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Comment by setra | Hacker News Reader

This is literally what happens: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2015/06/stemwom...

I might get downvoted for sharing the following anecdote.

I've a niece whom I absolutely adore. I try to steer her now and then to software development as a career. She's 14 so I don't expect much focus out of her, but her curiosity for it just doesn't seem to be there. Her brother is 11, and it couldn't be more obvious to me that he is much more adept at tinkering, even though I've never broached the subject with him. My niece will usually agree with me so I'll stop talking, then go on facebook or netflix or look up kardashian news (not a stereotype, this is 100% what happens). I'm still trying to figure out a way to reach her, but so far every effort has been met with active disinterest. She says she likes the perks that I seem to get (flexible hours, work from home, decent pay, etc.), so at least there's hope she could still be drawn to that eventually

You need to find a way to package your message in a more appealing manner.

My oldest son dragged me into playing Master of Magic by telling me "It is like SimCity (my favorite game)." and helping me play it to emphasize the civilization building aspects. :-)

(Edit: I'm his mom.)

Some might advise you to keep pushing her and pushing her because "we need more women in STEM" and all that. I would advise you to just let her be. We like to teach our children that they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. So... maybe she doesn't want to be a software developer.

"We need more women in STEM... even if we have to drag them kicking and screaming", said no one ever.

I used to ridicule my sister for liking Barbie dolls and books about ponies. She grew up to become a physician despite playing with dolls in her youth, so I think all is well.

What is needed is to stop pushing women out of STEM (believe it or not, many girls are attracted to it) and encourage them to get into it to the same degree we do for boys. You're absolutely right that force is not the way to go.

Trouble is kids are taught from an early age what things they should like. Even if you don't tell them they shouldn't do certain things, their friends, society, the media will.

That's not to say you should force your kids to follow the career of your choosing. Nor is it to say it's necessarily because of the above that they have developed such interests.

This looks like something a lot of people would want to believe, but is imo rather disingenuous -- I admittedly haven't followed the discussions too closely; but from what I've seen, a lot of women talking about these things are in fact employed, or formerly employed, in technical fields. One may or may not agree with what some of them say, I often don't, but this is really not the way to address the issue.

Also, what's up with the changing hair color?

There are (ahem) literally zero "women's studies" experts referenced in the linked article, which is about a bunch of people in the tech industry. Your snark and comic link adds, ahem, literally nothing to this discussion.

Regardless of your opinion of the article, this isn't really relevant to the topic at hand, in fact it's an inflammatory suggestion unsupported by evidence that has nothing to do with creating discourse.

The evidence supports his cartoon: http://ngcproject.org/statistics

The evidence you are linking refers to women being less likely to go into those fields; but I don't think that is the point of the cartoon at all. It is trying to dismiss those who argue for trying to address the imbalance as having no field experience, and I don't think it's the case at all.

If you really think that... then congrats: you're part of the problem.

Sounds like you are saying: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/bf/11/01/bf110153b...

No, I hate Jezebel but the kind of BS that is present in that comic (and the attitude it pushes) IS exactly the reason why Tech has a exclusion problem.

It's one step away from unironically using the term "SJW".

The term "SJW" was in fact coined, unironically, by its supporters. Stack Exchange seems to confirm this: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/202080/origin-of...

That it backfired on them does not retroactively invalidate it. The same happened with the Tea Party and "teabagger".

How is the parent part of the problem? You'd think the people part of the problems are those who discriminate. Many people being pointed out of being "part of the problem" when in reality they aren't will just alienate them.

With that fucked up world-view Vivek Wadhwa is a misogynist woman hater suddenly out of the blue.

You need to take a step back and realise that there might be some different views and solutions to the same problems instead of painting PEOPLE as problems.

> You'd think the people part of the problems are those who discriminate.

The fact that you don't see that that is exactly what posting that comic does is mind-numbingly myopic.

> You need to take a step back and realise that there might be some different views and solutions to the same problems

Right back at you good buddy.

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