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Intel Pledges $300 Million To Improve Diversity In Tech

AmiMoJo writes: Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced plans to improve diversity not just at Intel, but in the wider tech industry. Krzanich wants "to reach full representation at all levels" of the company by 2020. For instance, Intel's workforce is currently four percent black; if the company were to adjust its numbers to reflect the number of qualified workers in the tech industry, that number would increase to about six percent.

To help address one of tech's underlying diversity problems — that there are fewer qualified women and minorities available to hire than there are white or Asian men — Krzanich pledged to spend $300 million over the next three years. According to the New York Times, much of that money will be allocated "to fund engineering scholarships and to support historically black colleges and universities."

"I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age," he said to the NYT. "I want them to have a world that's got equal opportunity for them."

341 comments

  1. Waste of money by aglider · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you don't understand the problem first, there will be no real solution later. Why don't we have "diversity"?

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    1. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dunno, why is "diversity" in quotes?

    2. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most women just aren't attracted to careers in technology. Why is that?

    3. Re:Waste of money by jythie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know, it is hard to go wrong with scholarships. It may not address underlying issues, but it will get more people into the pipeline that might not have been able to otherwise, which means more mentors and role models down the road. A crude solution, but still stands a chance to do some good.

    4. Re:Waste of money by aglider · · Score: 1

      Why not?

      --
      Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    5. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      because it's a fairly understood word unless the point you're trying to make is that it's simply a made up concept in which case you should just say that. not just put scare quotes around things you fear and don't understand.

    6. Re:Waste of money by happy_place · · Score: 1

      Is it a waste of money, or is it CYA? Intel cares about diversity... at least to the tune of 300 million dollars.

      --
      http://www.beanleafpress.com
    7. Re:Waste of money by rot26 · · Score: 1

      Please define "diversity".

      Quoted or not quoted. (And explain the difference.)

      --



      To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
    8. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simple and well said.
      Whining about anti-male sexism in 3...2...1...

    9. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well I hope this motivates others like the NBA, the NHL and the NFL to look to provide more diversity in their organizations and teams. How many Asian Hockey players never get a chance?

    10. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh, what, there's no politically correct way to say things that are sexist bullshit? I wonder why that is.

    11. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Forced diversity for all! A family of four, all white? We gotta change that. Simply not enough diversity. Replace the husband with an asian lesbian, one of kids with a black boy, and replace the other with a native american girl. The State now approves!

    12. Re:Waste of money by Nemyst · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It also further exacerbates jealousy and a feeling of inequality from the disgusting straight white males (do I need to add more adjectives there?) we keep bashing. Perhaps this'll come as a shock, but not all white males are rich. By having a scholarship for pretty much every state of being but white males, you're going to segregate the people who already love what they're doing and do it because of that in spite of the monetary problems. You're telling them that they're not worth fussing over.

    13. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1 funny :D

    14. Re:Waste of money by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      . . . so, are there any Intelers here on Slashdot, who have been told by their managers, that there is not enough money in the company to give them a raise?

      But Intel seems to have 300 million to piss away . . .

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    15. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well, seeing how they donated among others to Anita Sarkeesian, it seems they care a great deal about not being called sexist by armchair feminists that take over a year and several hundred thousand dollars to create a ten minute youtube video about how horribly sexist certain industries are.

    16. Re:Waste of money by jythie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      True, not all white males are rich, but all other things being equal, they still get preferential treatment when it comes to jobs, career advancement, internships, etc. That tends to be the problem with invisible privilege, it is not absolute so it can be hard for individuals (who will always have others better off than themselves) to see it even exists, and thus any help that does not include them feels like a loss. In fact it often gets wrapped up in entitlement, the feeling that whatever they do get they simply deserve thus it is not an advantage and giving other people a leg up is undeserved.

      But yes, it will further exacerbate jealousy, there is not much you can do about that outside sliding back or going as far as returning to 'only white protestant land owning ethnically local males are legally people' system, which naturally then you had jealousy in other directions. But as long as a dominant group with a diverse membership sees others rising, there will be jealousy and they feeling that they should be better off than they are and if those uppity minorities were not in the way they would be wealthier within their own demographic. Even though they would not actually be. Ok, I tangented quite a bit ther ^_^

    17. Re: Waste of money by FrnkMit · · Score: 2

      To all the people who say "women don't want to work in tech", note that women were the MAJORITY in the early days of computing, right up until the advent of personal computers. (Source) From the article: "... families were much more likely to buy computers for boys than for girls — even when their girls were really interested in computers."

      So it's quite probable women WOULD go into tech fields ... if they had encouragement, a pleasant working atmosphere, and at least some assurance that motherhood wouldn't throw them completely off their career track.

    18. Re: Waste of money by kaliann · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nursing is hard. Veterinary medicine is hard. Biological sciences, particularly at the graduate level, are hard.
      All of these are heavily female dominated.

      Women don't avoid hard fields simply because there is challenging material.

      It's almost like the situation is more complex than "Tech is just too tough for delicate ladybrains".

    19. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True, not all white males are rich, but all other things being equal, they still get preferential treatment when it comes to jobs, career advancement, internships, etc.

      How?

      That tends to be the problem with invisible privilege, it is not absolute so it can be hard for individuals (who will always have others better off than themselves) to see it even exists

      Much like the emperor's new clothes.

      thus any help that does not include them feels like a loss.

      You don't think the discriminatory nature as such is the problem? Discrimination is always wrong, even when white men happen to be the group discriminated against.

    20. Re: Waste of money by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      No. I think it's a broad cultural issue. People tend to be drawn to the well glamorized professions. Like anything else in America, this is a SALES issue and has nothing to do with the tech industry.

      It's not glamorized. It doesn't have a reputation for being lucrative.

      The geek bashing done by the feminist press doesn't help.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    21. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. The top multinational companies and start-ups will be fighting tooth and nail and hire the best from "traditionally black colleges and universities." Those companies are loathe to even hire from the state schools. If you've ever interviewed candidates from various types of higher education institutes, there is a very, very noticeable difference between candidates from the elite institutions (such as MIT), the top-tier state colleges (such as Cal), etc.

      Unless the technical programs at the traditionally black colleges are very rigorous, all this program will do is create a bunch of minorities who have technical degrees who can't find work in their field.

    22. Re: Waste of money by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      The geek bashing done by the feminist press doesn't help.

      What are you referring to? Do you have any links supporting this?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    23. Re:Waste of money by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      First we should ask whether we even need diversity.

      What we should strive for is equality of opportunity. If you can get that sorted out, and you still have more white males than black women working in tech, well, that's probably because (readers of a sensitive disposition should look away now) they're different.

      "I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age," he said to the NYT. "I want them to have a world that's got equal opportunity for them."

      Yes, good. But don't judge your efforts simply by the relative numbers of different groups going into a particular profession.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    24. Re: Waste of money by plopez · · Score: 1

      "Tech is hard"

      Nah. Women gravitate toward Biology, Botany, Medicine, Chemistry, and other fields that are intrinsically non-linear and cannot be easily constrained. Men in Engineering and Physical Sciences which are easy to constrain and make linear. EEs for example spend a fair amount of effort ensuring that their designs have linear responses. In the fields I just mentioned you do not have that luxury.

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    25. Re:Waste of money by njnnja · · Score: 2

      Unfortunately it's a small chance. Most of the difference in interest/ability/selection/whatever in STEM by gender is already evident by the end of high school. Too lazy to look it up now, but you can look at things like math SAT scores, AP calculus scores, intended major selection, etc. and see that there is already a pretty significant difference between the sexes already. And it's already so big that it doesn't really get bigger over time. Since a stitch in time saves nine, it seems like the best use of scarce resources would be to try to deal with whatever is happening in high school (or even middle school) where the discrepancies start.

      Note that this doesn't depend on settling whether the difference is nature or nurture, just that you can see the difference in a bunch of 18 year old kids. So solutions that address the concerns of 20 and 30 year olds, however worthy they may be in and of themselves, seem to be forever swimming against the current.

    26. Re:Waste of money by cayenne8 · · Score: 1, Insightful
      I guess it is outside the bounds of consideration that IT and tech interests in general might just be different between the sexes (genetic wiring) and even with races/ethinc lines due to culture they're raised in.

      Is diversity for diversity's sake that important when it comes to coding something? 1's and 0's are pretty color and sex blind and don't seem to care who is juggling them around.

      While I think the opportunities for anyone QUALIFIED to get jobs in the industry, why is it so important what the spread of the numbers are? What is the driving force to try to force behaviors and interests on folks just to manipulate a statistic? Often this leads to lowering the qualification bar just to get in someone from a category of birth.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    27. Re:Waste of money by jythie · · Score: 1

      While there might be a difference between the top 1% from MIT etc, after that handful of schools things become much more even. Keep in mind that for every superstar companies like this hire, they probably have 100 'lesser' engineers doing the actual work, esp once you get away from companies like Facebook that have fairly small staffs.

    28. Re:Waste of money by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      While I think the opportunities for anyone QUALIFIED to get jobs in the industry,

      Geez, I gotta get some coffee in me and read before I hit submit.

      "While I think the opportunities for anyone QUALIFIED to get jobs in the industry should be open and equal..."

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    29. Re:Waste of money by jythie · · Score: 1

      That is why I included the last bit about 'down the road'. Scholarships come in pretty late in the process, but they can help prime the pump for a decade or two later when those people are now embedded in the industry and start interacting with the youth. I know a lot of women who went into STEM and then returned to work with young girls and showed them that yes, there really were women scientists and that they could too if they wanted.

    30. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So if there really is some "invisible privilege" happening, are you saying that the solution to this is not to get rid of that privilege and make everything level ground, but instead to simply make it visible and give it to some other group? That's the fix? Really?

      Do people who advocate for these "fixes" seriously not understand that this causes severe divides between sexes/races/communities (whatever you've made the distinction between) and further stresses in society? It does not fix things, it makes them worse.

    31. Re: Waste of money by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...and at least some assurance that motherhood wouldn't throw them completely off their career track.

      And therein lies the rub. Unless he mandates a hysterectomy before hiring at Intel, that biological clock will be there, ticking. There isn't shit that you (or the Intel Corporation) can do about it, either. I know quite a few women in tech (including Intel employees) - the highly successful ones are childless, and have no inclination of having kids (the only exception is a former manager of mine - and she has an MBA, not a CompSci degree). The reason why? They forewent the child-rearing thing and went all-in when it came to technology - just like the guys do.

      When you bear a child, your priorities change - hard. All the sudden, that project/application/datacenter/whatever doesn't seem so damned important anymore, and your life's focus changes. It's not sexist to say that women in general are affected by this a hell of a lot more than men are. Guys are generally used to sucking it up and getting on with the business of focusing back on that whole hunter-gatherer thing - it's how we're wired. There are exceptions in either direction of course, but they're not the general rule. Generally, the business of getting that little snot factory raised, educated, nurtured, and prepared for the world becomes a woman's focus much quicker than it does for a guy.

      Even with compromises (day care, schools, etc), it still changes the top priority for most (not all - most) women. This in turn throws the statistics off pretty hard for careers that require constant education and constant renewal.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    32. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really it's more along the lines of Women gravitate towards careers where they won't be surrounded by douchebag assholes who constantly belittle them, and Men in Engineering and Physical Sciences are frequently found to be such.

    33. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >note that women were the MAJORITY in the early days of computing, right up until the advent of personal computers.

      1) Those were for the most part low level clerking jobs shuffling COBOL cards around.
      2) You realize that the world has changed since the advent of personal computers.

    34. Re:Waste of money by psnyder · · Score: 1

      There's a large body of evidence correlating economics & culture to educational outcomes.

      Genetics correlate also, but this is mostly genetic differences between individual families, not "race".

      Gender difference in mathematics is only apparent in individual countries and fairly nonexistent when looking at the world as a whole (implying that gender differences in mathematics is due to culture).

      This evidence is a good place to start understanding the problem and search for improvements. Therefore scholarships may be helpful (deals with the economics side). But focusing on "race" is misguided, when focusing on the problem of culture can give tangible improvements (ex: community centers in rough inner city areas), regardless of "race".

      Anyone can search Google Scholar to look into these in more detail.

    35. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True story: my father is retired from a large corp and he was in the executive management. My mother, working for a government organization, asked him for advise about what to do with a troublesome employee that was being very disrespectful, hard to deal with, and was getting complaints from the customers. His first question to her was: "is this person a monitory?" She answered yes and his response was: "you're fucked."

    36. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thankyou for conveniently forgetting about all the articles bashing the scientist who landed a robot on a comet, conde nast hireling.

    37. Re:Waste of money by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

      Dunno about these days, but they've often told entire R&D groups that they don't have enough money to keep the group going, and so everyone in that group went into the pool to find another job in the company (you get 3 months - after that you're basically unemployed).

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    38. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Statement: Group A is favoured for position type X to the point that 90% of people in Position X are from group A

      Rebuttle: But individual R from Group A didn't get to be in Position X! Therefore your statistical analysis is invalid!

      Can you see the flaw in your logic?

    39. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used to work at Intel and the story at review time was always that the company was top-heavy, the economy was uncertain, PC sales are down, etc. At the same time, the company was making record revenues, hiring Will.I.Am as "Director of Creative Innovation", and giving the CEO a raise year after year (this was the CEO who missed the entire tablet/mobile revolution btw).

    40. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ask and ye shall receive: not getting custody, paying child support.

      I'll let the rest of you fill in the more controversial ones.

    41. Re:Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 0, Troll

      While I think the opportunities for anyone QUALIFIED to get jobs in the industry,

      Geez, I gotta get some coffee in me and read before I hit submit.

      "While I think the opportunities for anyone QUALIFIED to get jobs in the industry should be open and equal..."

      Sorry, but I think you need MOAH KOFFEE. This is not about "diversity for diversity's sake." Equality in education is needed before people can get those qualifications. The mindset that "girls would make bad programmers ... because there aren't that many of them in the industry long-term" permeates the education system.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    42. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All the people I know who work at Intel, and I know quite a few, are rather intelligent. Clearly they need to be hiring more dumb people to more accurately represent the population.

    43. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why're ya avoiding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes.

    44. Re:Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 0

      How? Just look at the pay differential between the sexes with the same amount of experience and the same qualifications doing the same job. One way to eliminate this invisible privilege would be to make all salaries public - but there would be riots.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    45. Re:Waste of money by njnnja · · Score: 1

      Sure, I'll buy that mentoring/role-modelling is a pretty good answer. But then shouldn't you just pay women who are currently in STEM fields to mentor school age girls? Or pay their way through workshops that will enable them to to it themselves?

      I don't mean to be down on someone trying to help, but the idea that we are going to correct a 70/30 split in high schoolers by equalizing college and the workplace first and then hope that it feeds back just doesn't seem like it will be that effective. Not that it won't work for sure, but why not apply a patch directly to where the tire is leaking?

    46. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      You mean hard wired to sacrifice themselves to take care of their family?

    47. Re: Waste of money by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's the thing - it isn't that they put their careers "over" their families - they do it because of their families. That woolly mammoth isn't gonna kill itself, you know (or the modern equivalent? 'That mortgage ain't gonna pay itself.')

      Most guys would love to stay home all day and help raise the kids, enjoying every moment - instead they have to get out there and make double-damned certain that the wife and kids were provided for, and kept secure, safe, fed, and warm. That's the hard-wiring I'm talking about. Some guys manage to do it (e.g. stay-at-home dads) - good for them! (no, really - I'd be totally envious of such a situation.) Most guys however don't get to do that - they have to get out there and work for the long haul, for the family.

      That's why I specifically wrote "sucking it up" - not because they want to, but because they have to.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    48. Re:Waste of money by malkavian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ok, and let's get equal leave for paternity, money spent getting males into Vetinary sciences etc. where they're underrepresented, and a whole host of things that are directed at women. Plus, the same chance of being the stay at home partner when children arrive (males are vastly under represented here. Oh, and compulsory genetic testing at childbirth (so every male will have the same knowledge that the child is theirs as the mother has), so on, so forth.. But you know what, a male will never have the same bond with a child as the mother, because that's biologically impossible. What's the big picture here? The sexes aren't equal in all things; one sex has advantages in some areas. People make their own choices along the way. This insistence that there must be equal everything at each step, and that the company must have x people in post to match a general demographic of population by discriminating based on sex or skin colour is atrocious. I'm all for meritocracy (hell, my hiring practices of the past decade have had me hiring in approximately 50% ethnic minorities, as they were flat out the best candidates for the job that presented at interviews). This "discriminate against one group so we can get a demographic match up" is just plain silly.

    49. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look at the pay differential between individuals of the SAME sex with the SAME amount of experience and the SAME qualifications doing the SAME job. Employers pay employees enough to keep them. Males tend to be more aggressive when asking for money (not always, just a tendency, and aggression isn't limited to salary). Take a workplace with 5 males and 5 females all making the same, one of the males asks for more money and get its, now men make more than women, oh the outrage, it must be because the employer is sexist, regardless of the fact that 4 of the 5 males are making the same as the 5 females.

