At WWDC, Apple profiles efforts to invite girls into male-dominated tech, engineering jobs

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  • Reply 21 of 40
    newbeenewbee Posts: 2,055member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jessi View Post

      

     ....."Most of the agenda is about making people think that men in tech are misogynistic."


    One has only to read the comments here to arrive at that same conclusion. When did men get so insecure and paranoid, and better yet, Why?

  • Reply 22 of 40
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Not an Apple thing as such but it amazes me that in 2015 the USA still does not have an equal pay law for women.
  • Reply 23 of 40
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    michael777 wrote: »
    Why don't we just let girls be girls and boys be boys and choose whatever naturally interests them. Instead of trying to political correctly push people into what we want because we in our enlightened state think it is unfair that girls don't act like boys.


    I don't understand this mentality either. Having known more than a few woman involved in tech, not a one of them needed any help being successful. Of course these are older woman, I'm 55 to give you an idea here, that grew up in an age where you took responsibility for yourself.

    This is really just an example of the current mentality in the country. People that can't get ahead, usually due to being stupid, blame other for not helping them. Crap really. Right now there is nothing stopping woman from getting ahead in tech if they put in the effort and have half a brain. The real problem is that there are a lot of options out there for woman and tech isn't all that appealing in many cases due to working conditions.
  • Reply 24 of 40
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    jessi wrote: »
    My mother was a programmer. I've been in software for decades.  20 years ago there were plenty of women programmers. Grace Hopper was a pioneer and the lead on the Apollo software project was a woman.  
    This is what perplexes me more than anything, woman have been programming since the dawn of the industry. At one time it was literally considered to be woman's work.

    Outside the USA there are lots of women in tech.  At some companies 30-40 percent of the programmers I work with and 50 percent of the teams are women.
    Part of the issue here may be that woman have more job options in the USA. I just don't see a concerted effort to keep woman out of the tech workforce.
    No company I've worked with has been hostile to women. 
    Generally companies aren't. However some men can be and frankly in the cases I've seen it is due to their own insecurities. In other words males without much in the way of gray matter between their ears can be hostile towards woman in tech. Usually such individuals don't last long.
    IF there aren't as many women in tech its because women are choosing not to go into this industry.
    Which ought to be completely obvious. The funny thing here is that I don't see anyone demanding that more men entry the fields of pharmacy, real estate or other industries currently with a large female population.
    I'm tired of fake "tech girls" going out and front running an agenda that's all politics and has nothing to do with women in tech.

    Most of the agenda is about making people think that men in tech are misogynistic. 

    The problem with misogynic men is that they exist every where in every field. It is largely an overblown problem and is just another personality type one must learn to deal with. I think part of the problem here is that many of these woman think they will be free to succeed if they work in a personality free workplace. Sadly that will never happen even in an all male organization you have a multitude of personalities to deal with. The cookie cutter may produce the same profile each time but the baking will twist each cookie into a unique item.
  • Reply 25 of 40
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    I have a sneaking suspicion that all this politically correct posturing between companies is actually a stealth campaign by Democrats to warm up the voting dullards to the idea of an inevitable Hillary Clinton presidency, much less even out some kind of trendy, unprovable inequality.

    Where are the national campaigns demanding that men get equal treatment for nursing jobs? Where's the outraged citizen's brigades demanding more Scottish people in the NAACP? Who will help take up the cause of reintroducing Alaskan salmon to the Gobi desert?
  • Reply 26 of 40
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    They don't even do that anymore, as Disney has now shown.
    Disney rescinded the lay-off of about 35 or their programmers a couple days ago after announcing them a couple weeks ago. They aren't outsourcing their jobs after-all. Perhaps bad publicity wasn't worth it, especially coming on the heels of the ridiculous layoffs at their Parks and Resorts division that garnered a lot of derision.
  • Reply 27 of 40
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    ascii wrote: »
    It's really your personality that determines what kind of job you're good at, more than your gender. People who are good at engineering, computer science and mathematics tend to have logical minds, the ability to deal with abstract ideas, and the willingness to concentrate on a single intellectual problem for days or weeks on end. 
    You left out the willingness to sitin a chair for hours on end. One of the reasons I never pursued a career in programming is the ball and chain that is the keyboard and monitor.
    This is quite a rare kind of personality, and yet software is replacing a lot of industries (e.g. Mail is now an app instead of a physical letter, Camera is now an app instead of a separate device, your Music Player is now an app instead of an iPod or walkman).  

