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Microsoft Uses US Women's Soccer Team To Explain Why It Doesn't Hire More Women
theodp writes: "It is not surprising that the U.S. women have been dominant in the sport [of soccer] in recent years. The explanation for that success lies in the talent pipeline," writes General Manager of Citizenship & Public Affairs Lori Forte Harnick on The Official Microsoft Blog. "Said another way, many girls in the U.S. have the opportunity to learn how to play soccer and, as a result, they benefit from the teamwork, skill development and fun involved. That's the kind of opportunity I would like to see develop for the technology sector, which presents a different, yet perhaps even more significant, set of opportunities for girls and young women. Unfortunately, the strength in the talent pipeline that we see in female soccer today is not the reality for technology. The U.S. is facing a shortage of Computer Science (CS) graduates. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, every year there are close to 140,000 jobs requiring a CS degree, but only 40,000 U.S. college graduates major in CS, which means that 100,000 positions go unfilled by domestic talent." Going with the soccer analogy, one thing FIFA realized that Microsoft didn't is that if you want girls to play your sport, you don't take away their ball!
There are more women working at MS that women contributing to the Linux community.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Some engineering degrees (Computer, Electrical), math degrees, etc. can be used in lieu of a CS degree provided you can prove you can code.
This is all pandering to the need that companies HAVE to go get H1-B's, when the reality is no, there is PLENTY of local talent that can do these jobs.
When I studied CS there were 5 women and 200 guys in my class. With that in mind, complaining about an IT company not hiring many woman is nonsense.
The important part of the article that was left out of the summary is that Microsoft is trying to address the problem by funding programs that encourage girls to get into the talent pipeline at a young age and stick with it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Only girls used BASIC? Who knew? Seriously, that's a pretty far reach. You're trying too hard to make this someone else's problem. The bottom line is that girls aren't as interested in technology as a general rule. Sure, they like to play games, use their phone to chat, etc. But rarely do I meet a female who is passionate about digging down into the guts of why things work, and fixing them when they don't. As long as you have a 10:1 ratio of interest, you're going to have a 10:1 ratio in the sector. It's not discrimination. I see more opportunities for women in the field these days than ever before. We can't as a society force equity to the point where you have an equal mix in every sector. We can strive to ensure that everyone has the same opportunities. I think we're there now, and what we're trying to do is force an equality beyond what anyone really desires, or would be beneficial for the individual, the sector, or the public as a whole.
Microsoft has enough money to not only open its own educational facilities and provide incentive for CS-minded students to attend them, it has enough money to build them worldwide.
As a tech marketing lady I met observed, the men make the stuff and the women sell it in our industry. She added "maybe that's because we're smarter about getting paid!"
Might help if Microsoft, among others, stopped supporting increased tech H1-B quotas. They tend to depress wages and working conditions, making the "pipeline" we're trying to promote less attractive than, say, marketing. Or doctoring or lawyering. There are only so many really smart people to go around, so one profession's gain is another profession's loss. Design engineers seem to have plateaued around very roughly $100K. That's an OK living, but not exactly what I'd call professional earnings.
So the argument is that because more women don't take Computer Science degrees that results in less women being hired, so don't take Computer Science away from them?
Very few women actually enroll in Computer Science / Engineering Programs, as a result this means that the talent pool from which to hire from contains less females vs males. This doesn't mean that big commons don't want to hire women, it just means that there aren't a lot of qualified women pick from.
The biggest Problem for women in tech right now is the people who will not stop talking about the problems for women in tech.
It's 2015. We've been through the sexual revolution, equal pay struggles, and even the girl power movement became old 15 years ago. Women today have skills, opportunity and education and most companies are bending over backwards to accomidate women in the workforce and indeed are reaping the benefit of such. It's a great time to be in tech, and a woman in tech besides... ...Except, for everyone in tech, there is one group of people who will not stop talking about women like it's 1955. Hipsters on blogs endlessly proclaiming that the tech industry is chronically saturated with troglodytes, that women cannot get a break, that geeks are habitually evil sexist white male nerds who fight to keep females out of their "fiefs". That we need more and more and more stories, and anecdotes, and drives to shame us all into being even more open, because the openness which tech achieved on its own is not good enough. We must listen to and pay handsomely a host of consultants, and journalists, and cultural critics in order that we might be saved from the original sins of privileged cis nerd geekdom.
