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Google Is Offering Free Coding Lessons To Women and Minorities
redletterdave writes: According to a blog post from Gregg Pollack, CEO of the Code School, Google is paying for three free months for any women and minorities interested in tech to expand their skills. The offer is part of Google's $50 million "Made With Code" initiative, which aims to help close the gender gap in tech. While Google is also offering the same vouchers to the women in attendance at its annual I/O developers conference this week, the search giant has released an online application that's available to women everywhere. Google says its available vouchers for women number in the "thousands."
Get free c0d1ng l3550n5? I mean like, how do they know Im not a woman if I dress like 1> R they gunna check or summit?
Welcome to the world of political correctness and human rights.
So basically everyone who is not an Asian?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I'd still like someone to rationally explain to me how giving such free benefits to women and the ever-so-indistinct category of "minority," specifically because of their gender and/or "race," (and for which those not in those categories are excluded) is not sexism and racism.
But I'm a white male. I have nothing Google wants. :(
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
swine. Hund.
I feel like a minority
I feel like this is the same posts over and over again for these kinds of news posts. Does anyone have anything new to add?
I know in Canada any tiny percent native american is enough for status. Any idea what percentage you need for the minority tag?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
So, how exactly does Google know if an applicant is a woman or not? Are they going to do background checks?
The form that is linked doesn't even contain a declaration that somebody is a woman or minority in the first place, or a definition of what constitutes either.
iirc, a friend of mine got a native american scholarship (forgot if it was federal or state) for being 1/8, which was the cutoff. in his case it was total bullshit, but it's a fair cop i suppose.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
So by me not being a female or minority I am not included, I am feeling discriminated against. Of course people are going to say but women and minorities need it more because they are discriminated against in hiring practices but trying to fix a wrong with a wrong isn't going to help.
I get what they're trying to do, but this seems like the wrong approach. You don't fix discrimination with more discrimination, even if it's in the opposite direction.
Seems like it would be better to find out why the industry is so racial/gender imbalanced, and try to solve that problem (whatever it turns out to be) rather than covering up the symptoms.
...another reason why not to be a white male.
Keep everybody divided up. Tell them that you alone are their sole protector. You get elected. It's time to work towards a post-racial America instead of carving up market share and votes.
Sexist and heterophobic too.
You're not wanted here. All kinds of engineers are still in demand, if you foolishly insist on creating something. I just wonder what the software industry is going to do when the girls aren't coming and the boys aren't staying.
On a global scale, whites are a minority. Isn't Google a global company?
Or what percentage women u have to be to get free coding lessons.
Because everyone knows the only way to beat discrimination is by discriminating.
Google Is Offering Free Coding Lessons To Non-Male Non-White People
it is suggesting that black women aren't as good as people of other races/genders.
I didn't realize that the gender and minority gaps in the software development industry was simply due to availability of lessons! It's proper, and not at all ironic that we can fix this entirely obvious case of discrimination by making sure to treat certain groups differently than others based on those differences they have no control over, as opposed to merit-based evaluations that judge the worth of an individual regardless of their gender or skin color.
Boy, whew, is that good news though.
I mean, if it was something like self-selective behavior that arose largely from fundamental differences in behavior and temperament due to genetic predisposition, coupled with cultural bias a would-be/could-be programmer brings with them, it'd be really hard to overcome. That'd be a real problem, no doubt. How to make certain groups want to be a programmer, outside of all the opportunities they already have, literally thousands of hours of videos and lectures, hundreds of thousands of tutorials, and millions of step-by-step examples available from libraries, public schools, and for free on the internet - that's a very tough job. It'd be like trying to get kids to like broccoli and lima beans.
But gosh, wow, thankfully we really figured it out this time.
This will certainly solve everything, and we'll make sure that we have nearly-matching statistical matches between the greater population and these careers, just like every other career path or employment opportunity out there, from the military, to civic service, from elementary education to nursing and construction workers, we'll have finally caught up with the other trades.
Thank goodness too, that this didn't morph a naturally arising statistical evaluation into a minority rights issue, where even discussion of the problem is verboten to the perceived majority, and failure to blindly throw money at it while artificially inflating your employee base through heavy handed discrimination would single one out as racist, sexist, or simply an unethical organization.