      When is the last time you walked into your bosses office and said you wanted a $20k/yr raise or you were going to take another job? Or walked into an interview and told them you wanted $20k more than what you were currently making? I've done both, and both went along with it (went with the first one, year and a half later all is still well).

      **Yes there are probably still some sexists employers out there, but they are not the majority.

    50. Re:Waste of money by a+whoabot · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The Department of Labor commissioned a study on the gender pay gap. None could be determined to be caused by discrimination. They could not even conclude that there was any pay differential when all non-discriminatory factors were accounted for. "An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women"

    51. Re: Waste of money by buck-yar · · Score: 1

      Ever seen Big Bang Theory?

    52. Re: Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 0

      So how do you explain all those single moms who manage to do both? According to your thesis, women shouldn't be able to, because they're not "hard-wired" to. And what about families where both parents work. Or families being raised by two lesbians or two gays (and the kids on average turn out better than hetero couples, esp. with respect to lower levels of child abuse and domestic violence)?

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    53. Re:Waste of money by azav · · Score: 1

      Because people are inherently tribal. We want to associate with our own group and exclude people we feel do not fit well within our group.

      --
      - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
    54. Re: Waste of money by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Funny how single moms manage to do both, isn't it?

      ...usually because they have to, not because they want to. I was raised by a single mother who would have vastly preferred to have not had to hold a full-time job.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    55. Re: Waste of money by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Ever seen Big Bang Theory?

      Is Warner Bros part of the feminist press now?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    56. Re: Waste of money by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

      You confuse instinct with circumstance. Most single mothers go out there and work because circumstances say that they have to. Most two-job families see both parents working because financial circumstance demands it.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    57. Re:Waste of money by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      The mindset that "girls would make bad programmers ...

      Nobody is saying that. What they are saying is that girls are less interested, not less capable.

    58. Re:Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      Ok, and let's get equal leave for paternity

      Where I live, the parents are free to divvy up the parental leave any way they wish.

      money spent getting males into Vetinary sciences

      The number of women who are veterinarians has only outnumbered men since 2009. The problem in IT has been going on much longer, and runs much deeper.

      Plus, the same chance of being the stay at home partner when children arrive (males are vastly under represented here.

      Maybe if women were able to make the same amount of money for the same experience in the same job, the numbers would be better. Also, there's nothing to prevent from doing this - it's something that should have been discussed before having kids.

      Oh, and compulsory genetic testing at childbirth (so every male will have the same knowledge that the child is theirs as the mother has)

      Sure, if we can also have a global database so that when men cheat and get another woman pregnant, their significant other is also notified so she can decide whether she wants to throw the bum out.

      But you know what, a male will never have the same bond with a child as the mother, because that's biologically impossible.

      [citation needed]

      What's the big picture here? The sexes aren't equal in all things; one sex has advantages in some areas. People make their own choices along the way.

      Part of the problem is that women "choose" to leave certain industries because they are paid less for the same job with the same experience and the same qualifications.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    59. Re:Waste of money by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Besides which, at least in the UK there are scholarships and other funds for people who can't afford to study.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    60. Re:Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Males tend to be more aggressive when asking for money (not always, just a tendency, and aggression isn't limited to salary).

      And that's also part of the problem - the aggressiveness isn't limited to money. Look at the incarceration rates for men vs women - men take the lead at something like 15 to 1.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    61. Re: Waste of money by plopez · · Score: 1

      I guess that would also be a reason.

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    62. Re: Waste of money by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      To all the people who say "women don't want to work in tech", note that women were the MAJORITY in the early days of computing, right up until the advent of personal computers.

      Most of those jobs were for data entry clerks. A man would write a program with pen and paper, hand it to a woman, and then she would sit at a card punch machine and type in the program. Once personal computers became common, the man could type in his own program, the paper and pen went away, and so did the woman "tech worker".

      So it's quite probable women WOULD go into tech fields ... if they had encouragement

      The problem with this hypothesis is that it doesn't explain why woman have been so successful in fields like law and medicine, where they not only faced blatant discrimination, harassment, and discouragement from their peers, but also institutional barriers. Yet women fought through all of that and prevailed. So if you think that "discouragement" is the explanation, you need to explain why it only happens in tech.

    63. Re:Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      The Department of Labor commissioned a study on the gender pay gap. None could be determined to be caused by discrimination. They could not even conclude that there was any pay differential when all non-discriminatory factors were accounted for. "An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women"

      If you bothered to actually read the paper, you would have noticed this:

      Many researchers have independently derived results in statistical analyses of different data sets that consistently indicate that the main factor accounting for the gender wage gap is differences between the occupations in which men and women typically work.

      That's referring to why the "raw" pay differential is 20%. And this:

      After accounting statistically for human capital factors other than gender, however, their results indicate that female workers are more concentrated than male workers in low-paying industries. As a result, based on their estimates of gender wage gaps for the most detailed set of industry categories, Fields and Wolff have found that the industries in which the workers are employed can account directly for as much as 22 percent of the gender wage gap. Further, the observe d difference in the distributions of male and female workers among the industries can account for an additional 19 percent of the gap. In total, industry can account for as much as 38 percent of the raw gender wage gap.

      The thing is, why do women end up in lower-paying jobs in the first place? This program is designed to address some of that by giving more women the qualifications they need to move into higher-paying jobs.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    64. Re:Waste of money by Stonent1 · · Score: 1

      As far as computing goes, well into the 70s, computers were a mainly female dominated industry. In the 80's people started getting computers into their own homes and elementary schools. Then people could learn computer skills without attending a university. If I want speculate why women dominated at that time, I would guess it started in the 40s during the war. Civilian women in mathematics (like Grace Hopper) were recruited into the computer industry to help with the war effort while many of the men were abroad. Grace became an officer in the Navy as a result of her previous professorship. Women who were not college educated who had experience typing were likely recruited into computing as well to do data entry and to convert hand written programs into punch cards and such. Many of them I'm sure picked up some knowledge of programming along the way.

    65. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes.

    66. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes.

    67. Re: Waste of money by Rectal+Prolapse · · Score: 1

      I thought the government provides support (the basics) to the single mothers? Also, they can get child support payments from the father, for a very long time.

      I thought you knew all this? Weird.

    68. Re:Waste of money by Livius · · Score: 1

      they still get preferential treatment when it comes to jobs, career advancement, internships, etc.

      No, "they" do not. Some of them, on an individual basis, get an unfair advantage. And some do not.

      It's a statistical phenomenon, and statistically it *is* reality, but at the individual level it's dehumanizing and unjust exactly the same way as every other kind of prejudice.

    69. Re: Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      I thought the government provides support (the basics) to the single mothers? Also, they can get child support payments from the father, for a very long time.

      I thought you knew all this? Weird.

      "Basic support" is less than minimum wage. And sometimes it's not possible to get child support payments because the father is himself unemployed or not around or maybe even deceased.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    70. Re:Waste of money by a+whoabot · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have read the paper many times, thank you for trying to belittle me. I was objecting to your particular claim that women are paid less for the same work. Now you are raising completely different points about men and women doing DIFFERENT work. I don't deny that men and women do different work and that societal expectations about gender roles is the primary cause of this. I fully agree with that.

      There were many claims that women were being paid less for the same work. The Department had a legal obligation to prevent this as a civil rights issue, so they tried to discover what exactly was happening. They could not determine that such a thing was happening. Of course, every economist was saying the same thing: Investors almost universally invest in the highest expected return. If women were doing the same work for less pay, investors would invest in firms that primarily or solely used women as workers, thus increasing demand, and pay, until an equilibrium is reached.

      The final conclusion: "As a result, it is not possible now, and doubtless will never be possible, to determine reliably whether any portion of the observed gender wage gap is not attributable to factors that compensate women and men differently on socially acceptable bases, and hence can confidently be attributed to overt discrimination against women. In addition, at a practical level, the complex combnation of factors that collectively determine wages pad to different individuals makes the formulation of policy that will reliably redress ay overt discrimination that does exist a task that is, at least, daunting and, more likely, unachievable." (pg. 36)

      The Department of Labor has not done an equivalent study since this 2009 one.

    71. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know, it is hard to go wrong with scholarships.

      Quite easy to go wrong, I should think. Offering scholarships to a selected group sends a signal to them that they need such help, and don't have the ability to succeed on their own merits, which is likely to decrease their performance. And it indicates to employers that people of this group have been given an unfair advantage, and are - for equal levels of qualification - less capable, which encourages discrimination against them.

      (And that discrimination, in turn, encourages more non-merit-based scholarships - basically, discrimination promotes discrimination. A positive feedback cycle.)

    72. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Yes it is funny. Except it isn't. It's just more of the same thinking that when a women does it, she's a hero... when a man does it, he's a self serving pig or whatever he is labeled as for whatever 'it' is in a given discussion.

      Guy codes? Must be a smelly fat hot pocket eating misogynist hater living in mom's basement.
      Girl codes? She rocks, go girl power!

      Male teacher bangs student? Male and female alike want his nuts cut off.
      Female teacher does the same? Well, the boy was lucky... where were female teachers like that when I was a boy?!

      Man hits woman? Omg, the cruelty.
      Woman hits man? He's a big pussy if he can't take it...

      Oh and look at this...

      Man works 2 jobs (or longer hours) to support family, he's a self serving prick that fails at commitment, is avoiding his kids, etc...
      Woman does it? Well, she's just a hero.

      and so on, and so on... It's like women want to be both the victim and the hero for the exact same activity depending on which gender does it. /boggle

      And so on and so forth....

    73. Re: Waste of money by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      It's almost like the situation is more complex than "Tech is just too tough for delicate ladybrains".

      Well clearly there's some reason based on hunter gatherers and cavemen and hunting and evolution. That must explain it.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    74. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Yes, it's a bit more complex, but not much. Cross culturally (thus not a social construct), Females are more extroverted and males more introverted. Females in general prefer socially oriented jobs and shy away from jobs that reduce or eliminate social life.

      40 years of feminism, and not ONE study they've done attempts to disprove the null hypothesis? It's quite simple. Instead of assuming sexism, all we have to do is poll the people and find out what they actually enjoy doing. From the employment rates it appears female dominated fields are things like teaching, heathcare, therapists, social workers, etc. Where is the outrage that there are very few men in teaching?

      It would be absurd to assume that one of the body's largest and most important organs, the brain, was immune to the same sexual dimophism that gave us our different bodies and sexual organs. The answer is obvious to anyone: Women and Men ARE different, and this hurts Social Justice Warriors' feelings so they have censored it from scientific journals thus leading to medical risks.

    75. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where I live, the parents are free to divvy up the parental leave any way they wish.

      So, you're saying that women only take more parental leave because they bully the menfolk into continuing to work?

      (See, slanted interpretations are fun!)

    76. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That wasn't geek bashing, it was douchebag bashing.

    77. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you don't understand the problem first, there will be no real solution later.
      Why don't we have "diversity"?

      I have a less expensive solution. Simply do not admit anyone other than minorities apparently including women into any STEM degree programme at every university and college. What could possibly go wrong?

    78. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Monitor human hybrids are scary. Some even have black CRTs for heads! Watch out! Oh by the way, I'm mixed raced: Black, Hispanic, and White. Education of technology and access to it, has allowed some groups of people to flourish and dominate the area. People don't like change.

      I assume your father was complaining about Affirmative action laws, or something similar. Personally, I don't want any thing given to me. I'd rather take your job, because I'm the better qualified candidate.

      Peace.

    79. Re:Waste of money by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      In that case, what's the problem with this program, if "girls are less interested"?

      I don't have any problem with this program. If Intel wants to spend $300 million on scholarships, that is fine with me. I hope it is successful. I think most techs would prefer a more gender balanced workplace. But I just don't think that will happen, because Intel's program is based on a misdiagnosis of the problem.

    80. Re:Waste of money by StikyPad · · Score: 2

      We already know what happens in middle and high school: social pressure to fit in, and follow socially accepted roles, where "socially accepted" is defined, in large part, by underage peers. Being a "nerdy engineer" is socially acceptable for men because it provides the opportunity to make a pretty good living, which makes them socially desirable as a mate. There's little of the same incentive for women, who aren't ranked as much in desirability by their salary -- despite the fact that women under 30 are actually earning more than men anyway. Men are more easily incentivized by monetary rewards because money gives us status, and status makes us desirable. We gain more benefit from money than having money. Until there are external rewards beyond monetary compensation for women, they probably aren't going to start flocking to engineering programs.

      But to echo the GP, honestly, equality means equality, not special treatment. If we need to make efforts to get more women in science and technology, then we also need to make efforts to get women into construction (97% men), soldiering (84% men), and manufacturing (72% men), and efforts to get men into healthcare (78% women), education (69% women), and social work (73% women). I'm all for equal opportunity, as best as possible, and we can certainly make improvements in that area, especially for economically disadvantaged people, of which single mothers are a significant part. That said, I'm not at all convinced, and have seen no empirical evidence that there's an objective problem with gender representation that doesn't mirror the general population.

      And men aren't necessarily driving the division either. For example, women prefer a male boss even more than men do. Has anyone bothered to ask them how interested they are in science and technology? And if results show that they aren't, then why are we (collectively) trying to tell them that their preferences are wrong? That seems like the opposite of empowerment to me.

    81. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't work that way. A company must have 10% white males, 20% physically disabled people, 10% mentally disabled disabled, 30% women, 20% minority's, and 10% transvestites/gays/transgendered

    82. Re: Waste of money by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So how do you explain all those single moms who manage to do both?

      Disclaimer: I was brought up by a single mother...

      The truth is, the vast, VAST majority do no such thing. They typically have others (friends, daycare, relatives) take care of the kids during the day/afternoon/evening whilst mom is working. They are "out of the picture" as much as a father who goes to work to earn money and comes home at night to spend time with the family, eat, and sleep. The concept of a "hero-mom" who works 8+ hours a day AND is home for the kids all the time is a highly-flawed one.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    83. Re:Waste of money by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      Incarceration rates by gender AND race. If you want to be blunt about it, a white man is about 7 times more likely to be incarcerated than a white woman. For blacks, the ratio is over twice that (about 17:1). And the ACTUAL total ratio is about 10:1 (not 15:1).

      If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, it's not diversity of gender that's needed, it's gender of race - at least, if you're going to talk about incarceration rates and aggression as a reason for hiring more women...

      There's always a group "less represented" than you, always a smaller minority - and to them, YOU are the majority. Too bad we cannot go by the content of character, rather than the color (or gender) of the skin...

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    84. Re:Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      First, you're the one who chose the paper, not me. And the paper did not say that it wasn't happening - even after every excuse, the gap was still 7%. Are you willing to forgo 7% of your income - for life?

      There are multiple sources that show women are paid less overall, as well a paid less for the same work.

      While more education is an effective tool for increasing earnings, it is not an effective tool against the gender pay gap. At every level of academic achievement, women’s median earnings are less than men’s earnings, and in some cases, the gender pay gap is larger at higher levels of education. While education helps everyone, black and Hispanic women earn less than their white and Asian peers do, even when they have the same educational credentials.

      The pay gap also exists among women without children. AAUW’s Graduating to a Pay Gap found that among full-time workers one year after college graduation — nearly all of whom were childless - women were paid just 82 percent of what their male counterparts were paid.

      It starts right out of school.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    85. Re:Waste of money by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure it's really so hopeless to try later on. People change a lot during their childhood and early adult years, and often make big changes of direction when it comes to study and careers. Plus, we know that a lot of women are put off or drop out at later stages where Intel is focusing.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    86. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes. I see you're still trying to live up to your hormonally imbalanced delusion you are a real woman: Ok. Can you bear children? No. See subject. Says it all along with your known and proven trolling shown here.

    87. Re: Waste of money by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It shouldn't be a choice between a career or children. Obviously due to pregnancy and the needs of the child in its early life women will need some time off, and I'd say men need at least as much for more sociological reasons, but why does that have to mean doing huge damage to a career?

      Look at northern European countries like Sweden. They have amazing child care, and it's free (paid for out of taxation). It's actually the norm for parents to leave their kids with the professionals from an early age and go back to work, and it seems to be good for everyone. The parents can keep earning and the stress of 24/7 childcare is reduced, while the children get professional care and education so they are well prepared for school.

      I think the biggest problem is that many people consider children be a lifestyle choice that should be paid for entirely by the parents. In reality children are necessary for any society, otherwise it would die out, and more over it's important that they are well brought up to supply the next generation of skilled workers. When I get older I hope that there are still doctors around to look after me, and young people to pay my pension. I'm happy to contribute a little to helping other people have children if it means that they a) exist and b) turn into well rounded human beings, even though I don't have any of my own.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    88. Re: Waste of money by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The problem with this hypothesis is that it doesn't explain why woman have been so successful in fields like law and medicine, where they not only faced blatant discrimination, harassment, and discouragement from their peers, but also institutional barriers.

