Research Suggests 'CS For All' May Mean Lower Pay For All

theodp writes: The NY Times reports that new research suggests as women take over a male-dominated field, the pay drops. "A striking example," writes Claire Cain Miller, "is to be found in the field of recreation — working in parks or leading camps — which went from predominantly male to female from 1950 to 2000. Median hourly wages in this field declined 57 percentage points, accounting for the change in the value of the dollar, according to a complex formula used by Professor Levanon. The job of ticket agent also went from mainly male to female during this period, and wages dropped 43 percentage points. The same thing happened when women in large numbers became designers (wages fell 34 percentage points), housekeepers (wages fell 21 percentage points) and biologists (wages fell 18 percentage points). The reverse was true when a job attracted more men. Computer programming, for instance, used to be a relatively menial role done by women. But when male programmers began to outnumber female ones, the job began paying more and gained prestige." Addressing concerns raised about gender pay equity in tech, Amazon recently told the SEC to get off its case, explaining that it's working with organizations such as Code.org, the Anita Borg Institute and Girls Who Code to increase women's involvement in the technology industry. But even if such efforts achieve pay parity, will CS for All result in lower pay for all?

Comments

Re:SJW crap

[vel-ex-tech]

Yeah, +5 for that misogynist crap.

Your cisgendered hunnies frankly lack passion when it comes to anything else other than spinning some kind of FEEL GUILTY narrative. I suppose if I had all the privileges of a cisfemale in today's world, I might not have been too different. I'd like to imagine I would have been the same person in the end, but I'm not stupid enough to think that all the bad shit I went through that cisfemales have the privilege of being even unaware they had the privilege of avoiding hasn't helped make me the insane misanthrope I am today.

I'll tell you the breadth and scope of the interest every cisfemale who has ever gone "I wanna be a programmer" was envisioning: they wanted my job. When they found out that the reason I had my job was because I combine areas of expertise from system administration to programming and multiple OS paradigms such as Windows, Linux, OS 7 (back before iThingies) and even back from Second Age of the Internet before Eternal September when a consumer computer just booted to a prompt where one could type in a program in BASIC. No DOS, nothing. Just a prompt. And I'm on the young side here. I missed all the fun of the First Age of the Internet when Ma Bell wouldn't let modems connect directly to the phone system and tic-tac-toe games were programmed on punch cards.

I realize I started a sentence there but never finished it. Every cisfemale who has ever gone "I wanna be a programmer" was envisioning having my job. When they found out that the reason I have my job is because of extensive experience brought about by utter passion, suddenly I became the sexist who was just making everything too technical because for some reason I think cisfemales shouldn't be programmers. I see no neurological reason cisfemales cannot be programmers. After all, I've got the same wetware in my head and the same hormones in my blood. The difference is socialization. It was made utterly clear to me that if I wasn't the fucking best, I'd be a fucking homeless bum.

Yeah, I'm being half-facetious here by comparing the evolution of information systems to the history of Middle Earth, but I hope it drives the point home. The reason I know shit is because I was passionate about it. I wanted to know where it came from and where it was going. I'd never imagine that I'd be carrying around a supercomputer in my pocket that I'm unable to program myself simply because of digital restrictions management.

Everybody has their reason why we buried ourselves in this shit, why we slept it, ate it, drank it, etc. I lived in a world I couldn't understand. My genitals hurt because I had to be cut up all for your cisfemale hunnies. I knew I was a girl. I even had a teacher confirm that I acted like a girl, but she also informed me I would need to be punished simply because of the gender I was assigned at birth. So, I dove into technology.

What did it get me? I was promised millions. I currently have nothing but a pile of shit to show for it in the end.

Frankly, I really don't give a shit about your cisgendered hunnies. The one thing people like you need to get through your tiny little heads is that there is nothing standing in their way.

Well, there is one thing. I'm sure in an alternate reality I was able to buy the cosmetic surgery I had wished I'd be able to buy with my millions (really, only roughly $20,000 as a high estimate), GP and I might have run into each other, and his mind would have been blown that this hot chick is talking about how to troubleshoot his double free with him over lunch. Of course, his mind would be unblown upon finding out I was assigned the male gender, the expendable gender, at birth. (I think I've said before I've come around to a revelation about TERFs. They're exactly right, and they're exactly wrong, with apologies to Captain Sulu.)

I'll leave you with one last thing. I've recently learned that your cisgendered hunnies have their heads so far up their asses they've managed to fin

Re:SJW crap

[AmiMoJo]

I know women who are extremely passionate about CS. Just because you and the OP don't, doesn't mean there is something inherent about being female that makes a person disinterested in engineering or certain branches of science.

Fuck you and your political correctness red herring. The statement was a best idiotic, but more likely born of a condescending, arrogant belief that women are somehow inferior and just incapable of being good engineers. It's bigotry, plain and simple.