Talk:Sexism in the technology industry

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 January 2021 and 4 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cmarajoyses 03. Peer reviewers: Liaweed.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:28, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

see
Brogrammer, that's all I got. :) --Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 21:39, 6 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Hello, I added this to the article in section 4.2. Thanks. --dqv 15:53, 15 November 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Douglasqv (talk • contribs)

Department of Redundancy Department
Is "Sexism in the technology industry is the phenomenon of sexism in the technology industry" really the best people can come up with? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rezin8 (talk • contribs) 18:18, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

FIXED Jm3 (talk) 03:25, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Is this page necessary
The page is majority opinion, where statistics are included to make it seem like the technology industry is sexist, while Google having 18% of staff be female is not inherently sexist, at all. The article seems to pull an axiom out of it's rear that 50% representation in everything is inherently good and just. It also references the case 'Pao v. Kleiner Perkins' in which Pao lost on all claims, indicating there was no sexism problem on behalf of the employer (unless the jury was also majority sexist). This page exists to parrot repeatedly debunked and refuted information and use Wikipedia's authority to present it as factual and unbiased. This is NOT encyclopaedic content.

141.163.5.9 (talk) 12:41, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * If all women who left tech did so for innocuous reasons and said that the industry was perfectly fine, then we would all find the 18% figure good and just. But that's not the case. And if you think this article was written to make Silicon Valley seem super sexist, shouldn't you be happy to include a statement that sometimes the courts disagree? Connor Behan (talk) 22:56, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Modification to the first source
Zoë Corbyn's article isn't reliable for these statistics:

"Only 11% of Silicon Valley executives and on average around 20% of software developers here are women."

It's intellectually dishonest to place these two statistics together because they are from sources she didn't cite and apply to different sample spaces.

The 20% statistic from Corbyn's article seems to be based on a self-published source. The data is sourced from this github project and tabulated in this google docs spreadsheet. I removed it per Wikipedia's guidelines

I believe that this source explains the 11% statistic. I'll put it in the article soon.

Douglasqv (talk • contribs) dqv 16:44, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Overt, subtle, or covert
This is poor wording. There isn't really anything backing this wording up in the article. It's best to have this page be covered under occupational sexism for now. Douglasqv (talk • contribs) dqv 16:44, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

___

What is the "technology industry"?
Can we set a bounds for the "technology industry"? Right now, my understanding is that it's STEM Douglasqv (talk • contribs) dqv 16:39, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

A history of this topic needs to be created
When was this issue first brought up?

The Athena Factor has some pretty extensive research. Douglasqv (talk • contribs) dqv 19:11, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I moved the 5.6% statistic about CEOs in Silicon Valley (SV) from Media Reports to History. The media reports section is disorganized and seems to be primarily about SV. I'm working on getting things moved around so more media reports can be placed.
 * The Google in this article needs to be condensed, possibly into its own section. Douglasqv (talk • contribs) dqv 12:27, 15 November 2015 (UTC)


 * , are you working on this article as part of a WP:Class assignment? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:57, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * No. I am working on this article to improve the content. I've made things more concise, so please feel free to have a look around. Douglasqv (talk • contribs) dqv 16:14, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Table 349
Table 349 was sourced for the Statistics section: "In 1970, 13.6% of U.S. computer science bachelor's degrees were awarded to women. By 1984, that number rose to 37.1%. In 2011, however, only 17.6% of undergraduate computer science degrees went to women." Table 349 is actually titled "Degrees in computer and information sciences conferred by degree-granting institutions, by level of degree and sex of student: 1970-71 through 2010-11". I changed the section to reflect this.

Graphical representation
This is a great source to visualize. I'm working on a graph to show this data. Please let me know if there is any data from the table you'd like visualized OR another data source to consider.

Douglasqv (talk • contribs) 08:18, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

C+= features
the C+= section is sorely lacking on detail with regards to the language itself, which really boasts some rather interesting features. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.249.32 (talk) 02:22, 18 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello. Thanks for your suggestion. I will do more research on the C+= features soon. I'll also make a more objective report on it. My understanding is that it does satirize the concept of feminist programming. Whether this creates sexism in the technology industry is yet to be determined. Satirizing feminism doesn't really make someone sexist, so I need to do more research as to whether referencing C+= is even relevant. Douglasqv (talk • contribs) 07:32, 19 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Of course details of the language features are completely irrelevant for this article. If you want to document those, please make a separate page for C+=, change the "C+=" redirect to point to that page and replace much of the content here with a link. Connor Behan (talk) 22:56, 19 November 2015 (UTC)


 * The petitioner probably doesn't mean features as in "list comprehensions" or "anonymous functions". Nonetheless, I agree with you on a separate page for C+=. Let's resolve to have a separate page once this one is fixed. Douglasqv (talk • contribs) 20:34, 21 November 2015 (UTC)


 * the section should really link to an article on C+= anyway, this is the wrong place to go into detail on that project — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.231.13.231 (talk) 10:35, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

top kek
is this the best you can do? you're painfully transparent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.249.32 (talk) 01:54, 18 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello. At this point, I am working on verifying the sources that are already present. When I find a source that is questionable, I use the tag or . If I can find a source that backs a claim, I will use that new source. I'll await comment on these while I'm still doing preliminary research. If I get no response or a poor argument, I will proceed with removing bad sources. I hope that you can understand that, because this topic generates contention, I have to go about editing it judicially.  Douglasqv (talk • contribs) 07:47, 19 November 2015 (UTC)


 * i was talking more about the way the information was presented in this article, although its hardly surprising considering the content it largely reads like it was written by someone looking to push a narrative, as evidenced by the dumbass who thought the ESR post was somehow in response to Sarah Sharp leaving the kernel development community, and decided to remove the section id written on it completely.

