Pretty sure you have no idea what chip and PIN is. It only works with direct electrical contact. You are probably confusing it with RFID which we already have and nobody really uses.
What is wrong with you? Do you not have a mother, sister, grandmother that you respect? I pity you because something has obviously gone horribly wrong in your life that you have to take it out on all women everywhere.
I'm just pointing out that your argument is simplistic and not reflective of real life. There are tons of well-known open source contributors who are idolized around here, none of them are women. Even if you stay anonymous, it is still unpleasant to be part of a community which implicitly is hostile to you, as demonstrated by the dozens of blatantly misogynistic comments on here.
Once you can make a billion dollars from a new quilting pattern I think men will be all over that... The point is that STEM jobs are very lucrative and, if Slashdot people are to be believed, women are driven by money 24/7. So why aren't they entering STEM fields? Because assholes are doing asshole things all day long like telling them that their brains are different and they are not cut out for the hard maths involved.
Don't try to tell me that isn't true because this very article has DOZENS of commenters saying that exact thing. Or that women are inherently deceitful and they just want to get pregnant with your baby and steal your money. Or that they secretly plot to dominate men and that is the real agenda of feminism.
If you want to know why there aren't more women in STEM, look no further than this article on Slashdot to see the hostile environment that they have to deal with.
You are right that there is no way to know who is involved in an open-source project. That's why nobody knows whether Linus Torvalds is a man or a woman. Sounds like a girly name to me, that's what I'm going with.
Your weird comparison to NP-hard problems is stupid because there are readily available approximation algorithms that will solve that case to within a small percentage of optimal, and that's all anyone is asking for.
As to the inherent difference between men and women 1) there is not credible evidence of that and 2) did it ever occur to you that all day people TELLING you that you are different and inherently not suited to a field might in fact push you away from said field? People like you are the problem.
Nice attempt at derailing, but you kind of have a point. We should be encouraging women to go into every field where they are underrepresented because they end up making it BETTER for men too. Better work/life balance, improved working conditions and additional safety regulations.
Actually, we should. Boys not having male role models growing up is a huge problem. We need more male teachers and we need guaranteed paternity leave. That's just not what this article is about.
Maybe they're not interested because of all the assholes telling them "oh you're just different, it's not your thing, go buy a purse." Every single person on here who says that they just want equality immediately follows it up with some shit about how women are different and aren't cut out for tech, completely invalidating their own statements. Get some perspective please.
Then we should all be praying for more women to get into the industry so we can have normal jobs with some decent quality of life. Maybe we could get some paternity leave and a bit of life/work balance. Sounds awesome to me.
Unfortunately it's hard to get rid of those things because we don't have absolute control over every person involved. There will still be assholes doing asshole things. What can be done is to try and counter those assholes with positive people doing positive things.
Oh how stupid of me, that's such a brilliant solution. And we should just let all those poor people work at McDonalds because that must be what they want too. There's no way that it is because of structural inequality or archaic cultural norms that some people are barred from highly lucrative white collar jobs...
Yeah and I'm all for fixing the problems in those industries too, it's not right that there aren't more male teachers, nurses, ESPECIALLY more stay at home dads. Nice try derailing, but feminists are all for fixing inequality the other direction too. However, that's not what this article is about.
Whether you like it or not, as a man you benefit from many societal advantages that have built up over generations. No one is saying that men are inferior, but there are structural inequalities that make it harder to get into IT just because you were born a woman. Does every woman end up being harassed or bullied out of the field? Of course not. But some of them do. A lot of them do. Do you think that is fair? It may seem unfair that women have access to additional resources, but from their point of view it is unfair because they have more challenges to surpass than men. It is all about balancing.