      It's probably because those professions need a certain amount of confidence, while CS doesn't. If you want to be a doctor you have to be confident with your diagnosis, confident that you are administering the right treatment or cutting into the right place. Our legal system is adversarial by design.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    89. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes.

    90. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' can't back it up? Yes.

    91. Re: Waste of money by onkelonkel · · Score: 1

      Yes! You nailed it.
       
      I have made this same comment a few times, and have never seen an answer that made sense to me. Fifty or sixty years ago women were excluded from most professions such as law, medicine, engineering. Today medicine and law are close to 50% women, but engineering is maybe 10% or less. What sorts of barriers keep women out of engineering that don't also exist in law or medicine.

      --
      None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
    92. Re: Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 0

      Male teacher bangs student? Male and female alike want his nuts cut off.
      Female teacher does the same? Well, the boy was lucky... where were female teachers like that when I was a boy?!

      You need to get with the times.

      Male teachers who have sex with underage female students are viewed as statutory rapists or creeps; women who do the same are perceived as doing the boy a favour or providing a rite of passage, evidenced by the inevitable “Where was she when I was in high school?” cracks.

      Sound familiar? The "no harm done" attitude people have towards male victims isn't right, and people's attitudes are changing, albeit slowly.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    93. Re:Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Where I live, the parents are free to divvy up the parental leave any way they wish.

      So, you're saying that women only take more parental leave because they bully the menfolk into continuing to work?

      (See, slanted interpretations are fun!)

      No - what I'm saying is that we have a more enlightened attitude than the US. We don't discriminate against men who want to spend time with their children during their most formative years. It's socially acceptable to have both take 6 months off, either at the same time, or one after the other.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    94. Re:Waste of money by russotto · · Score: 1

      As far as computing goes, well into the 70s, computers were a mainly female dominated industry.

      Um, no.

    95. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Really it's more along the lines of Women gravitate towards careers where they won't be surrounded by douchebag assholes who constantly belittle them, and Men in Engineering and Physical Sciences are frequently found to be such.

      Disclaimer: I work for Intel.

      I hear this all the time, but I've been working at Intel for 16 years, and never once in my career have I ever encountered this at work. There are both good and bad male and female engineers, but I've never once run into any male engineer actively belittling any women engineers at work because of their *gender*. I have heard people belittle other engineers because they did something really really stupid (like basic programming 101 stupid). But I've seen that happen to both males and females alike.

      At this point, based on 20 years of professional engineering experience, I think a lot of the people who raise a stink about being discriminated again, likely fall into the 'bad engineer' category. They are belittled because they write bad code, or do stupid stuff all the time. Not because they are male or female.

    96. Re:Waste of money by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 1

      Ok, and let's get equal leave for paternity, money spent getting males into Vetinary sciences etc. where they're underrepresented, and a whole host of things that are directed at women.

      Is the evil feminist matriarchy somehow preventing you from doing this?

    97. Re: Waste of money by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      It's probably because those professions need a certain amount of confidence, while CS doesn't. If you want to be a doctor you have to be confident with your diagnosis, confident that you are administering the right treatment or cutting into the right place. Our legal system is adversarial by design.

      So you are saying that women prefer professions that require self-confidence and are adversarial? That is the exact opposite of what I would expect.

    98. Re: Waste of money by russotto · · Score: 1

      So you are saying that women prefer professions that require self-confidence and are adversarial? That is the exact opposite of what I would expect.

      I think the idea is that women who would become doctors (and lawyers and business executives) are already selected out of the group of women who would be self-confident enough not to be discouraged by their horrible male co-workers. So horrible male co-workers don't discourage women from those fields, but do from computer science, because we're the highest hurdle there.

      That is: Male doctors/lawyers/business executives need confidence. Female doctors/lawyers/business executives need confidence. Male computer programmers don't need confidence. Female computer programmers do.

      (if you think this theory seems a bit tortured, I don't disagree)

    99. Re: Waste of money by asylumx · · Score: 1

      The problem with this hypothesis is that it doesn't explain why woman have been so successful in fields like law and medicine, where they not only faced blatant discrimination, harassment, and discouragement from their peers, but also institutional barriers. Yet women fought through all of that and prevailed. So if you think that "discouragement" is the explanation, you need to explain why it only happens in tech.

      Perhaps because law & medicine are centuries old fields and there has been ample time for this to have happened, whereas "tech" is fairly young still.

    100. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes. I see you're still trying to live up to your hormonally imbalanced delusion you are a real woman: Ok. Can you bear children? No. See subject. Says it all along with your known and proven trolling shown here.

    101. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think that you're missing the forest for the trees. My point wasn't anything specific, the examples were just there to illustrate the overarching contradiction that is on display when a woman does the same thing a man does, even when that thing is horrible such as the sexual relations.

      Another example is women who stay at home to handle the house, finances, children, etc. Anecdotal, I know, but the men I know don't look down on them and call them deadbeats, lazy, etc. If a man decided to drop out of his career, college, etc... to stay at home, what do we hear? Men don't want to grow up, they're man-children, playing their video games... such lazy filth!

      It's over arching. Attempting to refute an example here and there doesn't refute the whole thing.

    102. Re:Waste of money by a+whoabot · · Score: 2

      What are you talking about? You said I never bothered to read the paper. I did. You simply used a scurrilous personal attack against me. It has nothing to do with who chose what.

      None of the links you gave say that they are paid less for the same work. They are talking about women being paid less in toto.

      Women's employment earnings are less than men. No one is denying this. That is totally different claim from the incredible one you originally made: That women are paid less for the very same work.

      "And the paper did not say that it wasn't happening"

      This is an incredible argument. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You need POSITIVE proof that women are paid less for the same work, not innuendo or faith. The Department of Labor, which has a duty to deal with these issues, did the most thorough investigation ever, and concluded that there was no evidence.

    103. Re:Waste of money by njnnja · · Score: 1

      I don't mean to make it sound like it's hopeless, but IIRC boys score like 40 points higher on the math SAT than girls, and take something like 2/3 of the comp sci and calculus AP tests. They are already "put off" or "dropped out" well before this kind of intervention.

      Although some people do make big changes, I think that on average, people who are coding at age 14 are much more likely to end up in a STEM profession then someone who wasn't. So why not fix the root of the problem rather than try to readjust things at a much later date?

    104. Re:Waste of money by disambiguated · · Score: 1

      I was a CS/EE double major in undergrad. In the first two or three years, there were plenty of women who were engineering majors. By the time I was a senior, there were 2 or 3 left in my class. I don't know the reasons why they dropped out or switched to other majors, but from what I saw, I suspect they were put off by the constant one-upmanship and trying to make other people look stupid that goes on. Kind of like Slashdot. I think most of us (men) are guilty of it to to varying degrees.

      Ok, maybe that's a way of being less interested. But they didn't start out less interested.

      I vaguely remember a recent story about Google not wanting experienced developers in some entry level CS classes they were offering. The first thing that occurred to me was that the experienced people (likely men) might be disrupting the classes with the kind of thing I'm talking about.

      In the past few years I've been taking biology and chemistry classes out of personal interest. There are more women than men in those classes. I hope I'm not being sexist, but it seems to me that women are both more bothered by that kind of behavior, and far less likely to do it themselves. In fact they're more likely to do the opposite: when someone is struggling with a concept, they try to encourage them, e.g. by saying "yeah, that was a tricky idea, I finally got it when I looked at it like this...", rather than saying "oh come on, it's simple, just look at it like this..."

    105. Re: Waste of money by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      You mean hard wired to sacrifice themselves to take care of their family?

      Funny how single moms manage to do both, isn't it?

      Wait, what? It's okay if a man sacrifices but not if a woman sacrifices? Who's being sexist now?

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    106. Re: Waste of money by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      To all the people who say "women don't want to work in tech", note that women were the MAJORITY in the early days of computing, right up until the advent of personal computers.

      Ahhh... the old "god-of-the-gaps" argument - the old "if you can't explain the numbers then it must be sexism" chestnut. Do you realise that advocating that argument is the same as saying "well, you can't prove god DIDN'T do it".

      Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack (or something like that :-) I also can't prove that the numbers would be different if there were invisible pink unicorns, so I guess that it's invisible pink unicorns fault?

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    107. Re: Waste of money by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      So how do you explain all those single moms who manage to do both?

      Why should I? You are bringing the hypothesis so you should bring the evidence.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    108. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Motherhood is their own choice...so the assurance is on them. Women were a MAJORITY? The graph shows they never even reached 40% but I guess that what you call a MAJORITY. Nobody has or is preventing women from entering the tech field. Why do they need encouraging? Do they need their hands held too?

    109. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because the races/genders/orientations are not equal in aptitude for everything.

      Forcing diversity simply lowers the quality of the workforce.

      These are the actual inconvenient truths.

    110. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can take your 'invisible privilege' and shove it up your ass. Do you really want us to check out of your system?

      -- A White Male that worked for what he has.

    111. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then we obviously must institute redressive programs to ensure parity in incarceration rates! Women must be imprisoned at equal rates, or there's obviously a sexist injustice being perpetrated against men!

      On the other hand, what if the sexes really are different in profound (though not uniformly exclusive) ways? If the incarceration rate disparity is reasonable and justified, why would every other noted disparity automatically have to be evil, oppressive and wrong?

      Aggressiveness has obvious market value (when constructively directed). That would stand until we eliminate competition from business altogether (which seems like a bad idea on the face of it, if you credit competition as being good for the consumer).

      Related, in partial answer to the question of why women gravitate to lower-paying fields: Has anyone asked THEM? It was their choice, whatever the pressures they perceived, let them speak for themselves. So far all I've seen is "speaking for them" and cherry picking a small handful to claim a (not) representative sample.

      (Posting AC, as rational commentary on issues like this is Politically Verboten.)

    112. Re:Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      This is an incredible argument. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You need POSITIVE proof that women are paid less for the same work, not innuendo or faith. The Department of Labor, which has a duty to deal with these issues, did the most thorough investigation ever, and concluded that there was no evidence.

      Read the methodology - it sucked.

      Also, I provided not one, but 4 different sources that said otherwise.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    113. Re: Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      You mean hard wired to sacrifice themselves to take care of their family?

      Funny how single moms manage to do both, isn't it?

      Wait, what? It's okay if a man sacrifices but not if a woman sacrifices? Who's being sexist now?

      And where, pray tell, did I say that? Oh, I didn't.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    114. Re: Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      So how do you explain all those single moms who manage to do both?

      Why should I? You are bringing the hypothesis so you should bring the evidence.

      I was the one who challenged the hypothesis that men are hard-wired to work, and women are hard-wired to look after the kids, by pointing out that single moms (and single dads, btw) do both. I didn't make any hypothesis. Please stop with the silliness :-)

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    115. Re: Waste of money by russotto · · Score: 1

      Nobody has or is preventing women from entering the tech field. Why do they need encouraging? Do they need their hands held too?

      No. It's just that they find the kind of men in the tech field to be repugnant to them, and they don't want to deal with them. Therefore these men (often called 'nerds') must be bullied into compliance with strict codes of behavior or, better, removed from the field entirely.

      Or so goes one popular line of thought, anyway.

    116. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sucks but its corporate policies. Appearing not to be sexist would be more important right now that giving a raise. Your a cog in a machine and its greatest threat right now is the increasing societal norms being propagated by various agencies. It's not pissing away if its positive PR

    117. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes.

    118. Re: Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes.

    119. Re: Waste of money by FirephoxRising · · Score: 1

      This. And the sad thing is men get labelled as workaholics if they do and lazy no-goods if they don't. And then, if they do, 50% of marriages fail and she gets the kids, house etc, child support and spouse support....... SAHD (stay at home dads) are great and I know some blokes who do it, but they're in the minority and can struggle with disrespect in the community even if their partner is fine with it, which is rare. I'd love to be at home more, but I really don't have that choice.

    120. Re: Waste of money by FirephoxRising · · Score: 1

      Actually most early programmers were women, starting with Ada Lovelace back in Babbage's time. Women were the programmers for decades.

    121. Re:Waste of money by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      Equality in education is needed before people can get those qualifications.

      There IS equality in education...or, are you seriously saying that women are turned away from IT related classes because of their sex??

      They don't register because for some reason, it just doesn't fucking interest them...could that possibly be the reason?

      I think if this could have been shown to be true in only ONE case we'd have had a firestorm about this on the news, the college system there would have sunk and we'd have the idiots in congress holding hearings.

      Sorry, I don't buy it. And you can't and should force people to study or work for things in life that just plain don't interest them.

      Opportunity is there equal for all....but not everyone wants the same opportunities and results. Why can't people be different?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    122. Re:Waste of money by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      I suspect they were put off by the constant one-upmanship and trying to make other people look stupid that goes on.

      Err, I think that is called competition, it is what drives the workforce and helps drive people to exceed expectations, and innovate. This is the type of things that produces those folks that come out on top and drive invention and the economy.

      If you can't hack it...try something else, you know?

      No..everyone should NOT get a trophy just for trying.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    123. Re: Waste of money by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Depending upon the state and a person's willingness to apply for all government-provided largess, a single mother can get more net money and money-equivalents not working than an honest person grossing $60,000 a year and paying taxes. Of course, illegal aliens with multiple stolen identities do much better than that.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    124. Re: Waste of money by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Individuals are not property of the state, and from that single fact everything you said collapses.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    125. Re: Waste of money by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Actually most early programmers were women

      This is only true if you consider key punch operators to be "programmers".
      They were not writing code, they were keying in code written by others.

    126. Re: Waste of money by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      There are 2 factors here that I've come across. One is that times change, and in engineering environments the atmosphere has become more sexually egalitarian over the last 50 years. The other is that it depends on the company you keep. In an all-male engineering department, there's likely to be vocal disparagement of women, but if there's even one woman engineer there (assuming she's not a pathetic whiner) the atmosphere is all respect and work.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    127. Re:Waste of money by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      But you know what, a male will never have the same bond with a child as the mother, because that's biologically impossible.

      [citation needed]

      Placenta.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    128. Re:Waste of money by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Right out of school is when women are most likely to get pregnant and quit work, after their employer has spent perhaps $10,000 getting them up to speed in the company environment.

      It's been more than 40 years since the AAUW could be considered an honest organization.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    129. Re:Waste of money by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Thirty greatest mathematicians of all time, in descending order:

      Isaac Newton, Archimedes, Carl F. Gauss, Leonhard Euler, Bernhard Riemann, Henri Poincaré, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Euclid of Alexandria, David Hilbert, Gottfried W. Leibniz, Alexandre Grothendieck, Pierre de Fermat, Évariste Galois, John von Neumann, Niels Abel, Karl W. T. Weierstrass, René Descartes, Brahmagupta, Peter G. L. Dirichlet, Augustin Cauchy, Carl G. J. Jacobi, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Georg Cantor, Hermann K. H. Weyl, Arthur Cayley, Emma Noether, Pythagoras of Samos, Leonardo `Fibonacci', William R. Hamilton, Muhammed al-Khowârizmi.

      One woman, and she comes in at number 26.

      The list goes on, well past 100, and that's the only woman in the top 100. http://fabpedigree.com/james/mathmen.htm

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    130. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I understand "diversity" as a false concept concoted to appease political correctness. As such I will always use it in quotes.

      How about not creating laws that favor hiring and admitting less capable blacks just because they are black? They deny employment to people who can do job better in order to comply with "diversity". I hope you can justify this as the reasoning is not "fairly understood" by me.

    131. Re: Waste of money by Shompol · · Score: 1

      Oh, what, there's no politically correct way to say things that are sexist

      Challenge accepted:

      You probably noticed that there is a difference in physical appearance between men and women. This is probably because men and women carry out different roles in society. Isn't it right to assume that the differences are not limited to physical appearance but also physiological, mental state, goals and interests? Believe it or not, men and women are different.

    132. Re: Waste of money by FirephoxRising · · Score: 1

      They were creating the basic algorithms of logic and programming! You can't get any more fundamental than that. The designed and wrote the code up until the mid seventies. The hardware guys were considered the real engineers until then. Once people realised that software was probably even more important, then men were keen to enter and eventually dominate the area. In any case, I think that any affirmative action is a waste of time, people should get positions on merit only. Females are graduating more often from university than men at the moment, they hardly need extra help. Besides, the STEM fields are being depreciated as people can see that you will do less work and get more pay/bonuses/respect in other fields. This is what has to be reversed. They will not fix it as they prefer cheaper and weaker H1Bs. Iff they really need to bring in overseas people, then let them pay them 125% of the standard pay and have to cover their sponsorship. Interest in the "vital" overseas workers would be gone overnight.

