So, I don't think it's unreasonable to try and lower barriers for women who choose to go into tech. (I don't think it's unreasonable to try and lower barriers for anyone who chooses to go into tech, but like you say, targeting women affects 51% of the population, so it has a pretty high return on investment.) I think it's worth supporting our female colleagues, and celebrating what they achieve. (FWIW, a friend of mine has a blog that does precisely that: http://techladyallstars.com/)
I object to framing the debate as a "handicap", because I've found that whenever you start identifying something as a handicap it tends to become one. (Edit: shit, just reread the thread and I did that. Poor word choice on my part.) My own experience is race; my father was sure that the reason that he kept getting passed over for promotions was because he was non-white, and as a result, he ignored all the other possible reasons that were under his control. I've been very careful not to identify myself in racial terms since, because I don't want to give those stereotypes power over me.
I read Kathy's account of being oblivious to all the little microaggressions going on around her. I explicitly made a different choice: I knew from the beginning that there may be people who see me as "just a programmer" or "not leadership material" or "socially awkward nerd" or "undateable" because physically I look Asian. And so I figured I'd work on the parts that I could change, and everything else is somebody else's problem. They're entitled to whatever preconceptions they have; if that's a problem, I can go find other people to interact with.
I really like that Kathy came here to clarify that she was sharing her personal experience, just as Laura shared hers, and now I'm sharing mine. Isn't the meta-problem here that we don't see each other as individuals, and that it's all the "1%" and the "99%" and the "51%" and the "49%"? And I think that if there're specific policies that make it easier for 51% of the population, that's a good thing. But that doesn't make it a handicap, nor should they be a protected group exempt from the same standards we apply to anyone else, nor should we forget that there are all sorts of other axes that we can categorize people by, and some of them have it a lot easier than others.
targeting women affects 51% of the population, so it has a pretty high return on investment.
You are misusing the term "return on investment". Return on investment = outcome / investment (or log(outcome/investment)/time, which is the rate of return).
The return on investment due to targeting women is (# of good developers found who would not otherwise be developers) / (cost of targeting).
Affirmative action in hiring only serves to promote stereotypes. I wish they'd do away with it so I wouldn't have to deal with people telling me that it'll be omg SO easy for me because I'm a minority. Just treat me the same as everyone else. As it is, the suspicion of my abilities is justified, because most minorities have been let in despite much lower stats in order to satisfy racial/gender quotas and etc. I can't blame people for thinking I might not have gotten in on my own merits when I have no way of telling whether or not I DID get in on my own merits.
I object to framing the debate as a "handicap", because I've found that whenever you start identifying something as a handicap it tends to become one. (Edit: shit, just reread the thread and I did that. Poor word choice on my part.) My own experience is race; my father was sure that the reason that he kept getting passed over for promotions was because he was non-white, and as a result, he ignored all the other possible reasons that were under his control. I've been very careful not to identify myself in racial terms since, because I don't want to give those stereotypes power over me.
I read Kathy's account of being oblivious to all the little microaggressions going on around her. I explicitly made a different choice: I knew from the beginning that there may be people who see me as "just a programmer" or "not leadership material" or "socially awkward nerd" or "undateable" because physically I look Asian. And so I figured I'd work on the parts that I could change, and everything else is somebody else's problem. They're entitled to whatever preconceptions they have; if that's a problem, I can go find other people to interact with.
I really like that Kathy came here to clarify that she was sharing her personal experience, just as Laura shared hers, and now I'm sharing mine. Isn't the meta-problem here that we don't see each other as individuals, and that it's all the "1%" and the "99%" and the "51%" and the "49%"? And I think that if there're specific policies that make it easier for 51% of the population, that's a good thing. But that doesn't make it a handicap, nor should they be a protected group exempt from the same standards we apply to anyone else, nor should we forget that there are all sorts of other axes that we can categorize people by, and some of them have it a lot easier than others.