This isn't an academic question. The tech industry is one of the very few left where large numbers of men from diverse backgrounds are doing well. For many who are struggling, it's the best shot they have. Men receive less financial aid for college and graduate with more debt... if they graduate. Women now outnumber men 3 to 2 in current graduating classes in the US. Far more men than women suffer poverty and homelessness. Amazingly, it's common for shelters to refuse single men.
Does Hacker School and its sponsor's "need based" help truly discriminate against the very group—poor, non-degreed men—that society treats so callously?
The last thing I want to see is women being dismissed or shut out of opportunities purely out of chauvinist ignorance, but when it comes to poverty and need it's almost like our society has empathy only for women and children. Recognizing this doesn't mean becoming blind to the glass ceiling that women often hit at the high-end of the career ladder. Both are problems. This really is an issue where two wrongs don't make a right.
Disclaimer: I earned well under $10k living in SF last year and faced some of this pain personally. I overcame the obstacles in my path and am now in a great situation... but I can't help but feel for those I know who aren't.
To a first approximation no one cares.
Does Hacker School and its sponsor's "need based" help truly discriminate against the very group—poor, non-degreed men—that society treats so callously?
Sure, why not? They will receive nothing but praise for making it easier for women to do Hacker School.
Put on your cynic's Thinking Hat for a moment. The fundamental question of politics is "Who? Whom?" Who's doing and who's being done to. Feminism is an "in" political movement. It has power and positive pr. Why would any of the companies sponsoring these grants choose to spend their pr dollars less effectively by letting undifferentiated men apply? Some day there will be bursaries for other groups polite society is in favour of helping. If the group is in fact over represented in CS/programming already, say Indians, the justification will be changed and no will say anything.
TL;DR All politics is coalition politics. Feminism has positive pr, the closest male equivalent, men's rights are seen as a bunch of bitter, shrill, misogynistic losers. Why waste your PR dollars?
It's hard to discuss this stuff without verging dangerously close to the rather toxic "mens rights" movement, but I think there needs to be more recognition that the male dominated glass floored executive club is not just a "boys club", but an "old boys club". It's not particularly welcoming to women, but it's also not particularly welcoming to men from the wrong class or background. Our organisations may have a male dominated executive, but the middle layer is rapidly becoming skewed the opposite way.
When we talk about "equal opportunities" only in the context of gender, I think we miss the less obvious inequalities in our industry. Walk into an office of software engineers and it's immediately obvious that there's a significant gender imbalance. What isn't obvious without asking questions is that there's also a significant imbalance in socioeconomic background.
I should add that I'm not aiming to detract from efforts to see greater gender equality in our industry. My first comments apply more to broader society than tech, and I'm definitely an advocate for equal opportunities regardless of gender. This challenge is, however, much less black and white than it's sometimes portrayed in the media.
and age, and (probably) also lifestyle.
Women complain about the glass ceiling but they also have the glass cellar which keeps them from going to the bottom. More men may be at the top but they also over-represent the bottom of society and no one talks about that.
What Google's doing here is a social engineering experiment. They don't just want equal opportunity, they want equal outcome. Because biological differences of the sexes don't real and every kid deserves a medal for participation. And people wonder why businesses are moving their manufacturing away from America.
They aren't. Manufacturing in the US has been growing steadily since the 70s.
Doing gender discriminations to "counter" gender discriminations is neither a good or effective way. It's lazy, and only causes more harm.
I immigrated to US recently (August '13) burned all my savings to do so. Prior to moving here I was doing a product start-up that failed. Have had too much on the plate so I'm now stuck between a hard rock and a cliff.
While applying to Hacker School I was seriously meaning to tick the checkbox for financial aid (but it was disabled because one has to confirm "I am a woman" first). I do believe that women programmers need encouragement and an inclusive environment, but sometimes men need it too.
To Hacker School: either you open funds to men (and here i'm talking personally as i applied, don't have savings and don't really know -if accepted- how i will make it - but ehi i'm smart and positive) or you are loosing, at least for me, a HUGE amount of credibility.
As a “white male programmer”, I’ve always been uncomfortable with an imbalanced group; now, being in a relationship with a female programmer, I’m exposed to a lot more of the actual iniquities.
We should consider this as a high-priority bug in our industry.
Specifically I'm bothered by direct benefits due to gender, I have no issue with educational programs as long as they remain open to all.
I don't want to end up in a workforce where people are working because it was a good financial decision from yesteryear. I want to work with people who are truly excited about what they do. And choose it for no other reason then it was: fun, interesting, and exciting. Those would be awesome people to work with. Welcome!
Why? Primary education is overwhelmingly female, for example, but female schoolteachers do not consider the lack of men to be a problem with their industry which they should be ashamed of.
One should always judge the individual, and no person should ever be stopped from doing anything on the basis of their race, gender, or anything else. However part of that may mean accepting that, after looking at the individuals, more of them may belong to one group than another.
Personally, I'm not offended or sorry that early primary education is dominated by women. I think an excellent early primary education who is male should be able to each the heights of the profession, but I accept that biology may mean those who are interested in, or good at, the profession may be overwhelmingly female.
Source? Because I'm sure if you talked to any teacher, they'd tell you they would prefer a more balanced selection of primary school teachers. The least you could do is a simple Google search,[0] which would show there is a movement to get more men into teaching.
> after looking at the individuals, more of them may belong to one group than another.
What does this mean? That men "belong" to programming and women "belong" to primary school teaching? (Not college teaching, of course! That's still heavily dominated by men, because they evolved to prefer teaching college-level classes or something. It's biology, you see. There's a "professor" gene inside all men.) That line of thinking inevitably leads to saying men's brains are "wired" to "think a certain way", which has been proven false each time it's brought up.
To me it sounds like getting those who are poor or not well off into programming. I like that idea as much as getting more women into programming. What I don't understand is why this would be limited to women only.
I have never been a fan of positive discrimination. Wouldn't it be better to advertise more to women to try to get more applicants this way? Perhaps go into local schools to rustle up a more diverse selection of people to be the next generation of programmers. Perhaps use the money to give away raspberry pi systems to the underprilliaged kids to inspire them to get going young?
It is nice of Google and it seems like a decent inititive. I do feel though that the money could be used in a far more effective way.
Surely you can understand why? The industry is already dominated by white men. They (we, in fact) don't need extra support to enter and get accepted by the industry. We don't suffer lots of subtle forms of harassment and discrimination, simply for being different from the norm.
I don't think money by itself is the solution, but in order to make the industry more accepting of women, it helps if people get used to women in the industry, which means there need to be more women in the industry, which means some additional encouragement is probably necessary. Addressing the sexism in the industry in the absense of women doesn't seem to work very well. We need more women in order to become more accessible to women.
That said, I do think it's odd to do this through larger prizes for women in a contest. Encouragement programs and networking events seem like a better way to do this. Then again, in sports, it's generally male competitions who tend to have far more prize money.
Nightclubs are known to offer free entry to females. Isn't that to increase female participation? I don't think clubs are victimizing anyone.
Also, that guy has a very strange last name.
this is just cheap advertisement for the sake of holier than thou.
if anything it creates the "women need handicap" mentality where it didn't existed before.
This sends a strong signal to the rest of Silicon Valley: there's no such thing as a Google Glass ceiling.
Will they achieve the result they seek? Not likely.
Will they feel good doing this? Definitely.
Programming should not be about how you were born, it should be about skills and merit.