"What's that you say? You don't believe you are sexist? You should be ashamed! Here's another horror story about some frail young petal who was digitally raped by some guy on some social media whatever. See, tech is a cesspool. You nerds are horrible. Even your hobbies oppress women. Do as I say or I'll call up your employer and get them to sack you."
These people, are a plague. Their hysteria is scaring women away from tech, and generating resentment inside it. This is what happens when you politicise an industry, and make no mistake Politiicisation is the driving factor here. This industry, this industry that is trying to raise humanity upwards, is being sucked down into the swamp of tribal culture wars and identity politics. This is a black hole from which there is no escape. Tech companies need to start ignoring these people and their reactionary moral panics, and focus on the positive, like we did all along. Geeks can achieve equal workplaces by itself, which is more than can be said for Hipsters.
Whew, I thought his analogy would be a more foot-in-the-mouth comment along the lines of: despite the pipeline for girl soccer development, they still couldn't compete within men's leagues.
Why don't you try offering them MORE MONEY, and watch the problem resolve itself! It might not be cool, but classic labor Economics still works in the 21st century.
Of course, Microsoft (or any other big tech company) doesn't really have a reason to do that as long as they can get a bunch of cheap H1-B workers to fill the positions instead.
Is this statistic really true? Are those 140,000 net new jobs, or just job openings that exist for some period of time during the year?
The article cites but does not link to a source for this statistic.
Also, a CS degree is a long, tough slog through dull material that has dubious relevance to most jobs that require a CS degree.
that's what FIFA is good at.
Hey, are we talking about the same Microsoft which has been purging workers for years?
Oh wait, you mean billion dollar tech companies like Google or Intel who shit their shorts whenever feminists say "discrimination", and "lack of diversity", and "toxic work environment"? Billion dollar companies like those?
Right, that's why more women become teachers than engineers. The money is better...
The story submitter and/or editors clearly had some agenda here in using a misleadingly suggestive title.
Fortunately, in technology as in soccer, nobody has taken away the ball, and the women that are interested in the field have just as much if not more opportunity than males to learn, study and pursue a career in Computer Science, and the whole article is bullcrap.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Enough of the gender/race baiting nonsense.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I'm beyond tired of the 'LOOMING SHORTAGE' bullsh*t. When the CS unemployment rate drops below 2% and salaries start rising 10% per year, I'll pay attention. It's been at least 20 years since we started hearing this garbage.
This is an incredibly dishonest way to frame this guy's remarks. Slashdot and Dice should be ashamed.
The 140,000 number compared to 40,000 graduates is a ridiculous comparison and why most authors don't know about statistics. It is shallow analysis to get people riled up while spreading FUD. There is not a gap between graduates or those who have graduated and are looking for a job. There is a mismatch between what HR wants including what they will pay versus the pool they have to choose from. They are on a purple squirrel hunt and articles like this try to push the STEM agenda which does not really help with why we really need STEM within the curriculum.
This is a common tactic used to keep the H1B-type labor programs going in Congress. You get a bonus with H1B labor programs keeping domestic labor costs down and therefore depressing the number of entrants in the field.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
And, with the incredible amount of wasteful digital projects that consume human labor, I question whether we really NEED 140,000 new computer people each year. I'd say about half of the projects I have worked on within the last decade have been canceled before completion. Mine can't be the only company engaged in such misdirected waste. Do we really need so many Linux distributions? Does MS really need to shuffle the features around in its latest operating system? Why do the newer web browsers seem to work worse than their predecessors? How does craigslist.com work so well using, zOMG!, HTML with plain fonts? Do touchscreens need to be everywhere? Do automobiles need so many microprocessors and networks(?!) to where they are now at the point of dubious stability? Does anyone really think that the "Internet of things" is going to live up to its hype when anyone over the age of 40 remembers how we were already promised a Jetsons-like paradise in the late 1990s, when the Java virtual machine was going to connect our dishwasher to our toaster? VRML anyone? Virtual Boy (now called "Oculus Rift")?