    133. Re:Waste of money by FirephoxRising · · Score: 1

      So you're talking about the temporary, physical bond inside the uterus? I totally disagree that dads are less connected to their babies than mums. Sorry, but most dads today love their bubs just as much. The closer tie to mum happens later when more dads are away from the home working than mums, so the kids bond more with mum. This is not fair either and I hope that society will get over the idea of dads spending more time at home means that they're losers that couldn't make it at work.

    134. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you pick your major based on which gave you better scholarships? By the time someone is looking at scholarships it's too late to get them interested in a specific field.

      We should be working on improving working conditions and respect among people within the field. You don't take $1,000 now to spend your life in a horrible job. Improving the workplace makes a field more desirable, not giving out handouts.

    135. Re:Waste of money by aglider · · Score: 1

      "diversitiy" has a number of meanings and, more important, a large number of contexts.
      And there is a nomber of contexts where we have very low diversity or no diversity at all. But none is putting money to fight against those lacks.
      Thus my point, my question and my quotes.
      Finally, using quotes is also a form of diversitiy. Isn't it?

      --
      Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    136. Re:Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Dads spending more time at home with their kids is a win-win-win-win situation.

      The dads obviously get more time with the kids
      The moms aren't "stuck" with them 24/7
      The kid certainly benefits
      Society benefits

      We need to get away from the whole "Me Tarzan, you Jane" mentality and realize that both sexes have a lot to offer.

      The "Information Age", "Information Superhighway", "Post-Industrial Era" was supposed to at least allow more people to work from home as a regular and normal state of affairs - now it's more of a "can't get a regular job so into the ghetto of contract work" thing.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    137. Re:Waste of money by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Right out of school is when women are most likely to get pregnant and quit work, after their employer has spent perhaps $10,000 getting them up to speed in the company environment.

      [citation needed]

      The mean age of first birth in the US is 25.8 years. The number of people with at least one degree is over 30% - and people with more education tend to wait longer to have a kid. I believe that you're letting false stereotypes influence your views. Happy New Year!

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    138. Re:Waste of money by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      I guess it is outside the bounds of consideration that IT and tech interests in general might just be different between the sexes (genetic wiring) and even with races/ethinc lines due to culture they're raised in.

      Even given that there are such things as fundamental differences due to sex or race/ethnicity/culture, why should "IT and tech interests in general" be different from any other field of human experience?

      If you can have highly successful black lawyers and politicians, and women doctors and professors, what's so special about tech work?

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    139. Re:Waste of money by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      The mindset that "girls would make bad programmers ...

      Nobody is saying that. What they are saying is that girls are less interested, not less capable.

      Ah, that's quite clever, as you can then say that it's all just down to personal preferences, so therefore there's no more problem than if a lot of IT/CS people happen to like coffee instead of tea, or something.

      You can probably even convince yourself it's true

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    140. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes. As to your character, & being a troll? Look no farther than YOUR OWN WORDS quoted on that note as you stalk apk + how you do it http://slashdot.org/comments.p... by ac posts.

    141. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes. As to your character, & being a troll? Look no farther than YOUR OWN WORDS quoted on that note as you stalk apk + how you do it http://slashdot.org/comments.p... by ac posts.

    142. Re:Waste of money by tehcyder · · Score: 0
      I am surprised that you can't differentiate between the late adolescent showing off of a bunch of over-priveleged virgin geeks, and the self discipline needed to succeed in adult, professional life.

      I am also surprised that this is apparently accepted behaviour in US colleges. No wonder an undergraduate degree is seen as virtually worthless there.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    143. Re: Waste of money by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Most women just aren't attracted to careers in technology. Why is that?

      Is it because the men in technology companies are all such sexual Tyrannosaurs that women realise they'd just be spending all day masturbating in their cubicles due to the testosterone soup they'd be breathing?

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    144. Re: Waste of money by tehcyder · · Score: 1
      You are another person making the assumption that there is something magically different about the tech industry compared to the law, medicine, finance or whatever. where women manage to have careers even if they do have children.

      Other professional jobs require constant learning and change too, so it's not just that.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    145. Re:Waste of money by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      This kind of competition doesn't stop at college, it continues through your adult life, it is part of the dog eat dog world we call the workplace where you have to fight to win, and move up the ladder.

      This is nothing new....

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    146. Re:Waste of money by disambiguated · · Score: 1

      I am surprised that you can't differentiate between the late adolescent showing off of a bunch of over-priveleged virgin geeks, and the self discipline needed to succeed in adult, professional life.

      In my quarter-century professional career I've seen just as much one-upmanship and trying to make other people look stupid in the workplace. What I haven't seen much of, in the places I've worked, is women.

    147. Re:Waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you don't understand the problem first, there will be no real solution later.
      Why don't we have "diversity"?

      Strange that you would write that. I suppose though, you are describing the United States, where there are two words to know. Gelt and Schmock. If you haven't got the first, your the second. It does not have anything to do with brains and intelligence, but stereotyping .

      Look at Israel as an example of diversity. Israel's job opportunities are equal, and that is for Arab, Israeli. white, Brown, Black and Yellow. its a country of 8 million can dos, and that country benefits from all the brains of the best, what's wrong with the United States. Why does the USA have to go off-shore to get technical geniuses and phenomenal products. That is what Intel is trying to improve. Good for Intel and Brian Krzanich

    148. Re: Waste of money by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      ...and at least some assurance that motherhood wouldn't throw them completely off their career track.

      And therein lies the rub. Unless he mandates a hysterectomy before hiring at Intel, that biological clock will be there, ticking. There isn't shit that you (or the Intel Corporation) can do about it, either. I know quite a few women in tech (including Intel employees) - the highly successful ones are childless, and have no inclination of having kids (the only exception is a former manager of mine - and she has an MBA, not a CompSci degree). The reason why? They forewent the child-rearing thing and went all-in when it came to technology - just like the guys do.

      When you bear a child, your priorities change - hard. All the sudden, that project/application/datacenter/whatever doesn't seem so damned important anymore, and your life's focus changes. It's not sexist to say that women in general are affected by this a hell of a lot more than men are. Guys are generally used to sucking it up and getting on with the business of focusing back on that whole hunter-gatherer thing - it's how we're wired. There are exceptions in either direction of course, but they're not the general rule. Generally, the business of getting that little snot factory raised, educated, nurtured, and prepared for the world becomes a woman's focus much quicker than it does for a guy.

      Even with compromises (day care, schools, etc), it still changes the top priority for most (not all - most) women. This in turn throws the statistics off pretty hard for careers that require constant education and constant renewal.

      I don't see it your way. I see it as a rush to maintain 60hour workweeks, and to not balance "home life" with "work life". Why do we need a new car model every year? Why do we need a new cpu chip every few months? Why do we rush on that treadmill, and are still standing still? Why are American technologists living on burn-out street?

      Most of Europe, shuts down for a month during the summer. Attribute it to whatever you want, but vacations are part of working -- not skipping the vacation because of artificial deadlines. And the ten days between Christmas and New Years is also a washout for many European corporations. Why are you obsoleted and discarded at age 50, and you are forced to become an independent consultant?

      Those are my questions, what is the answer?

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    149. Re:Waste of money by balaband · · Score: 1

      )

      I guess woman are more genetically prone to detecting unclosed parenthesis

  2. Nice job, Intel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's the right way to do it (or one of the right ways), through college scholarships in STEM disciplines.

  3. Progressive "diversity", or *real* diversity? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Does he want bog-standard, shallow, progressive "diversity" - everyone looks different on the outside but diversity of thought or opinion is not tolerated while every member is assigned rigid roles based on mere appearance, or real diversity where no one cares about how to categorize group members into various victim classes?

    1. Re:Progressive "diversity", or *real* diversity? by fey000 · · Score: 1

      Does he want bog-standard, shallow, progressive "diversity" - everyone looks different on the outside but diversity of thought or opinion is not tolerated while every member is assigned rigid roles based on mere appearance, or real diversity where no one cares about how to categorize group members into various victim classes?

      The former is the standard, and the money is going to organizations that deal only in the former.

  4. Why do people still care for PR stunts like these? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obviously women in the western world are forced to become housewives... but hey, it would sure be nice if women would overcome stereotypes and their own free wills and repay the charitability of intel and join the labor force with a technology background and reduce their labor costs!

  5. Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by Kunedog · · Score: 1

    For instance, Intel's workforce is currently 4 percent black; if the company were to adjust its numbers to reflect the number of qualified workers in the tech industry, that number would increase to about six percent.

    So what stopped them from hiring these qualified workers in the first place? Maybe there's more to the story?

    1. Re:Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 3, Informative

      Something that helps a lot (in all industries, including academia) is stripping names and gender/race identifying characteristics from resumes and papers. When those documents are assessed in a context absent the nature of the writer, they're considered more equally. They've done experiments where the same paper has been submitted with male, female and neutral names, and the female names see more critical judgement and a higher rate of rejection. This is for exactly the same paper, remember.

      The problem isn't overt racism, it's subtle, institutional discrimination that most of us suffer from. Even female researchers and professors are guilty of discriminating against other women.

    2. Re:Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by Aerokii · · Score: 1

      That's downright fascinating- could you provide a link to that? I'm not asking because I doubt you, I actually legitimately just want that so I can repost it in situations precisely like this one.

    3. Re:Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These studies have been done many, many times before, this was just posted to Hacker News the other day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8833792

    4. Re:Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here you go: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474 though that one is actually for hiring prospects, but with a similar basis. Another one would be this: http://scx.sagepub.com/content/35/5/603.abstract Also interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_effect

    5. Re:Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by Aerokii · · Score: 1

      Wonderful- thanks for the info!

    6. Re:Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1
      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    7. Re:Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by Aerokii · · Score: 1

      Holy information, Batman! Thanks for the links!

    8. Re:Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by Aerokii · · Score: 1

      Much obliged, Serviscope!

    9. Re:Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      How many of those resumes with women's names cited membership on the football team?

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  6. Hire the best person by master_kaos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How about hiring the best person for the job, and fits well with the rest of the team regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual preference, etc? If it happens to be someone who is white, hispanic, or black who cares?

    1. Re:Hire the best person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      That would be great, but it is not PC, while discrimination that favours people belonging to groups that were previously discriminated against is.

    2. Re:Hire the best person by halivar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think the goal here is to try to make more women and minorities "the best person for the job" via education, which I find far more laudable than quota-driven diversity-by-fiat that degrades team and product quality.

    3. Re:Hire the best person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what is the best person is an H1B working 60-80 hours a week for $25K?

    4. Re:Hire the best person by fey000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How about hiring the best person for the job, and fits well with the rest of the team regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual preference, etc? If it happens to be someone who is white, hispanic, or black who cares?

      Because then you'll be approached by a frothing at the mouth "journalist", asking questions like "Why isn't your workforce 50% white, 50% asian, 50% black, , 50% hispanic, 50% homosexual, and 50% female?".

      Hiring the best suited candidate is so 1990. Now it's all about the progressive stack and checking your privilege.

    5. Re:Hire the best person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agree'd wholeheartedly.

    6. Re:Hire the best person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice to see a sane voice for once.

      This is *exactly* the right way to go about tackling a lack of diversity - you make it easy for women/minorities to access the education that will allow them to get qualified if they're smart enough and you advertise the careers to them so they actually consider them rather then having it dismissed out of hand as somewhere they wouldn't want to work.

    7. Re:Hire the best person by Nemyst · · Score: 1

      It is a much better way around it, of course, but I'm not sure just throwing money at the problem is the way to go. I'd rather we figure out why exactly minorities and women don't go in tech, instead of enticing them to get into tech anyway because money.

    8. Re:Hire the best person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because if the distribution of the country is 25% white, 40% hispanic, 20% black, and 15% Asian, then the distribution of races at all jobs should be identical to that otherwise your employer is racist.

    9. Re:Hire the best person by MellowBob · · Score: 1

      Yeah.

      How about putting that $300 million toward pay raises. More people, irregardless of sex, color, fill in the check box, will want to work for Intel and tech in general. Few of those might be women would change their majors because they would make more than something else. It might even solve that lack of STEM workers that we hear about.

    10. Re:Hire the best person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Best person for the job is one who will not quit to setup some start-up...and willing to work for peanuts.

    11. Re:Hire the best person by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      Quota driven diversity just makes the bigots right.

      No on two counts. Firstly it only matters if everything is already equal. Secondly no matter what quotas exist, women are not de-facto inferior to men (or any other bias you choose to discuss).

      If you hire based on attributes other than competence, then people having those attributes will, on average, be less competent than their colleagues without those attributes.

      Indeed so: no disagreement there. However, the claim is that is ALREADY happening, with people discounting (e.g.) women in favour of men.

      http://blogs.scientificamerica...

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    12. Re:Hire the best person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Posting AC to prevent reprisals.

      PC correct applies to Global, not local market.

      Oregon as a state has a low demographic mix of blacks, High tech qualified candidates do not exist in numbers required to become globally PC in one demographic.

      Intel has a higher black population than the local area in Oregon.

      Want to get fired? The hot button for HR is to publicly ask about the Spanish speaking demographic in manufacturing. People have been fired for asking on a forum. The only Spanish speaking group are not Intel employees, but a contractor providing the janitorial services.

      Asking why there are more black engineering employees than Mexican American is a ticket out the door for creating a hostile workplace.
      Mexican and Asian are larger demographics in the Oregon market. Asian is represented, but not Mexican.

    13. Re:Hire the best person by sarkeizen · · Score: 1

      "fits well with the rest of the team" - So if there some hostility toward some particular people group within your team. Wouldn't your system just bifurcate?

    14. Re:Hire the best person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No on two counts. Firstly it only matters if everything is already equal. Secondly no matter what quotas exist, women are not de-facto inferior to men (or any other bias you choose to discuss).

      Only if you make the extremely unrealistic assumption that the number of male and female candidates are comparable. Any policy that artficially tries to overrepresent a subgroup compared to the distribution of candidates will cause the average skill level of the people hired from that group to be lower than that of the rest, as long as the skill level distribution is the same for people inside and outside of that group.

    15. Re:Hire the best person by master_kaos · · Score: 1

      Well sure, but then there is obviously some other politics at play that should be addressed. We had about 5 resumes for an open position. 1 was clearly the most qualified for the job (perhaps even overqualified), runner up was still qualified but not quite as much. We interviewed our top choice and while they were brilliant they wouldn't have fit with the rest of the team (she was extremely serious with no sense of humour, rest of the team cracks jokes all day). Runner up had an awesome sense of humour. So we picked the 2nd person (who was also female), she been with us for 2 years now and was the perfect choice, she fits in amazingly with the rest of the team.

       

    16. Re:Hire the best person by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Fortunately that isn't what is happening here. Intel wants to increase the number of female and minority candidates, in order to increase the talent pool. They will still hire the best person, it's just that with more women and minorities applying the probability of the best person being from those two groups increases.

      Intel has noticed that its workforce is only 4% black, where as in the general population about 6% of qualified engineers are black. There must be some reason for that, and they want to fix it so that they have a wider pool of talent to pick from.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    17. Re:Hire the best person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The real problem is "fits well with the rest of the team." For a team size of 1, the person who will likely fit best with that person is more than likely someone with a very similar background to that person. Taken to the extreme, as you grow the team, n+1th person will fit best if they are similar to the first person, assuming that the other n people are similar (using induction). This will create a homogonous company, and will lack perspective beyond the perspective of the original people at the company. Different perspectives are really important, especially if you're building a product for someone other than yourself.

      It can actually be better to have people who "don't fit well," but still have the technical qualifications to do the job (and assuming that they are able to communicate effectively).

    18. Re:Hire the best person by malkavian · · Score: 1

      Hurrah. That would be great. Except when you take a single subject and cherry pick it (i.e. "Women are underrepresented in high earning tech" and allocating money to fix that, while ignoring "Women are overrepresented in Vetinary Science and a good many high paying biological science roles" simply means that you're essentially setting up for a scenario where you will actually put money in to ensure "Women are the best people for the job via education" for all the high paying areas, ensuring men are actively discriminated against, and end up overrepresented in low paying jobs.). What should be concentrated on is: Educate every person to the best standard you can in the field they have the most affinity and enthusiasm for. That will determine who is the best person for the job irrespective of gender and race, which is the way it's meant to be.

    19. Re:Hire the best person by sarkeizen · · Score: 1

      "Well sure, but then there is obviously some other politics at play that should be addressed." - What if there's a latent bias in society? Now imagine how that affects at other levels. For example in getting an education, getting a good education, participating in open source projects and finally "fitting with the team"?

      Wouldn't all these things have a winnowing effect on your pool of candidates?

    20. Re:Hire the best person by Aerokii · · Score: 1

      The number of candidates is pretty much irrelevant to his point though. Regardless of policies like affirmative action, it's still true and provable that with all other things being equal, men are currently more likely to be chosen for a job than women. That's also not what this funding is going towards- they're trying to create more qualified candidates.