    So even if you found all the men and all the women with this kind of personality, and employed them all as software developers, there would still be a massive shortage, so I wouldn't worry about wages.

    This idea that there is a shortage is largely overblown. It comes down to corporations trying to drive down costs by finding cheaper labor. It is a pretty duscusting practice because programmers are the key to progpfits at many of these corporations.

    Case in point, I was talking to a department manager recently that was having problems finding an individual to work on a complex database. In the end plenty of people interviewed for the job but the corporation wasn't willing to pay the going wage. So at least in this case there was plenty of very qualified individuals out there but Zero interest in paying the wages.

    Sadly this is another case of the programmers being key to the success of the business. It isn't like the wages would have been wasted.
  • Reply 28 of 40
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    newbee wrote: »
    One has only to read the comments here to arrive at that same conclusion.
    I'm not sure what you are talking about here. I've seen nothing in this thread that is out in left field.
    When did men get so insecure and paranoid, and better yet, Why?

    The world has always had men like this and frankly their insecurities aren't directed at woman only. Generally such men are insecure because they know they don't have the mental chops to compete with smarter individuals. Thus they create a hostile environment and direct that energy at the people they see as a threat. It is the same stupidity that fuels racism and other social ills.
  • Reply 29 of 40
    splifsplif Posts: 603member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheWhiteFalcon View Post

     

    So what, girls need a 'captivating story' so they're interested? Sounds sexist to me. I guess girls don't possess imagination or something. :rolleyes:

     

    GoldieBlox is a lousy company whose management does whatever they want, I don't think Apple should associate with them. They stole a song they didn't have permission for, were told to knock it off, and then they pre-emptively sued the people who owned the rights?

     

    As for the utility of these toys: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-davis-smith/getting-over-goldie-blox_b_3652553.html

     

    We keep being told that we should let people be who they are, yet there are a lot of women and girls being told they can't be what they want to be, because 'equality' or something.

     

    And I can't believe I'm not only linking to a HuffPo story, but two: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-abeyta/when-did-we-let-princess-become-a-bad-word_b_5310586.html

     

    Stop the pandering. I highly doubt Apple was turning minorities and women away. Quotas don't work.


    What exactly is wrong with pitching a career in tech to girls? In the end the girl/women will make the decision as to which route they will take and what interests them. Do you feel threatened by career day events also? No one is being forced into doing anything. They are offered an option, maybe an option they may not have considered or had a different point of view about. Somehow twisting this into some sort of sexism is just bizarre.

  • Reply 30 of 40
    splifsplif Posts: 603member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post



    I have a sneaking suspicion that all this politically correct posturing between companies is actually a stealth campaign by Democrats to warm up the voting dullards to the idea of an inevitable Hillary Clinton presidency, much less even out some kind of trendy, unprovable inequality.



    Where are the national campaigns demanding that men get equal treatment for nursing jobs? Where's the outraged citizen's brigades demanding more Scottish people in the NAACP? Who will help take up the cause of reintroducing Alaskan salmon to the Gobi desert?



    Of course you do, or maybe they are just looking for talent anywhere they can find it.

    Nursing:

    http://minoritynurse.com/man-enough-the-20-x-20-choose-nursing-campaign/

  • Reply 31 of 40
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Michael777 View Post



    Why don't we just let girls be girls and boys be boys and choose whatever naturally interests them. Instead of trying to political correctly push people into what we want because we in our enlightened state think it is unfair that girls don't act like boys.



    Even though your comment is written like a question without the benefit of a question mark, you are pushing an agenda of putting down women and minorities. Women are not comfortable in the male dominated electrical engineering fields because of the rejectionist misogynistic attitude and treatment of women who dare to go there. Only about 5% of my former students were women and they were treated with disrespect at school and later on in the work force. The time has come to get rid of stereotypes and allow anyone with the desire and ability to do any job they want. Men need to open the doors to women, not only at the grocery store but in the job market as well.

