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Lies, Damn Lies, and Tech Diversity Statistics
theodp writes Some of the world's leading Data Scientists are on the payrolls of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and Apple. So, it'd be interesting to get their take on the infographics the tech giants have passed off as diversity data disclosures. Microsoft, for example, reported its workforce is 29% female, which isn't great, but if one takes the trouble to run the numbers on a linked EEO-1 filing snippet (PDF), some things look even worse. For example, only 23.35% of its reported white U.S. employee workforce is female (Microsoft, like Google, footnotes that "Gender data are global, ethnicity data are US only"). And while Google and Facebook blame their companies' lack of diversity on the demographics of U.S. computer science grads, CS grad and nationality breakouts were not provided as part of their diversity disclosures. Also, the EEOC notes that EEO-1 numbers reflect "any individual on the payroll of an employer who is an employee for purposes of the employers withholding of Social Security taxes," further muddying the disclosures of companies relying on imported talent, like H-1B visa dependent Facebook. So, were the diversity disclosure mea culpas less about providing meaningful data for analysis, and more about deflecting criticism and convincing lawmakers there's a need for education and immigration legislation (aka Microsoft's National Talent Strategy) that's in tech's interest?
... becomes subjective bias-reinforcement when using the phrase "even worse" in comparing numbers
The disclosures showed what everyone knew already - there's a lot of white males around, a disproportionately high number of Asian males, not so many Hispanics and blacks and relatively few women. Do you really think picking at the details is going to make things look significantly different?
And why bring up H-1Bs when talking about only counting employees who have Social Security taxes withheld? H-1Bs ARE subject to withholding for Social Security.
SJW posts on Slashdot.org are getting ridiculous, why it is some tragedy that both genders choose other things to do in their life?
H1-B employees are required to pay Social Security taxes:
http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Alien-Liability-for-Social-Security-and-Medicare-Taxes-of-Foreign-Teachers,-Foreign-Researchers,-and-Other-Foreign-Professionals
White women have the most opportunities. I don't know any white men who just chose not to work and live an upper middle class or rich lifestyle, but I know plenty of white women who made that choice. It's no surprise that the many choose a life path without putting as much weight on things like "how much will Microsoft pay me". This isn't dumb chicks either- intelligence doesn't seem to discourage women from living as a housewife or kept woman, at all. Ambition I'm sure does, but those two do NOT go hand in hand.
When I was in school, there was a job fair for engineering / CS companies. But it wasn't just CS positions. Even then, there was an absolute dearth of girls apping to perfectly reasonable large corporations.
So those numbers mean nothing until men can choose a life of leisure in exactly the same way as (many) women can.
Companies that don't hire the best employees fail. We should be much less concerned about diversity in tech than in things like teaching and nursing which is vastly female dominated and which have no mechanism for self correction.
29% of the workforce by weight is female.
Nullius in verba
I find it unlikely that the tech sector will ever even get close to parity. Too many boys get interested in tech as a reaction to be ostracized from other groups. They develop a culture all their own, and that culture is usually not particularly friendly to people that are different from them, that have not gotten along with them terribly well, or that they don't think measure-up. Girls, and later women, squarely hit all three for the the vast majority of them, and when that's the base to which others entering technical fields through career planning rather than through personal interest have to deal with, that will turn-off people that don't like what they find.
When one looks at scandals like "gamergate" and other situations where women are finding themselves subject to personal attack when they disagree with other members of the community, you can begin to see the underbelly of the problem. Boys that don't get along with girls, objectify girls because of their own needs, and never are taught to behave otherwise will automatically reinforce an environment that's struggled with gender parity from the beginning.
The solution is to fix this when boys are in their tween and teen years, but that takes effort and a willingness to deal with the social issues that led to the problem in the first place. Screeching about the problem after it's become established won't fix it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
What is the diversity of the active slashdot user base? Maybe we could have a poll limited to logged-in people only to keep people from tilting the stats?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Slashdot is approaching the same level of mediocrity as Gawker.
Whoever writes the checks needs to understand that this is not
a winning strategy.
