# Women quotas in Tech



## AriesLilith (Jan 6, 2013)

This week during Web Summit days there has been talks about if women quotas are needed in Tech. I was not present in these talks but there's a FB page for Women in Tech and it seems that some women are for quotas.

Personally in Portugal I've never heard of quotas, and being a programmer I've always had to work hard to earn a job which is just like my fellow male mates. And whenever I failed, I failed because I was not the ideal fit for some places just like my male mates.
Yet I prefer it this way, and wouldn't want quotas as I wouldn't want to be given a job for being a woman. It might be frustrating if I'm told that I've earn a job for being a woman instead of hard work, which denies all the work I achieved.

What are your opinions? Did you experience this?


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## Emerald Legend (Jul 13, 2010)

I actually laugh at this. Before I'm told to check my privilege - I'm a minority and in tech. I do not approve of affirmative action and quota because it undermines merit. There are no women in tech because it's not interesting to them. If they think being surrounded by computers would make them magically like tech they're just plain stupid..because they are using a computer everyday to take and share picture of themselves have in fact grew up surrounded by tech. My daddy didn't have to surround me with tech because he couldn't afford to, and the first time I touched a computer was at age 14. What interested me in tech is the fact that:

1) I would rather deal with machines than people, and can do that forever. 
2) Making your computer your bitch is empowering 
3) Not a lot of people know the trade, and that makes me feel special. 
If these parrot feminists think they can somehow engineer the above points through affirmative action - they are not only delusional but lack logic. Now a lot of folks blame culture..do you think the culture of nurses intimidate men? I don't think so as it comes down to money..for that we're prepared to climb skyscrapers..and you care about the fuking cultire? Fuking LOL..

The worst part is companies are sticking to this for some reason. Everyone loses their mind when there's 70/30 m/f in tech even though most of healthcare field has the stats in reverse. So I say "eat shit" when they give preference to anyone just because of gender, race and not skills or merit. You know what happens when you get hired because of your gender? You meet me and question why in the hell company hired you in the first place because you can't do fraction of the stuff I can do. Then you feel like chit and post on facebook/tumblr/twitter and complain how the tech culture is "toxic". To that I say - your feeling of (justified) inferiority is not my problem.


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## AriesLilith (Jan 6, 2013)

@Emerald Legend exactly, it seems that there is too much fuss over "not enough women in tech". I always disliked the idea of affirmative actions and quotas because if I've got in, I would rather have done it through proving my capacity rather than being told it happened coz of my gender or ethnicy or whatever.

And putting people in just because of those criterias sucks because if the person is not capable enough then he or she would just feel mismatched in the long run.
But even if quotas means allowing only capable individuals who fits the minimum requisites, it doesn't sound fair that someone wins a position because even if both are capable, they needed to sort out based on gender alone. If we complain that it'd be unfair to choose a man out of two great candidates just because of his gender, wouldn't quota which implies choosing a woman in the same scenario, be unfair as well?

Also, it feels as if we are forcing the numbers to balance even thought there might not be a natural tendency for so.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

This is actually increasing "merit" because the system is not based on merit. Only so far.


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## dizzycactus (Sep 9, 2012)

My company has a coding test, and if you pass that you're pretty much in providing you don't say something really stupid in the interview (never heard of that happening). 

On my side of the office we have about 40 men and 3 women. The women are as good as the average guy here (a bit better even because they've all been here for 5 years+, while half the guys are new), which is what you expect when you filter by ability instead of genitals. 

This system is pretty fair. I see no need to change a fair system. This is why feminism isn't considered to be egalitarian - they dislike fair systems.


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## Tropes (Jul 7, 2016)

Unless women are forced to equally apply so that whichever percentage of applicants are likely to be qualified will apply to them,then a quota forces you to hire people who aren't qualified, and If you are forced to hire people who aren't qualified to do the job, you then still need to have enough people who can actually get it done. You've basically nearly doubled the financial cost to run a tech company and the financial barrier to start one, which would lower the number of tech jobs available for everyone, women included, you'd have less women in tech because you'd have less tech for women to be part of, defeating the very purpose of doing it in the first place.

On the flip side, if this includes the software for self-driving vehicles, you won't need human drivers for comedians to make horrible jokes about women drivers, which is important because poor comedians might be scarce for material... Wait, no, Trump won the american elections.


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## Jamaia (Dec 17, 2014)

I hate the idea. I can't see any upside for anyone, and I'm trying to think this from the perspective of the woman being selected because the quota is not filled, a woman who is selected outside of the quota, a man outside of the quota being or not being selected, the company... Usch.


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## AriesLilith (Jan 6, 2013)

dizzycactus said:


> My company has a coding test, and if you pass that you're pretty much in providing you don't say something really stupid in the interview (never heard of that happening).