    21. Re:Hire the best person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The CEO of the company I work at has stated that "Diversity is our most important attribute for hiring". I think next time I interview someone I'm going to skip all the engineering questions and just ask him/her about their diversity.
      Are you a homosexual? That is diverse and diversity is important here, so would you consider becoming a homosexual?
      We don't have enough Muslims, and thus are not diverse. Would you consider converting to Islam if we hire you?
      I'm sorry, but your skin is white. Diversity is more important than your qualifications, so we can't hire you. White people need not apply.

    22. Re:Hire the best person by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      The minorities called "Asians" and "Jews" have an intelligence advantage of up to one standard deviation over the rest of us. Without any other information, a high-tech company like Intel should find them the most qualified.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  7. And 60% of college students are female by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What are we doing to combat the critical under representation of men in college?

    1. Re:And 60% of college students are female by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Careful, the Feminazis are watching.

    2. Re:And 60% of college students are female by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      We could restrict the number of female students enrolling, or introduce admissions tests that differ based on gender. Anything to end this terrible social injustice!

      However, how do we deal with the underrepresentation of women in the refuse collection industry?

    3. Re:And 60% of college students are female by Bigbutt · · Score: 1

      Why is that critical? You have the same argument about women going into STEM. If women aren't interested in technical fields, why force them? If men aren't interested in going to college, why force them?

      What you're not seeing are valid equivalent organizations towards advancing the male agenda. And that won't happen until the pendulum reaches the other side.

      [John]

      --
      Shit better not happen!
    4. Re:And 60% of college students are female by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only hiring male janitorial staff and groundskeepers.

    5. Re:And 60% of college students are female by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As long as I get to be the pool boy and stay in my own private residence on their estate with hot and cold running booze.

    6. Re:And 60% of college students are female by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      That's an interesting but off-topic question. Intel is dealing with a specific problem in its industry, and ultimately for its own benefit. You can't really expect Intel to try to fix education in general.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:And 60% of college students are female by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why is that critical? You have the same argument about women going into STEM. If women aren't interested in technical fields, why force them? If men aren't interested in going to college, why force them?

      What you're not seeing are valid equivalent organizations towards advancing the male agenda. And that won't happen until the pendulum reaches the other side.

      [John]

      Whoooosh!

    8. Re:And 60% of college students are female by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny how you never speak up when things are off-topic in favor of your biases.

    9. Re:And 60% of college students are female by BobSutan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, the first thing we need is a leadership that doesn't actually _celebrate_ men being worse off in college:

      http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012...

      "“In fact, more women as a whole now graduate from college than men,” Obama wrote. “This is a great accomplishment—not just for one sport or one college or even just for women but for America. And this is what Title IX is all about.”"

      The article continues...

      "So if a 17% deficit was a catastrophe requiring federal intervention, what are we to conclude when that same federal intervention has created a 25% level of inequality?"

      This is a good question, when women had a 17% deficit the govt enacted a host of laws to balance things out, to include Title IX. Now that there's a 25% deficit for men, where's the action to fix things? It'd be bad enough it was just crickets, but instead our president is lauding this even GREATER deficit than what women suffered. In what way does that make any sense?

      And yes, federal intervention most certainly has made colleges more inhospitable to men. Case in point, the Dear Colleague letter and the kangaroo courts that have followed.

      --
      "On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
    10. Re:And 60% of college students are female by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    11. Re:And 60% of college students are female by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or the critical under-representation of women in prison?

  8. Re:discrimination in reverse by Roodvlees · · Score: 2

    No it means that you are currently positively discriminated.
    If anything changes in hiring practices it's less positive discrimination and more active searching for candidates that are a minority. Instead of only actively searching for white and asian males because you happen to know candidates like that.

    --
    Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
  9. 5 stages of handling a PR problem by John+Jorsett · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1. Profess shock 2. Start an investigation 3. Promise to do better 4. Apologize and abase yourself to every aggrieved group you can find 5. Throw some money at anything related, esp. self-appointed "community spokesmen"

    Looks like Intel has hit stage 5.

    1. Re:5 stages of handling a PR problem by Peter+Simpson · · Score: 1

      1. Profess shock 2. Start an investigation 3. Promise to do better 4. Apologize and abase yourself to every aggrieved group you can find 5. Throw some money at anything related, esp. self-appointed "community spokesmen" Looks like Intel has hit stage 5.

      6. Claim that there are not enough qualified graduates in the US and ask for yet another increase in H1B visas. Remind us that the US can't stay competitive without being able to hire H1Bs.

    2. Re:5 stages of handling a PR problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stage 5 is actually just to promise to throw money at the issue. The company can then build a small initiative that costs maybe 1/20 of the promise, and try to trick some of their employees into volunteering to assist for free. Another trick is to offer matching donations, knowing that hardly anyone ever donates to SJW causes. You just have to LOOK like you're doing something.

  10. encouraging opportunistic gender swaps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Will those that have a sex change still meet the application criteria for the scholarship?

  11. Produce More Qualified Workers to Not Hire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    For instance, Intel's workforce is currently 4 percent black; if the company were to adjust its numbers to reflect the number of qualified workers in the tech industry, that number would increase to about six percent.

    So what stopped them from hiring these qualified workers in the first place? Maybe there's more to the story?

    A few things.
    Intel is a global company, and I doubt black make up 6% of the global tech force.
    Also, here in the US, their fabs are generally located in areas not known for a large black population..
    Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico....

  12. delusion by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age," he said to the NYT. "I want them to have a world that's got equal opportunity for them."

    Yeah, I'm sure a couple of rich white girls whose father is the CEO of Intel are going to have all sorts of problems finding "equal opportunity" in the tech industry unless he acts quickly.

    1. Re:delusion by Hognoxious · · Score: 0

      To misquote Orwell, some people's opportunities are more equal than others'.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  13. Asian men - not a minority? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why don't Asian men count as a minority?

    1. Re:Asian men - not a minority? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      azn = doublepluswhite

    2. Re: Asian men - not a minority? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Because "minority" is just a euphemism for lazy.

    3. Re:Asian men - not a minority? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why don't Asian men count as a minority?

      Because they accept responsibility for themselves and actually work to succeed, and don't blame others - especially whitey - when they fail.

      Can't have that, now can we?

    4. Re:Asian men - not a minority? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Men in general are a minority. There are slightly more women than men on Earth.

    5. Re:Asian men - not a minority? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because we all know Asians are the whites of minorities.

    6. Re: Asian men - not a minority? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why don't native Americans count as minorities? How much of that $300 million will go to native American schools? What are their Native American employment numbers?

      nobody cares about diversity. They care about not looking bad. White people don't like racism, so Intel has to look like they don't either. Black people are constantly whining about all the things they don't have, so Intel caters to them. Meanwhile, native Americans are forgotten, again.

    7. Re: Asian men - not a minority? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why don't native Americans count as minorities? How much of that $300 million will go to native American schools? What are their Native American employment numbers?

      nobody cares about diversity. They care about not looking bad. White people don't like racism, so Intel has to look like they don't either. Black people are constantly whining about all the things they don't have, so Intel caters to them. Meanwhile, native Americans are forgotten, again.

      Native Americans obviously need to get themselves a loud, obnoxious race-baiter like Al Sharpton to "raise awareness".

      Then find themselves some Tawanabee victims who can get shot while attacking a White Hispanic or White Asian police officer.

    8. Re: Asian men - not a minority? by robkeeney · · Score: 1

      Asian and Indian women apparently don't count also. I've worked with plenty of them. But then I've also worked with a number of white American women too.

  14. Re:discrimination in reverse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Except the reason why an ethnic groups is underrepresented in a a certain category of jobs is usually not that people of that ethnicity are not "actively sought after" but that they are underrepresented in the pool of potential candidates.

    Any policy that seeks to actively influence the ethnical makeup of the people doing a certain job is discriminatory. Ethnicity or skin colour should not matter in any way when hiring.

  15. Following Intel's lead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If Intel is wildly successful at this, maybe the NFL and NBA will create programs to address the obvious diversity problems in their own workforces.

  16. why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is it about wanting to introduce more people into IT that gets people into a blind spitting rage? It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game guys.
    Maybe its the gross unwelcoming attitude that puts people off.

    1. Re:why the hate by fey000 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What is it about wanting to introduce more people into IT that gets people into a blind spitting rage? It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game guys.
      Maybe its the gross unwelcoming attitude that puts people off.

      Because a lot of people have worked damn hard to get somewhere and to build something. And all of that effort is being diminished to no small extent by this preferred treatment program.

      If you work your ass of for 10 years, making sure to be the best, only to get passed by for a rookie on a "diversity" quota, wouldn't you get a little grumpy? That is why so many here are asking for the 'best candidate' treatment rather than the 'look how minority I am' treatment. That is why yet another of these "diversity" programs is viewed with no small amount of suspicion and apprehension.

      Intel being Intel *might* be able to do something smart, but given the organizations that they have partnered with for the drive, it is very very unlikely that anything other than feminazi rabies will come out of it. And that sucks for everyone on the planet.

    2. Re: why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It is our physiology. If some gorilla FROM another tribe is eating leaves that you COULD eat, that means there are fewer leaves for your tribe

      EVERY affirmative action program starts by separating the tribes and making sure everybody knows that everybody else is different.

    3. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you work your ass of for 10 years, making sure to be the best, only to get passed by for a rookie on a "diversity" quota,

      Is that any different from working your ass off for 10 years, making sure to be the best only to get passed by because you're not a man? Is it possible for science to identify bias using a randomized, controlled trial?

      Why yes!

      http://blogs.scientificamerica...

      So the thing is you're assuming everything is equal and therefore quotas are hurting men. The thing is that they're not equal and women are demonstrably being passed over in favour of men simply by vitrue of not being male.

      So what do you think should be done. Unless you have a good rebuttal for that study, something is clearly messed up.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is for a lab position in academia, not jobs in the private sector. It is irrelevant.

    5. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      EXCEPT you will NEVER address WHY other fields of endeavor which are HUGELY 'underrepresented' by men or whites or whatever DO NOT GET THE SAME 'SCRUTINY'... (teaching, nursing, etc; and conversely, manual labor, garbage(ahem)persons, etc for wymns)
      the VALID AND SALIENT point a number of the posters who are lumped together as whiny entitled white men are TRYING TO MAKE (AND SJW's avoid like the plague), is WHY it is valid to scrutinize, criticize and reverse-discriminate in THOSE fields, BUT NOT OTHERS which are HUGELY slanted 'the other way' ? ? ?
      WHY ? (you will not answer)

      IF (as a good little SJW), you are REALLY concerned about diversity, then WHY not concerned when that shoe pinches the other foot ? ? ? BECAUSE YOU DON'T really care about diversity, you care about looking like some holier-than-thou fucking saint...

      as a progressive more radical than yo mama, I CAN NOT ABIDE this uber-PC horseshit... YOU ARE DESTROYING the progressive movement by this insane identity politics bullshit... WE ARE ALL CIRCLING THE SAME DRAIN, and all some entitled 'tards can beef about is they want a better seat for the apocalypse...

    6. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is it about wanting to introduce more people into IT that gets people into a blind spitting rage?

      Mostly the discriminatory methods employed and the implicit (or, sometimes, explicit) accusations that people who belong to a group that is currently overrepresented in IT compared to the general population are somehow discriminating others and/or being treated favourably themselves while there is no evidence for this claim.

    7. Re:why the hate by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

      That's like telling people before they take a sip that you want to replace their fresh brewed coffee with Folger's Crystals and being surprised that they prefer real coffee. Why have a poor substitute when you can have the real thing?

    8. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      n=127

    9. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My company puts 100% of graduating female engineers in management fast track positions. If you're male, you get the option only after a few years with the company.

    10. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I really do not understand how your analogy relates to my link to an article about sexism.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    11. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed they are talking about diversity quotas. Even TFS says it, it's 6% black.

    12. Re:why the hate by malkavian · · Score: 1

      Well, you can see men being passed over because they're either white or women all over the place. Just look at all the diversity grants and allocated positions. That is not just a slight bias, that's outright enshrining it in policy.

    13. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I sincerely hope you are not one of those people who argue that the solution to a bias problem is just more bias in the opposite direction instead of removal of said bias altogether. A disturbing number of people in positions of influence and power seem to think that way.

      Do they look at the stats of young men who have been victim of homicide, seeing that it's disproportionately black males and think to themselves that the solution to this is that more white men should be made victim of homicide as well? Because that's the mentality here.

    14. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Solution: Try to take measures to prevent discrimination as such. It might not solve everything, but at least it should not make things worse.

      Introducing explicitly discriminatory measures that 'compensate for' implicit disadvantages is much, much worse than not doing anything at all. It is fundamentally wrong, it does not solve the problem and it is likely to make things worse.

    15. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      But if as the study shows, women are being passed over simply because they're female then doesn't bias in grants simply serve to even up the odds so that there is no average disadvantage or advantage to being a particular gender?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    16. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're saying that if there is a preferential bias for men, this may be unfair, this may be need to be corrected, but there will be some men that will find this correction to be not good from their own personal perspective.

    17. Re:why the hate by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Working your ass off for 10 years? Try 30 and fighting age discrimination. It has nothing to do with diversity, people of different cultures, genders, etc. If it's being supported by these companies it's all about increasing the labor supply so they can screw over their workers more easily for less money. For those of you who think otherwise, you're naive and supporting your oppressors' schemes. Employment becomes a zero-sum game if the pool of workers is growing faster than the number of open positions.

      --
      That is all.
    18. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am of the opinion that correcting a problem or perceived problem (women being discriminated against) by using the same method that created the problem, discrimination (having grants/job positions/quotas based on non job related factors, like gender or race, is a form of discrimination). If you want to solve a problem definitively, you start at the source and make the fixes there. Women being discriminated against (or any group for that matter) is a deep problem in our society with deep hard to see roots. Pretending that putting a patch (a horrible one, that creates more problems) at the point where discrimination is being expressed fixes the underlying problem is dishonest since it does not, and creates new hostility, and a sense for a group that they are targeted and discriminated against, and THAT IT IS OK. So we are reinforcing the notion that it is ok to discriminate against members of our society, as long as we pick the "right" group. I disagree with this solution.

    19. Re:why the hate by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

      People that sound the same on paper of course perform differently, the study assumes that there is zero correlation of performance with sex. Maybe if the "applications materials" demonstrated actual performance/productivity the study would have a point, but it sounds like it was a standard candidate for a standard job.

    20. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is that nobody appears to actually care about discrimination as long as they're the one's doing it.

    21. Re:why the hate by Yakasha · · Score: 1

      If you work your ass of for 10 years, making sure to be the best, only to get passed by for a rookie on a "diversity" quota,

      Is that any different from working your ass off for 10 years, making sure to be the best only to get passed by because you're not a man? Is it possible for science to identify bias using a randomized, controlled trial?

      Why yes!

      http://blogs.scientificamerica...

      So the thing is you're assuming everything is equal and therefore quotas are hurting men. The thing is that they're not equal and women are demonstrably being passed over in favour of men simply by vitrue of not being male.

      So what do you think should be done. Unless you have a good rebuttal for that study, something is clearly messed up.

      Bad article. The author condescendingly dismisses an argument, providing merely a link to her sister's article which claims the argument arises from media bias. The argument being:

      From reading the comments on Sean Carroll’s post, most people who read this will have one of four reactions:
      [snip]
      4) Equally qualified women should be discriminated against, because they could go off and get pregnant.
      I’m afraid the 4’s do exist, and from my experience they are not very willing to have their minds changed. (For a concise article that touches on why their argument is flawed, I’d recommend this piece by my sister, Shara Yurkiewicz.)

      Her sister Shara is "disturbed" by people that claim actual differences between sexes is a legitimate reason to discriminate, going so far as to misstate #4s position. The argument I see is NOT that "equally qualified women should be discriminated against", it is that two people with equal education & experience, 1 being male & 1 being female are not equal. She goes on to define when she considers a preference to be discrimination (and fails to mention actual differences; thus validating the actual argument behind #4) and concludes with

      The commenters claim that their views are grounded in the economic model we work within. That is fair, but – wrongly, I believe – there is nothing said of the normative, or "what ought to be."

      "What ought to be" has and is said, but she disagrees due to being on the short end of the stick, and so her own bias as to how the world should be causes her to miss it. "What ought to be", in many people's eyes, is "The best of the best". Sometimes you have to compromise, but you always search for the best. Obviously for those that are not the best that is a horrible system to live in. So the author ignores it, effectively claims that is not a valid goal, and moves on to simplify the solution to everything being just

      a shift in mindset about traditional gender roles.

      But there is actual, real, research that shows women miss more work due to being a woman. Some of that no doubt is just a view of traditional gender roles, and so can be changed to some extent. But there are also real physical differences as well that will affect worth no matter how far you stick your head in the sand. So if you're looking for the "best of the best", you have to consider how much missed work will affect your hire's worth just like you consider their education, experience, attitude, cleanliness, credit history, & interpersonal skills.

      The question the author should be asking & trying to answer is: What is HER "ought to be"; what is YOUR "ought to be"; and how do we reconcile them? Reading between the lines makes her "ought to be" just sound like any other argument presented by anybody else that has ever been on the short end of the stick: I deserve to have anything you have. So I'm inclined ignore it with "Tough shit."

    22. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's where licensing and public unions and government fees and government largesse come in.

    23. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One study about sexism against females? Really? And what about study after study and law after law that is sexism against men?

    24. Re:why the hate by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      If you work your ass of for 10 years, making sure to be the best, only to get passed by for a rookie on a "diversity" quota,

      Is that any different from working your ass off for 10 years, making sure to be the best only to get passed by because you're not a man?

      The problem is that this sort of "correction" tends to push even more men into working for themselves, thus widening the income gap even more. If you're unable to get hired due to diversity practices the normal thing is to go into business for yourself, i.e. contract. At that point, as a contractor (LLC) the "employer" (now the purchaser) gains no value from discrimination, and will therefore buy for the best value they can get.

      How do I know that it won't be a woman? As another poster pointed out below, a man and woman of equal competence and qualifications aren't really equal - the women in the group will tend to prioritise their family while the man won't, hence the man will offer slightly better value (more working hours, etc).

      What people like you, I Kan Reed, AniMoJo, Dave420 and others cannot understand is that this cause you are supporting hurts women much more than men. Hell, I'm gainfully employed and I'm STILL doing business on the weekends. More men then ever are willing to jump into a startup while still employed elsewhere, thereby sacrificing ALL oif their time - I haven't met a single woman who is willing to sacrifice their family life, nevermind sacrificing all of their time.

      So this "let's push men out of IT" issue simply means that the most motivated male IT workers will make even more, while only the lesser motivated females (the ones who need a scholarship and a round of applause before they'd even apply) are the ones in IT, thus furthering the perception that women shouldn't be in IT. You guys are destroying the cause of women everywhere, and all so that you can feel good about yourself. You should be working on convincing the most highly motivated women to enter; those women aren't looking for handouts in the form of affirmative action. Instead with this noise over making things easier, you're only attracting the dumbest and least motivated, like game "developers" who don't know how to program and have no intention of learning, or former scammers who referred to women as sluts when she was working the con as a pickup artist motivational speaker.

      Because those are the people who are chasing away the bright women, not the men.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    25. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shouldn't we be focusing on solving the problem instead of creating half assed solutions to amend it? The fight for equality won't be successful if we fight for equality by giving males on thing and females another. Just give them equal access to both.

    26. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So the thing is you're assuming everything is equal and therefore quotas are hurting men. The thing is that they're not equal and women are demonstrably being passed over in favour of men simply by vitrue of not being male.

      So what do you think should be done

      One can also say that "helping" women is male chauvinism. Why do they need male help?

      At a certain point that may be the only option...are we there yet?

      Even then...companies 1-100 are all racist sexist pigs...can women still go start their own company?

      I'm not sure anything "needs" done. Call out sexism when you see it, make a list of shitty companies, make a list
      of the good ones.

      Do we really believe Intel cares about men or women or ANY of us? No, they care about their bottom line.

    27. Re:why the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      doesn't bias in grants simply serve to even up the odds so that there is no average disadvantage or advantage to being a particular gender?

      No. Private money Intel donates they can do whatever they want.

      Public taxpayer money (exemptions, same thing), foundations giving grants based on gender, sex, etc. ?

      No, that does not "even" anything up. If someone is racist or sexist you:

      -- call them out on it
      -- give them a chance to realize the error of their ways, assume it is not intentional
      -- if it is clearly racist or sexist, you continually call them out on it, and take legal action if necessary

      Likewise, keep a list of the "good" companies.

      Have 1) - 3) even been tried?

      Logically speaking: There is X amount of sexism, so there must be quantity Y grants to counter that.

      This means as X goes up Y also rises? As X falls Y also falls?

      What are you doing to actually lower X? If anything, this can be deemed avoiding the issue, sparing those companies that are sexist, and Y will always grow and grow will never stopping the spread of sexism.

      Why should we give grants to women or men or particular races at all, under any circumstances? That is just more sexism / racism, compounding the problem. Makes them look like complete hypocrites.

      There are no "odds" there are:

      -- sexist companies
      -- non-sexist companies

      1) needs called out, possibly legal action taken
      2) needs encouraged and spread the good news

      I see no need for sexist grants, limited to only males or only females.

      Now, some professions might need a specific gender (acting say) but what tech. jobs does it actually matter at all?
      Why?

    28. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      People that sound the same on paper of course perform differently, the study assumes that there is zero correlation of performance with sex.

      The gender of the applicants was assigned at random, so there was a guarantee of no correlation between gender and the potential performance of the candidate.

      but it sounds like it was a standard candidate for a standard job.

      Indeed and people who the employer assumed were female were routinely rated less well than those they believed were male. The study makes the belief uncorrelated with reality. This demonstrates very well that sexism is very much still a problem.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    29. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      EXCEPT you will NEVER address WHY

      Well no. I don't address third world debt or the suppression of human rights in North Korea either. I also don't like rampant non-sequiteurs. I have a limited time to write posts and people here will only read posts of limited length. Therefore when someone makes a post about bias in IT, it makes sense for me to make a reply as on topic as possible. Now science isn't IT, but the fields are much closer than the ones you listed. So, I think the study is somewhat relevant.

      Your post however not so much.

      Anyway, I notice that instead of addressing the points (that there is an area where sexism against women demonstrably happens), you'd rather try to divert the attention to other places. You know that doesn't make that sexism disappear.

      YOU ARE DESTROYING the progressive movement

      It'sastonishing that you believe that a paper doing a randomized controlled trialcan be destroying the progressive movement. The paper is sound as far as I can tell. If you dont like the conclusions: tough. You are not entitled to your own facts.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    30. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      So what you are saying is that the demonstrable discrimination against women should continue because it makes them more equal?

      Do I understand you correctly?

      If not, what do YOU suggest to end the discrimination?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    31. Re:why the hate by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      So what you are saying is that the demonstrable discrimination against women should continue because it makes them more equal?

      Firstly, no, I did not. What I said was that the current/proposed practice would change the landscape far more than you can imagine (Law of unintended consequences, and such). The proposed changes which force men to either choose a different field or take a risk for more money in the same field is going to end up with the average male income in the field rising (some of those risks will pay off, the ones that don't won't be counted).

      I also pointed out that by giving women an easier ride than the men get is going to result in getting only those women who are looking for an easy ride. We already have enough female game "developers" who don't know how to program but get a ton of attention and money via patreon nevertheless just for being female! We don't need any more of those types of people, regardless of gender.

      Do I understand you correctly?

      If not, what do YOU suggest to end the discrimination?

      Secondly, there is no evidence that there is more discrimination in IT at this point in time than there was in the past in fields that were overwhelmingly male but are now female-dominated (such as Vetinary Science). Evidence of skewness is not evidence of discrimination. Faith-based reasoning has no place in a discussion such as this, and looking back over the posts that you and the rest of the people supporting your position, the only argument that gets made is the "god-of-the-gaps" argument, in that "There used to be more women in tech than now. It must be discrimination". Faith-based reasoning, in other words.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    32. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I don't understand your reasoning:

      Let's say something is done to increase the number of women. It could be either some sort of affermative action, or it could just be a natural end to descrimination.

      In either case the number of women increases thereby making it harder for men. I don't see with the reasoning you gave how the precise mechanism matters. The law of unintended consequences would still apply regardless of the mechanism. As a result, an end to descrimination under that reasoning would lead to less equality.

      You may have a point, but as you've described it so far, I don't buy it.

      I also pointed out that by giving women an easier ride than the men get is going to result in getting only those women who are looking for an easy ride.

      Except you're not giving women an easier ride. The default ride for women appears to be harder than for men. With an appropriate amount of prodding it could simply even it out so women only need the SAME qualifications as men to get the same job and salary, not higher ones.

      Evidence of skewness is not evidence of discrimination.

      No the evidence of descrimination was in that PNAS article I linked to earlier in the discussion. TL;DR: they faked a bunch of CVs and randomised the gender of the fake applicant. Female applicants were routinely rates as worse given the same qualifications as male ones. That is pretty solid evidence of descrimination.

      looking back over the posts that you

      Then you haven't looked very hard, frankly. I've posted the same link at least 3 times in the comments to this thread, including once in this particular chain. There's a link in one of the ancestors of your post!

      So here it is again once more, but this time with feeling:

      http://www.pnas.org/content/10...

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    33. Re:why the hate by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      http://www.pnas.org/content/10...

      I'm quite familiar with that repeatedly-posted link. Let me quote from my previous post which you have appeared to only lightly skimmed:

      there is no evidence that there is more discrimination in IT at this point in time than there was in the past in fields that were overwhelmingly male but are now female-dominated (such as Vetinary Science).

      In the sciences, unlike the religions, it is customary to present data with a fitment test; a frame of reference, if you will. That paper does not present any evidence that the so-called burden for women in IT today is any more or any less than the other fields in which women have persevered and dominated. As of writing, there is no evidence (well, not any science evidence) that women in IT face more discrimination than past women in Medicine, Law, Accounting and the Vetinary Sciences. FCOL, the paper you link to does not even examine IT subjects, only Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

      Even worse (for your argument), the study appears to be of discrimination against women in a field that they are currently close to parity in - Biology is the one I'm looking at.

      So perhaps you want to explain how, if discrimination is the reason for a lack of women in IT, that Biology with actual studied and reported gender discrimination as per your very own reference, manages to have so many women compared to IT? If women are discriminated against in Biology, then why aren't their numbers the same as IT? Your very own reference points to the fact that discrimination cannot be the sole, or even largely part of, the reason for a lack of women in IT.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    34. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      there is no evidence that there is more discrimination in IT at this point in time than there was in the past in fields that were overwhelmingly male but are now female-dominated (such as Vetinary Science).

      So? Discrimination is bad. Just because it existed elsewhere and people have been able to overcome it doesn't mean that it's somehow OK.

      That paper does not present any evidence that the so-called burden for women in IT today is any mor

      Again, I don't see how that matters. The claim has been here repeatedly that the descimination doesn't exist. It demonstrably does.

      Even worse (for your argument), the study appears to be of discrimination against women in a field that they are currently close to parity in - Biology is the one I'm looking at.

      Even worse for my argument how? My argument is that descimination exists. A lot more women go into biology than men (the aprity you speak of does not exist at the top professorial levels by the way). And yet despite women being perfectly capable of being good biologists, they are still discriminated against because they are female.

      My argument is this: GENDER BASED DESCRIMINATION EXISTS.

      blah

      You should try reading my posts rather than assuming meaning. I know you haven't been because you claimed I hadn't posted the link I posted earlier in the thread. You're now arguing against a completely different point that I wasn't making.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    35. Re:why the hate by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      there is no evidence that there is more discrimination in IT at this point in time than there was in the past in fields that were overwhelmingly male but are now female-dominated (such as Vetinary Science).

      So? Discrimination is bad. Just because it existed elsewhere and people have been able to overcome it doesn't mean that it's somehow OK.

      I never made that argument - I asked for a fitment test. Luckily, now I don't need to make that argument.

      A lot more women go into biology than men (the aprity you speak of does not exist at the top professorial levels by the way).

      That's the point exactly - the discrimination you are railing against seems to have no effect on the number of women who go into Biology, but yet you ascribe the lack of women in IT to the same discrimination? You have to ask yourself why is it that this discrimination puts women off IT but not off other fields.

      You say "Discrimination is why women are not in IT

      Your linked paper shows that discrimination doesn't put off women Biology

      So there is some evidence, conveniently provided by yourself, that shows that women don't particularly find discrimination off-putting enough to leave the field in the numbers that they are leaving IT. You've made that point yourself.

      You, and the other people reacting with faith-based reasoning, are blind to the harm you are doing to women's rights. Leave out the faith-based reasoning for once.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    36. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I never made that argument - I asked for a fitment test. Luckily, now I don't need to make that argument.

      Why did you ask for it? It's not relevant to the original argument. That was about whether discrimination exists at all, not whether it is, has been or will be worse elsewhere.

      yet you ascribe the lack of women in IT to the same discrimination?

      I'd appreciate it if you read my arguments rather than responding to what you believe I wrote. Otherwise there's not much point in me responding because it won't have much effect.

      Seriously, read the chain of posts from here back to the top. That was never part of the discussion at any point until you brought it up.

      Your linked paper shows that discrimination doesn't put off women Biology

      No, it shows that they are routinely offered fewer jobs and at lower salaries than a man with equivalent qualifications.

      You, and the other people reacting with faith-based reasoning, are blind to the harm you are doing to women's rights. Leave out the faith-based reasoning for once.

      And you seem to engage in faith based reading: that is if you believe I wrote something then I did whether or not I actually wrote it.

      So, I ask again:

      Do you agree the study shows discrimination exists?

      If descrimination is reduced, do you believe this will harm womens prospects?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    37. Re:why the hate by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      I never made that argument - I asked for a fitment test. Luckily, now I don't need to make that argument.

      Why did you ask for it? It's not relevant to the original argument. That was about whether discrimination exists at all, not whether it is, has been or will be worse elsewhere.

      For the second time, I never made the argument that discrimination will be worse, or matters at all, elsewhere. I've already told you this. You've already read this. The argument that is getting put out around here is that discrimination is responsible for the low numbers of women in IT. The question you are avoiding answering is why does this discrimination not deter women in other fields? If women in other fields face discrimination (like your linked paper shows) but are still highly represented, then why is it a problem in IT?

      That's why research studies are all done with a fitment test or a NULL hypothesis - you believe that X causes Y in area Z? Why does X not cause Y in area Z'?

      How about this - I'll answer your questions at the bottom of this post if you can answer just a single two-part question here: Do you believe that discrimination causes low numbers of women in IT? If so, why do you believe that discrimination is the cause of low numbers of women in IT when discrimination hasn't caused low numbers of women in multiple other fields?

      Go on, I'll wait.

      So, I ask again:

      Do you agree the study shows discrimination exists?

      If descrimination is reduced, do you believe this will harm womens prospects?

      To be answered when you answer the relatively simply question above (yeah, you're probably experiencing a little cognitive dissonance right now).

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    38. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      The argument that is getting put out around here is that discrimination is responsible for the low numbers of women in IT.

      For the second time, no it isn't. The only person who has brought this up in this chain of comments is you. You seem desperate to have this argument.

      But OK, let's say I'll bite on an offtopic diversion:

      Do you believe that discrimination causes low numbers of women in IT?

      I believe it's partly responsible, but not the sole factor.

      If so, why do you believe that discrimination is the cause of low numbers of women in IT when discrimination hasn't caused low numbers of women in multiple other fields?

      There are almost certainly a multitude of reasons. There's discrimination, and there's also strong socalisation against IT related fields. They are also fighting an uphill battle due to being underrepresented, much like there is terrible bias against men trying to go into primary education.

      I doubt those are all the reasons however.

      Either way, there's still gender based descrimination.

      To be answered when you answer the relatively simply question above (yeah, you're probably experiencing a little cognitive dissonance right now).

      Why would I be experiencing cognitive dissonance? All you've done is bring up off topic rants. Nonethelsee, I look forward to the answers you promised.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    39. Re:why the hate by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

      The lower rating does not contradict reality if life experience shows that a female will under-perform a male with the same qualifications. Of course that's using unreliable data, but it's also an untested belief that they will perform the same. It would be more convincing if the candidates already had 2 years experience in the same job with excellent recommendations, in the absence of solid information weaker assumptions gain importance

    40. Re:why the hate by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      The argument that is getting put out around here is that discrimination is responsible for the low numbers of women in IT.

      For the second time, no it isn't.

      This is from the top of this thread (emphasis mine):

      [...]What is it about wanting to introduce more people into IT[...]

      [...]making sure to be the best only to get passed by because you're not a man?[...]

      I read that statement of yours coupled with the grandparent, hence I reached the conclusion that you think that female under-representation in IT is due to discrimination. I know know you feel differently (see below) to what you actually said.

      The only person who has brought this up in this chain of comments is you. You seem desperate to have this argument.

      But OK, let's say I'll bite on an offtopic diversion:

      Do you believe that discrimination causes low numbers of women in IT?

      I believe it's partly responsible, but not the sole factor.

      If so, why do you believe that discrimination is the cause of low numbers of women in IT when discrimination hasn't caused low numbers of women in multiple other fields?

      There are almost certainly a multitude of reasons. There's discrimination, and there's also strong socalisation against IT related fields. They are also fighting an uphill battle due to being underrepresented, much like there is terrible bias against men trying to go into primary education.

      I doubt those are all the reasons however.

      But none of those reasons have any evidence, hence I consider it fine to dismiss them until evidence surfaces. You wouldn't think worse of me if I refused to believe in invisible pink unicorns unless some evidence was provided, so why ask me to believe that "socialisation", etc are reasons as well?

