Maybe? It’s really hard to ascribe intent to such things without actually polling people. It’s hard to not take it as a good sign, though.
More my point; as we all comprise the little engines of outrage that internet journalists want to get riled up, perhaps we should practice due diligence to ensure that our ire is proportional to the facts.
Sure, but it’s kind of hard not to get riled up when an individual has experienced some of this treatment in aspects of their life.
I’m also sure. Which is also what they are banking on as journalists–in a way, they are seeking triggers.
What are we to do, except try and practice mindfulness?
It is curious that the acceptance rate drops for both men and women once unblinded. This might suggest that people using handles are more experienced, or that people who use their real names have a higher tendency to be hobbyists.
Looking at public contributions gives us a very filtered view. Unless your company maintains open source projects, public contributions tend to be made during one’s free time. These might be side projects or fixes to established open source projects. This is interesting data, but it’s just a tiny fragment of what’s happening in the industry. My own Github contribution graph looks pretty sparse once you exclude the private repos I’ve worked on.
I am of course saddened that some people cannot swallow the possibility that women in the industry are competent.
Which sucks, but is probably true. I was a late bloomer to programming. Not everybody is Mozart with code. I’m a Salieri but I do just fine. Think of all the non-prodigy women who get shunted, cajoled and otherwise bullied and intimidated out of the profession who would be just excellent programmers today if not for the male jerks that fucked up their careers.
Maybe, when I went to college in the early 90s at UVa there were very few women in any of the CS classes. So unless this “bullying” is happening in high school, it is mostly an upstream problem.
I have some theories about this, mostly around computers historically being really quite overtly anti-social (up until the smartphone / facebook / snapchat revolution of 2007+), which is a more “male” personality trait. A lot more men than women love being locked in a dark, windowless room for 18+ hours with our dumb machines that do exactly what we tell them to do.
“My CS classes were overwhelmingly male, therefore sexism in CS education can’t be contributing to gender imbalance in tech”.
Are you aware of how daft that sounds?
Do you not suspect that maybe, just perhaps, there might be some connection between the treatment of women in tech education and the gender balance of applicants to CS classes?
Is this also why there are so few black hockey players? Systematic racism in the sport of hockey? I dunno, I can think of some other explanations that are quite plausible.
Regardless, trillions of smartphones and Facebook have changed things quite irrevocably; computing is now social to the core.
Actually, not too long ago, there was a story on NPR discussing a book by a black hockey player who indeed faced discrimination when he played.
He’s not the only one to discuss this issue, either:
So, yes, just because you don’t see it (or your not practicing any form of discrimination in your own behavior) doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
There’s also a thing we need to do in our minds to adjudicate the numbers with underlying philosophy.
-Accept that there is racism and sexism pretty much everywhere.
-Accept that even if it’s eradicated, that does not mean that instantly it will be 50% white and 50% black, or 50/50 male/female. The numbers might STILL be lopsided.
-These two concepts are often, but not always, unrelated.
i.e. the perception of majority/minority by observing the presence or absence of one group is quite often a separate issue than the underlying prejudice.
And it goes the other way, too. The supreme court has one black person on it right now. Does that mean that it is free of racism? Or think about the white people who say, “well I have a few black friends.” None of that means there isn’t any racism. They are separate issues! White people with black friends can be racists! Supreme courts composed solely of black people could be racist! Unlikely, but considering who is clearing the nominees lately, it could happen!
A count high or low of certain groups does not prove anything about motivations behind an organization. There could be an underwear knitting club composed of all white women. “We tried to get men and minorities to join, but they never have.”
Is it racism? Is it sexism? A conspicuous lack of any non-whites or males indicates racism and sexism? Or it doesn’t? How would you tell?
It’s inconclusive until you examine a pattern over a long time, and observe the individual members’ behaviors, beliefs and statements.
Like with hockey - we didn’t have a lot of data because it seemed just like a benign white boys’ club… but then the black dude showed up… and got bananas thrown at him on the ice… that’s pretty clear data that the white boys’ club wanted to stay white.
And look at our major sports teams in the USA. No women. WTF? It’s 2016. Are you telling me that there are NO women who could run faster than lots of guys or field a ball just as well or stealthily sink a basket or run circles around big burly defenses? Come on! They can, and it’s preposterous that we still live in Roman times with men reigning supreme over all. You can bet, even in 2016, people would throw nasty stuff at her on the field, and it’s sick. But you know they would.
So, back to the matter at hand: programming. If we removed the sexism from computerland, it might not suddenly become 50/50 male/female. Maybe it would never get past 60/40, or 70/30, but at least the real root of the problem would be resolved and the artificial barrier to entry gone. I think we do have a problem in STEM and we need to be busting down those walls because they are only hurting everyone.
Right on. I wish I had something to add to that, but you’ve summed it up nicely. I know my better half worries on this issue (diversity in programming) quite a bit. It’s good to know that some programmers don’t just shrug it off as an issue, but are actively thinking about it and wondering if they can make it better. You’re right that it will take time and a concerted effort. The pushback from people who conclude there isn’t a problem (because reasons) does not help, and honestly I have no clue how to turn that around.
Why do we always have to say this? Why is empirical evidence always the ONLY evidence accepted? Ugh, so tiring, so boring, I mean really.
2/3 of the best programmer-colleagues in all the analytic jobs I’ve had are women. Seriously, everywhere I go, the women are kicking ass. I love working with them. They are less egotistical and take time to explain things to me that I don’t understand, and are patient. Some of the men are, too, but most of the men are more introverted and don’t want to take a lot of time to explain anything. So, I know that anecdote does not equal data. But my experiences are all positive regarding working closely with women in data science.
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