You mention the stigma of a career in IT: is that not an unfair obstacle for women? You are probably going to say that men have to deal with a stigma too of being a "nerd", but lets be completely honest now, that stigma does not really exist today. If it does, it applies equally to women on top of additional stigmas they have to deal with about how math/science is not for women, women can't think analytically, they are too emotional to be engineers, etc. I realize it can be tough to confront your own privilege, but again, no one is saying that women are in any way superior to men. Just that they temporarily have more societal hurdles to jump to get into STEM fields. They did not choose to be born women, it is not their fault they have to deal with those additional obstacles. All anyone is suggesting is that we attempt to counter those hurdles if we can.
Of course we are talking about IT, that is what the damn article is about. That you have to start grasping at straws to come up with something is telling. Having particular programs for women is not discrimination because by default everything else is for men. They dominate the field so all the "normal" resources are theirs. You cannot systematically exclude a group of people for years and then one day say, "okay everything is equal now." You have to go a little bit in the opposite direction, temporarily, to rectify the imbalance.
Give me an example where someone was discriminated against in an IT field because they were a man. It doesn't happen because the vast majority of people in IT are men.
Oh yes, how could I forget, being a little bit shamed for crying is exactly as bad as making 20% less money or being frequently sexually harassed. Who are the people that are doing the shaming in that case though? Women or other men? The more equal a workplace is, the less pressure there is on men to be "ultra masculine", so it ends up fixing both problems.
Fighting assholes in the workplace is part of life, as well. Various people will like you or resent you for a myriad of reasons - who you are friends with, where you park, what you like to eat, who you vote for, etc.
Yes, but no one will ever discriminate against you because you are a man. That is not something you will not have to deal with. That is the whole point of recognizing your privilege, women have to deal with all the regular horrible things that people have to deal with plus some additional ones that you won't.
You can't spend thousands of years oppressing a group of people and then one day say "oh, we are all equal now by the way," expecting it to be true. There are lingering inequalities that can ONLY be rectified by temporarily overbalancing in the other direction. If you don't realize that then you are blinded by your own privilege.
Oh you're right, that must be why most IT guys possess great physical strength and use it on a daily basis. You are talking some complete and utter bullshit that I, frankly, can't believe I am reading even on Slashdot.
Do you understand that it hasn't been that long since women were second class citizens that couldn't couldn't even vote? Or since black people were literally property of white men? When white males have to put up with that for a few centuries, we'll talk about your nursing jobs...
I never said that it happens at a company level (although I think it does to some extent, that's another conversation). The problem starts well before college, let alone the hiring stage. Underrepresentation of woman and minorities are two separate problems, so you have to talk about them separately (although some solutions might fix both problems at once).
In the US, the reason minorities are underrepresented is because they are overrepresented in poor school districts which might not have any computers at all, let alone CS classes. Many of them have never owned a computer or even used one beyond some minimal interactions a few times if their school has a computer lab. If they manage to do well and somehow get into college, they are guaranteed to have never seen CS before. You can't possibly know that you are interested in something if you have no experience with it. It is not like social sciences, math or other STEM fields, which you cannot get to college without having a moderate amount of exposure to.
Women have a different problem, which is that they are being constantly discouraged by everyone around them from being interested in CS. I have seen it repeatedly in every level of education from middle school through college, but moreover it is reflected in the fact that other STEM fields do not have even close to the representation problem that CS does. Even math, a field which has been historically dominated by men (and is also very closely related), has a higher representation than CS.
Finally, there is another issue that effects both groups: lack of role models. How many people find their original interest in a subject from their parents, aunts/uncles, family friends, etc.? If there are no minorities in CS then they will not have the possibility to get into the field like that. How many people look at Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg or Eli Musk and say, "I want to do that when I grow up?" Neither minorities nor women have that opportunity.
The problem is that equal opportunity is nothing now that we have systematically pushed women and minorities out of the field. It doesn't fix anything to say, "oh, sorry about that, you can totally do CS now." Too little, too late. If a white male loses out on a job to a woman or minority who can still do it perfectly fine, but maybe not 100% as well as that first guy, that is unfortunately the right and necessary price we have to pay to rectify the situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Pretty sure you have no idea what chip and PIN is. It only works with direct electrical contact. You are probably confusing it with RFID which we already have and nobody really uses.