     

    My mother was a woman and my sisters are women and my daughter is a woman. My respect for them all demands that they not be discriminated against and be allowed to perform whatever job of service to humanity that they can just like their fathers, brothers and sons can.

  • Reply 32 of 40
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    newbee wrote: »
    jessi wrote: »
    <span style="font-size:16px;line-height:1.4em;"> ....."Most of the agenda is about making people think that men in tech are misogynistic."</span>
    One has only to read the comments here to arrive at that same conclusion. When did men get so insecure and paranoid, and better yet, Why?

    There's been a strong effort in the media over recent years to raise awareness of the different ways genders, races and sexualities are treated. A lot of it comes across as accusatory. Pay inequality is an issue that's raised quite a lot and it's presented as though certain groups have imposed this on others and they or the government need to fix it. If people negotiate lower pay or choose lower paying job roles then the solution lies with them and so the issue doesn't need to be raised in an accusatory manner. There's a twitter feed here that has a regular dose of accusations:

    https://twitter.com/everydaysexism

    Around 42000 messages in 3 years. The accusations in each message are about individuals but concentrated like that, they are painting a broad accusation towards all men. It also tends to be one-sided. For example, there was an issue about girls seeing toys labelled as 'for boys' and so the mothers in each case either took to social media or wrote to the companies to accuse the companies of sexism:

    http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/jun/03/these-arent-the-toys-you-are-looking-for-child-heroes-fighting-gender-stereotyping

    The one at that link was about a Darth Vader costume. The character Darth Vader is male so it just seems sensible to label it as being for boys in much the same way that a Princess Leia costume would be for girls. The company took the labels off all the costumes to just say 'for kids'. This avoids pushing kids into predefined gender roles but it can cause confusion for people buying gifts.

    It's rare that there are complaints about boys feeling they can't play with toy cookers or wear costumes with bras. If they want to do that, they'd just do it anyway. There are characters that simply can't be switched around. Superman and Batman can't be played by women for obvious reasons. They'd be Supergirl and Batgirl.

    Where people sometimes get defensive is in response to the unnecessary accusations of sexism. The toys aren't labelled by gender to purposefully be sexist. The tech industry isn't purposely setup to be sexist either. There's a narrative that is presented in the media that suggests men and women want to compete with each other and men have been keeping women down. This is the most absurd thing. For the most part people of the same gender compete with each other (often to attract the other gender) and it's been this way for a very long time. This type of separation is perhaps what causes the common groupings of men and women in different job roles as each gender likes to compete in the same space.
    Not an Apple thing as such but it amazes me that in 2015 the USA still does not have an equal pay law for women.

    Salaries are negotiated differently between different companies. There's no way to enforce equal pay. Someone who is male or female can work for company A and another for company B doing the same duties but get vastly different pay. The government can't force company A to pay the same as company B for the same job. Inside the same company that could perhaps be enforced but pay will vary by experience for both men and women. If someone has 2 years experience and another 6 years but do the same daily hours and tasks, the experience can make the difference.

    If you were to do a comparison of any grouping like check if tall people get paid more than short, attractive vs unattractive, gay vs straight, blonde vs brunette, you're going to find on aggregate that they don't get paid the same because it's impossible to do this across the entire economy when salaries are governed by person-to-person negotiations.

    The problem that is causing aggregate pay inequality is that women are choosing lower paying jobs or negotiating lower salaries. To solve it would be to force women into higher paying job roles they may not want and may not be qualified for. The government can't do this.
  • Reply 33 of 40
    jessijessi Posts: 302member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ascii View Post

    So even if you found all the men and all the women with this kind of personality, and employed them all as software developers, there would still be a massive shortage, so I wouldn't worry about wages.

     

    Your hypothesis has merit on the face of it, but you're forgetting something.  While it takes thousands of letter carriers to deliver the mail in a large city, a small handfull of programmers can write a mail app to serve millions of people.  Software has great leverage... this means that there won't be as many software programmers needed to replace the thousands of letter carriers who will lose their jobs.  There may not be enough demand for the supply.

     

    Further, I think we're seeing this in the results of software jobs not maintaining their prestige.  For what its worth in 2014 I earned the same amount as a programmer as I did in 2001... yet inflation had greatly reduced the value of each of those dollars (probably by half.) 