We really dodged a bullet there, and I can only applaud this important step towards real equality.
Google's got plenty of 'em.
"We'll give you free stuff if you're of the appropriate race and/or gender" If someone offered something like that for white males only, they'd be sued out of the world. I don't see why this is different.
My mother is a woman. Is that enough for status?
Honestly folks. I learned to program because I wanted to. Years and years ago. I continue to code and learn to code because I wanted to get better. I was still interested. When Microsoft came out with Windows 3.0 and 3.1, I tried to learn to code using Windows' API but it was annoying and I really didn't have an interest. I was interested in OS/2 but at $2,000 for the API, I was out of luck.
I code because I like it and want to. I muck with computers because it's interesting and challenging at times. I admin systems because there's a bit of coding involved, challenging tasks, and troubleshooting. It's fun.
In this case, Google is simply trying to jump-start the interest in women and minorities. I got interested because of Dungeons and Dragons and Car Wars. In other words, I had an idea and needed to learn to program to implement the idea, and I did. And it was cool.
People complain that they're keeping guys from coding. Hell, there are guys who code and nothing can stop them.
We (humans) have access to a world of information at our fingertips. If you want to code, freaking code. Don't wait for some corporation or person to give you incentive to code. To me, that feels like cheating. I personally don't want to say "Google gave me money and free lessons to learn how to code". Heck, I would be embarrassed to say that in an interview. Someone had to interest me into coding so without that, I wouldn't have been interested in the first place? Doesn't sound much like motivation to me. If I were interviewing someone for a coding job, I might knock a point or two off for that. My girlfriend says she has done some programming but can't think of anything to code up to help her learn. Someone in a forum said pretty much the same thing. They wanted to be a DBA but didn't have any ideas on how to start.
Write a simple inventory program. Start off with the idea that you want to identify and store all the stuff in your room, apartment, or house. Write one to manage your music collection. Then expand it to add stars or figure out how to normalize the database. Sure, there are lots of programs out there that'll help you inventory your gear. Heck, there are programs that'll read in your UPC bar code and give you all the details you'd ever want.
But you don't learn to code by using someone else's program.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
How about documenting your APIs and services a little better.
A lot of people could use Google Apps Script for getting their feet wet, except that the interface changes frequently, is only very generally documented, the scripting language itself is based on javascript 1.5 (with some features from 1.6 and 1.7, please see MDN for documentation of those features, you're on your own as to which ones are actually implemented, though. It's different from what's in chrome, too. Not behind, just different.), and the bug tracker is apparently a google group that seven google employes (or at-one-time google employees) might be subscribed to.
Rather than just doing anything to get people into the coding class, how about making coding tools available and discoverable so that anyone can try stuff out for their own and discover they like it. We don't need to glut the market with a bunch of poor quality programmers who are miserable doing it.
If you are woman or minority that got into tech through Codeschool and the like, you won't be working in my shop. We only hire people with real CS and engineering degrees that have done their time learning more than the web language|framework flavor or the month.
H1B's
You tech nerds are ALL faggots. Living in your bubble.
I thought gender and racial discrimination was illegal....
1/8th, i think think that's the cutoff.
Sexism and racism are perfectly acceptable if you're against men and whites.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
One X of the XX chromosome should do it.
Instead of condemning this, I will apply online. Are they going to come to my house and conduct a vagina check?
I found this article very interesting:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_...
And then feminist haters call us sexists. I mean come on when a white male is not gonna be discriminated anymore cause really I don't see any plan of paid lessons for where white males are minority. When the laws are not gonna be biased toward women? They don't want equality they are happy with inequality when disfavors men. I have no respect for hipocrits. And this Is probably nothing but disgusting politics to satisfy feminist groups.
So basically... FUCK ME.
making only available to special groups of people is discriminatory in this case against Whites and Asians. Then you are surprised that you get a negative response when an unfair system is being set up?
You disgust me thoroughly.
Is part of the reason why there aren't more women and minorities in tech. Only a few comments in, and it turns into a circlejerk about how women and minorities are genetically inferior, and white males are so horribly oppressed by this move which takes nothing from them. As a minority, if this is what the tech community is like, I want no part of it.