What is wrong with you? Do you not have a mother, sister, grandmother that you respect? I pity you because something has obviously gone horribly wrong in your life that you have to take it out on all women everywhere.
I'm just pointing out that your argument is simplistic and not reflective of real life. There are tons of well-known open source contributors who are idolized around here, none of them are women. Even if you stay anonymous, it is still unpleasant to be part of a community which implicitly is hostile to you, as demonstrated by the dozens of blatantly misogynistic comments on here.
Once you can make a billion dollars from a new quilting pattern I think men will be all over that... The point is that STEM jobs are very lucrative and, if Slashdot people are to be believed, women are driven by money 24/7. So why aren't they entering STEM fields? Because assholes are doing asshole things all day long like telling them that their brains are different and they are not cut out for the hard maths involved.
Don't try to tell me that isn't true because this very article has DOZENS of commenters saying that exact thing. Or that women are inherently deceitful and they just want to get pregnant with your baby and steal your money. Or that they secretly plot to dominate men and that is the real agenda of feminism.
If you want to know why there aren't more women in STEM, look no further than this article on Slashdot to see the hostile environment that they have to deal with.
You are right that there is no way to know who is involved in an open-source project. That's why nobody knows whether Linus Torvalds is a man or a woman. Sounds like a girly name to me, that's what I'm going with.
Your weird comparison to NP-hard problems is stupid because there are readily available approximation algorithms that will solve that case to within a small percentage of optimal, and that's all anyone is asking for. As to the inherent difference between men and women 1) there is not credible evidence of that and 2) did it ever occur to you that all day people TELLING you that you are different and inherently not suited to a field might in fact push you away from said field? People like you are the problem.
Nice attempt at derailing, but you kind of have a point. We should be encouraging women to go into every field where they are underrepresented because they end up making it BETTER for men too. Better work/life balance, improved working conditions and additional safety regulations.
Actually, we should. Boys not having male role models growing up is a huge problem. We need more male teachers and we need guaranteed paternity leave. That's just not what this article is about.
Maybe they're not interested because of all the assholes telling them "oh you're just different, it's not your thing, go buy a purse." Every single person on here who says that they just want equality immediately follows it up with some shit about how women are different and aren't cut out for tech, completely invalidating their own statements. Get some perspective please.
Then we should all be praying for more women to get into the industry so we can have normal jobs with some decent quality of life. Maybe we could get some paternity leave and a bit of life/work balance. Sounds awesome to me.
Unfortunately it's hard to get rid of those things because we don't have absolute control over every person involved. There will still be assholes doing asshole things. What can be done is to try and counter those assholes with positive people doing positive things.
Oh how stupid of me, that's such a brilliant solution. And we should just let all those poor people work at McDonalds because that must be what they want too. There's no way that it is because of structural inequality or archaic cultural norms that some people are barred from highly lucrative white collar jobs...
Yeah and I'm all for fixing the problems in those industries too, it's not right that there aren't more male teachers, nurses, ESPECIALLY more stay at home dads. Nice try derailing, but feminists are all for fixing inequality the other direction too. However, that's not what this article is about.
Whether you like it or not, as a man you benefit from many societal advantages that have built up over generations. No one is saying that men are inferior, but there are structural inequalities that make it harder to get into IT just because you were born a woman. Does every woman end up being harassed or bullied out of the field? Of course not. But some of them do. A lot of them do. Do you think that is fair? It may seem unfair that women have access to additional resources, but from their point of view it is unfair because they have more challenges to surpass than men. It is all about balancing.
You mention the stigma of a career in IT: is that not an unfair obstacle for women? You are probably going to say that men have to deal with a stigma too of being a "nerd", but lets be completely honest now, that stigma does not really exist today. If it does, it applies equally to women on top of additional stigmas they have to deal with about how math/science is not for women, women can't think analytically, they are too emotional to be engineers, etc. I realize it can be tough to confront your own privilege, but again, no one is saying that women are in any way superior to men. Just that they temporarily have more societal hurdles to jump to get into STEM fields. They did not choose to be born women, it is not their fault they have to deal with those additional obstacles. All anyone is suggesting is that we attempt to counter those hurdles if we can.
