The tech industry is often criticized of the low percentage of women. One question I asked and never really got a clear answer was "what's the percentage you are trying to achieve?" I mean, right now many tech companies have around 20% women (for tech positions, for other positions in tech companies like accounting or recruiting the percentage is way higher), are we trying to achieve 50% women because it would be *fair*? And what is fair? The same percentage as in the population, assuming women take up 50% population? But that wouldn't make sense 'cause clearly women aren't in general as interested in tech fields as men. Are we trying to achieve the same percentage as the women graduates in computer science? But women tend to quit the tech fields more often than men due to finally realizing they are not really interested in CS and they just got into CS because CS jobs tend to pay higher; or they decided to stop working when they have kids and etc. So in the end, no one gave me an answer aside from "we are so far from the ideal percentage that we don't need to concern ourselves with it right now".......
Posts by Mage
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401So, the Womens March ... What Is It For?
by Simon init seems like mobilizing after the election, which seems pointless.
i keep hearing demands for equal rights but don't understand what rights they are missing exactly.. normally a march is to show the support (and potential votes) for a cause, but ... votes for what?
... and the election happened already.. is anyone else confused?
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Mage
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401
So, the Womens March ... What Is It For?
by Simon init seems like mobilizing after the election, which seems pointless.
i keep hearing demands for equal rights but don't understand what rights they are missing exactly.. normally a march is to show the support (and potential votes) for a cause, but ... votes for what?
... and the election happened already.. is anyone else confused?
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Mage
Right, that's how I understood it. I think that one sentence in the article is a little misleading by mentioning the stay home women - as the data did not include them.
I am sure many women were/are furious because they believed from the way Obama quoted this number that women are treated unfairly (good job Obama!). Even at my company where women DO work STEM jobs quickly jumped at the mentioning of 77%. One woman said "what's our CEO doing to address this issue??". I was amazed at her quickly arrived conclusion that 77% automatically applied to where she works. And in general you'd think based on the type of job she's at least decently intelligent.
I have heard stories women told me that they felt offended at work based on remarks men made and etc. And I don't doubt there are still men who haven't learned good manners so I don't dispute there's still mistreatment (and these women had no reason to lie to me so I chose to believe their words). But I often see women who are being completely illogical when it comes to gender issues and I feel discouraged to even associate myself with them *sigh*.
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401
So, the Womens March ... What Is It For?
by Simon init seems like mobilizing after the election, which seems pointless.
i keep hearing demands for equal rights but don't understand what rights they are missing exactly.. normally a march is to show the support (and potential votes) for a cause, but ... votes for what?
... and the election happened already.. is anyone else confused?
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Mage
Simon, I was reading one of the articles you mentioned on gender pay gap: https://spectator.org/57585_so-now-obamas-against-inefficient-bureaucracy/ and it says "The official Bureau of Labor Department statistics show that the median earnings of full-time female workers is 77 percent of the median earnings of full-time male workers. But that is very different than “77 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men.”" but later it says "Many men tend to go into science and engineering fields which generally pay more. Women who stay at home with children are factored in as earning nothing. Therefore, the 77 cent stat is a misleading one." But I thought the 77 percent was only comparing full time jobs. Am I missing something? I am very interested in articles like this as some women at my workplace were talking about the pay gender gap (even though the company's boss already released data to say there isn't at our company :P) and I was trying to find resources on this.
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401
So, the Womens March ... What Is It For?
by Simon init seems like mobilizing after the election, which seems pointless.
i keep hearing demands for equal rights but don't understand what rights they are missing exactly.. normally a march is to show the support (and potential votes) for a cause, but ... votes for what?
... and the election happened already.. is anyone else confused?
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Mage
I don't see why the new administration wouldn't be bothered by it. If tons of people got together and said you are a terrible person, most likely you'd be bothered by it too whether you are truly terrible or not :P
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401
So, the Womens March ... What Is It For?
by Simon init seems like mobilizing after the election, which seems pointless.
i keep hearing demands for equal rights but don't understand what rights they are missing exactly.. normally a march is to show the support (and potential votes) for a cause, but ... votes for what?
... and the election happened already.. is anyone else confused?
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Mage
Wow, I am so glad I found this forum (and this thread). Hi Simon! I too was wondering about the point of this women's march.
Today my Facebook feed is mostly occupied by women's march posts and cat pictures (since I subscribed to many cat pages).
However I have not heard any discussion on what this is trying to achieve beyond words like it's for "love", "compassion", "empathy" (fill in more make you feel good words here).
I often hear about women's right issues and I am always puzzled as to exactly what people are asking for. Don't get me wrong. I am not saying there isn't a problem - I have no doubt there are women out there that are being treated unfairly because of their gender. But I often see another side of the things which is some women tend to just say stuff without anything concrete to back it up. I work in the tech industry (and am a woman myself) and one thing I always hear women complain about is we are not getting promotions we deserve. When I asked a few why they thought that way (I had to carefully word this when I asked of course), they gave me examples of how a male coworker got promoted faster. But without actually knowing how the management decided who to promote faster it's all simply speculation on their side. I feel like if there's an issue, I'd certainly like to do my part to help. But so far I am not clear what exactly the issue is, in the environment I am in, that is. I am not in a situation where I see women getting physically abused or anything like that.
So in any case, I think I am just happy I found a forum on which I can talk about this and have a discussion, without generating anger (I hope).
Cheers!