If it were, feminists would be beside themselves that by every metric, boys and men are losing out and the system favors girls and women. It doesn't matter what someone says they believe, just watch their actions. By the fruit they bear you will know their true character and priorities. Once you realize it's never been about equality, the only thing that matters is the question of whether some women have been truly unjustly denied opportunities. As a class issue, it's dead on arrival once you realize that equality was never the goal.
Gender studies, diversity etc, are made up pseudoscience that do far more harm than good.
Brainwash 1:7 - The Gender Equality Paradox
... or they'll choose to do something else. There is no institutional sexism. No one has been able to find it.
All you have is a stat that shows women don't statistically pursue this career. There is no evidence that universities are discriminating and there is no evidence that companies are discriminating.
So what you are really upset about is women CHOOSING to not go into tech.
You apparently don't like people having choices. You want everyone to statistically fall into perfect little patterns and do things according to your numbers.
Only one way to do that. Force women to and men and any other arbitrary group your stupid statistics think are relevant... and force them into tech... or else... scorpions? I'll leave that up to you.
Absent that, people are not going to fall into these statistical patterns. More men are going to get into some careers. More women are going to get into others. How many male kindergarten teachers are there? How many men work at maternity wards in hospitals? Women like small children and babies. They just do. And so that is ONE example of a career women tend to be happier in then men. I am not saying they should be pushed into it or that they should do it. They personally choose to do it because they like it. It is a choice.
And men often like solitary complex tasks working long hours often for no more reason then because it is hard and if they don't do it no one will.
Men like jobs that no one else will do. We gravitate to that stuff. We like being the guy that signs up for a couple years in the Merchant Marines seeing land no more then a couple days out of a month for years. Our contacts with civilization basically being a bar crawl climaxing with a trip to a brothel. Deal with it.
Men and women are not the same. They're not. We like different things. Pretending it is all socialization and otherwise women would love action movies and guys would be crying on the couch eating ice cream while watching romantic comedies is the opinion MORONS have.
I am not a moron. However, there are clearly a lot of morons running around and quite a few people don't seem to be able to tell the difference between morons and normal people. Because the morons are being treated like they're smart.
I think part of it might be that what the morons are saying doesn't make any sense. And we tend to associate things that do not make sense these days with something so smart that it is just beyond us. Except, sometimes things that don't make sense actually don't make sense... because they're stupid.
This whole feminist kick that the media is going on these days is dumb. You are embarrassing yourselves and you're not helping women.
If you actually won, the best you'd have accomplished is cause the competency of women for a generation to be questioned because no one would know if they earned their job or if they were some sort of diversity hire.
Stop being stupid. No really. Stop eating the lead paint chips which I am assuming is a popular ingredient at jamba juice.. and just stop. It is your job to write articles and talk. I don't want you to starve.
Just try harder to not literally have the opinions of literal idiots. Not saying you are idiots... just that you happen to be thinking in much the same way and it is not acceptable.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
How does being diverse help a company or team?
Why stop at Microsoft?
Let's look at the NBA Portland Trail Blazers. No women, not enough south-Americans, Asians, native-Americans or even whites!
Doesn't the NBA realize they would be so much better off if they focused on diversity instead of their narrow minded goal of getting the best basketball players?
That Paul Allen guy is a performance and results bigot. Just look at what he is doing with the Seattle Seahawks.
I see anti-diversity examples all over Allen's successful investments, with a clear focus on talent, skill, work ethic, etc. instead of a person's race or sex.
What kind of world will this result in, if people are rewarded for what they contribute instead of what they look like and whether or not they have any balls?
Respect the Constitution
"Women just don't want to be a part of tech"
You didn't read the summary, did you? It is just white women. If they aren't white, they don't count. Microsoft was cheating because they counted non-white women and tried to pass them off as "real" women, that actually matter. But thanks to our ever vigilant Timothy, they didn't get away with it.
you know what? most stylists are women or gay men. Oh no, I'm being discriminated against! And women plumbers are totally under represented (though the ones who are doing it are freakin rich).