You forgot to tip your Trilby that you've confused as a Fedora before riding off into the sunset, good Sir WhiteKnight.
Whites are less than 10% of the population of the world, but apparently Indians, Africans and Chinese become 'minorities' when they invade OUR countries.
Who are these non-white losers, and why are they here? Why don't they want to live in their own countries? Oh, wait... they can't stand living around their own kind, and want to TAKE what white people have made.
Any questions?
[TLDR: Bravo Google, but I think we're attacking the issue on the wrong side]
offering a free pass into code school for underrepresented groups is touching the problem too late.
If Google were genuinely interested in generating a more diverse, technically sharp population, they'd be looking at elementary, middle, and high schools (notice the AND). Education is an iterative process, adults that love to code and code well are either savants, or have had a decent education growing up. This doesn't mean we need One Laptop Per Kindergartener, but it would help if there were learning materials and dedicated staff in elementary schools. It would help if there were rudimentary computer labs in middle schools that did more than surf a subset of the internet. It would help if math was as celebrated as sports in high schools.
Many of the people who will be taking these coding classes will not have had the background in math that strengthens critical, algorithmic thinking - it doesn't mean they can't develop that thinking, but so long as their background is limited to the 'last step' (learning to code), they will continue to be hired on as quota-fillers.
I do applaud Google for doing something. Giving these underrepresented groups easier access to some kind of technical education should have a positive effect on the observed hiring-disparities. However, addressing the issue at this 'last step' level will not be nearly as powerful as improving the limping-machine that is our public education system.
I do think we are overly concerned with the racial make-up of [company x]. Most companies are going to hire the candidate that will help them make the most money. The lack of diversity in [company x] is likely reflecting the lack of a skillset in population subsets y and z. The lack of diversity is a symptom, not the problem. It's just easier to point an angry finger at [big faceless corporation] than at our own communities.
An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
You also get the opposite - non-substantive "look at me, I'm so progressive I don't even have anything to add to the discussion!" comments. And soon enough on these posts, they're virtually the only ones that remain modded up high enough for others to see. In that kind of environment, of course the people who feel marginalized (even if they're not) will not "get better". They'll only feel the walls closing in around them, and the more stressed their lives are the more they will react emotionally instead of logically.
It certainly doesn't help that a very large proportion of them were people who worked hard and taught themselves, despite the social stigma associated with the field before being a geek or nerd suddenly became socially acceptable. Then they worked hard in their careers and are now being marginalized by the ageism of our industry. Seeing others get what appear to be free hand-outs is sure to piss many such people off, and yes, even say some bigoted things.
So try to not get too far up on your high horse. Other people have problems, and some of them just don't know how to communicate them and end up ranting at the world. The downvote system will handle it. Acting smug about it won't solve anything, and it may only drive some people to be even less apt to change their tunes.
what I want to know is, are the courses any good?
Hey, I know this is off topic, but why is it that you social justice warriors tend to be some of the nastiest posters around? And in particular why so free with insults related to reproductive parts, such as "dick" and "twat", the sorts of things you'd find horribly offensive from the rest of us? Are you just utter hypocrites, or is there some twisted sort of point you're trying to make?
I'm a proud black man said the black man.
I'm a proud mexican woman said the mexican woman.
I'm a proud asian man said the asian man.
I'm a proud gay man said the gay man.
I'm a proud transgender said the transgender.
I'm a proud native american said the native american.
I'm a proud white man said the racist.
my question is are the google courses any good?
What else is a small minority at Google?
Programmers over 45 years old.
Funny, they aren't getting free classes. I guess youth privilege is still golden.
I've been in the industry for over a decade now and I'm at a loss as to where all this claimed sexism and race discrimination is occurring? Not once in my career have I seen candidates rejected due to race, religion or gender?
What I HAVE heard fairly consistently from both management and as passing comments around the office is that the devs teams would love to have more women in the office. So...once again, where's the discrimination happening? I can't recall a single team I've worked in that's had less than 4 different nationalities from all walks of life, every person self-taught because they found programming interesting and every person excited/curious when we find out there's a new joiner starting from a different background (race, gender, religion, industry etc).