Of course we are talking about IT, that is what the damn article is about. That you have to start grasping at straws to come up with something is telling. Having particular programs for women is not discrimination because by default everything else is for men. They dominate the field so all the "normal" resources are theirs. You cannot systematically exclude a group of people for years and then one day say, "okay everything is equal now." You have to go a little bit in the opposite direction, temporarily, to rectify the imbalance.
Give me an example where someone was discriminated against in an IT field because they were a man. It doesn't happen because the vast majority of people in IT are men.
Oh yes, how could I forget, being a little bit shamed for crying is exactly as bad as making 20% less money or being frequently sexually harassed. Who are the people that are doing the shaming in that case though? Women or other men? The more equal a workplace is, the less pressure there is on men to be "ultra masculine", so it ends up fixing both problems.
Fighting assholes in the workplace is part of life, as well. Various people will like you or resent you for a myriad of reasons - who you are friends with, where you park, what you like to eat, who you vote for, etc.
Yes, but no one will ever discriminate against you because you are a man. That is not something you will not have to deal with. That is the whole point of recognizing your privilege, women have to deal with all the regular horrible things that people have to deal with plus some additional ones that you won't.
You can't spend thousands of years oppressing a group of people and then one day say "oh, we are all equal now by the way," expecting it to be true. There are lingering inequalities that can ONLY be rectified by temporarily overbalancing in the other direction. If you don't realize that then you are blinded by your own privilege.
Oh you're right, that must be why most IT guys possess great physical strength and use it on a daily basis. You are talking some complete and utter bullshit that I, frankly, can't believe I am reading even on Slashdot.
Do you understand that it hasn't been that long since women were second class citizens that couldn't couldn't even vote? Or since black people were literally property of white men? When white males have to put up with that for a few centuries, we'll talk about your nursing jobs...
I never said that it happens at a company level (although I think it does to some extent, that's another conversation). The problem starts well before college, let alone the hiring stage. Underrepresentation of woman and minorities are two separate problems, so you have to talk about them separately (although some solutions might fix both problems at once).
In the US, the reason minorities are underrepresented is because they are overrepresented in poor school districts which might not have any computers at all, let alone CS classes. Many of them have never owned a computer or even used one beyond some minimal interactions a few times if their school has a computer lab. If they manage to do well and somehow get into college, they are guaranteed to have never seen CS before. You can't possibly know that you are interested in something if you have no experience with it. It is not like social sciences, math or other STEM fields, which you cannot get to college without having a moderate amount of exposure to.
Women have a different problem, which is that they are being constantly discouraged by everyone around them from being interested in CS. I have seen it repeatedly in every level of education from middle school through college, but moreover it is reflected in the fact that other STEM fields do not have even close to the representation problem that CS does. Even math, a field which has been historically dominated by men (and is also very closely related), has a higher representation than CS.
Finally, there is another issue that effects both groups: lack of role models. How many people find their original interest in a subject from their parents, aunts/uncles, family friends, etc.? If there are no minorities in CS then they will not have the possibility to get into the field like that. How many people look at Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg or Eli Musk and say, "I want to do that when I grow up?" Neither minorities nor women have that opportunity.
I just googled men nursing and there was a whole page of google results. Your definition of "hard" is strange...
The problem is that equal opportunity is nothing now that we have systematically pushed women and minorities out of the field. It doesn't fix anything to say, "oh, sorry about that, you can totally do CS now." Too little, too late. If a white male loses out on a job to a woman or minority who can still do it perfectly fine, but maybe not 100% as well as that first guy, that is unfortunately the right and necessary price we have to pay to rectify the situation.
Ummm... here maybe? I'll await your redaction.