups.
I don't know how to solve that as someone at my level. I can't hire you if you don't know what you're doing.
I think all this needs to be solved earlier. We need to encourage more women and other ethnic groups to enter STEM, but a STEM degree is grueling compared to plenty of other degrees. I keep having to explain to my wife that no one ever fails out of business school and ends up with an engineering degree. (She went to b school).
My larger concern is that women are now over represent at so many levels of higher education, yet still get certain kinds of affirmative programs.
We have to consider the fact that affirmative action can and does work, and that when it does accomplish it's goals (as it may have in higher education), it may be politically difficult to stop it.
Of course, this is different from the ridiculous recent SC decision.
Me too. That's because a B in intro to world music was less important to me. You also were actually able to complete your stem degree. Surely you had the same experience where lots of people had...
Me too. That's because a B in intro to world music was less important to me.
You also were actually able to complete your stem degree. Surely you had the same experience where lots of people had to change majors because the couldn't handle the math or something?
To say I'm familiar with this tendency would be an understatement. I worked a community college for a few years in their math department. Roughly zero percent of incoming freshmen that entered...
Surely you had the same experience where lots of people had to change majors because the couldn't handle the math or something?
To say I'm familiar with this tendency would be an understatement. I worked a community college for a few years in their math department. Roughly zero percent of incoming freshmen that entered were college ready in math upon entering and the average math skills among incoming freshmen were at the 5th grade level. We had a bunch that were quite literally at kindergarden level.
So yes, I am familiar with students who changed majors because of a math class. We did our best to help them get mathematically literate, of course, but it's not like we could work miracles.
Stack overflow is a pretty much anonymous forum where gender is completely irrelevant. What's the probleme? Should we also check if tilde has gender parity and restrict our invites to only one sex...
Stack overflow is a pretty much anonymous forum where gender is completely irrelevant. What's the probleme?
Should we also check if tilde has gender parity and restrict our invites to only one sex depending on the results?
I mean, their culture is so toxic, gender is the least of their concerns. If your unique question isn't closed as being a duplicate, then someone is treating you like an ass for asking. For...
I mean, their culture is so toxic, gender is the least of their concerns. If your unique question isn't closed as being a duplicate, then someone is treating you like an ass for asking.
For something purporting to be a source of knowledge, they're remarkably anti-learner.
Not a great place for a curious information gobbler.
In the same vein, my favourite answer that's decidedly stack overflowy is "Why would you go X? Do Y or Z instead!". Which a. Doesn't actually answer the question b. Wasn't what I asked, and c. Is...
In the same vein, my favourite answer that's decidedly stack overflowy is "Why would you go X? Do Y or Z instead!".
Which
a. Doesn't actually answer the question
b. Wasn't what I asked, and
c. Is actually rude.
It's somehow even worse when "do Y or Z" is appropriate for the original asker and it's something they accept/appreciate, but when you stumble on it in a search engine 5 years later it is...
It's somehow even worse when "do Y or Z" is appropriate for the original asker and it's something they accept/appreciate, but when you stumble on it in a search engine 5 years later it is definitively not appropriate for your own environment. If you ask the question again, it will absolutely get closed as a duplicate, and nobody on SO is going to be answering 5 year old questions with an accepted answer in a different way.
I think a lot of this is down to a misunderstanding of the goal of Stack Overflow. The site's purpose isn't to get you answers to your questions, it's to curate a set of answers about every...
I think a lot of this is down to a misunderstanding of the goal of Stack Overflow. The site's purpose isn't to get you answers to your questions, it's to curate a set of answers about every question in programming. It's in the first paragraph of the tutorial:
we're working together to build a library of detailed, high-quality answers to every question about programming
Because of that, and folks don't want to get invested in answering a question that the other person isn't also demonstrably invested in, the site is very strict about what kind of questions they accept. One of the FAQs emphasizes that questions need to have a lot of effort put into them:
How much research effort is expected of Stack Overflow users?
A lot. Asking a question on Stack Overflow should be the last step in your process for finding an answer—if the information that you need already exists, then you should be able to find it before asking.
Asking questions well is just as much of a skill as anything else, and there aregood resources for learning that skill.
When the library's first answer to a common question (without any specific querying) links to a closed off duplicate that doesnt answer the question, methinks the powers that be care more about a...