These "bribe women to program" ideas have been done countless times before in many different industries and they've never achieved the desired outcome. They just serve to create resentment in those already in the field that dedicated their life to hard-work and continual improvement (as proven by ALOT of the comments on this article).
I imagine it can also make some women/minorities feel less inclined to join the field due to feeling like they are being targeted/scrutinized (overly encourage an introvert and watch as they bolt for the closest dark corner so they can escape the unwanted attention and general feeling of awkwardness).
Here's your problem: Women have less incentive to solve problems. They're rewarded more for wearing prick-teasing shorts and saying they don't like fucking (that much). When a woman can share her emotions without blaming somebody for her feelings, or without lying about them because good girls don't have those feelings, many of the culture-driven biases will disappear.
So "Dr Dobb's" and "Byte" and "APC", which were full of someone else's source code were worthless? Operating someone else's program has limited utility, I agree. But there are different levels of 'using' something.
^ this.
I thought there were more women than men, actually. Something like 52% vs 48%, but I may be thinking of birth rates and it may not account for things like China, where female children are unwanted due to the extra cost (dowries).
This blatant discrimination against white males is the reason I won't hire anyone other than white males (and I'm black, so I'm allowed to discriminate).
Instead of basing it on gender (or even race) how about we base it on need? Give it to low income people. Right now a women who's a millionaire could get this for free while a poor black man couldn't.
Can I apply if I have a sex change? Or just claim that my inner-soul is a Woman?
Or better yet, I'm still in my first childhood! And when that is over I'm going to have another!
What does "diversity" look like? What does it mean to have a "diverse" workforce at a given company?
White man. If you dont like that he out competes you.
Bingo. Isn't it strange that there is an argument that there is tremendous racial and sexual discrimination in the software industry and yet Asians are over-represented? In fact, based on the numbers, Asians are whiter than white.
So do Asians get free passes for everything else as white men did in the early 20th century? Nope. If anything, there is actually subtle discrimination against Asians in most fields of endeavor.
I wonder if Google counts Asians as minorities, or only African-Americans and Hispanics? Where are the native American programmers?!
"Women and blacks are so dumb, they need special training to help them get their head around coding if they want to compete with the white and asian master races." - Google
No one takes overt racists and sexists seriously. They get shouted down very quickly. What IS a legitimate concern is the idea that people view white men as some kind of superior being that never need help, and women and minorities as inferior beings that need help.
This is racism in disguise. Call it "affirmative action" or "reverse-racism" if you want, but it's just plain racism.
"People complain that they're keeping guys from coding. Hell, there are guys who code and nothing can stop them."
Same with women and minorities. To imply that they can't do this is just plain bigotry. There are some very well-liked, respected, and successful female and minority members of the tech industry.
Just curious....
You should probably just kill yourself. No one likes white men anymore - they're not exotic or diverse enough, and they don't look as progressive in our company photos.
That's a minority now, right? Where does this all end up when we have an approximate plurality in this country of White/Hispanic/Black/Mixed or Other?
If Google were really so hot, they'd offer free coding to POOR PEOPLE, since by definition they can't afford to pay for it. I don't see much justice in some young Black dude whose father makes $100k getting in ahead of a White girl who comes from a foster care background and is currently flipping burgers and couch surfing.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Or what percentage women u have to be to get free coding lessons.
1/8th, i think think that's the cutoff.
How...?
Actually, I'll just whoosh myself, as there's gotta be a joke here I'm missing.
When do we take our foot off the accelerator and stop stepping on the younger males (of all races)?
I agree- men are doing FINE in the board room. But it's really starting to suck everywhere down from there.
I was formally trained that if all things were equal - we should hire the "most diverse" candidate first.
Even tho Caucasian males were under represented at the bottom three tiers of the company, they were trying to balance against the lily white top two tiers (1 white female vp- the rest all 55+ year old white males). Middle management was about 60% female and they were blatantly discriminating against men and you knew the EEOC wasn't going to step in.
Don't get me wrong. I'm out. Retired. I'm speaking as a mostly disinterested party.
It just seems like society is continuing to beat up on young males (and esp white young males) and promote and give free stuff to everyone else.
