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Google's Diversity Chief: Mamas Don't Let Their Baby Girls Grow Up To Be Coders
theodp writes: Explaining the reasons for its less-than-diverse tech workforce, Google fingered bad parenting for its lack of women techies. From the interview with Google Director of Diversity and Inclusion Nancy Lee: "Q. What explains the drop [since 1984] in women studying computer science? A. We commissioned original research that revealed it's primarily parents' encouragement, and perception and access. Parents don't see their young girls as wanting to pursue computer science and don't steer them in that direction. There's this perception that coding and computer science is ... a 'brogrammer' culture for boys, for games, for competition. There hasn't been enough emphasis on the power computing has in achieving social impact. That's what girls are interested in. They want to do things that matter." While scant on details, the Google study's charts appear to show that, overall, fathers encourage young women to study CS more than mothers. Google feels that reeducation is necessary. "Outreach programs," advises Google, "should include a parent education component, so that parents learn how to actively encourage their daughters."
Feminism is a belief system. The primary tenet of this belief system is that men and women have on average, exactly the same brains, interests, capacities, goals, desires and approaches to work.
This tenet is absurd and provably false. ...But logic and feminism have never mixed anyway.
heard this last millennium: little boys want a place to 'perform', while little girls want a place to 'relate'.
there is no power in being a corporate droid programmer, what a load of bullshit. So corporate america wants to increase the number of coders and we should change our child rearing accordingly? And this STEM push is bullshit also, why are they not also having advanced classes in the fine arts and humanities? neither my son nor daughter are being encouraged to be coders, if they desire that on their own that's fine
Same as for males, actually.
Human beings in general aren't very rational, even though we may think we are. Those who have these grand notions of purpose behind their actions are usually merely very good at rationalising.
not that they are incapable of logic, but emotion is their fundamental mental underpinning
Really? And that must be why there are more battered husbands shelters than battered wives shelters ... oh wait ...
And why most murders are committed by women ... darn, again not true ...
How about most recipients of the darwin awards being women? ... oops -
Sex differences in risk seeking behaviour, emergency hospital admissions, and mortality are well documented. However, little is known about sex differences in idiotic risk taking behaviour. This paper reviews the data on winners of the Darwin Award over a 20 year period (1995-2014). Winners of the Darwin Award must eliminate themselves from the gene pool in such an idiotic manner that their action ensures one less idiot will survive. This paper reports a marked sex difference in Darwin Award winners: males are significantly more likely to receive the award than females
So, women are more emotional and men are idiots?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
From now on, I'm modding up any troll posts in these bs threads. This is beyond ridiculous.
Why would *anyone* encourage their child, regardless of gender, to spend a decade or more training for what is quickly becoming a minimum-wage job at best.
We should instead be encouraging kids to become investment bankers, hedge fund managers or politicians.
Google fingered bad parenting for its lack of women techies.
More like: Google disagrees with their parenting.
Just because their values as parents didn't agree with your values today, Or your general desire to have more people in computer science, in order to reduce wages, Or your desire to have more diversity among computer scientists to help you comply with arbitrary government-imposed regulations on your employee population : does not make them bad parents.
Although GP is clearly a troll, you are attacking his point fallaciously.
1. Even if men were by far the most emotional irrational beings on earth, that would not disprove "emotion is [females'] fundamental mental underpinning"
2. Risk taking, murder and aggression are not necessarily driven by emotion. It's a fine line, but technically those behaviors can be (and might often be) about attaining social status or power.
3. There is evidence that there should be many more 'husband shelters' and that their lack is driven largely by a culture of (implicitly) shaming 'weak men', not by a lack of battered husbands.
Let me state clearly that I do not agree with the GP. The only thing I'm trying to do here is point out some logical fallacies in the hope that this will improve the quality of the discussion.
Really? And that must be why there are more battered husbands shelters than battered wives shelters ...
60-70% of domestic violence is initiated by women. The reason we don't have "battered men" shelters is that it is socially acceptable for women to be violent, and that any man that "can't handle it" isn't a real man, and should be ashamed of himself. In the media, when women are depicted as violent toward their partners, it is almost always supposed to be funny.
It would seem to me that if you need to be "reeducating" kids about what they want, you're doing something wrong. Let's examine a few of these points in the summary.
Parents don't see their young girls as wanting to pursue computer science and don't steer them in that direction.
And... should they be? You seem to be coming at this from the perspective that it doesn't matter what the individuals want, there should be more women in tech because reasons.
There's this perception that coding and computer science is ... a 'brogrammer' culture for boys, for games, for competition.