Perhaps its time to consider whether anyone has asked the question: do women really really want to work in IT? Or do they prefer other professions? Accounting? Sales? Something else?
No, let's first come up with some real data. The feminazis all want to know how many people work in nice white collar jobs, but I have yet to see a single feminazi complain about:
- The number of women working in trash collection;
- The number of women working in sewer treatment plants;
- The number of women working car manufacturing;
- The number of men working as a psychologist;
- The number of men working as a nurse;
- The number of men that do not get custody of their children after a divorce;
Fact of the matter is that feminazis are looking for selective equality. Real feminists look for real equality.
Why do silicon valley companies hire so few women? Very simple: most female candidates are simply not skilled enough to do coding, network administration etc. I'd love to get more girls working on the team.
The running gag in our Santa Clara based company is this:
There are only two types of female engineers: good engineers and pretty engineers. If she's a good engineer, she usually looks like a brick. If she's pretty, she usually doesn't know the difference between an int and a struct.
Please please please girls, we need you to brighten up our workplace. But we need good engineers, not pretty ones!
But in C#, an int technically is a struct (or value type).
Honest question.
Why we need $400 million to teach K-12 CS: 1. "Only 10 percent of schools teach it [CS]." 2. "No Girls, Blacks, or Hispanics Take AP Computer Science Exam in Some States." 3. "Currently, only 25 states allow computer science to count as a mathematics or science credit towards graduation."
There are no benefits to diversity. It's a giant hoax with an end to geniciding whites.
WE DONT GIVE A SHIT.
The company I work for (roughly 300 employs, fairly major UK national insurance broker) had to hire a new web dev last year. We put the feelers out in June, ended up interviewing throughout July and August, eventually hiring someone in September.
The job went out to all the usual boards, the HR dept (two women) hunted for candidates on LinkedIn, and we were also passed résumés by several agencies.
We saw well over 100 résumés in that time, with Indian and Chinese candidates massively over represented. How many résumés did we see from women for the position? Not one. Not a single, solitary one.
So yes, gender diversity sucks in tech, but when women aren't applying for the jobs, how can we diversify?
Actually, if my math and data entry is correct, based on the EEO-1 numbers, women's share of Microsoft's U.S. force (including all ethnicities) is still only about 24%.
How come there are never any reports on the fact that elementary and middle school teachers are overwhelmingly female? How come there are never any reports on the fact that nurses such as LPNs and RNs are overwhelmingly female?
What's being done to close these gender gaps? Why is it never reported? Why is it not important? Wouldn't it be good for kids, who spend a lot of their life in school, to also have male teachers as role models?
What about college admissions? Female admissions have been much higher than male admissions for quite a while now. Why isn't this being reported? Shouldn't we be discussing what to do about that?
Forgive me, but I've seen this "gender gap in technology" thing reported over, and over, and over and over and over and over and over and over ad nauseum, the last few years. It's a discussion that's worth having, to be sure, but it astonishes me how gender gaps in other, probably much more important areas, are completely ignored.
Why is that?
Women comprise a bigger percentage of the STEM workforce than they hold STEM degrees.
In other words, women are OVERREPRESENTED in industry. They are underrepresented in the educational system. That's not Microsoft's doing.
It reminds me of a poster where i work (paraphrased). "Only 5% of electrical engineers are female!" Perhaps that's because women don't generally have an interest in electrical engineering?
Why must all jobs have a perfect 50/50 ratio of male/female? If the vast majority of females don't want a job doing X then the job will be mainly filled by men!
I've rarely come across any females with a real interest in any engineering field. I work with guys who tinker in their sheds, who build dodads and thingymabobs. I work with women who own 300 pairs of shoes and sign up to exclusive clubs for a random department store.
That's not to say there aren't any women who build things in their spare time and that there aren't any men with 300 pairs of shoes, it's just that the very nature of the difference in brain chemistry between the sexes means we will be interested in different things. And if we're not interested in something we're probably going to avoid doing a job doing said thing.
If we keep trying to force 50/50 ratios in all job sectors there is going to be a lot of unemployed men and a lot of miserable women who don't want to work in that field, it doesn't benefit anybody.