When are you going to stop? What's the criteria for stopping? How far past 58% does it have to go before you can say things are addressed?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
A buddy of mine is a white male and dirt poor. He has a real drive to learn how to code, he's wanted to make video games since he was a little kid. But there is no way he'll ever be able to gather enough money to attend any sort of 'programming school.'
I'm tempted to tell him about this initiative and tell him to lie on the application by feminizing his first name. He doesn't need a certificate or anything, just the mentorship to help him with the learning.
Thoughts?
They could use some coding help as well and would add to the "diversity".
Men are bad! Women are not bad! Women deserve a $50 million free education ticket because men are bad. If there were a $50 million endowment specifically target towards men, Gloria Steinem types would be burning bras and rioting in the streets. The reverse? Is a matter of "What's mine is mine and what's yours is our's.
define Minority ? you (google) should offer this without the gender and racist remarks... then just fail the people who don't live up to your criteria. -or better yet, just delete the user data of your "majority" whoever that is...
happy trials
Can you point to the comments saying that? I don't see anything claiming that people are "genetically inferior" but I'm not browsing at -1, either, so I may have missed that.
I see a lot of people who don't like unequal treatment, though. But some people believe that "equal outcomes" is true equality, rather than "equal treatment" so there's bound to be conflict.
google sucks at the 'human' part of the human/machine system
it's true just look at their products from the start...'google.com' had better results and no clutter....their success in visual design was to by default **not have any** because sites like 'yahoo.com' are so full of visual garbage...it's just the standards have always been so low in computing that a blank screen w/ search bar is the 'best'
look at how their executives talk about privacy
so, to the problem of 'women in coding' it's rational to expect they'd try to thread a needle with a forklift
for me, i lament two things:
1. quality control...who is teaching these poor women and what kind of "coding" are they teaching them? we all know you could spend a year learning a coding language and still be almost like a newbie in a job situation not using that code...they'd still lose the job to a self-taught adaptable man
2. alternate uses for $50 MILLION DOLLARS
it's good that women are learning 'code' despite my two laments...but still...aaarrrgghh!!!
Thank you Dave Raggett
> white males are so horribly oppressed by this move which takes nothing from them.
I'm having a party. Everybody but you is invited.
Does that help you understand how it feels?
One hint - it's NOT discrimination. Us "creepy ass crackers" aren't sitting around obfuscating our code in ways no women or minority can comprehend. And our managers aren't tossing their resumes based on their supposedly tragic demographics.
Oh, and if an industry just so happens to be "so racial/gender imbalanced" (and I don't agree that it is), why is that automatically a issue?
Totally agree that "reverse" discrimination does not fix the problem...mainly because there isn't one.
Nice offer, I now choose to identify my gender as female and my race as hispanic
You make some excellent points.
I hope I didn't come across smug. I started reading the comments, and after the tenth little jibe I got kind of pissed and disgusted... and posted emotionally. :D
The world could be such a nice place if people didn't treat each other like garbage... Helping out women and minorities is not a bad thing, and no threat to anyone. It enriches us all.
We try posting rationally, but get disgusted by the ugly comments. Then we post emotionally. We're human.
I don't know if I'm a social justice warrior, although I know you meant that facetiously, but it's really disheartening to see people act so callously toward other people that are at a disadvantage. Help a brother or sister out, instead of slapping them down or dismissing their struggle.
There are few women and minorities in programming because they lack the aptitude or interest and not because of some industry-wide discrimination. For proof, just look at the number of Indians in the typical software company. Free lessons are going to do nothing because if you had any aptitude for this, you can pick up this stuff yourself.
This is a racist policy. Let's be very clear about the language here! By "minority" they mean: NOT WHITE. Right? Or am I wrong?
So this is a policy which discriminates against whites. Well we are a poor white family. Why can't my family benefit from this? Oh, because we are white. But hey, that is not discrimination, right? We have not been discriminated against! Right? Because we are white and there are some rich whites (look at Al gore, he is very rich). So because we are a poor white family, we must be rich and advantaged, right?
This is f*cking outrageous that any organisation can on the one hand be sued for discriminating against "minorities" but on the other is lauded for discriminating against whites!