When the library's first answer to a common question (without any specific querying) links to a closed off duplicate that doesnt answer the question, methinks the powers that be care more about a certain other metric. Its like seeing a Wikipedia entry's entire battleground of an edit war when googling a terms.
I'm very much read-only for SO, but it feels it could do with some better SEO to align with its goals.
The article briefly points out the benefits of inclusivity and the detriment of bias, but not enough to stifle the question of "why does it matter?"
One side of this stems from the users and consumers of Stack Overflow. Everytime I see a result pop in Google from that site after hours of queries, I know I'm getting closer to the answer. The verbosity of the answers, the creativity of their solutions, and up until recently the strict nature of their questions and responses boiled the answer to a succinct solution of good code.
But coding languages are cold neutral things. Woman, man, the answer doesn't care. At least, I don't care, does the answer solve my problem? Great. Even deeper, does the answer solve my problem in the leanest way possible? Great.
I acknowledge the creativity and style of cultures when it comes to coding. The way some cultures approach hard problems and solve them is not uniform and sometimes you do need a pair of eyes from another part of the planet to crack what seems impossible to you.
I acknowledge a woman's perspective would bring the same thing to the table. You can see this in every other industry.
So I wonder what areas of development could a woman's "womanness" succeed where men have failed? Where would a woman's code be more performant or where would a woman's insight solve tough mathematical and logical problems?
What does a woman only developed operating system do different than one developed by men?
I personally think, as someone who codes and develops, the skills needed to do this activity favor a certain type of human. The women I've asked in coding classes hate it, are only there because they're required to be, and dislike it because they don't like the unforgiving nature of coding. The cold brutal and granular rules of coding aren't something they enjoy. Some do, of course, there's always exceptions, but anecdotally it's just not up their alley.
Some women want to go drive trucks, work in oil rigs, be handymen, electricians, plumbers, etc. Some women like to code too and they like AI. Some men want to be kindergarten teachers and nurses and whatever else.
But them wanting it is what I'm focusing on. If women wanted to code en masse, they'd be applying and working in places where they could code.
Is Stack Overflows issue they don't take on women? That their application process excludes women? That to sign up as a user you need to be a man? Is it tech industry related where advertisements for their platform never arrive at women populated places?
It doesn't sound like it. There doesn't seem to be foul play in that regard.
So if coding seldom benefits from different genders, if the platform isn't excluding women, if women don't care to code, why are people coming down on Stack Overflow to point out a "problem" they should fix?
It's one thing to exclude women from leadership or operating heavy machinery on some outdated and unsupported notion that men are better designed for the acts, they're not. It's another to inject women into a field that doesn't need them and a field they don't want to be in in the first place.
Similarly, to argue women are better at nursing and at teaching children is a false argument. Both sexes can do the activity should they want, but to argue women are somehow better is a very hard argument to make.
In the case of coding, show me female only code versus male only code and point out the differences and how it's better.
If you can, then tech is missing out and there should be more women involvement. If not...then is the thing actually broken?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/history-human-computers-180972202/
I understand that you are reporting your true anecdotal experience, but women being discouraged and discouraging themselves from participating in coding, math and physics is a complex social phenomenon that has some roots in overt sexism. I am far from expert but the article I linked points to one piece of the puzzle.
If the issue is the toxicity exuded by men grounded in false notions of what a woman can't and can't do, or some sort of tribal boys only club that actively fends off women then yes, there's a problem and it needs to be corrected. I acknowledge that as a widespread issue in tech and in STEM fields.
But that's not a "women would make this field better" issue it's a "men have created a toxic environment that's deeply exist" issue. Flooding the field with women won't suddenly change that.
The article doesn't touch on the why it's a problem all that much. Only that it is.
That's fair although there is a role for lived experience changing prejudices. Much like acceptance of lgbt gained popularity when straight people learned how many of their friends and relatives are not straight.
Edit, this is a sensitive complex topic. I am just trying to mention a perspective, not teach you personally things that you already know.
Also fair. Personally the solution starts when the issue of socially isolated men that are poorly educated in sex and have little world experience is addressed.
This goes all the way back to childhood and poorly raised children with a lack of social skills.
So we’ve circled back to the solution being that men, not women, need help.
Women are excluded and talk themselves out of these fields due to generations of sexism passed down about a woman can and should do, and the solution is to help men.