Actually I had that happened to me once, passing the coding test but the interview didn't go well (he was an intimidating human scanner with crazy questions and there was no affinity between us). But then it's better to not be hired if I was not a good fit in their perspective than get hired simply coz of my gender. Where I've been (with challenging tests and interviews as well), I was always acknowledged by my team (of male programmers) based on what I could do and show in the projects just like everyone else, and I'm glad that quotas never existed for my case or else my earned merits would be devalued by quotas.

Recruiters are seeking for professionals of whatever gender and ethnicy here because there is lack of them in the market, so as long as people are good they get hired anyways. This is why it doesn't make sense to force quotas in recruitment since everyone has opportunities and no one is really excluded by gender anyways. Some might say that it helps on diversity which leads to different dieas and perspectives, but diversity happens by more people joining the field if they want to and it's not by the presence of quotas that more people actually appears.
And actually I've seen diversity in different places I've been anyways. Again, they get hired as long as they are good as the market demand has been higher that they aren't bothering with discriminating as long as they are good at what they do.


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## IDontThinkSo (Aug 24, 2011)

Yeah, hail to quotas everywhere, because skills aren't tied to sex, so we should enforce 50% man/woman everywhere, garbage collectors, sewage workers, army, prisons, death sentences, everywhere. In fact, it should be applied to everything we do, because everything we do is eventually work. But I'm for a meritocracy as well so if only X women or men are qualified then we should fire people until a balance is achieved. Because it means that some aren't really qualified and must cheat, especially the best ones. So we should fire the best ones first. Because they can't be. For example, it is not normal that most men play the drums and most of the best drummers are men. So we should restrict the practice of drums for men and especially the most (supposedly) skilled (because they cheat). It all makes sense now.


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## Tropes (Jul 7, 2016)

AriesLilith said:


> Actually I had that happened to me once, passing the coding test but the interview didn't go well (he was an intimidating human scanner with crazy questions and there was no affinity between us). But then it's better to not be hired if I was not a good fit in their perspective than get hired simply coz of my gender.


I've had that happen too. First a bunch of us took the test and me and one other were taken to interviews. The truth was though that while passing the test on it, I had an almost immediate dislike & frustration for their in-house platform, it just... It's hard to explain, it was functional, I got where they were aiming towards with it, you know when a piece of code just feels wrong? Unnecessarily cumbersome and awkward? I tried convincing myself I'll just adapt and be ok with it but the interviewer saw right through me.


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## Arzazar Szubrasznikarazar (Apr 9, 2015)

AriesLilith said:


> This week during Web Summit days there has been talks about if women quotas are needed in Tech. I was not present in these talks but there's a FB page for Women in Tech and it seems that some women are for quotas.
> 
> Personally in Portugal I've never heard of quotas, and being a programmer I've always had to work hard to earn a job which is just like my fellow male mates. And whenever I failed, I failed because I was not the ideal fit for some places just like my male mates.
> Yet I prefer it this way, and wouldn't want quotas as I wouldn't want to be given a job for being a woman. It might be frustrating if I'm told that I've earn a job for being a woman instead of hard work, which denies all the work I achieved.
> ...


Non-tech people not understanding what's going on. From what I see, scientifically-minded women tend to end up in maths, chemistry, biology, etc. instead of IT for some reason.
When I was in CS college, we only got like 4 girls in class of 32 people and 2 of them were mainly into computer graphics and web stuff, one was very good at hard tech stuff - mathematical type, other mediocre at everything.
I was in 4 IT junior college classes and in three of them there were women in class - one in each.

How can there even be any quotas if there aren't enough female candidates in the first place?


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## Arzazar Szubrasznikarazar (Apr 9, 2015)

Anyway if they want more women in tech, I think they should start persuading them to stop going into science and go into IT instead, because from what I've heard from people here, scientific research is absolute hell when it comes to incomes.


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## Emerald Legend (Jul 13, 2010)

Arzazar Szubrasznikarazar said:


> Anyway if they want more women in tech, I think they should start persuading them to stop going into science and go into IT instead, because from what I've heard from people here, scientific research is absolute hell when it comes to incomes.


Why even need persuasion? Why can't there be less women in tech if they don't like tech?


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## Tropes (Jul 7, 2016)

Emerald Legend said:


> Why even need persuasion? Why can't there be less women in tech if they don't like tech?


I've seen your threads down in the Relationship & Sexuality forum, so I am surprised you'd even need to ask:

* *




Straight nerds want to get laid. And feminism... But mostly the first part.




On a serious note though: I think if anything, the women who go into the sciences are likely to contribute more to society then if they'd go to IT. Again and again I've seen guys choose IT over science because it pays more, and I can't help but look at the braindrain and wonder if a potential cure for cancer got replaced by an app for sharing dickpics.


