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Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

> But I've seen plenty of stories, even from reputable sources like the NYT, criticizing tech companies for only hiring 20-25% women while failing to mention that this is exactly in line with the percentages of tech workers that are women.

If the industry is systematically unfavorable to women, hiring at the same percentage as the industry as a whole (which is what matching the “percentage of tech workers that are women” is) is indicative of being fully on-line with the average degree to which the industry is systematically unfavorable to women.

It would be inconsistent to criticize the industry but not firms that were dead in the middle of the pack.

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>If the industry is systematically unfavorable to women

It's not. The CS graduation ratio is just as bad.

> The CS graduation ratio is just as bad.

If the industry were either actually or even merely perceived as systematically unfavorable to women, a natural consequence would be women being less likely to pursue education focussed on the field in preference to other fields that were less unfavorable.

There are many other factors that can come into play. It is simply incorrect to draw the conclusions you do.

One example is earning prospects, which might matter more for men than for women. Personally, I was torn between studying maths and film making, for example. I decided to go for maths because of the better money making prospects (I thought), thinking I could still go into film making later.

If you don't worry about income prospects, maybe you are more likely to choose English literature of the 16th century over engineering.

Just one example.

Sure, but everyone seems to be assuming that it's systematically unfavorable towards women solely based on the fact that women make up less than parity.

That claim only works if one assumes that any disparity is the result of systematic bias.

I don't think the person you're replying to is criticizing the industry though. From what I can tell, they're saying it's not the industry's fault that it lacks women.

That's how I see it anyway: mainly based on the fact that women make up only around 20% of CS majors, I don't think the issue lies in the hiring practices of most tech companies.

> I don't think the person you're replying to is criticizing the industry though.

No, but the people they are criticizing for criticizing firms hiring at industrt-average proprotions are also criticizing the industry, which is the issue.

If hiring was the issue, there would have to be a pool of IT women who can't find a job. I don't think such a pool exists.

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