      Either way, there's still gender based descrimination.

      To be answered when you answer the relatively simply question above (yeah, you're probably experiencing a little cognitive dissonance right now).

      Why would I be experiencing cognitive dissonance? All you've done is bring up off topic rants.

      I apologise - I took your statements that discrimination is the cause of the lack of women in IT as just that - I no know that you don't believe that.

      Nonethelsee, I look forward to the answers you promised.

      As promised:

      Yes all forms of discrimination exists. Gender-based is simply one of them. Due to lack of fitment tests or any frame of reference provided by the study you cite it is impossible to tell if the specific discrimination you are against matters at all in the grand scheme of things. Of all the discrimination that exists, it might be the least significant or the most, but we can't tell because the authors refuse to do a proper study that does provide a fitment test.

      I don't believe that any demographic in particular will be harmed If discrimination is reduced. However, you did not propose to reduce discrimination - you said:

      But if as the study shows, women are being passed over simply because they're female then doesn't bias in grants simply serve to even up the odds so that there is no average disadvantage or advantage to being a particular gender?

      That isn't reducing discrimination, that's adding more, just in the opposite direction. And I believe, reasonably I think, that the proposed reverse discrimination will be more harmful to women than to men.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    41. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I doubt those are all the reasons however.

      That's nice. Would you care to share what reasons you believe the reasons are?

      Due to lack of fitment tests or any frame of reference provided by the study you cite it is impossible to tell if the specific discrimination you are against matters at all in the grand scheme of things.

      Well, I'm sure it matters to whoever was discriminated against.

      Of all the discrimination that exists, it might be the least significant or the most, but we can't tell because the authors refuse to do a proper study that does provide a fitment test.

      What's with you attacking the authors? They set out to see if discrimination exists, something I believe they did pretty well. The paper doesn't attempt to address other questions because it's a single paper on a single topic, not an entire thesis.

      That isn't reducing discrimination, that's adding more, just in the opposite direction.

      Adding more in the opposite direction can serve to cancel out some of what exists.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    42. Re:why the hate by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      I doubt those are all the reasons however.

      That's nice. Would you care to share what reasons you believe the reasons are?

      Well, it's your hypothesis, so you should bring the evidence (did you not yet see the parallels between your argument and the one for creationism?)

      Due to lack of fitment tests or any frame of reference provided by the study you cite it is impossible to tell if the specific discrimination you are against matters at all in the grand scheme of things.

      Well, I'm sure it matters to whoever was discriminated against.

      Of all the discrimination that exists, it might be the least significant or the most, but we can't tell because the authors refuse to do a proper study that does provide a fitment test.

      What's with you attacking the authors?

      Where did I attack the authors? Most scientists doing an empirical test understand that the results are pointless without a frame of reference (I was a research scientist in academia for seven years). When reviewing, we do make statements like "The authors have omitted a small but critical portion of preparation of the study".

      They set out to see if discrimination exists, something I believe they did pretty well.

      And, believe it or not, there have been scientists in the past who've made this very same error - they set out to see if something (say radiation) exists, found it, published it and then got egg all over their faces when it was discovered that the radiation was simply background radiation.

      The paper doesn't attempt to address other questions because it's a single paper on a single topic, not an entire thesis.

      There is no other topic - the one that the researchers chose to look at was "discrimination in X", they did not have to measure discrimination in Y and Z, all they had to do was show us the comparison. They omitted to do so. Search for the measured discrimination for other human attributes and you'll discover why they omitted the fitment test.

      That isn't reducing discrimination, that's adding more, just in the opposite direction.

      Adding more in the opposite direction can serve to cancel out some of what exists.

      If you believe that discrimination is as simple as vectors (i.e. they can cancel each other out) you better be able to provide some reference. There are tons of research that shows discrimination, self-identification, self-grouping, tribalism, etc are driven by very complex processes, not just in humans and not just by environment.

      The problem you are facing (which is why I made a reference earlier to cognitive dissonance) is that you (say) that would like there to be no discrimination against women without recognising that the only way to get rid of innate discrimination against women would be to get rid of innate discrimination. But you stated that you don't want this - you want humans to retain a certain characteristic (the intrinsic ability to discriminate) but you also don't want them to exhibit this characteristic (ability to discriminate). Those are conflicting goals, even if you have to resolve the dissonance in your head by stating that it must be possible to have one without the other.

      Maybe you are right - maybe it will be possible to take away characteristic X from humans while still leaving characteristic X. I've not seen any evidence that this is possible, so I don't think so. I've also not seen any pink unicorns either. And also, religious folk get annoyed by me too :-)

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    43. Re:why the hate by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Well, it's your hypothesis, so you should bring the evidence (did you not yet see the parallels between your argument and the one for creationism?)

      Nope. You asked me a question, I provided a hypothetical answer. What's your answer to your own question?

      Where did I attack the authors?

      When you said: can't tell because the authors refuse to do a proper study that does provide a fitment test.

      Which implies the authors are actively trying to impede something or other.

      And, believe it or not, there have been scientists in the past who've made this very same error - they set out to see if something (say radiation) exists, found it, published it and then got egg all over their faces when it was discovered that the radiation was simply background radiation

      I have no idea whay you're referring to. Background radiation is radiation. If they wanted to find radiation, they found it. So job well done, eh?

      they had to do was show us the comparison.

      No, you keep asserting this but that does not make it any less true. They set out to see id descrimination existed in area X. Then comparing it to descrimination in subject area Y has no bearing on whether it exists in subject area X.

      If you believe that discrimination is as simple as vectors (i.e. they can cancel each other out) you better be able to provide some reference.

      And if you believe it never works out like that then you also need to provide some evidence.

      The problem you are facing...

      That's nice, but that odd rambling has no bearing on reality:

      without recognising that the only way to get rid of innate discrimination against women would be to get rid of innate discrimination.

      Well, you totally made that up. I made no such claim.

      But you stated that you don't want this -

      Nope. Again I said nothing about what I do and don't want. I pointed out that haveing some descrimination in the opposite direction can cancel out some of the underlying discrimination.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    44. Re:why the hate by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      Well, it's your hypothesis, so you should bring the evidence (did you not yet see the parallels between your argument and the one for creationism?)

      Nope. You asked me a question, I provided a hypothetical answer. What's your answer to your own question?

      I didn't pretend to know the answer. I do know what it is not, however. Falsifiability FTW :-)

      Where did I attack the authors?

      When you said: can't tell because the authors refuse to do a proper study that does provide a fitment test.

      Which implies the authors are actively trying to impede something or other.

      I accuse them of doing widely acknowledged poor research. That is not an attack.

      And, believe it or not, there have been scientists in the past who've made this very same error - they set out to see if something (say radiation) exists, found it, published it and then got egg all over their faces when it was discovered that the radiation was simply background radiation

      I have no idea whay you're referring to. Background radiation is radiation. If they wanted to find radiation, they found it. So job well done, eh?

      they had to do was show us the comparison.

      No, you keep asserting this but that does not make it any less true. They set out to see id descrimination existed in area X. Then comparing it to descrimination in subject area Y has no bearing on whether it exists in subject area X.

      Then why did you compare it to IT? If you really believed that discrimination in Y has no bearing on X, then why did you drag it into X?

      If you believe that discrimination is as simple as vectors (i.e. they can cancel each other out) you better be able to provide some reference.

      And if you believe it never works out like that then you also need to provide some evidence.

      I never said I believed that - all I did was say that there is overwhelming research that discrimination is much more complex than that. I didn't propose a opinion one way or another, just alerted you to the fact that there's a lot of research that contradicts your "simple as vectors" hypothesis. You can go ahead and read the research, but since I am not proposing a hypothesis (just rejecting yours) I need not provide any evidence. You propose the hypothesis, you provide the evidence.

      I pointed out that having some descrimination in the opposite direction can cancel out some of the underlying discrimination.

      Which you failed to provide evidence for. You spent the whole thread arguing that the research in area X should not be compared to area Y, so you now cannot supply evidence of discrimination in area X and say it applies to area Y without at least facing the possibility that you are holding two contradictory positions inside your head.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
  17. What this REALLY means by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'll bet they're outsourcing $300M of work o India and China. Best spin ever!

  18. Stupid shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Maybe Googe wouldn't have a problem getting qualified people if they stopped pulling stupid shit like this.

    Years ago, my placement office told me about interviewing for a certain company. One of the questions was "Hoe many diapers are sold in the US per year?"

    There must be some industry organization that has the numbers or I could get it from annual reports of the diaper makers or find how many newborns from the Census.

    Here's the answer that got someone hired because it showed how they "think":

    "Well, there are 300 million people in the US and 10% are child bearing age. 10% of those have newborns. So, 3,000,000."

    Well, then people who know how to bullshit and sound good get jobs - not facts.

    Why did this company have such a BS hiring process?

    Because one of their C-level PHBs read it in an inflight magazine and saw that Google and Microsoft does BS like this and if they're so successful, it's because of that.

    Hiring wouldn't be so fucked up if PHBs would stop with the management ideas du jour, stop reading the business books on the NYT bestseller list and let their first lines pick the candidates that they want.

    1. Re:Stupid shit by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      And the answer of 3 million is obviously way off on the face of it, unless you limit the kids to one diaper per year. Obviously someone who never changed a diaper.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    2. Re:Stupid shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes.

  19. PR money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One of the reasons for no diversity is the money however 300mil is a chump change.

  20. Definition of diversity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Those who are willing to work for less and don't look like H1B workers.

  21. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  22. Equal Opportunity My Ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age," he said to the NYT. "I want them to have a world that's got equal opportunity for them."

    That's funny, because I have a cousin who is coming up on college age, and I also want my cousin to have a world that has got equal opportunity available. Problem is, my cousin is finding doors shut in my cousin's face for gender-related reasons. Does that mean we should discriminate against the opposite of my cousin's gender?

    No, you do not get to know what the gender of my cousin is. Whether boy or girl, man or woman, female or male, the answer should be the same; a hearty, resounding NO.

    If you want to live in a world without gender discrimination, then you need to figure out a way to remove gender from the equation entirely. You don't fix discrimination with more discrimination.

  23. Hire more white women and more brown men by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck this industry.

    1. Re:Hire more white women and more brown men by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but not more brown women then? okay cool got it

  24. Why only in Tech? by fey000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm curious why this type of "diversity" drive only pops up in tech-related office jobs? Where is the drive in getting more men into child care jobs or social services? Why not more women in construction work? Why not more women in the army? Why not more women in sanitation, mining, welding, or fishing?

    As it stands, it doesn't seem like diversity is the goal at all.

    1. Re:Why only in Tech? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      How else are nerds going to meet chicks?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:Why only in Tech? by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The CEO of Intel can't affect those industries, except, perhaps, indirectly and through example.

      All of those are good questions. Those are all places where we should be striving to see a better mix of genders and races. You tell ME why those industries aren't trying to change. Could it be the institutional sexism that's so pervasive in our culture, starting when children are young, allotting toys on a gendered basis? Is it because we don't discourage construction workers in many of our cities from catcalling really offensive things, making women wonder why they'd ever want to work on a site like that? Is it because when women DO go into the armed forces, they're raped or sexually assaulted at distressingly high rates? Is it because we tell men that caring for children is women's work, and simultaneously tell them it's a horrible thing to be feminine?

      By the time someone is looking for a job, it's probably too late. The people that want to be in construction have already made their choice, male or female.

    3. Re:Why only in Tech? by taylorius · · Score: 1

      Or could it be that women tend to be olympic champion complainers, and will not let an issue go until they get their way, whereas men would often rather shrug and go and do something else instead?

      That isn't to say that women don't have anything to complain about - they surely do. But so do men - and male gripes get orders of magnitude less attention paid to them.

    4. Re:Why only in Tech? by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

      White men are never diverse, just like pizza with no toppings is never Special. But when shit gets real you don't have time or space for toppings. That's when diversity-lovers begin to say that crust and cheese is obsolete all you need is a pile of toppings.

    5. Re:Why only in Tech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or if there was a call for change in the construction industry, would it really be discussed on Slashdot?

      Also, "people" keep saying how great STEM fields are, and how competitive they are, and therefore we are concerned about equality in those fields. It's been a while since someone stood up on a national or international stage and said how great it is to work in the sanitation industry.

    6. Re:Why only in Tech? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Maybe you just need to google those subjects a bit more.

      Recently the UK army started debating if women should be allowed to fight on the front lines with men. The Church of England recently started allowing female bishops. There has been a big push, sustained for years to get more men into child care and particularly into primary level education because young kids need male role-models. The UK government offers incentives for men who want to train for those fields.

      As to why we can't fix everything with schemes like this, well there are two reasons. Firstly not every area is a problem - if women genuinely have little interest in something no-one is going to force them. It's the areas where they are interested by put off participating that are being worked on. Secondly there are areas where there are specific needs, like the lack of men in child care, and if we can make a difference there hopefully the limited money available will fix multiple issues and the increased equality will spread to other areas as society evolves. It would be lovely if there was $300m for each of these issues, but sadly there isn't...

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:Why only in Tech? by BCtoo · · Score: 1

      . It would be lovely if there was $300m for each of these issues, but sadly there isn't...

      That's probably it in a nutshell. What this really boils down to is economic conquest, not any "equality" BS.
      Nobody cares about "minorities" in childcare because there's very little money in childcare. Not that most men would want to work in childcare anyway, most men average on the other side of the "nurturing bell curve" from women.

    8. Re:Why only in Tech? by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 1

      100% true.

    9. Re:Why only in Tech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "more men into child care jobs or social services?"
      This is needed, but unless those jobs start paying well noone will complain about the lack of diversity.

      Fields with money or prestige are the ones that people want most and will (rightfully) complain if hiring practices are discriminatory to them.
      There are women that fight against discrimination in the military. Along those lines, homosexuals that want to serve also fight against discrimination in the military.

      When presented with glass ceilings and glass floors, whch do you think people will want to fight for most?

    10. Re:Why only in Tech? by robkeeney · · Score: 2

      Don't forget HR. It's absolutely dominated by women. In nearly 20 years, I don't think I've ever worked with a male HR staffer. Why is that?

    11. Re:Why only in Tech? by BobSutan · · Score: 1

      Because feminist patriarchy "theory" (in reality it barely qualifies as a functional hypothesis) is ultimately a fallacy of composition.

      --
      "On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
    12. Re:Why only in Tech? by Davoid · · Score: 1

      Indeed, where is the drive to get more men into child care, social service, nursing, waiting tables, airline stewards, house cleaning (domestic and commercial levels)... and any number of jobs traditionally considered "womens work"? What organization of men, run by men, financed by men is promoting this? Is there one? None? If not what are you doing about it other than complaining? If you are a man is there any job you can think of that is traditionally "womens work" that you would like to do instead of the one you have now? If not why not?
       

      --
      "Don't sweat the technique."
    13. Re:Why only in Tech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you.

    14. Re:Why only in Tech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought you were erased Dixie? Your final wish?

      Molly still looks as sharp as ever.
      Riviera is probably creeping about somewhere.
      Last I heard, Armitage had lost his mind.

      Michael was sexy and fun, always payed her own way, confident but not overbearing, smart but not
      condescending, uninhibited but mature, gentle yet firm, all a guy could ever ask for...
      but in the end...I just couldn't get jacked into a chick named Michael.

      Gotta break! I'll run a go-to on you later!

      Love, Case

  25. A very bad thing by Sqreater · · Score: 1
    "I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age," he said to the NYT. "I want them to have a world that's got equal opportunity for them."

    More gynocentric gender-leveling behavior meant to destroy the male aggressive creativity of a company. A company and an industry gets what it deserves.

    --
    E Proelio Veritas.
  26. Another $cam by BCtoo · · Score: 1

    Diversity is an even bigger scam than AGW.

    Diversity pimps claim on one hand that you need different people, then claim there is no difference between the people. Then there is the faulty logic of what diverse companies look like. They claim that all companies should be x% these, y% those, and z% the others. Is it really more diverse to have 3 companies like that or is it more diverse to have 3 companies that are 100% of each group?

  27. How about white people having... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...their own countries again...

    Then all these 'minorities' (LOL) can live among their own kind. Wouldn't that be just awful for them.

    'Diversity' means 'genociding white people out of existence', and is an international war crime, punishable by death. Good luck trying to talk your way out of this lot, arrogant nation-wrecking scum...

  28. Buying nothing but AMD from now on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age. I want them to have a world that's got equal opportunity for them."

    --Intel CEO Brian Krzanich

    Really? The CEO of Intel crying about a lack of opportunity for his kids? Absolutely disgusting!

