I wonder how much of the balance difference is due to boys liking tech more than girls. I'd say that if you ask 10-15 year olds, who hardly think about their future, about what they do in their free time you will find equal balance on the reply "gaming/stuff on my PC". Most girls don't like it, that translates to later stages in life I guess. Never see the reports for other fields where females excel in acceptance rates. Teachers, daycare, psychology, there are plenty really.
Mind you, I'm not saying women are treated equally once they _have_ the job, I'm just not sold on this whole "only x% of tech is women!" Thing. We can probably learn a thing or two on how to treat our female colleagues, but please stop trying to fight for 50% should be women kind of causes. There are other fields where it is completely the other way around and I don't see people fighting there for equal rights.
> I don't see people fighting there for equal rights.
every time the gender imbalance comes up on HN someone makes the same comment you have.
Did you try Google? Because those programmes are trivially easy to find.
People will often make a similar comment about the lack of programmes to get women into construction or mining. But those programmes are really easy to find too.
I wasn't hinting at other programmes for women. I was hinting at programmes where men were at a disadvantage and fought for equal rights. Or even better, where women acknowledged the fact that only 20% of psychology, teachers, or whatever are men. There suddenly it isn't a problem to have the imbalance? Should we favor men in those categories over women? Just because we have fewer male teachers? So unfair! To think that women are better with children and thus hire them faster.. (Just to be sure: im exaggerating)
I do curse the fact that women who found a job in tech are handled differently but in return I would love to have front fighters for women equal rights drop the whole "we have so few women in tech" statement. I think most of that is due to the difference in what men or women have affinity with, not hiring process or disadvantages.
In other words, stop confusing amount of women in tech with equal women's rights. These are not casually related.
> I was hinting at programmes where men were at a disadvantage and fought for equal rights.
That's exactly what DanBC was referring to. There are such programmes for nursing, teaching, and many other fields. (Although the situation with nursing is complex, as male nurses are not getting paid less than their female counterparts.)
> and I don't see people fighting there for equal rights.
Perhaps because you're not in those fields?
It's also a symptom of systemic sexism. Men don't dare fight for their right to be stay-at-home dads or to be nurses or whatever else is traditionally seen as female. It makes them look too much like ... you know ... not men.
If you look at the broader internet, you'll see there's been a lot of fighting happening for that too. Men asking for paternity leave without harming their careers, for instance.
But I digress. The most likely reason you haven't seen people fighting for equal rights in other fields is that you're not in those other fields and aren't exposed to their echo chamber.
Mind you, I'm not saying women are treated equally once they _have_ the job, I'm just not sold on this whole "only x% of tech is women!" Thing. We can probably learn a thing or two on how to treat our female colleagues, but please stop trying to fight for 50% should be women kind of causes. There are other fields where it is completely the other way around and I don't see people fighting there for equal rights.