// , “It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important things. The monkey wears an expression of seriousness... but the monkey is serious because he itches."(No/No)
Perhaps, and this may be an unpopular opinion no matter how many facts might support it, it is because fewer women happened to want to apply, and more men did?
Well, clearly you're demonstrably right, though you've trivialised the problem and explanation to being the same thing. So the obvious question to that is why fewer women want to apply, which is really the nub here.
Is it because women are "naturally" not drawn to programming positions? Early digital computer work had women usually filling the role of programmer, in no small part because they had previously filled the role of computer, and it was an obvious step. So on balance, this seems unlikely.
Is it because women are inferior in some way to programming, and therefore unsuited to pursuing it as a profession? That is obviously controversial, and unpopular - but it's also unsupported by any evidence. Quite the opposite, actually - repeated studies show women are just as good at programming as their male colleagues.
So it seems most likely that it's some cultural thing. Either women are not interested because of cultural pressure - despite their natural aptitude being, on balance, equivalent - or else women are interested but feel discouraged from applying (at least relative to men).
Both these theories do have some evidence supporting them.
But is it a really a problem if your entire programming team is male? Well, probably, yes. If you want the best programmers you can get for the price - and I assume you do - then ensuring that women are encouraged to apply for the positions you're offering means you have a greater pool of candidates and a correspondingly better chance of better people applying.
In fact, I have always held the view that the average mid-to-senior female programmer is considerably better than the average mid-to-senior male programmer, because our culture in the tech world tends to weed out and discourage weaker performers disproportionately among women. This is not a good thing, of course, but you really ought to be taking full advantage of the result.
You smashed it. Plain and simple. This is exactly what's happening. You need to look at the source behind the statistics. But I wouldn't agree that women or men are inferior/superior over the other. You can see people excel or being mediocre in something no matter their colour, sex, cultural background, etc. That's what we're trying to change I guess and inclusion and empowerment is what matters.
I don't think "women or men are inferior/superior over the other", to be clear.
I do suspect (but have no evidence, just anecdotal) that disadvantaged groups are represented in a larger pool by those with the above average skills and perseverance needed to overcome the disadvantage.
To put it another way, I suspect the pressures affecting disadvantaged groups affect those with lower skills disproportionately.
In practical terms, then - and if this suspicion is correct - an employer who ensures that they eliminate this disadvantage, and therefore gets more applicants from those groups, will get higher skilled employees.
Perhaps, and this may be an unpopular opinion no matter how many facts might support it, it is because fewer women happened to want to apply, and more men did?
Well, clearly you're demonstrably right, though you've trivialised the problem and explanation to being the same thing. So the obvious question to that is why fewer women want to apply, which is really the nub here.
Is it because women are "naturally" not drawn to programming positions? Early digital computer work had women usually filling the role of programmer, in no small part because they had previously filled the role of computer, and it was an obvious step. So on balance, this seems unlikely.
Is it because women are inferior in some way to programming, and therefore unsuited to pursuing it as a profession? That is obviously controversial, and unpopular - but it's also unsupported by any evidence. Quite the opposite, actually - repeated studies show women are just as good at programming as their male colleagues.
So it seems most likely that it's some cultural thing. Either women are not interested because of cultural pressure - despite their natural aptitude being, on balance, equivalent - or else women are interested but feel discouraged from applying (at least relative to men).
Both these theories do have some evidence supporting them.
But is it a really a problem if your entire programming team is male? Well, probably, yes. If you want the best programmers you can get for the price - and I assume you do - then ensuring that women are encouraged to apply for the positions you're offering means you have a greater pool of candidates and a correspondingly better chance of better people applying.
In fact, I have always held the view that the average mid-to-senior female programmer is considerably better than the average mid-to-senior male programmer, because our culture in the tech world tends to weed out and discourage weaker performers disproportionately among women. This is not a good thing, of course, but you really ought to be taking full advantage of the result.
You smashed it. Plain and simple. This is exactly what's happening. You need to look at the source behind the statistics. But I wouldn't agree that women or men are inferior/superior over the other. You can see people excel or being mediocre in something no matter their colour, sex, cultural background, etc. That's what we're trying to change I guess and inclusion and empowerment is what matters.
I don't think "women or men are inferior/superior over the other", to be clear.
I do suspect (but have no evidence, just anecdotal) that disadvantaged groups are represented in a larger pool by those with the above average skills and perseverance needed to overcome the disadvantage.
To put it another way, I suspect the pressures affecting disadvantaged groups affect those with lower skills disproportionately.
In practical terms, then - and if this suspicion is correct - an employer who ensures that they eliminate this disadvantage, and therefore gets more applicants from those groups, will get higher skilled employees.
Give a young child the same dreams and opportunities and then we'd have a fair comparison. Who knows, then we might have different statistics :)