Reasons less women are in tech/IT than men

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MrSmiley21 wrote:

I used to work heavy construction in my early 20s, concrete and steel construction, and the ratio was more like 300:1 male/female. The company I worked for hired mostly White males. I'd say there were 6 White males per colored person. Most of the work I did was with rebar. Ironically, they were union. But the pay was several dollars an hour more than the average for that job. The pay was $18/hr for an entry level position, when I'd be lucky to have gotten $12/hr at a non-union place. Some of the guys working there made $35/hr.

When people say "Americans don't want these jobs", it's about the pay, not the task. Money talks and bullshit walks. It's my personal opinion that if someone can't afford to pay a fair wage, then pack your shit up and take it to China, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out, or close your doors, nobody cares.

I've noticed a pattern of union contractors hiring mostly White males, not just in construction, but sheet metal workers union did that too. In the case of the sheet metal workers, the workforce was 100% White male, with no females, or a single colored person. Nobody ever goes to a union site complaining about lack of diversity. It's an unspoken rule that union contractors are exempt from diversity quotas.

I've been working construction since 12 in summers for my uncles pool company and lowest paid guy we have is $15 per hour but he really costs us $30 an hour between insurance, workman's comp, and other benefits. Some make $29. We are non union and don't compete for those jobs which is a mistake IMO but I don't run things yet. I just got my license for landscaping & excavation and do all the trench work for my uncle and other general contractors. I charge $120 per man hour on equipment and $75 non. I plan to compete for prevailing wage work in near future this winter when i have some time I'll get all ducks in a row. Then ill pay more but make more too.

We (between my uncles company and mine) are like 75% Latino male and rest white. One guy from Afghanistan too. I'm like a mix no one guesses right. My grandfather who started company is from Afghanistan. One grandfather white. One grandmother Korean and half mexican. One grandmother white. I can pass for a lot of things. Most mexican think I'm Spanish. They ask are you from mother country when I speak spanish to them.

I think it's a mix of lack of interest, "I didn't know it's so cool", and "I didn't know I can do it / am good enough to learn it" paired with potential men's hostility if she doesn't seem good enough (basically what Antnee said). I don't see why women would be worse/better at it than men.
I think its popularity among women is growing, though, even saw programming courses 'from women for women' or something like that.

Testosterone and estrogen are both mind-effecting substances. Saying that men and women aren't better suited for different occupations is like saying potheads and coke fiends are attracted to and ideally suited for the same kinds of work. Actually, the former is worse: with recreational drugs at least you aren't high for virtually every waking moment of your entire adult life.

Edit: Geez, why did I even post in Off Topic. Still ashamed about it.

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鬼殺し wrote:

'The fact that women would rather let men drive' is...not a fact. Who the fuck says that? Oh, yeah. Privileged male gamers say stupid shit like that.

I said the drive example just to answer Antnee who mentioned the cultural problem. I think it's a matter of election. Here in my country, women don't drive if a man can do it, generally speaking. And this behavior is repeated in many regions and many countries. Is this behavior a cultural thing or not? At least it's interesting for me to study the origin of social behaviors like this one. And btw I'm not privileged.

I read a study once which said girls in high school don't take advanced STEM classes because they think STEM is useless to them and also in general. Girls/women want to work with people and they think STEM is kinda the opposite of that. That's why even in tech-y jobs women usually work in HR or in customer service.

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Aim_Deep wrote:

I've been working construction since 12 in summers for my uncles pool company and lowest paid guy we have is $15 per hour but he really costs us $30 an hour between insurance, workman's comp, and other benefits. Some make $29. We are non union and don't compete for those jobs which is a mistake IMO but I don't run things yet. I just got my license for landscaping & excavation and do all the trench work for my uncle and other general contractors. I charge $120 per man hour on equipment and $75 non. I plan to compete for prevailing wage work in near future this winter when i have some time I'll get all ducks in a row. Then ill pay more but make more too.

We (between my uncles company and mine) are like 75% Latino male and rest white. One guy from Afghanistan too. I'm like a mix no one guesses right. My grandfather who started company is from Afghanistan. One grandfather white. One grandmother Korean and half mexican. One grandmother white. I can pass for a lot of things. Most mexican think I'm Spanish. They ask are you from mother country when I speak spanish to them.

Things are really laid back on union jobs, nobody is a slave driver. Like, the crew of guys I worked with, we were always ahead of schedule. For every month, we were a week and a half to 2 weeks ahead of schedule. People who were ahead of schedule got to take longer breaks and lunch breaks, and the big boss man even took us to lunch one day to a steak house. On top of giving us a bonus.

Nobody pays $15/hr around here for any type of manual labor. Those kinds of jobs usually pay $10, $12 if you're lucky. The cost of living is cheap, relatively speaking, compared to California or NYC, but $10/hr isn't a livable wage anywhere in this country. Not even in Buck fart Idaho.

I mostly operated a power shear and a break press at the sheet metal shop, and I made $15/hr, when most other places pay $10/hr for that kinda job. They got a big, big contract through a Toyota plant that was being built in Canada. They needed everything from HVAC duct, to catwalks made. Working there was where I learned how to weld.

The unions get special contracts from the government, especially when Democrats are in charge. Because unions give kick backs to the Democratic Party. It might be cronyism, but the wages are always above average. Often 33-50% above average. Even if union dues are $100/month, that's nothing if I'm making 50% more.

Union contractors make shitloads of money. If you could swallow your

The biological differences between men and women are undeniable, it's just how much these differences matter in shaping our interests and personality that are unknown. I wouldn't consider believing our differences are shaped at birth to be too far-fetched, nor do I think it's sexist.

For example, I think people who are gay are born that way. I don't think they have a choice, nor do I think society has any say in whether or not the person is gay. I do think pressures from society can still shape the way a gay person chooses to live i.e. in the closet his entire life out of shame and married to a woman to fulfill expectations.

I do think human beings have free will, but we do not have the free will to decide who we are, I think a large part of that is something we are born into. The most rudimentary example I can give is that I hate eating certain types of food, and other people love it, just as I hate doing some tasks and other people don't mind, or even like doing the task. I believe our interests are based on who we are, assigned at birth, so as someone who believes interests are formulated at birth i.e. which sex you are attracted to, food you like, or tasks you enjoy, I can understand and even relate to someone who believes that a female's lack of interest in technology stems from birth just as a man's lack of interest in nursing stems from birth. If that's sexist, then I guess I should feel ashamed, but I genuinely feel like it makes sense to me.

With that said, if 1/10 women are graduating out of STEM fields in college, it also makes sense that the workplace for the respective field should also be very close to a 1:9 ratio of women:men, right? Trying to close a gap where one naturally formed from earlier causes is certainly counter-productive, I think.

Hiring enough women to bring the ratio to 1:1 would require reduction of standards to meet this quota if only 1:9 women are in the population of qualified individuals, hiring less qualified women would then result in the men at the workplace affirming their personal belief that 'women are bad at IT' which would create resentment and perpetuate a sexist/discriminatory environment, so I do agree that it is counter-productive in that sense.

I feel like a better approach to resolve the problem is to get more women interested in STEM and get more girls to major in the subject, and bring university populations in parity w/ the general population. I think the reason people are so focused in on IT at the moment is because IT/SWE is one of the highest paying careers on the market ATM, and the gender pay gap is a very hot topic being discussed by a lot of people in the media.