Do they have the same policy in Google Israel? Supporting training in Israel for people who are not Jewish?
OMG! I am so outraged at what you have written. It is completely insulting!
As an alcoholic I have every right to obtain this benefit.
Said one Anonymous Coward to another!
So everyone who isn't white. Where's my white privilege? I didn't get the memo...
Where I am South Asians alone are the majority (not the plurality). Add East Asians, and, well you know the rest, unless you are willfully blind.
Demanding institutionalized discrimination to correct anything is a bad thing, and a threat to everyone. Much like one political party whining that the other political party used the same tactics in reverse against them, discrimination does not develop changes in attitudes, it reinforces them.
So, since we are into discrimination and punishing...
In my city, European Americans *are* the minority (to African Americans; there are very few of any other race). So would THEY be eligible for free preferential treatment from Google?
Or does "minority" just mean anyone who is not European American?
I want 3 months of lessons to expand my skills and I've been in this industry for 20 years.
everyone knows sub humans can't code.
If you're a man, just claim you have one "disabled" chromosome. You're golden.
Hey, I know this is off topic, but why is it that you social justice warriors tend to be some of the nastiest posters around?
I consider the term "social justice warrior" perjorative. Shouldn't we all be striving for social justice that betters us all? And when I talk about social justice it's something I believe in. I've identified strongly as a feminist since about 1991. I consider myself "Third wave" by the way.
The overuse of that term (and others like "White knight") over the past few months of the various minorities in computing discussions on Slashdot has made me rather angry at what I perceive as the overly privileged locker room mentality here. Normally I'm rather easy going and don't participate in the women in IT discussions in part because I find the misogyny in them disgusting....but I've had enough of what I think of as overly selfish jerks on Slashdot. It's 2014, it's time for those people to get with the program. I'm tired of being "nice".
And in particular why so free with insults related to reproductive parts, such as "dick" and "twat", the sorts of things you'd find horribly offensive from the rest of us?
The thing is, I'm usually not so free with them. I'm just getting tired of the "dickishness" from people who claim to be so smart and superior that they should be running things. Meaning the average politician-bashing "sheeple-bashing" slashdotter
But basically my response is the same as whistlingtony's
We try posting rationally, but get disgusted by the ugly comments. Then we post emotionally. We're human.
You know theres always the possibility many girls don't like to code. Hell, there are lots of things only chicks like to do. And lots of things only guys like to do. So what if programming is mostly enjoyed by guys?
When companies do this sort of thing, it looks like sexism and racism. Its white-man guilt coupled with 'dude we need more chicks because it matters to our job somehow'. If you're worried about internal racism or internal sexism - address that by addressing your staff. If its not present, then there is no problem.
Take it any way you want it; if it's pejorative, you've earned more than a few pejoratives thrown your way.
Ah, but you're not; you're striving for social justice that puts the heterosexual white man down. I'm aware you think that's because we have unearned advantage that you'd like to take away, but even if that's so, it's still not bettering us all.
You know the term "white knight" comes from modern feminism, right? And it's pejorative there. It's about the only thing in these discussions nearly all parties agree on (except the white knights) -- nobody likes a white knight.
As for your anger at a perceived "locker room mentality" (which is pretty ridiculous, considering the traditional divide between geeks and jocks), getting angry at those who disagree with you might work in an environment like the workplace where you have authority to back up your anger and claims that disagreement counts as oppression; it isn't going to work here.
Ah, but that's just the thing; you have neither consensus on what "the program" is nor the power to impose it on those who don't agree. You're skipping the step of demonstrating that your "program" is in fact the right thing, and getting angry when everyone won't just fall into line.
Because poor or motivated white or Asian boys are unworthy of opportunity because diversity!
So what Google is saying is that women and minorities need their hands held so they can take their first little baby steps into programming, because their little brains can't handle it on their own like a big white man's brain can. Cut the bullshit. Getting starting in programming isn't hard - there is literally a glut of free resources. If you can't get started in programming, the problem isn't your vagina.
This is what I love about Google doing this and not the government: everyone here can cry all they want, Google will still just offer the classes. Because it's good for their bottom line. Or just because they want to and they don't have to answer to you.