I'm tired of reading this shit over and over again, so since you keep spamming the same dumbass articles, I'll now reply with the same canned response until this shit stops:
IT IS NOT A DIVERSITY PROBLEM WHEN DIFFERENT PEOPLE CHOOSE TO DO DIFFERENT THINGS WITH THEIR DISSIMILAR LIVES.
Um, NO. Not white, rather American. I'm sure within the American female IT population you'd have a disproportionate number of non-white (asian) women.
A good entry-level job for young women and they can grow from there.
Men in tech are just pitiful. Reading these mewling, whining comments, one does not need to wonder why big tech companies are trying to encourage diversity.
The funniest part is that male Slashdot readers actually think their opinions matter on the topic of diversity. So, just for the record, nobody cares what you think. The industry is trying to recruit women because you are so awful to be around, and you are not half as irreplaceable as you think.
It's no wonder shit's so messed up. Look who's been in charge. Big white manbabies.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What i found really incredible is the Asians who made only 14% of the US population had so disproportionate share of the Jobs in the US tech Industry, i dont see nobody complaing about that, i can bet money that most female high tech jobs are Asians too.
There are only two types of female engineers: good engineers and pretty engineers. If she's a good engineer, she usually looks like a brick
I met my wife when I was working in the Valley. She is an Engineer, a very good one to boot
Does she look like a brick? Definitely not !
What? You think I want to marry a brick ??
What I am saying is, there _are_ women working in the Valley and they are pretty suited for their job (no pun intended) but I do agree with you though, we must do everything we can to stop hem feminazis from creating even more havoc in our workplace
It sounds like your Santa Clara based company is the running gag.
Is there a way to reclaim Slashdot from this constant barrage of psychological assault on IT professionals by outsiders?
I'm a bit of a nerd and I'm an IT professional. This place used to be a place to find news of interest to nerds and IT professionals. Now it's a place where there's going to be a daily article about how shitty a person I am and how shitty my industry is.
Is this what the rest of you guys come here for? To get shit on daily? It's kinda feeling like Slashdot has just become a bad habit I do when I'm bored because I've done it so many times before.
Is your target audience people who are nerds, or is it people who are envious of nerds? It's kinds feeling like this place has become the latter.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
According to the EEO-1 document that you linked, the company has slightly more than 50% minorities. The gender gap still remains in this country but it is rapidly narrowing in every field. I don't get why, on hand you support diversity, and on the other hand you have a strong xenophobic slant.
Most shocking to me is that we still try to force people into categories such as White or Black. There are so many shades of gray. I'm still dreaming of one day when we won't be asked that question. I tried enrolling my son in kindergarten and they wouldn't let me turn in the form unless I answered the race question. Apparently human is insufficient.
I read these meaningless PR releases utterly devoid of any context (proportion of female applicants, proportion of female applicants meeting the skill requirements etc.) and find myself getting rather annoyed as they seem to suggest that employees in these companies, the whole industry, and by inference, I, did not get a job through merit but because of some kind of gender bias.
But then I read posts straight out of Mad Men like this one, purportedly written by someone who would have a say in hiring, and I think that maybe somewhere behind this whole misguided campaign, there is a very real problem.
- The reference to women as 'girls'. Do it in a bar, not in a professional context, not to a colleague, not in written professional communication.
- 'Brightening up the workplace'? Really?
- That running gag in your company - do the female employees share in it? Or there literally aren't any?
You can claim it's all bar chatter and you're all professional at work, but your office really does not sound like one where women would feel comfortable working.
Today, in other news, Slashdot says:
innocent adults are easy to convince they committed a serious crime
http://science.slashdot.org/story/15/01/18/003201/innocent-adults-are-easy-to-convince-they-commited-a-serious-crime
find a link between this and affirmative support for womyn :)
The very best engineers, programmers and wizards are not school taught - they are autodidact.
To the point that many have a CS education, that is only pro-forma so they fulfill employment requirements.
