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In China's Booming Tech Scene, Women Battle Sexism and Conservative Values (reuters.com)

In recent years, even as China's tech industry has boomed, many women say they make far less than their male counterpart for the same job. An anonymous reader shares a report: Reuters spoke to more than a dozen women -- and some men -- in the sector, from entry-level employees to executives, who described an industry where female engineers and coders battle against ingrained biases favoring men. "The traditional view is simply to think that women aren't suitable to be programmers," said Chen Bin, a former Microsoft engineer and the Beijing-based founder of Teach Girls Coding, a campaign to get more women into the sector. "Things are better now than ten years ago, but overall the number of women getting into tech is really small," he said.

China is not the only country where the tech industry has faced heat over a lack of diversity in the workplace. But unlike U.S. peers that have faced legal action over discrimination, including Uber, Alphabet's Google and Microsoft, Chinese technology companies are relatively opaque about gender issues. Most give little data on hiring and none of the industry leaders share the diversity reports that are now customary in the United States, shedding doubt on whether women in Chinese firms hold a comparable number of technical or leadership roles.

5 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Oh f---ing jeez by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Had to hear it for years from this side of the pond, now I have to listen to these fake stories from the other side of the pond?

    From my observation, 99% of the time it was due to innate gender differences (guys will geek out over shit much more easily and spend an inordinate amount of time on it while even Asperger girls are more social than their male counterparts). As well as genders valuing different things and taking different career paths and willing to make different sacrifices.

    But whatever, I'm sure I will get enough flak for my view here, but the last 20 years of fake Gamergate/Anita Sarkeesian bullshit was enough. Now I have to hear about it from China. Fuck you clickbait editors.

  2. Re: Trend in China by Escogido · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was born and raised in USSR, well known for its research institutes. Roughly 50% of folks in science were female, partly because the Soviet government aimed to treat men and women equally, and there was absolutely zero bias again women in lab coats. Except in leadership positions obviously - these rightfully belong to the Party.

  3. China will have a very long way on this matter... by XSportSeeker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't wanna sound racist or anything, but unfortunately I think China will have a very long way 'till it gets even close to western countries on this matter, which is still not ideal.
    Setting US aside, let's consider some european countries and whatnot. There are very few countries that are really getting there, but still not quite.

    Currently, China as a society has evolved at unprecedented speeds in comparison to the history of evolution of other societies.

    I still remember a time when China was mostly rural, exporting mostly primary resources, and didn't have much in the way of technology to talk about. This was the case not that long ago. If you are too young to remember this, probably your parents will know.
    Over just a few decades, less than a lifetime, China went rushing through industrial revolution, raising extremely modern metropolis in cities formerly pretty run down and primitive, and now the country is activelly participating at the forefront of technology and research in some areas.

    Some people might not realize this, but it's because lots of people don't really know China. There are cities there that are basically on par with Japan in terms of technology, public transportation, technology in common spaces and whatnot. There are research areas like biomedicine and genetics that China is arguably ahead. Read some of the recent news... China just launched a communication probe in space to aid a mission that will be launched still this year to explore the dark side of the moon.

    It's crazy how fast it has evolved. It almost doesn't make sense when you think about the comparison on how technology evolves versus societies.

    But all that has a huge side effect. China did not evolve uniformly, these transformations had and still has huge costs, and of course things are not that simple.
    It became a country of enormous contrasts. You have cities that look like Tokyo or modern european capitals, while you have towns in the countryside with people starving and living a life of subsistence. You have billionaires and huge investment groups that are among the richest in the world while you have multitude of workers slaving away to a state they prefer suicide instead of living like that. Most of western societies also have huge wage gaps and inequalities, but it kinda pales in comparison to China when looking at extremes.

    Sexism can't be seen and treated in isolation, and people should not have some fantasy that it's gonna be solved anytime soon there because there are major shifts yet to happen before it even starts being addressed.

    Remember people, China is a country where not that long ago, baby boys were hugely favored over baby girls. And this is a cultural phenomena that endured over decades.
    https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
    https://www.nytimes.com/2009/0...
    This is a huge problem that cannot be solved in few years time, and it has massive cultural effects. Because it effectively created an artificial distortion... there are way more men than women in China when compared to proportions of other countries.
    It's not only China too, it's just something that happens a lot in poor countries or developing countries all over the world.
    https://www.npr.org/sections/g...
    http://www.ibtimes.com/deadly-...
    Even though some of these countries don't necessarily have a majority of people of faith in patriarcal religions and systems, it's just a matter of favoring boys because of base manual labor necessities and a prejudiced view that comes with it. The concept also became ingrained in culture, so up to this decade the tendency still remains.

    Th

  4. Re:Why the comparison? by Subm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    > "Online mobs regularly go after any woman who dares stand up for herself"

    Online mobs regularly go after people who dare stand up for themselves.

    FTFY.

    Do you honestly believe no one attacks men on the internet? If you ignore attacks on men then, yes, women get attacked more, but why ignore attacks on men? Is it okay to attack men?

  5. Re:Why the comparison? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'd like to remind everyone that the claim about sexual favours in exchange for positive reviews or coverage is a long debunked lie.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC