zlacker

>>zdw+(OP)
I think this was well written. There were a few instances where, upon first reading it, I objected. But rereading it, I thought the language used was chosen well.

I have one main gripe, though: The scope limitation to tech.

> "Toxic tech cultures are those that demean and devalue you as holistic, multifaceted human beings. Toxic tech cultures are those that prioritize profits and growth over human and societal well being. Toxic tech cultures are those that treat you as replaceable cogs within a system of constant churn and burnout.

This is __not__ a tech specific problem. This is a systemic aspect of labor in an overly-capitalist society. Not bashing capitalism, either. But, spare me the 'woe is me, tech bros are out to get us'. Sure, some are. But these problems exist in every industry; the service industry, Hollywood and film, architecture and construction, finance, etc.

As I said, I think the rest of the article was well written and on-topic. That, though, is trying to paint rice grains with a broom.

>>wcarro+4d
In fact, it very probably is a tech-specific problem. Among the STEM fields, CS is almost uniquely imbalanced. STEM fields in general range from ~30-55% women, and those fields include things like Mathematics --- anyone who has gone to an academic cryptography workshop has probably noticed how many more women there are in the room --- which are strong proxies for CS ability. And, of course, among the professions in general, the difference is even more stark; compared to law, we're stuck in the 1960's.

>>tptace+Md
>anyone who has gone to an academic cryptography workshop has probably noticed how many more women there are in the room

As someone who has spent a lot of time in academic security conferences, I have to wonder what you are comparing them to. The only field with a worse female participation rate in my experience is networking (e.g. SIGCOMM). Check out this picture from EuroCrypt in 97 and count the ratio of women to men. It looks like under 1 in 10 which is worse than general CS enrollment numbers: http://www.crypto-uni.lu/jscoron/misc/euro_97.jpg

Anyway, back to the main point.

>CS is almost uniquely imbalanced.

I agree. However, a 1/4 female/male ratio coming out of CS programs is going to be reflected in the industry and attempting to bring the balance on the industry side to 50/50 is folly while the enrollment balance stays the same.

Clearly something is discouraging women from enrolling at the college level, but I can't fathom how 50/50 quotas are supposed to help solve that problem. Implementing things like Google's "extra interview retries" for minorities just seems to cause division and make it worse for minorities because some people assume they are there for the wrong reason.

Are you aware of programs focusing on getting more women enrolled at the high-school and college level? It seems like it would be significantly more productive as a community to put a significant focus there in terms of resources (money, advocacy, etc).

I know almost nobody that has a problem with improving enrollment numbers of women in CS (equality of opportunity). However, there is a significant chunk of people that have problems with the "white males are over-represented and we need to give everyone else an advantage" approach (equality of outcomes).

What am I missing here? Why are so many resources being poured into something as fundamentally flawed as trying to get equal representation with a supply that doesn't have equal representation?

>>huevin+7E
It could be argued that the “pull” from top companies will entice members of underrepresented groups to get into tech on the college level.

It is also not necessarily the case that picking 50:50 out of a 75:25 distribution will lead to a competence imbalance. Even if the skill distribution is the same for both populations, maybe only certain baselines matter for doing good work, and maybe any skill gaps could be corrected via on-the-job training. Maybe having that kind of diversity is worth the extra effort for the company.