     

    While the absolute destruction wrecked upon the economy by Clinton, Bush and Obama has made things terrible for everyone, and thus programming is a relatively good job, still, in constant terms we've lost ground.

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RichL View Post

    So I guess the question is - where have all of the women in tech gone? Why are they leaving?


     

    It's a cultural thing.  In other countries, such as China and India, women are more common and in teams I've worked on with a lot of H1B visa employees there are a lot more women.  Women in the USA are not being driven out of tech, no matter how much the political types spread that idea... they simply aren't signing up, and there are more programmers employed today than there have been 10, 20 and 30 years ago. 

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by shen View Post

    No, they are leaving. Tech is so sexist as to make the regular world look like a feminist paradice. Just read the responses left to this article.

     

    Liar.   I've been working in tech for 30 years.  The idea that it's sexist is absolute BS.  It's a straight up lie.  Especially when you compare it to other industries.   The truth of the matter is, most guys in tech are feminists, and the environment is absolutely supportive of female engineers and female producers and testers, etc. 

     

    What is going on is a global war on men, where so called "Feminists" are spreading misandry and their prime target lately, when they aren't doxxing gamers, is guys in Tech.   Mainly because there are so many white knights in tech who will role over and show their bellies.

     

    I've built dozens of engineering teams and managed and hired hundreds of engineers over the past 30 years and worked with many more, and the rates of sexism are extremely low.   In fact the only recent incident I can think of was a guy who was not even an american (he was here on a visa) who didn't want to sit near a woman, and was pretty much summarily fired when it became clear that he had a problem with her gender. He wasn't warned, he was shown the door.   She never even knew it happened (Because he complained to his boss and we kicked him out.)

     

    The idea that tech is hostile to women is itself a sexist agenda part of the war on men that's going on. 

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by newbee View Post

     

    One has only to read the comments here to arrive at that same conclusion. When did men get so insecure and paranoid, and better yet, Why?


     

    The comments here combined with your comment show the real problem. You consider anyone disagreeing to be justification of your agenda.   Men are not insecure nor paranoid, but women sure do like to play the victim card.

     

    Which is extremely offensive to women everywhere.  Most of whom are not victims, and especially not professional victims.

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post

    I don't understand this mentality either. Having known more than a few woman involved in tech, not a one of them needed any help being successful. Of course these are older woman, I'm 55 to give you an idea here, that grew up in an age where you took responsibility for yourself.



    This is really just an example of the current mentality in the country. People that can't get ahead, usually due to being stupid, blame other for not helping them. Crap really. Right now there is nothing stopping woman from getting ahead in tech if they put in the effort and have half a brain. The real problem is that there are a lot of options out there for woman and tech isn't all that appealing in many cases due to working conditions.

     

    Its the case today as well.  I know many younger women in their 20s who are having no problems entering software careers, some of whome switched after having a prior career in another field.   There just isn't nearly as many as there are men. 

     

    And of course the idea that women programmers are victims is a stereotype that is derogatory and offensive... and is pretty much the exact opposite of the truth.  Going from Grace Hopper, thru my mother, and including all the women programmers I've worked with as well. 

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post



    Which ought to be completely obvious. The funny thing here is that I don't see anyone demanding that more men entry the fields of pharmacy, real estate or other industries currently with a large female population.

    The problem with misogynic men is that they exist every where in every field. It is largely an overblown problem and is just another personality type one must learn to deal with. I think part of the problem here is that many of these woman think they will be free to succeed if they work in a personality free workplace. Sadly that will never happen even in an all male organization you have a multitude of personalities to deal with. The cookie cutter may produce the same profile each time but the baking will twist each cookie into a unique item.

     

    I think a real problem is that there's a national movement promoting misandry, and it has hijacked the word "feminism" and turned the debate into "us vs them".  We no longer talk about human rights and protecting them.  We no longer talk about equal opportunity.  No, it's the professional victims (like the girl who wasn't raped yet carried her mattress around columbia for several years, or the one who years after raping a guy, claimed he raped her, and got him expelled.)  They go and spread this idea that women are helpless creatures who need men to be put down in order to thrive. 

     

    That's extremely insulting to ever competent woman who has worked hard and earned her place in business and in life. 