A couple thoughts on this point. This retarded "brogrammer" media push has happened much more recently than 1984. I seriously doubt that people perceived it the same way back then. And even if they do now, you seem to gloss over the fact that it could simply be the result of this shrieking media push about the culture. In other words, it may be that this push has caused the results that you're looking at now.
There hasn't been enough emphasis on the power computing has in achieving social impact. That's what girls are interested in. They want to do things that matter.
Okay, you raging sexist. Let's take it down a notch for a second here. We'll just assume for a moment that you're right and that's what girls are interested in. How is it the case that "achieving social impact" and "things that matter" are the same? What a ridiculous conflation. First off, you assume that social impact is always good. Secondly, you assume that nothing else matters besides social impact. Could these be, I don't know, products of your bias?
Q. What explains the drop [since 1984] in women studying computer science? A. We commissioned original research that revealed it's primarily parents' encouragement, and perception and access.
And now for this point. I looked at the linked abstract and it only focuses on the individual's decision-making process without taking into account factors that the individual may use. For example, it doesn't even bother to look at hours worked. And then has the gall to call the perceptions of the field "flawed." It still blows my mind that every time this comes up, almost nobody talks about the elephant in the room: Women are smarter and value their time better than men in general.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/11/19/gifted-men-earn-more-than-gifted-women-and-they-value-time-differently-but-both-report-being-happy/
http://www.bentley.edu/centers/center-for-women-and-business/millennials-workplace
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/31/professional-women-time_n_1068291.html
There are more if you're curious about this phenomenon.
If we look at the numbers for women in CS, we see:
http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/10/21/womencoding-d463ab944849ed2fce2df3d7d27d2f1c4daa7689.jpg?s=1400
I looked pretty deep trying to find a graph of hours worked in the sector since the mid-1980s (or earlier too), but couldn't find anything. The closest thing I could find was "services" sector hours worked, which I assume includes things like restaurants and so on. Not very useful for this purpose. If hours being worked was a part of the discussion at all, you would think that information would be a bit easier to find. But it's not, despite the fact that it's probably kind of important. If anybody can wrangle that info somehow, I'd love to see it.
That said, if we look at when the Internet hit big (circa 1995), we see a lag time before the sharp dropoff. Once the Internet became popular, 24/7 on call became a common thing and hours worked went way up. If the industry is the input and schooling is the output of that industry, you would expect something like this.
Pissing and moaning about "the culture" doesn't seem all that useful, especially because it paints women as delicate beings that need everyone around them to give them big toothy smiles and pats on the head. I don't deny that there is likely to be a perception problem (or more than one perception problem), but the question is whose perception problem(s) it is/they are.
And that must be why there are more battered husbands shelters than battered wives shelters ... oh wait ...
Did you know most domestic violence in initiated by women? Did you know that by far lesbian relationships have more physical abuse than any other gender pairing? Abused men are just SOL - why do you need support or a shelter? Just man up! Perhaps not an argument for rationality, I'll grant you.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Google presumes to know what is good for boys and girls. They presume to know better than the parents of those boys and girls. They presume to know more than the boys and girls themselves.
I'm sick of all this social engineering. I just want to barf.
What is WRONG with little girls who just want to be girls? Why does every girl have to grow up to compete with the boys for a job? What if she doesn't WANT a job?
Like Obama, Google doesn't WANT women to have the traditional occupation of "home maker". Like Obama, Google places no value on those home makers.
Arrogant SOB's.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Parents don't see their young girls as wanting to pursue computer science
OR
and don't steer them in that direction.
Which is it? I get the feeling it's that girls just aren't that interested. People like to point out that more girls were interested in the 80s but that was a very different era. Few people actually knew what was involved with "programming computers".
All of this effort reminds me of a similar misunderstanding that I came across years ago. In the 50s Lionel decided that girls didn't play with trains because they weren't "girly" enough. They were black and steel and perhaps too boyish. So the genius marketers came up with this:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadsh...
http://www.lionel.com/Products...
Should you wish to see one in person go to Holiday World and check out the old toy museum.
It flopped badly. The reason was simple: girls generally don't like trains, but those who do want an authentic train. Black, steel, menacing - a real train.
Every time I see people trying hard to make computer science appeal to girls I see the same thing. It simply doesn't appeal to most girls, and to those to whom it does appeal it will have that appeal without any sugar coating.
Ultimately, the SJW crowd needs to understand that men and women - and boys and girls - are very different creatures who aren't interested in the same sorts of things. The roots of this are genetic and stem from the social order tens of thousands of years ago. Nothing's going to "fix" it, but, then again, there's nothing to fix.
Do you have ESP?
Stop this bullshit SJW slashdot.