I hate to ask, but what is Top kek? Is it English? Ongepotchket (talk) 04:49, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Long story short: It's a parody spin-off of the abbreviation "lol", inspired by a turkish brand of muffins. Ragef33 (talk) 22:11, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * There's an explanation at - seems harmless if that source is correct. JezGrove (talk) 23:17, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Just a heads up
This https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sexism_in_the_technology_industry&diff=692353640&oldid=691860827 is the kind of thing that fosters hostile environments for female editors. Adding slurs to an article should be a blockable offense. Ongepotchket (talk) 04:51, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Don't be ridiculous; that's a troll and you know it. Trolls foster hostile environments for ANYONE. Undo, Report, Move on. Ragef33 (talk) 22:11, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

History Could be Updated and Summary Changed
The history section right now reads a bit like random facts relevant to the larger story. Some context with the technology industry's employment over the years in terms of gender breakdown and maybe majors taken in colleges that feed into this divide could be referenced to give context to the problem.

The summary could be also reflective of the larger piece, which lacks some logical flow of thought. Cmhofley (talk) 19:15, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Strong bias towards feminist arguments, theories, and opinions
This article is strongly biased towards arguments and claims made by feminists. It seems very dismissive of criticisms and asserts popular feminist theories as fact. I'm also a bit concerned about their sources, although I don't have time to check them all right now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheDracologist (talk • contribs) 20:27, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

I thus added "4.1 No sexism exists at all" as explanation with topical research. Read at least Gender Bias in Science or Biased Claims of Gender Bias? before trying to delete. Zezen (talk) 07:58, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Read also here: 2. Gender differences in interest and enjoyment of math, coding, and highly “systemizing” activities are large. The difference on traits related to preferences for “people vs. things” is found consistently and is very large, with some effect sizes exceeding 1.0. (See especially the meta-analyses by Su and her colleagues, and also see this review paper by Ceci & Williams, 2015). Zezen (talk) 09:41, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

@TheDracologist: you were right in tagging "This article has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality. (October 2016), This article needs additional citations for verification. (October 2016), This article possibly contains inappropriate or misinterpreted citations that do not verify the text. (October 2016)":. I went through one of the quoted sources only: "The Athena Factor: Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering, and Technology June 2008". While I personally agree with its finding, I find it a weak WP:RS. What is worse, the Wikipedian using it even misquoted its content. I provided more (hopefully balanced) coverage thereof, apart from fixing some glaring stylistic and syntactit errors. As I am not an native English speaker, I strongly invite Wiki colleagues (especially USA women, as it concerns them a lot) to work further on this article. BTW, it also needs internationalization: from what I read somewhere, there are more engineers in the ex-USSR countries than men. Zezen (talk) 07:36, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

dilutive weasel words
Occupational sexism is not a weasel word. I further strongly question how "overt, subtle, or covert" does more to clarify the content of this article than occupational sexism. Furthermore, the article does not go into any detail on "overt, subtle, or covert" sexism. The use of this terminology needs to be removed until someone is willing to find a source that indicates these findings. Occupational sexism provides a better pretext to the content of the article than words that assert some truth that have yet to be proven. Douglasqv (talk • contribs) 08:11, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't see any harm in changing it, so I'll go ahead. TheDracologist (talk) 20:47, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I think this inappropriate naming conention qualifies as sexism in technology.
Groovy has a class called the "GString". This clearly shows a disconnect between developers with power and the public that will use them. I think this is a very sexist term for a class name. As well as the commenting by the developer's who are not very respectful of the connotations. When reading this at work I just wonder and hope that no one especially any women are being embarrassed as we speak in a professional setting while showing development classes to any person in the office man, women or child.

http://docs.groovy-lang.org/latest/html/api/groovy/lang/GString.html

"The lovely name of this class was suggested by Jules Gosnell and was such a good idea, I couldn't resist :)"

This naming convention is so blatant it may have come across as comical to the offending writer's. When sexism is removed from technology, this should be removed, and the commenting as well as the class is apologized for.

Gender quotas and the crisis of the mediocre man
"Quotas aren't anathema to meritocracy: they increase competence levels by displacing mediocre men, write Tim Besley, Olle Folke, Torsten Persson and Johanna Rickne"

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2017/03/13/gender-quotas-and-the-crisis-of-the-mediocre-man/ - 2603:3024:200:300:C40E:1E9A:540B:74D9 (talk) 04:09, 31 October 2017 (UTC)