In all fairness, SO's contributors (i can't say much about the employees) are semi-anonymous. I feel like the issue there stems less from programming/STEM and more from the internet-wide phenomenon on how men tend to comment more.
Could that still be rooted in sexism? Potentially, I wouldn't be surprised. But it's a much different, wider question.
I don't buy this notion. Many woman want to code. Not many women want to deal with the toxic environment. As a woman who's been working in the machine learning space, I've found that I love the work but hate the people (I dislike the people in computer science specifically-- the adjacent fields I work with all seem fine). I'm planning on pivoting my career in a direction that explicitly avoids these people. I can't possibly be the only one.
The male toxicity is a huge problem, absolutely. I'm sorry your experience in the field is soured by just being around the people you work with.
I'm sure many women are aware the field is ripe with land mines and avoid it for more woman friendly fields, but it's not a binary thing. In addition to this line of thinking, coding requires a lot of patience, endurance, and ample time sitting in front of a computer. While both sexes experience this to some degree, poorly educated boys who find solace in computers and spend years in their room on computers favor developing and coding afterwards.
I'm sure girls spend a lot of time in front of computers too, especially in this day and age, but I would like to see the metric for how many socially inept women there are versus men, how likely is it for a girl to stay in her room throughout her childhood versus a boy, and maybe a poll to see what percentage of women genuinely like to code. On the last note, I'd say that amount is significantly less because I'm inclined to think there are more men who spend time in front of a computer for years on end than women.
If we want to take it one step further, men with poor emotional depth and education favor coding and computers because it's a space devoid of such things where there are clear and rigid rules. Women mature at a younger age and come to terms with their hormones more so than men, which includes emotions. They don't need a safe space devoid of emotions as much but the field would seem attractiveness to those looking to just focus on logical work.
So, I've recently had this out in my chapter at work with some of the male leadership.
It's not the code itself that women are important for. It's the products they create. In an all straight, white, male team... You miss huge swathes of products that accommodate for those who aren't represented by the team.
I work in data specifically and we do have women who challenge the status quo for the data and tech products that we create and manage. That includes things like, how we process and read information in Ides through to data models that the business uses. Some of these women have challenged the fundamental principles behind the way we create data models and ensure that they are more accessible to more people.
The issue people seem to have with the removal is the loss of data
Blame that on marketing and PR. If they're already being hounded for a lack of inclusivity and they know they made no progress, of course they'd hide the results of the survey. But what's their motivation to drastically change, police, and monitor their own platform? What benefit would they see other than relief from third party groups pressuring them?
what coding classes were you in where anyone was required to be there?
and to be clear...precisely how many women are in this anecdotal sample size of yours? across how many coding classes? did you talk to a similar number of men to ask about frustrations they had with the class?
and to be even more clear...based on those anecdotes of coding classes you've observed, are you making a general statement about the 4ish billion women in the world?
Being looked down upon for my gender is still an issue. In IT and in in other places. Thinking that I got hired to meet a quota and not my skill set. My opinion being ignored unless I make a bigger noise about it then being judged for being pushy.
As a woman in STEM, I want to second this. I think men underestimate the extent to which people assume some of us are dumb because we are women. I'm a woman who is short, fat, and very nice (or "sweet" as some people would call it). People tell me they think I'd make a great Kindergarden teacher, and while there's nothing wrong with being a Kindergarden teacher and I get it's meant as a compliment, I'd be bored as hell as a Kindergarden teacher. I'm getting a PhD from a math department for fucks sake! How about "I think you could code really well." Now that would be a compliment. But people simply don't picture a woman like me being a person like that.
I get talked over all the time by men who know less than me trying to help me. It's tiring. I love the field, but I totally understand women who want to avoid it. Personally I'm pivoting towards a similarly rigorous but less toxic adjacent area soon. It's so tiring being around men who lack self-awareness.
I'm not a woman, but I see this all the time and every time it infuriates me. There have been times when I was very clearly busy and a woman was free, a person would come in to ask for help and completely disregard the woman and insist on talking to me. And then when I'm able to help them it turns out they need assistance with something that the woman actually specializes in, so they reluctantly let them help them.
It's the main reason why I get upset about people complaining about "angry feminists" - they have many reasons to be angry!
Most of the female engineers I’ve worked with are undertitled and underpaid, when they are clearly superior to male counterparts at their level. By the time they actually make it to the professional level, that’s when they face the largest barriers.