  29. Engineering scholarships herd students by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In EU where tuition is zero or low, students can study what they choose. In US with high tuition, we create a web of offers that will remove this high tuition if you do what oligarchs and rulers want:
      - join the military (GI Bill)
      - study security for n years, then work for the NSA for n years (offered at NYU / Brooklyn Polytechnic)
      - agree to be herded by a giant corporation trying to improve its diversity for whatever reason

    I understand it sounds like a nice thing, but it's taking advantage of something ugly in that this program would be meaningless in Europe, and that it's a bit twisted that it's getting really cheap for women or Black people to study only things that statistics say they might not want to study. The right answer to social problems is social programs that allow children similar opportunities independent of parental wealth. Philanthropy from corporations with nebulous goals is an ugly answer, in a larger context, even if in a smaller one we may want to compliment Intel for doing this.

  30. Because it's just more rich neo-liberal hipster pr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can read. I can check the stats on Wikipedia and other encyclopaedias. 3 of the top 4 earning nationalities in the US are Asian countries.
    By ethnicity, Filipinos make a much higher average income than Caucasians - it's not even close. THere's a handful of Caucasians in America that make buckets. The rest is disintegrating into white trash because foot eating neo libs control the policy and are foaming at the mouth to do everything in their power to destroy Caucasians.

  31. Re:discrimination in reverse by thesandtiger · · Score: 2

    I'll say it:

    All other things (education, experience, interview, etc.) being equal or close enough between two candidates, one of them being a white male and the other being someone in a racial or gender minority class, yeah, I'm going to hire the person in the racial or gender minority class.

    It isn't for a metric - it's because, all other things being equal as you stipulated, a person from a class not normally found in the field is likely going to have had to overcome obstacles and challenges on the way there that the other candidate has not.
    Let's look at some reasons why the minority candidate who is otherwise equal to the non-minority candidate is the better pick:

    1) In every single discussion of diversity in tech on Slashdot, people will trot out REASONS why minorities don't do well in tech: Black people don't do well because they get called out by their friends and families for acting white if they go to school. Women don't because they get called out by other women for being in such a nerdy profession. Etc. etc. etc. If that is true, then yes, I want the candidate who has demonstrated persistence and determination in the face of hostility. They will be use to adversity and overcoming it, and as a hiring manager I will want that in a candidate.

    2) In every single discussion of diversity in tech on Slashdot, people will trot out BIOTRUTHS about women and minorities and why they are not well represented in tech. If that's true, then yes, I absolutely want the candidate who is exceptional and defies their biology to have somehow managed to be equal to the non-minority candidate. There's more potential for them to be exceptional in other ways, and as a hiring manager, I want exceptional people.

    3) If everything else is equal, why NOT hire the candidate who will also improve an arbitrary metric? As a hiring manager, I want to not have to have people crawling up my ass telling me to do things just so the team looks better, and this would reduce one more thing people could crawl up my ass about.

    So yeah, unless you're a fucking idiot, hire the atypical candidate when they are literally close enough to equal that flipping a coin would be the only "fair" way to determine who to hire. Duh?

    --
    Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
  32. Re:discrimination in reverse by thesandtiger · · Score: 1

    Oh, and furthermore:

    If conditions 1 and 2 above are actually true (I personally think it's racist/sexist bullshit, but those are arguments people trot out on the regular): 2 candidates being equal means to me that the white male candidate must be exceptionally lazy. After else, if whites and males are both socially and biologically more suited to working in the field in general, how then could a white male manage to not do a better job given equal education and experience?

    The answer has to be either that white men aren't actually better or more suited to doing this stuff than other races or women OR that if they are, in this particular case, the white male candidate must either be defective or lazy.

    --
    Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
  33. Re: Orwell by Dareth · · Score: 1

    I know many people who support socialism. I have never met one that wanted to be the "horse" from Animal Farm.

    --

    I only look human.
    My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
  34. Re:discrimination in reverse by malkavian · · Score: 1

    Your logic is distinctly faulty. It probably means 1 and 2 being true, then you've found an edge case where the race/sex matched the generalisations of another set. What you've effectively said is that if all things are equal, then you discriminate against the while male for no other reason than "why not" (your given reasons of hardship etc. carry no real weight; all backgrounds can, and do have hardships they've overcome).. If you want to do it, fine by me, but don't kid yourself that this is ethically superior reasoning.

  35. The problem is with the ecconomy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem is not with the race, but with the ecconomy of the neighbours/countries those people grow up. It doesnt matter if you are white, black or pink. The thing is that if you grow up in a poor place, with bad education and a particular culture, you will reproduce that enviroment. We are result of the place of we live on, the things we are teached and what we see as models as children. The problem isnt that the IT companies dont hire people from different races, but that a skilled professional probably will not come from poor parents that cant pay college to their children, and most of the time those poor neigbours have a high population from minorities, because of multiple factors (inmigration, culture, nothing racial). Obviously there are always exemptions, but probably you will not get too many engineers from a poor neigbour in zaire (random example, if someone from zaire is reading not take it peronal), not because they are black but because there isnt any infrastructure, culture or money to provide such education.
    The diversity comes with the eccualization of oportunities to all children,

  36. Time for gender change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Men are getting shafted. Women complain of unequal pay (which even the GAO has refuted at least when Bush Jr was in office), yet expect men to pay for them and want men to treat them chivalrously. Well chivalry came about at a time when women and children were property of men. But we still have it in our culture and by the looks of it , it's in women's DNA. Or at least the women who believe in equality are getting pooched by those of them who say it but also say they want chivalry too. For those, I say they should be paid less than men. In any case, if what's good for the goose is good for the gander then what's good for the gander should be good for the goose. Too bad men and women can't just trade genders back and forth cause right now I think a lot more women would realize how it's getting way better to be a woman these days than a man . It hasn't been so much of a recession as a he-session of men loosing work more than women. How'd the women complaining about gender equality feel if it were men that get the government perks that women are getting ?? I don't dislike my gender as much as dislike how screwed out of work and pay and equal expectation on me I feel as a man. Depressing.

  37. More PC nonsense by erp_consultant · · Score: 2

    What a surprise...yet another company jumps on the politically correct bandwagon. It seems that the strategy is to jump out ahead of this "issue" rather than wait for some shake down artist like Al Sharpton to come knocking on your door.

    The quotes around "issue" are intentional, indicating that there is no issue at all. The reason that there is a lower representation in Tech is simply that there are fewer applicants that are Black or female or from other minority groups. Simple as that. All you have to do is take a walk around a college campus and visit a CS101 class. What will you see? Predominantly white males and asians. Is that because colleges are discriminating against others in their CS programs? Of course not. It just means that those people chose to study other things.

    If Intel wants to give money to historically black colleges that's great. I'm all in favor of that. But to suggest that it will fix some supposed problem is ridiculous. In typical American fashion, the solution to every problem is to throw more money at it. It rarely works. To blame companies for "not hiring enough people from group X" is certainly convenient, and probably popular in some circles, but in the end its not accurate.

    Companies hire from the pool of labor that is available to them. To suggest that they are overlooking qualified people because of the color of their skin or their gender is absurd. It is nothing more than a thinly veiled racism/sexism charge to which there is no substantial evidence to support it.

    Quite frankly, there is more evidence to support discrimination based on age or medical health than age or gender. Where is the outrage over that? Where are all the big companies promising to throw all sorts of money to address it? Crickets.

    1. Re:More PC nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " It seems that the strategy is to jump out ahead of this "issue" rather than wait for some shake down artist like Al Sharpton to come knocking on your door."

      Pssst..RTFA...Jessie Jackson is on their list of "Partners"

    2. Re:More PC nonsense by LessThanObvious · · Score: 1

      I've been in tech for over 15 years, but someday because I don't have a degree someone is going to say, "oh, we can't hire you because you are a white male and you're less qualified than this other person that just graduated, but isn't a white male". If that person that says that to me doesn't get beat to death with a stapler, they won't know it, but it'll be the luckiest day of their life.

    3. Re:More PC nonsense by erp_consultant · · Score: 1

      If you are more than about 5 years into your career then academic credentials are not as important as you might think. Sure, some places require a 4 year degree but those are typically the IBM's and Deloitte's and who wants to work for them anyway? Experience is the key. If you are looking to move up the management chain then the degree is more important. If you're a tech then the only important question should be "can he/she code?".

    4. Re:More PC nonsense by erp_consultant · · Score: 1

      Oh and how do you suppose that came about? Shotgun wedding anyone :-D

  38. Re: Orwell by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1

    I have never met one that wanted to be the "horse" from Animal Farm.

    That would be Boxer.

    --
    That is all.
  39. From the "fake lady 'itself'"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes. I see you're still trying to live up to your hormonally imbalanced delusion you are a real woman: Ok. Can you bear children? No. See subject. Says it all along with your known and proven trolling shown here.

    1. Re:From the "fake lady 'itself'"? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      When you say the same obnoxious thing more than once, you've moved from troll to flaming asshole.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  40. From "the fake lady 'itself'"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes. I see you're still trying to live up to your hormonally imbalanced delusion you are a real woman: Ok. Can you bear children? No. See subject. Says it all along with your known and proven trolling shown here.

  41. A very bad thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Schools force boys to act and behave like little girls, because that's how the female teachers want their students to interact.

  42. $300 Million? Pfft! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is that all it's going to take to make women and Negroes "equal" to the AWESOME WHITE MALE GODS that roam the land and control it? I think not!

  43. Kind of diversity by Livius · · Score: 1

    Diversity as in, yet another Linux distro?

  44. Computer Science Just Isn't Easy by blackkstar · · Score: 1

    If you would be so kind as to listen to my experience as someone who went through a computer science program (and completed it with a degree) in the late 00s, I'd appreciate it. The one thing I learnt, is that computer science and tech is difficult, yet everyone wants to do it. I was fortunate enough to get into a relatively high end private university. However, at the start, computer science courses were absolutely filled to the brim with people. Males, females, different races, etc The majority were there to do things like make games and other basic things. They weren't in it to learn how computers work, to do low level stuff, etc. My courses were filled all the way up for computer science for 100 level courses. 35 people with a wait list. And do you know what happened after those 100 level courses were over and people just had things like writing sorting algorithms in C and programming in x86 and SPARC assembly that wanted to make games or some sort of app to get rich easy? They all bailed. The end of the program, I had courses that got cancelled because there weren't enough people there. The university I chose was different from the others, they had a more academic approach still and wanted to teach you how computers worked. It was academia and not a school to teach you how to get a job. And it was a bloodbath of people failing out of computer science. Men, women, Whites, Asians, Blacks, etc.They all bailed so hard when they realized things were not what they wanted. Ironically enough, by the end of the program, there were a significant amount of females left in my small sample size of a program, however, the White ones were nearly gone and all that were left were Chinese students from abroad and some local Asian females. To be completely honest, as a white male, I was in the minority by a huge margin. As mentioned in this thread, women are more than capable of sciences. They do very well in fields like biology. Tech is just not an easy field and people flee it like crazy. You have to keep up with things, it's always changing. If you learn biology, it takes a long time for things to change due to evolution. If you learn math, well it rarely changes. People don't go back and make addition obsolete. It has zero to do with women's ability in comparison to men or anything and it has to do with people just failing at the programs in general. Does no one remembers the whole "how can we get the next generation more into computer science?" thing that was going on years ago? Well, the solution was to lower the bar and make computer science into "write some Java applications, well it doesn't even work but here's a B" But that's not the case with computer science and tech in general. And that makes it a far more difficult field to get into, for everyone. Not just women. Not just minorities. But EVERY SINGLE PERSON. I think people are confusing maliciously denying certain people opportunities with the field being a difficult one that most will fail in, regardless of race, gender, etc. Proof of this is that this group of people generally is complaining that minorities don't have an advantage, yet Asian people are ahead in tech so far that universities like UCLA will shy away from admitting them because they already have too many. Which brings me to the next point that changing tech fields to be more accomodating to people who aren't up for the task is only going to leave us behind. We have places like Tokyo where the Japanese are literally breeding to make genetically superior babies and they're extremely competitive. We have places like Vietnam pushing computer science education from an extremely early age. The rest of the world is pushing people further and if they can't make it, tough. The West, specially the USA, feels compelled to lower standards and requirements to make things more accomodating. I took a course at public university just for extra eduction (and ironically enough my professor was another Asian Female), and I got to experience the watered down computer science programs that have been coming. In fact, I

  45. not the only thing needing defined by frovingslosh · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age," he (Intel CEO Brian Krzanich) said to the NYT. "I want them to have a world that's got equal opportunity for them."

    Just what does this bleeding heart liberal want? Equal Opportunity for his daughters, or affirmative action for a bunch of people who may not have earned it and are just coasting along on the liberal charity? Because you can't have both Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, and this sure sounds more like Affirmative Action than Equal Opportunity.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  46. What a total waste of funding. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let the most qualified do the job.

  47. From the "fake lady 'itself'"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes. I see you're still trying to live up to your hormonally imbalanced delusion you are a real woman: Ok. Can you bear children? No. See subject. Says it all along with your known and proven trolling shown here.

  48. From the "fake lady 'itself'"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes. I see you're still trying to live up to your hormonally imbalanced delusion you are a real woman: Ok. Can you bear children? No. See subject. Says it all along with your known and proven trolling shown here.

  49. From the "fake lady 'itself'"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why're ya avoiding & downmodding this Barb http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ? You troll apk http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... n' you can't back it up? Yes. I see you're still trying to live up to your hormonally imbalanced delusion you are a real woman: Ok. Can you bear children? No. See subject. Says it all along with your known and proven trolling shown here.

  50. Diversity in Tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My first thought was they probably want to increase diversity in tech by researching some alternate tech like something not based on silicon, or not based on electricity at all or some such. Then I read on... oh... its like being pulled back to reality from a star trek-like utopian universe... it was a pretty depressing experience...

  51. So is this pencil-whipping? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Intel already has extensive scholarships. Spending $300 million over 5 years is the same as spending $60 million per year. If they are talking in future value of the money it could mean they are spending less than that.

    So what part of this "investment" is new, and which is relabeling? Is this a noteworthy advertisement or just spin?

    As always time, market-share, and profitability are going to tell the rest of the story.

  52. Not looking for one person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about hiring the best person for the job, and fits well with the rest of the team regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual preference, etc? If it happens to be someone who is white, hispanic, or black who cares?

    If you're hiring one person for one job, then of course that's what you do.

    This isn't about hiring one person. They're trying to build a deep bench of candidates for the workforce a decade from now.

    Right now, they're doing what you suggest, hiring the top people for their jobs. Suppose Intel, being a really big name with lots of clout, is hiring the top, say, 0.1% of all qualified graduates. The very best of the best, because they're a big, profitable company and they can pick and choose.

    Now suppose, as a growing company, they want to double their headcount over the next decade. How does that hiring strategy work for them? Either they dip deeper into the pool, and start hiring the second-best-0.1% -- the sort of less-qualified guys that they're passing over today -- or they double the size of the pool, so that they can stick with the best of the best and still get the totals they need.

    Demographics are destiny, and there just ain't enough white-and-asian males to go around. The asian population grows only through immigration, which is far from certain, and the white population is stagnant or declining. That pool isn't getting any deeper as it is.

    And consider that India and China have 3-4x the population and no cultural hang-ups about women going into technology. (They have plenty of other strange ideas about women, but tech jobs are not among them.) If the US tech industry keeps hobbling itself by drawing only on the white-and-asian-male demographic, it'll get buried.

  53. martini glass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Will that make their products better or worse? Only time will tell but they won't be able to identify the cause of their problems. On the plus side, Intel processors now come with a martini glass embedded on the chip.

  54. Creating imaginary problem by Carnivore24 · · Score: 1

    To create diversity, first create inequality.

  55. Diversity doesn't make a workplace better... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am not against diversity at all. But it does almost nothing to make the workplace a better place. And to the people that say that lack of diversity is indicative of different opportunities for different genders/races, that's not necessarily true. There are going to be the same opportunities for women and blacks and other races that are available for everyone else, if not more because of these programs for only women. Its whether they take advantage of these opportunities that matter, and if they dont want to thats their choice. Stop wasting money and discriminating by creating programs for only one race/gender/whatever.

  56. Re: Orwell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Animal Farm is a critique of Stalinism. Socialism does not requires turning everyone into soap, just like Capitalism does not requires sending other people to their deaths for kickbacks from your buddies.

  57. poverty and basic education by umghhh · · Score: 1

    improve on that and you probably have a better chance of increasing minorities participation in tech. I doubt however if parity with the population structure could ever be achieved and I do not think it makes sense.

  58. Re: Orwell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You've never met a furry.

  59. Human Resources is the problem. by belozi · · Score: 1

    The problem with diversity in tech is in the human resources departments at tech companies. It's extremely hard to get a job as a minority, because of the screening and hiring practices: the life experiences of minorities often disqualify them for employment. There are plenty of minorities who have a genuine interest and that have tech related skills who never get opportunities in the field. The only way that there will be more diversity in tech is through minority entrepreneurship.

  60. "Diverse society will fail" --Putnam; by NewYork · · Score: 1