It's like a thousand-pound man is asking for his second bag of potato chips when really he needs a diet.
I don't know why this Chestnut keeps being dragged out.
They whine about a "talent shortage" because they can't find the talent, They want, and the PRICE they want to pay.
So cry me a river, seriously.
Keep QQing about a talent shortage all you like though.
That keyword, is a pure bold faced lie. They keep screaming it to get stupid laws passed like H1B, they are among the richest, and yet even after us IT people's abilities gave them BILLIONS they still want to treat us like replaceable light bulbs.
Fuck microsoft, I hope someone burns their shit to the ground from the inside.
The reason why more Americans don't get a CS degree is that American Companies don't want to hire them. A number of years back my son graduated from a top university with a degree in CS. It took him a year to get a job. If he was from outside the USA he would have gotten a job faster. The programming field is flooded with programmers most of them foreigners so there isn't much incentive for an American to get into such a crowed field.
Wow, to aspire to the high moral standard of FIFA leadership in maintaining fairness for all.
Nullius in verba
The reason women succeed at soccer is that there are no men in that field in the US.
That's Blue Ocean strategic thinking: if you want to succeed, go to uncontested markets.
AFAIK, FIFA doesn't give free footballs/training/facilities to women, but Microsoft gives free IDEs and documentation to everyone https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-express-vs.aspx
And for any women that might express discomfort with the fact that the workplace is primarily male as a disincentive apply to such a place, I would suggest that is ultimately just a manifestation of their own insecurities (cue the feminists who will call me a misogynist upon reading that)... but my point is that it is *THEY* who are focusing on the gender differences, and not necessarily Microsoft In a work environment that may happen to be dominated by the opposite gender, where one can otherwise perform all of the duties that the job demands with sufficient competency, about the only legitimate reason I can think of that one would have to really experience any discomfort is concerns about sexual harassment. But there are laws that govern that anyways, and a mechanism by which people who engage in such actions can be brought to justice. Some people are sincerely afraid to leave their house alone too... simply because they think they might get mugged. One can either allow fear to paralyze them, or take control of their own life and try and do whatever it is that you want to do. One can't control what other people may or may not do to you, so they really shouldn't worry about that. If one is a woman and finds that you have an aptitude for STEM, then by all means they should enter a field relevant to that, and *NOT* worry about what other people *might* do. Otherwise, they are no different than the agoraphobic who stays indoors because they believe something bad will happen to them if they go out.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It irritates me every time I hear this ruddy nonsense that keeps spewing out of Seattle and San Fransisco that we're not cranking out enough computer science graduates.
Hey Microsoft! Newsflash! Computer science majors rise and fall as starting salaries rise and fall.
If you want to see more majors, raise your starting salaries. Stop firing everyone and outsourcing to India.
"every year there are close to 140,000 jobs requiring a CS degree, but only 40,000 U.S. college graduates major in CS, which means that 100,000 positions go unfilled by domestic talent."
And this would be a logical inference if the only people looking for jobs were that year's college graduates.
But, actually, very few job openings are filled by fresh-outs.
Conclusion: mIsleading and false.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
that last comment about taking away their ball and that article. strawman? it takes nearly 0 effort to set up a general purpose dev env in windows.
And in addition the summary praises FIFA for
one thing FIFA realized that Microsoft didn't is that if you want girls to play your sport, you don't take away their ball!
Well they didn't try to take away the ball but tried it on the non-skimpy shorts and succeeded on the natural gras. ......