     

    That's far more misogynistic than anything I've seen a man say in a workplace.

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ElectroTech View Post

     

    Women are not comfortable in the male dominated electrical engineering fields because of the rejectionist misogynistic attitude and treatment of women who dare to go there. 


     

    Stop white knighting and start serving the truth.  Maybe you let he boys be idiots in your classes, and I can't speak for what kind of school you're involved with... but I can speak about the actual industry, and in software women are more likely to be given difference than to be rejected.   In fact, in professional situations its pretty much not an issue.  Women in the office was a radical thing maybe 50 years ago, now it's unremarkable.  No company would put up with it an given that half the management is women anyway, why should they? 

     

    No, you're serving a misandrist agenda that seeks to put down men, which is why you see so many of these same people tweeting things with the hashtag #killallmen.

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post



    Salaries are negotiated differently between different companies. There's no way to enforce equal pay. Someone who is male or female can work for company A and another for company B doing the same duties but get vastly different pay. 

    The problem that is causing aggregate pay inequality is that women are choosing lower paying jobs or negotiating lower salaries. To solve it would be to force women into higher paying job roles they may not want and may not be qualified for. The government can't do this.

     

    Women are also more likely to leave the workforce to have children or to raise them.  The "pay gap" includes these women.  Many studies have been done that found that when you account for job choice, women get paid the same as men or within a small margin.

     

    EG: Women in a given field get paid roughly the same as men.

     

    There is no pay gap.  People just believe it because it's been repeatedly claimed by people with a political agenda.  They say it over and over and over again and over again.

     

    Alas, if you repeat a lie enough times, people believe it. 

  • Reply 34 of 40
    Wow! Do we live in the same universe? You give me the impression of someone who views
    themselves and certain select others as victims. You probably don't think you have any control over
    what happens in your life unless you attack others and blame them. Also your comments sound
    like someones democratic parties talking points.
  • Reply 35 of 40
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    newbee wrote: »
    One has only to read the comments here to arrive at that same conclusion. When did men get so insecure and paranoid, and better yet, Why?

    Agreed. You should have seen these old farts talk about tattoos last month....ridiculous. And gays before that (Tim cook). They're out of touch with the modern generation. Kind of embarrassing, really.
  • Reply 36 of 40
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    I have a sneaking suspicion that all this politically correct posturing between companies is actually a stealth campaign by Democrats to warm up the voting dullards to the idea of an inevitable Hillary Clinton presidency, much less even out some kind of trendy, unprovable inequality.

    The insanity never ceases.

    And yes, the inequality between men and women as measurable by salaries for the same positions is completely provable and has been proven. Denial is a river.
  • Reply 37 of 40
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    nolamacguy wrote: »
    The insanity never ceases.

    And yes, the inequality between men and women as measurable by salaries for the same positions is completely provable and has been proven. Denial is a river.

    That so-called "pay gap" has been repeatedly debunked, yet you're still spouting the same old disproven garbage.
  • Reply 38 of 40
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    Here's a link from Seth Weintraub to a great video of youngsters at WWDC. Yes, young girls programming:

    Code like a girl

    [VIDEO]
  • Reply 39 of 40

    Now if they'd only stop practicing ageism. It's rampant, though they would deny it.

  • Reply 40 of 40
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Inkling View Post



    When they want more women in software development, they're actually thinking, "This will force wages down and create a more compliant workforce." They can't help it. It's hardwired into how these people think. Like I said, they're not your friends. 

    I think the idea is to empower women to write iOS and OS X apps for themselves or their employer, not recruiting them to work at Apple, but if they turn out to be talented enough that Apple hires them, you can be sure they will earn more money than working for just about any other tech company out there. Many small start ups currently employ male and maybe female programmers who are working for free just for the chance to make it big someday.

     

    The anti-poaching deals were not primarily to drive down wages but to keep assets because they have invested in their people with training, experience and knowledge so it is just counterproductive to have people jump ship. If employees think they deserve more money they should just ask for a raise if they are generally satisfied with the other aspects of the work environment. Employees are always free to leave if they choose, but it is a distraction to have recruiters trying to tempt them away. I've experienced this first hand and it is not welcome. It is about keeping good employees so they can finish the projects they are working on. It is not about the money.

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