So complain that it's unfair. Go ahead. Please proceed.
Offering free courses and other freebies to specific groups is a way to increase benefits for those groups. Google could have taken a straightforward and overt approach: of increasing wages for females. They have more demand for female employees relative to their supply, so increasing their wage or signing bonus would make sense (although the PR value might have been less).
Personally, I don't mind, since this is Google's private money and choice (as opposed to tax payer money spent on government programs) and I don't work there or own stock. It's their choice to invest if they think it will pay off. Whether it will be worthwhile is an empirical question (productivity gains and PR value vs investment).
I'm done with Google. Discriminate against me because of gender and skin color. This is so the white male tech employees with 20 plus years of experience can look forward to drawing the same salary as the new google training voucher recipients. Diversity is code for white male heterosexual to the back of the line. Just remember these things when you are in the ballott box.
Steve from Boston
It's not about the interest in "social justice", it's the hostility and venom that commonly accompanies the loudest voices for it. No interest in compromise, and any expressed intentions of equality come across as dishonest due to the aggressive and wrathful tone of the messages. Heaven forbid you disagree with everything they post before they break out the name calling and attempting to silence their dissent.
I'm not going to pretend racism and sexism no longer exist, but these days it feels less like race is the problem and more like economic class is the issue. Allow me to paint the picture of a poor white kid living in a trailer park with a parent or two in and out of jail. Isn't this young fellow shit out of luck if he wants a better life for himself? Affirmative action will exclude him, Google's new program will exclude him, and he'll at best be cornered into backbreaking labor and at worst he'll be in and out of jail himself.
I am not white, and in my personal experiences while we see some privileged whites of either gender that get smooth sailing through life, it's the poor whites that get really screwed. And unfortunately, fellow minorities will look at the privileged whites, and assume that all whites get the silver spoon.
Let Google hire exclusively "Ethnic Minorities" and let's sit back and watch the innovations continue and the share price continue to rise. Will they be serving weed in the canteen? [/sarc]
Take it any way you want it; if it's pejorative, you've earned more than a few pejoratives thrown your way.
And how long has there been misogny in women in IT discussion on slashdot? How long have guys like you been throwing around "social justice warrior" as an epithet? And I'm the bad guy for throwing a few curses around?
Ah, but you're not; you're striving for social justice that puts the heterosexual white man down.
No, I'm not.
I'm aware you think that's because we have unearned advantage that you'd like to take away,
Is taking away something from you that you stole and giving it back stealing? No, because you didn't earn it in the first place. You might think you did, but you didn't.
but even if that's so, it's still not bettering us all.
In the long term it is. Because then you will HAVE to earn what you get fairly against real competition without "cheating"
Let me use a gaming example? Isn't it more rewarding to beat a game without cheats, than with? Beat it on "Normal" and not "easy"?
You know the term "white knight" comes from modern feminism, right?
I don't think so, I've not seen any feminist use it, but I sure have seen a lot of anti-feminist men do so here on Slashdot.
As for your anger at a perceived "locker room mentality" (which is pretty ridiculous, considering the traditional divide between geeks and jocks),
Modern Slashdotters in their 20's have more in common with jocks than old style geeks/nerds. You've seen the term "brogrammer" bandied around. They may be a programmer, but they watch ESPN and drink brewskis with the bros rather than put on spock ears, go to a con and play Battletech. Besides, being a geek doesn't mean you can't engage in "locker room style" misogyny even if you're a geek.
Ah, but that's just the thing; you have neither consensus on what "the program" is nor the power to impose it on those who don't agree. You're skipping the step of demonstrating that your "program" is in fact the right thing, and getting angry when everyone won't just fall into line.
The "program" is simple, it's: "Don't be a misogynist/racist/etc, and we need to remedy past and present discrimination" What part of that is controversial? We learned the value of that years ago.
Damned if I know; check the archives. Long time, certainly.
Oh, rather more recently I suspect.
Throwing them around as indiscriminately as you (and others I would tag "social justice warriors") do certainly doesn't make you a good guy. It isn't just the words, it's the demonizing; I mean, we know we're not demons, at least, most of us do. Maybe your vitriol will convince a few insecure straight white males that they don't deserve what they have; maybe it'll find root in a few who actually had the easy time of it that you claim we all did. But for most of us, it's just a false accusation and indeed marks you as the bad guy.