That is extremely the opposite of my experience, and, frankly, I think you're making this up. At the very least because there are very few people outside of HR who have that kind of visibility into salary distributions.
Google recently found that they were underpaying men compared to women. I've also hired a large number of engineers, and this has never been a thought. Outside of the absolute highest level, people come in with pretty standardized salaries.
Women engineers are the same as men. Some are really good. Some are mediocre. Some are bad.
There can be barriers to entry at the educational level, but once you get to the professional level, so very few people now a days are going to discriminate based on sex.
Good engineers are just too hard to find, and having good engineers on your team just makes your life so, so much easier.
It totally depends on context, I’m just speaking from anecdotal experience.
I'm not sure what context has to do with it. This is purely a fact statement.
You are certainly speaking anecdotally. I'm not though. I provided evidence, and I think you're factually incorrect.
What is your reason for believing this?
I can't believe this is Tildes.
Oh @monarda, I get you. :(
There is a factual lack of diversity in tech and STEM in general (outside of medicine, where lots of resources have been used to encourage representation).
Tech is largely white males and Asians. There are simply very few qualified applicants outside of those groups.
I don't know how to solve that as someone at my level. I can't hire you if you don't know what you're doing.
I think all this needs to be solved earlier. We need to encourage more women and other ethnic groups to enter STEM, but a STEM degree is grueling compared to plenty of other degrees. I keep having to explain to my wife that no one ever fails out of business school and ends up with an engineering degree. (She went to b school).
My larger concern is that women are now over represent at so many levels of higher education, yet still get certain kinds of affirmative programs.
We have to consider the fact that affirmative action can and does work, and that when it does accomplish it's goals (as it may have in higher education), it may be politically difficult to stop it.
Of course, this is different from the ridiculous recent SC decision.
I've never failed any degree, but for what it's worth I got a higher GPA in my STEM degree than in my performing arts degree.
Me too. That's because a B in intro to world music was less important to me.
You also were actually able to complete your stem degree. Surely you had the same experience where lots of people had to change majors because the couldn't handle the math or something?
To say I'm familiar with this tendency would be an understatement. I worked a community college for a few years in their math department. Roughly zero percent of incoming freshmen that entered were college ready in math upon entering and the average math skills among incoming freshmen were at the 5th grade level. We had a bunch that were quite literally at kindergarden level.
So yes, I am familiar with students who changed majors because of a math class. We did our best to help them get mathematically literate, of course, but it's not like we could work miracles.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.is/4iQGz
Stack overflow is a pretty much anonymous forum where gender is completely irrelevant. What's the probleme?
Should we also check if tilde has gender parity and restrict our invites to only one sex depending on the results?
I mean, their culture is so toxic, gender is the least of their concerns. If your unique question isn't closed as being a duplicate, then someone is treating you like an ass for asking.
For something purporting to be a source of knowledge, they're remarkably anti-learner.
Not a great place for a curious information gobbler.
In the same vein, my favourite answer that's decidedly stack overflowy is "Why would you go X? Do Y or Z instead!".
Which
a. Doesn't actually answer the question
b. Wasn't what I asked, and
c. Is actually rude.
It's somehow even worse when "do Y or Z" is appropriate for the original asker and it's something they accept/appreciate, but when you stumble on it in a search engine 5 years later it is definitively not appropriate for your own environment. If you ask the question again, it will absolutely get closed as a duplicate, and nobody on SO is going to be answering 5 year old questions with an accepted answer in a different way.
Honestly same! I have had some questions answered in very helpful, constructive ways there. Maybe I'm just lucky though given the common perception.
I think a lot of this is down to a misunderstanding of the goal of Stack Overflow. The site's purpose isn't to get you answers to your questions, it's to curate a set of answers about every question in programming. It's in the first paragraph of the tutorial:
Because of that, and folks don't want to get invested in answering a question that the other person isn't also demonstrably invested in, the site is very strict about what kind of questions they accept. One of the FAQs emphasizes that questions need to have a lot of effort put into them:
Asking questions well is just as much of a skill as anything else, and there are good resources for learning that skill.
When the library's first answer to a common question (without any specific querying) links to a closed off duplicate that doesnt answer the question, methinks the powers that be care more about a certain other metric. Its like seeing a Wikipedia entry's entire battleground of an edit war when googling a terms.
I'm very much read-only for SO, but it feels it could do with some better SEO to align with its goals.