Anyone who takes CS to learn CS is already behind. If you actually learned something you didn't already know, you probably didn't have much of an interest or a knack in the first place.
To get more [insert favorite minority] into STEM/CS, the members of [insert favorite minority] have to take an interest in it. Schools can't teach you the drive and curiosity that makes you worth keeping as an employee. They can only teach you what you can pick up in a fraction of the time by reading and playing around.
To expect to be a successful engineer because your parents sent you to UCB is as silly as expecting to be a successful musician because you took music classes. Without an inner drive and interest, it won't do much good.
And the problem is that women in general don't take a personal interest in maths, science, engineering or similar. That has to come first.
There are only two types of female engineers: good engineers and pretty engineers. If she's a good engineer, she usually looks like a brick. If she's pretty, she usually doesn't know the difference between an int and a struct.
There are three, actually. The third type is "has a partner already", which is why your spermotoxicosis from not getting any pussy is getting to your brain so much.
Whenever I see a diversity figure of something like 30%, it's usually described along the lines of "not great". So what percentage would be "great"? At what point can we say the diversity is good enough? Or that it is a realistic reflection of the numbers of those actually interested in the industry for each group? Or are we trying to engineer some even split for some purpose? Because an exact 50/50 split sounds unrealistic to me.
My theory for why we lack women in science (not sure about engineering) is that science is structured to reward individual prowess. You get a PhD by doing your own work.
I was an assistant director of a lab. The men in the lab all pretty much stayed in their swimming lane. The women were busy socializing with one another. Since we had a lab, they had a place to socialize and myself and the director had no problems with them socializing over their research or anything else. The research produced by the men and women were more or less comparable.
Most science is not so welcoming to socialized problem solving, women need to socialize and hence feel that science is either not for them or is structured by males for males. I expect a similar dynamic happens in engineering.
The subject material of science is also not encouraging of social interaction. It has an abstract, unidirectional air that men find appealing and women do not, generally speaking. I don't find it odd there are so few women in science. Unless the process of how science is pursued is changed, and more cross-disciplinary science is encouraged, I don't see most efforts at encouraging women in science being successful.
There are only two types of female engineers: good engineers and pretty engineers.
Yeah, no prejudice at all...
"Microsoft, for example, reported its workforce is 29% female, which isn't great,"
Who says it isn't great? Why, the nation-wrecking JEWS, that's who! The JEWS who own your entire media, and tell you what "everybody" thinks, and you actually believe them!
http://balder.org/judea/Hate-Speech-Laws-Immigration-Jewish-Influence-Britain.php
I tried reading it, but when it started going on about non-white left-handed females born under an earth sign who prefer pepsi it made my head spin.
I might have to draw a Venn Diagram.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Why would a woman do actual work, when she can easily marry someone who does, have children, then divorce and receive, child support and alimony. Women have a discentive to make more than the husband. There is a reason women make 77 cents on the dollar - they need to in order to win the divorce.
I'm amazed this article actually got through, as it doesn't mention 'climate change' (LOL). Slashdot is just another JEW mouthpiece nowadays, pushing white genocide, under the guise of so-called 'diversity'.
WHO exactly is terrified of white people just living in their OWN countries, minding their own business? Why, the eternal Jew, who can't do manual labour, can't grow his own food, or do anything else of value.
Please stop disrupting our narrative with actual facts.
see subject
I'm serious. This is happening because of Democrats being in control of the regulatory apparatus of the federal government. No shocker there. If you want to stop being harassed about identity politics issues, elect Republicans. You get a different basket of annoyances there, but you'll stop hearing about this, at least.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Thank you so much! Why is it only a problem one way with high paying jobs but not with truck drivers or trash collectors or any other job that isn't great. Although pretty engineers can be good engineers.
Well, that's pretty interesting. If it's true, that non-white women are much keener on working in IT than white wome, that pretty much proves that there must be cultural factors at play and it's not simply a case of "women just don't want to".
Very interesting!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The running gag in our Santa Clara based company is this:
There are only two types of female engineers: good engineers and pretty engineers. If she's a good engineer, she usually looks like a brick. If she's pretty, she usually doesn't know the difference between an int and a struct.