In the long term, we're all dead. Discriminating against me because of the actions of some straight white males in the past (or even some other straight white males in the present) doesn't better me, so it certainly doesn't better "us all". As for "cheating", no, I haven't cheated. Even the narrative of privilege doesn't claim those benefiting from privilege are actually cheating.
According to Scalzi, I don't have a choice what level I play on. But I reject the idea that I'm cheating or even playing on "easy".
Check various feminism websites.
ROTFL. You know this how? I can't speak for slashdotters, but I work with a lot of younger software engineers, and they're still geeks, not jocks.
Brogramming was a hoax; a joke, based on the juxtaposition of two opposite stereotypes, the geek/nerd and the "bro". Now it serves the purpose of demonstrating that those taken in by it have no idea what they're talking about.
Well, first of all, the definitions of the terms keep changing. Used to be that not being a racist meant not discriminating based on race, and similarly for sexist. We were fine with that. Now we're being told it's OK to discriminate based on race and sex, as long as it's against white people and males.... whoa, whoa, whoa, that's moving the goalpost, and it's definitely not OK. The term "misogyny", similarly, has been widened, even so far as to include completely non-discriminatory behavior that is supposedly characteristic of men and disproportionately affects women.
Further, the idea that remedying past discrimination is desirable is controversial in itself. It quickly gets into a muddle of just who discriminated against who and who benefited and was hurt. The idea that "white people benefited from discrimination against black people, so to remedy that we should discriminate against different white people to benefit different black people" is quite controversial.
The same goes for present discrimination to a lesser extent; remedying specific instances of discrimination is uncontroversial, but adding a general counterbalance to present discrimination against one group by discriminating for that group is controversial.
I'm not really sure why it matters what benefits are being handed out to a under represented group when it doesn't have any affect on the majority. Google isn't laying off white males to hire women and minorities, they are training another demographic in a field that isn't necessarily introduced to them on the same level that is introduced to the current ruling demographic in the industry. So Google will have a deeper pool of qualified candidates to hire from at some point in the future. With diversity of race/culture, you'll also get diversity in ideas. Not so sure why someone who was given a headstart could have any ill feelings towards someone else being allowed to start the race. The whole "my Jewish grand pop escaped Nazi Germany and came to America with nothing and made something with himself" doesn't hold any value when you point out the fact that YOUR JEWISH GRANDDAD WAS ALLOWED TO MAKE SOMETHING OF HIMSELF.
And for the people who tend to think since slavery ended in the 1860s that everything became equal at that point. Like the Jim Crow era didn't exist. Like blacks didn't have voting rights until 1965. It's ok if you don't want to acknowledge that racial discrimination, though not as virulent and violent as it was, is still present, especially in a suffering job market where networking is key, where the decision makers are predominately from one specific network and lend preference to their network. Nothing wrong with that. I just don't understand the issue with leveling the playing field that has been skewed in one direction for centuries.
Look, Google is doing what they think is best for their company and their customers. If you don't agree with it, if you think it's part of the ongoing campaign of racist discrimination and misandry that white males have been forced to endure, then simply stop using their products.
Boo hoo. So boycott Google.
Oh, but it's okay to have the makeup of your personnel roster skewed toward white males to begin with though. Even though there are thousands of qualified minority men and women who applied for said jobs but were turned down. In many cases, applicants are not even considered just because of the pronounciation or spelling of the name... which indicates non-majority member. Obviously, you are a majority member who has never had to endure such discrimination. Please get a clue!
Today, no one is blocking or impeding women or "minorities" -- whatever that means -- from getting into programming. Lots of online tutorials, places to try writing a few lines of code, and of course, tons of downloads you can make to get started. All you need is an Internet connection. What Google is doing will fail miserably. The reason why certain cultural groups are "underrepresented" in our programming culture are many, and deep-seated. I do find it amusing that women are "underrepresented", given the enormous kickoffs of 2 women, Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper. What could be more inviting? As long as it remains free for anyone who cares to jump in can, I don't see a problem.