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## dizzycactus (Sep 9, 2012)

Tropes said:


> I've seen your threads down in the Relationship & Sexuality forum, so I am surprised you'd even need to ask:
> 
> * *
> 
> ...


Pretty easy to fix if we were to actually get a government that values scientific research as much as corporate profits.

My main degree was in Physics but, like you say, why be treated like crap in Physics when I'm wanted in Software, which is fairly cushy?


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## Tropes (Jul 7, 2016)

dizzycactus said:


> Pretty easy to fix if we were to actually get a government that values scientific research as much as corporate profits.


Although, I wonder if there is a way to change corporate culture and economical standards so that longer-term investments are more viable. A lot of scientific research can be profitable, just not in a way that fits into tight little quarterly investment reports, and even when it isn't, shared contract based endeavors don't have to be about profit the way current corporate laws require, you do need enough profit to be sustainable, but as long as investors know what they are getting into, it doesn't have to be a legally binding goal.


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

I'd be absolutely heartbroken if I found out I was put into any position, program, job, course or whatever due to some kind of quota that let me have an easy pass.

I'd feel inferior to everyone around me because I didn't have to go through the same steps as them, and I'd feel like a fraud, a con and rightly invite and sense hatred from everyone around me.

It would completely destroy me to learn that I had unfairly benefited or progressed like that; I'd be sickened to the core and would probably have to quit and, if I wanted to continue that kind of work, I'd have to move to a completely different part of the country to make sure I was in a new crowd where I could start afresh and do it on merit without anyone knowing or believing I had ever done anything using the 'positive discrimination' card.

It's such a ruinous concept to me.


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## AriesLilith (Jan 6, 2013)

HAL said:


> I'd be absolutely heartbroken if I found out I was put into any position, program, job, course or whatever due to some kind of quota that let me have an easy pass.
> 
> I'd feel inferior to everyone around me because I didn't have to go through the same steps as them, and I'd feel like a fraud, a con and rightly invite and sense hatred from everyone around me.
> 
> ...


Exactly.  So it's weird to see how some women might actually think that it's important to have quotas, when lack of opportunity isn't even a problem. Me and my fellow male coworkers has lots of HR from different companies contacting us from LinkedIn or contacts shared years ago, almost every day. As long as you work with what's trendy and on demand in the market, and as long as you are good at it, gender in recruitment is pretty irrelevant.


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## Wellsy (Oct 24, 2011)

Perhaps it'd be useful to clarify types of quotas as there's varying degrees and everyone gets knee jerked in an assumption that by quota one is inevitably unqualified. 


> *1. Selection among equally qualified candidates.
> *The mildest form of affirmative action selection occurs when a female or minority candidate is chosen from a pool of equally qualified applicants (e.g., students with identical college entrance scores). Survey research suggests that three-quarters of the public does not see this type of affirmative action as discriminatory (Roper Center for Public Opinion, 1995d).
> 
> *2. Selection among comparable candidates.
> ...


These are related to affirmative action in general, whilst quotas are rather specific but it helps put in perspective hiring. Where as quotas are just an arbitrary number that's set as a goal and will have to be considered in context of the demographics of the pool of applicants. Setting a high quota in a place where there simply aren't enough applicants to fill such a quota could be an issue if those enforcing it are inconsiderate to this reality. 

There should also be a discussion about the normative state of things, where some assume that there isn't biased or discriminatory practices in such fields and some who do.
From this, I always recommend this post in regards to hiring practices and discrimination as its detailed and explained clearly.
The viewpoint that there is insignificant structural/social barriers and insignificant discrimination/bias often assumes a functioning meritocracy, which can be another avenue of debate since it's questionable to what extent anything functions on such a basis ever and even in the ideal whether it's arguably the best system. 

At first impression, it don't think its as terrible as some may take it, as they take some strong assumptions to the nature of the quota which I don't think are necessary or even likely in such contexts. One could speak to the social sense of quotas and their implications regardless of what it objectively does. Because one could have a weak type of quota that doesn't do much, but as described above people in their assumed sense of it can come to feel that those who get a job with such a system are undeserving.
I suppose it really matters on the state of things that may warrant a quota and consideration of the alternatives means to similar ends. Because if there is a systematic problem, putting the burden on the target quota group to solve the matter is inadequate and unlikely to solve the matter because individual solutions don't solve systemic matters. At best they work in conjunction with systemic solutions.


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## AriesLilith (Jan 6, 2013)

Tropes said:


> I've seen your threads down in the Relationship & Sexuality forum, so I am surprised you'd even need to ask:
> 
> * *
> 
> ...


Actually guys in IT are pretty normal.  Many guys I know are in relationships or even married and with kids. They also have different hobbies including surfing, photography, traveling, sports and so on, like normal people.

As for the relevance of IT, well that web application that allows people to submit IRS or social security services online doesn't build itself.  I guess that software is everywhere nowadays that people take their relevance for granted.


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