You're so close you can't even see it. You're part of the problem. Your work environment is openly hostile to women.
I know a couple trash collectors. They don't crack jokes like that. They're also not going around saying how they'd love to have more women with them. Telling people you want more women is a huge indicator that women probably won't like working there. I've never accepted a position at a company specifically wanting more women to please their men.
Please please please girls, we need you to brighten up our workplace. But we need good engineers, not pretty ones!
That's disgusting. I wish you named your company.
To get more [insert favorite minority] into STEM/CS, the members of [insert favorite minority] have to take an interest in it.
Schools can't teach you the drive and curiosity that makes you worth keeping as an employee.
Yup. But they can kill your curiosity. If you are tough enough to survive school, get degree and not loose that curiosity ... you are welcome.
To expect to be a successful engineer because your parents sent you to UCB is as silly as expecting to be a successful musician because you took music classes. Without an inner drive and interest, it won't do much good.
Do not forget about TIME spent in training out of school. For violin you start at 5y and dedicate all spare time (eg social activities) for training. With martial arts - similar thing. And what is best - success rate is small and there is no reward for being "2nd class". And what is very best in this - you cannot give bonus points instead of time spent at training. .... Unless SJW will decide who can enter into field ...
And the problem is that women in general don't take a personal interest in maths, science, engineering or similar. That has to come first.
women can be very dedicated in what they are planning. Like becoming carrier model - this too takes time and hard work.
Perhaps thy do not want to spend so much on engineering prerequisites. And what is most funny - this is not in school activity - it is what you are doing with your "free time" in early years.
I'm a physicist, my field has a long history of domination by men, and very particular types of men. Our argument has long been that we are a hard meritocracy. If you can do physics, you can succeed, period.
It is only recently that I have understood that monoculture in physics has greatly damaged my field. Having people with actual different points of view intellectually and personally prevents blind spots, encourages more creative approaches, and creates much needed internal critical dialogue. This is the core of the argument for diversity, but having someone who looks different parroting the common assumptions isn't diversity. Without diverse points of view, we really are just replaceable cogs in a technology producing business engine. Our different approaches to life and problem solving make us valuable, not just technical skills. The lack of gender diversity in physics is a symptom of repression of diverse thought, not the cause. Fix the fundamental issue, and we will see more women interested in participating in the field.
Rather than hand wringing over demographics, we should be passing around articles talking about what diversity actually means. What does a "diverse technical team" actually mean? Why is that a good thing? This is where the discussion needs to start.
His example was a female student who couldn't work in group which was otherwise all males.
That is sexism, she is sexist. I had a female CS major in my class, she was pretty much the only female is most of the classes. She didn't care if some of the men were "awkward", she had no trouble in the class or the major for that matter.
I myself have been in groups at work (and at school) where I was the only male. I was able to work just fine, because I don't have any trouble with women and treat them professional as they do me.
Beware anyone who claims to have trouble if they are the only one of some self-identified group and uses that as an excuse for not being able to work.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
women can be very dedicated in what they are planning. Like becoming carrier model - this too takes time and hard work.
Ah. You mean my sister-in-law. Yeah, she could have modeled for a carrier.
>Anyone who takes CS to learn CS is already behind. If you actually learned something you didn't already know, you probably didn't have much of an interest or a knack in the first place.
Not to rain on your parade but, good lord, what kind of loser CS program did your school have? My CS program included things like VLSI design as an advanced course (and it rocked).
If you want to get your money's worth out of post-secondary education, go to a school that doesn't suck. You'd think an auto-didact would know that.
women can be very dedicated in what they are planning. Like becoming carrier model - this too takes time and hard work.
Ah. You mean my sister-in-law. Yeah, she could have modeled for a carrier.
Thank you for correcting spelling mistake. English is not my first language. And this machine does not have English spell checker.
s/carrier/career/g
Anything else that I can do for you?
Thank you for correcting spelling mistake. English is not my first language.
You're welcome. Nether is it mine. Nor is it my second language.
