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Google: Teach Girls Coding, Get $2,500; Teach Boys, Get $0
theodp (442580) writes "'Public school teachers,' reads the headline at Khan Academy (KA), 'introduce your students to coding and earn $1000 or more for your classroom!' Read the fine print, however, and you'll see that the Google-bankrolled offer is likely to ensure that girls, not boys, are going to be their Computer Science teachers' pets. 'Google wants public high school students, especially girls, to discover the magic of coding,' KA explains to teachers. 'You'll receive a $100 DonorsChoose.org gift code for every female student who completes the [JS 101: Drawing & Animation] course. When 4 or more female students complete it, we'll email you an additional $500 gift code as a thank-you for helping your students learn to code.' While 'one teacher cannot have more than 20 of the $100 gift codes activated on their DonorsChoose.org projects,' adds KA, 'if the teacher has more than 20 female students complete the curriculum, s/he will still be sent gift codes, and the teacher can use the additional gift codes on another teacher's DonorsChoose.org project.' So, is girls-are-golden-boys-are-worthless funding for teachers' projects incongruent with Khan Academy's other initiatives, such as its exclusive partnership with CollegeBoard to eliminate inequality among students studying for the SAT?"
Because we have this retarded idea that there aren't enough girls doing something because of discrimination. Maybe girls don't want to be mechanics, or computer programmers. Maybe they want to be customer service reps, PR reps, project managers (there are a LOT of women in project management--turns out they're decent at herding men), teachers, cashiers, waitresses, cheerleaders, etc.
In my school, a lot of guys played football, and a lot of guys played lacrosse; but a lot of girls played lacross, too. There's a lot of coed soccer. Offering girl's football tends to not get a lot of turn-out. Women love volleyball; men are into it, but more casually; and you will not find nearly as many men playing badminton because the physiological construction of the female pelvis allows for motions which make the game much easier.
To me it's like trying to encourage more girls to go down on other girls. Maybe girls don't like to do that. Maybe they'd rather suck dick. Oh sure there's a few, but did it ever occur to you that a LOT of girls just really prefer riding cocks? Maybe they just don't have whatever mental defect leads someone to become a computer programmer; or maybe it expresses itself as a tendency to date abusive boyfriends who give them black eyes and lock them in the house for weeks at a time.
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your scenario presupposes that a 50/50 distribution of green and yellow marbles is a valid, just and reasonable goal.
No it doesn't — it presupposes that a 50/50 distribution is the desired goal of whoever is manipulating the jar of marbles. I think it's pretty clear that gender parity is in fact what the people making the incentive want.
If you don't think that is valid, just, or reasonable, you're free not to. You should argue that point with the people funding the incentive. Money is speech, so they're well within their first amendment rights, but maybe you could convince them.
Of course, you haven't provided any arguments at all why a 50/50 distribution of men and woman in the industry isn't a desired goal...
And also, there's the tiny problem that saying "having as many women as men in the IT industry isn't valid, just, or reasonable" does makes you sound like a bit of a dick.
Let's change the context:
If men are a genuine minority in the exotic dancing field (because there are far, far more female strippers than male) would you say that the industry is discriminatory, and that there should be subsidies for men who want to get into that field?
Personally, I'd say that's stupid.
I personally believe that Google can do what it wants with its money - if it wants more coders with tits for some reason, that's their choice. But let's not try to rationalize it away and say that it's not blatant gender discrimination. You may say it's entirely justified, but then be prepared for that same argument in reverse when people say that we can discriminate against women in firefighting or the military.
-Styopa
Well, I personally think that the people controlling the jar have good business sense, and that gender parity in the IT industry is a good thing. That's probably true on a number of axes: the IT industry is too male, too pale, and too immature.
But whether you agree with that statement or not, I'm pretty sure that we can agree that they didn't set out to encourage more guys to take computer science courses and bungle it really badly.