Now if that sets a standard on what the author of the summary expects from companies to do to entice women to come to IT
Because FIFA paid the LOSERS in men's soccer more than they paid the winners in women's soccer.
-- Will program for bandwidth
It seems video gaming developers is a men only need apply career too. While I agree that more woman need to get involved, I see that in many cases woman simply are working for places like Microsoft and Google in other areas. Not necessarily in computer science but still involved in working in technology. Let's also not forget that FIFA pays very little to woman soccer athletes vs the men. Plus the men have a much better opportunity after the FIFA league to succeed.
The burn out with computer science is pretty big too. Maybe woman are smarter and pick jobs with more free time, less stress and a longevity that is better?
Its like how many woman work on oil rigs? Better question, how many really want too?
Why would anybody, in their right mind, get a CS or IT degree if they knew how shitty the environment was?
Microsoft and every other tech company: We want talent, but we don't want to pay for it. Give us more H1-B workers to cut the average salary, please.
Game corps: We slave-drive our workers, because it's better to take young talent and burn them out so they leave before they get too expensive. Which is why we're always re-inventing wheels.
IT: Dealing with really ungrateful idiots every day, all week, all year. The higher-up the chain, the stupider (with tech) they are.
Why would anyone, male or female, bother to get into this?
Fuck it. Play soccer.
--
BMO
#1 the companies want a glut of workers so they can pay them nothing and use them as tools discarding when completed.
#2 Women being slightly smarter than men don't WANT to go into an industry built on virtual slavery and worker abuse. In general they aren't as flexible or willing to commit as much to a career given the option of a family, there are of course exceptions everywhere, but as long as the IT industry is run like a feudal system that thrives on worker sacrifice it is unlikely to achieve a balance of genders. You can't hire those who don't apply, and you can't force women into a educational course they don't want to pursue.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Let's see how the women's soccer team does against the men's soccer team. So the unspoken argument is that you should hire inferior people to fill the role.
Somehow, I do not think that is the message they want to get across.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
During the 2008 recession and for the next several years I was bombarded with constant job offers looking for programmers, all starting pay in the top 25% of the local economy. That was when I was fresh out of college. There are a lot of jobs. My current job can never find enough programmers and I'm getting involved with the hiring process.
There are not enough good programmers.
I knew a woman who was an outstanding computer programmer at Microsoft. When she got breast cancer they replaced her. She was devastated. Press releases and HR speak are nice but let's see if they really do anything that actually helps.
If there really is such a shortage of CS grads then pay the tuition for all of them or stop whining...and stop running to Congress for more H1B. It cannot always be on the shoulders of others to generate and foster talent.
Sorry, I hear lots of Brahmin excuses for why they don't hire women or Untouchables in this.
Just Do It.
Seriously, I've met many highly educated women who would work in STEM if hiring managers and top execs would just hire them.
Excuses don't matter.
Actions do.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Indeed, I've seen issues with coders on either end.
A lot of people who are very book-savvy (CS degree etc) are terrible at creative thinking or at dealing with a "server on fire" issue. What they're good at is formal coding that follows fairly established principals, and - and people often understate this - formatting. In most cases one predominant advantage to somebody who is formally taught is that their code is fairly readable to somebody who is knowledgeable in the field (depending on where they studied, it may even be a bit verbose).
Now the self-taught guys/gals... they're good at thinking on-the-fly and learning stuff for themselves, because that's how they learned in the first place. They tend to be more driven by curiosity and willing to experiment as well (which can be good or bad). These are often great people to have when it comes to unusual issues which require out-of-the-box solutions, unfortunately it also tends to give you code with shit variables like
$a = $z += ($x * $b)
or in other cases... well, no cases (a lot of IF/ELSE statements instead of a case/switch).
There are lots of other degrees within the specialty other than just C.S. degrees and in 2011, 28% of those employed in Computer occupations had less than a bachelors degree. Additionally, since 2009, the occupation has only grown by 69,610, -- not 140,000 per year, more like 14,000 per year.
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