Buorre Beaivi!
s/carrier/career/g
Anything else that I can do for you?
Save cycles and don't use the g option when not needed. With sed not being my first scripting language, I propose: /^w/s/carri/a caree/1 ;)
See subject BarbaraHudson + a link with you quoted in it doing so http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
How many sockpuppets ya got (to upmod yourself/downmod apk) http://science.slashdot.org/co... ? Nobody cares if you're a transsexual BarbaraHudson: We do care if you're a cheater that games the moderation system via sockpuppet use though. You've got 3 accounts we know of, which most assuredly points to you having far more for the purpose of cheating moderation. Your posts, suck, and you suck at computing evidenced here http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Never ascribe to sexism that which can be easily explained by malice.
Same goes for racism.
If I want to insult you, and you're a woman, then any good insulting lines will automatically appear to be sexist, merely because I'm male. But sexism or racism are based on the mens rea of the one being accused of said behaviour: they have to be thinking that they need insulting *because of their sex*, when the answer can be that they are being insulted on their sex *to insult them*.
I want to insult a jewish boy? Call him "kike" or "roundhead". I want to insult a tech nerd WASP? I'll call him a neckbeard. Something women cannot, generally, grow, hence sexist.
Laddish behaviour.
And so on,
Apparently you CAN use the child-associative noun with an entire group without being sexist. At least, that is, if it's men you're infantalising.
When we were young, my parents managed to always have a computer around for my brother and myself. When it came to doing "boy" stuff, I was encouraged to do that, but when it came down to actually doing it, it was my brother who got the time to do it. With some interests, I also occasionally heard "you might hurt yourself", whereas for my brother, it was ok.
My interest in computers and skill was evident (including to the point of fixing the computers at school while I was still a student). But when it came time for me to go to university, all of a sudden "you can do anything" became "you have to go to university here because the awesome tech university you want to go to is across the country and is a scary place for young women".
I persisted in tech regardless (despite programming not being available in my small school), and by and large, most people I've met in tech are ok. But I've also met quite a few people who
- ignore my expertise and only ask the guys in the room about tech stuff
- tell me I shouldn't go after certain jobs, training, or promotions because my biological clock is ticking (acquaintances and complete strangers)
- mansplaining (oh god, the mansplaining), and being talked over
God help a woman who decides to "have it all", too - they're a bad mother. But when that's the case, no one asks why the husband isn't stepping up to the plate to help with family chores more (or when they do, they are often mocked or treated badly by men and women - which is a whole other discussion).
I know that's personal anectodes, but it would probably help if people didn't pidgeonhole females so much, and tell them what they can't do and tell them what they want. It ought to get better with more generations, but I doubt the way parents shelter and baby their children, especially girls, is helping much. Women can be just as bad for reinforcing female stereotypes as the men are. Women's value is still in doing girly things and looking pretty. The few role models in industry or business still get judged on those aspects. Being told all those things, repeatedly, for your entire life can really take a toll. It is just so much easier to conform.
It's not drive that's a problem. It's that the drive is constantly beaten out of them.
Pidgeonholing men and telling them how they're supposed to be is a problem too - but again, that's a whole other discussion. Same problems, but the rules are just different.
Can we just all agree to stop being shitty to each other and including others who want to be included?
I don't know, can you? Seems unlikely, as you used that term "mansplaining". And you know that thing about being talked over? You know who it happens to? EVERYBODY. People talk over each other all the time. Some people are worse than others about doing it. Some people are better than others at countering it. But when you demand that women, specifically, shouldn't be talked over, you're demanding special treatment. But of course if you actually got special treatment, you'd deride it as patronizing. So no, we can't agree to stop being shitty to each other, because there's nothing you can't define as shitty.
Your coworkers aren't your parents; they aren't responsible for them. And if you asked them, you'd probably find a few (male) who got similar overprotective shit from their parents -- maybe they were their only child or their only son, for instance. But of course if they mentioned it to you, you'd yell about "mansplaining". Because a man pointing out that life's tough all over is "mansplaining". But, life remains tough all over, just the same.