I don't like the term "gender diversity." Especially today, when we have the mentally ill insisting that there are dozens of different genders.

There's two genders. How diverse can gender be? It's like describing a person's living status as "diverse." You're alive or your dead. There's no diversity. It's a binary condition.

If everybody's doing what they freely choose with their careers, either coding or not coding, I'm not sure what Reges means by the word "achieve."

No one talks about it, but we need more gender diversity in this -

https://twitter.com/_Amazingstuff__/status/1008639670417272832

You cannot correct/change the bad things that were done in the past. You can only do the right thing today and tomorrow.

To expect people today to suffer for the sins of their ancestors is simply perpetuating discrimination and legitimizing hatred off the innocent.

It is worse than that Jay. They aren't even suffering for what their ancestors did. Instead they are being punished because they look superficially similar to someone else who has been mythologized into a bad person.

It is like saying since Carrot Top was a redhead from now on people with red hair cannot do comedy. You may have no relationship with Carrot Top at all. But you look kinda like him so no comedy jobs for you.

We have words for people like that. For example racist or sexist and bigot as well.

Why don't we shame female humanities majors into switching to engineering or computer science? You know, for Justice!

Or draft 'em, sort of? "Dear McKenna, we are pleased and proud to admit you to Mount Holyoke College, on the condition you major in Mathematics."

There's no better incentive like the West Asian approach: If the girl sucks at math/sciences in middle school, then off to marry a middle-aged man.

My daughter was a software engineer. She wrote code, whatever that means. In college she majored in Business Administration/Finance, and that's what her degree is. But she enjoyed doing whatever it is that people who "code" do, so for fun in her spare time between classes, on weekends and during summers she acquired those skills. She was able to earn some pretty decent money at it while in college. She graduated from college when she was 19, and was earning six figures "writing code" when she was 23.

When she was in her 20's she could talk all day about coding and developing and all kinds of other things I know nothing about, but if you brought up the subject of gender bias or discrimination in that line of work she didn't know what you were talking about and wasn't interested in finding out. She was, and still seems to be, blissfully unaware of any sexist bias or discrimination preventing her from getting into that type of work, or any other thing she's ever wanted to do.

The last company my daughter worked for rated its software engineers in five categories, from "Level 1 Geeks" who were novices, to "Level 5 Geeks" - the "Super Geeks". My daughter was a Level 4 Geek.

When she was 25 I asked her if she was going to be a Level 5 Geek. She said No, she had no interest in being a Level 5. She said the Super Geeks at her company were mostly single men in their late 20's to 40's, mostly white and some Asians, mostly Americans and some foreigners, who have Masters degrees and PhD's in computer science. They breath, sleep, dream... live for code. It's not only their profession, it's their hobby, their humor, maybe even their religion. Maybe even their DNA.

She joined the Super Geeks a few times on their lunch breaks or get-togethers after work. She said they often invited her, were friendly and respectful and liked women (just not as much as they liked code) All they talked about was code and circuits and robots and clever or weird gadgets they'd designed and built at home. Daughter wanted to talk about other things on her breaks and after work. She enjoyed hiking, rock climbing, shooting and gossip. She'd been to China, Central America, India, and traveled throughout Europe and the Mediterranean on bicycles, mopeds and trains. She rode a bicycle from San Diego to Santa Cruz.

I asked my daughter what she wanted to do with her life. She said she wanted to get married, have kids and be a full-time mom; and maybe earn some extra money on the side. A year later she married a guy with a degree in art who likes hiking, rock climbing, shooting and bicycling. They now have four home-schooled kids, ages 6 to 12, a contracting business with six employees, and manage several income properties they own. Daughter seems very happy.

A lot of women, like my daughter, can be geeks if they want to. Not many seem to want to. I wish for women to do whatever they want and be happy. I love happy women who do whatever they want.

Remember: the hand-wringers and pity-mongerers of the Left ARE NEVER INTERESTED IN SOLVING PROBLEMS, BUT PERPETUATING THEM.

"Check your privilege" and the reframing of "diversity" are being deployed to let the Left continue to mine the seams of racial resentment now that real equality of opportunity has been largely acheived.

Remember this and a lot of this is easy to understand - and dismiss.

I am 59 years old and female. I am a data analyst and write queries, sort of code if you know about this stuff, and then prepare reports based on my analysis.

I was told a week ago that I would need to train some H1B visa holders to do what I do. Yes, I will be laid off in a few months.

Why? Because to come to this country on a visa requires a job and corporate knows they can pay the visa holders a lot less by holding the job over their heads. It is very common in the tech fields.

The people I am showing my work to ... 3 women.

So I've got about the same amount of time in the industry as Reges, although I suspect we have seen different parts of it. However, over the years, I do have some observations. Computer programming is a harsh and unforgiving mistress, particularly when you work in safety-critical and embedded code, like I have done for much of my career. A therapist once told me: "You have an obsessive personality. I don't mean OCD; I mean that you get single-minded about things that you pursue. It's a barrier to socializing, but it makes you good at what you do." She told me that that personality trait is much more often found among men.

I've known some women who were good at design and coding. Among crackerjack coders, about 1 out of 10, anecdotally, is a woman. The vast majority of these, I would describe as outliers among women in general: they have personality traits that are not typical of women, including social awkwardness and a lack of awareness of sexuality or intimacy, either their own or people around them. And they often prefer the company of men. (Despite this, among the younger ones at least, almost without exception they are single and don't have boyfriends or date very much.)

I see no real possibility that there exists anywhere (at least not in the Western hemisphere) a vast untapped reserve of such women. The personality traits are just too far off of the 50th percentile for women, statistically, for there to be many around. It's sort of like saying that somewhere there exists a huge, unknown colony of 7-foot-tall young men. If there was, the NBA would have found them a long time ago. Certainly, engage in outreach measures; try to see that every girl who might think of a career in computers, and might have a talent for it, gets a chance. But without engaging in severely coercive/restrictive measures, a 50-50 gender balance in the field isn't going to happen.

"I was told a week ago that I would need to train some H1B visa holders to do what I do. Yes, I will be laid off in a few months."

Wow. You have my sympathy. One advantage of doing defense work is that one must be a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. We're one of the few areas in the computer field where you don't have to worry about H1B holders. And yes, what you think is happening is precisely what is happening; the H1B holders are effectively indentured servants, and can be paid way below market. If it's any consolation, I have observed throughout my career in the field that software is a you-get-what-you-pay-for business. Companies that try to cheap out on programmers usually get the results they deserve.

Thanks Cousin Dave. It pretty much sucks since as a 59 year old woman, it's going to be pretty tough finding another job.

From what I have seen the tech industry is very inclusive if you want to be included. I have heard (though not seen) that there is a significant number of people (mainly men) that now don't want to work with women or minorities who can ruin them with only a claim. I have seen that some men won't mentor woman anymore for fear of a claim against them...or least have an open door policy...door remains open during meetings.

I hear something about the CEO of Intel...now I am sure my company will double its sensitive.

The problem looks to me that these people want a different culture rather to be included in the current one.

To sort of echo what was said earlier...I used to have a neighbors that worked at the same company I did. She was ridiculously smart and technical. He was a mover...I mean his job was literally to move stuff around the office. She told me once that once she left the office she didn't want to think about anything especially technical and she loved him because he didn't challenger in any way...they could just go 4x4ing or whatever. She now works at Google and they have moved.

Anne, sorry to hear about your situation. I have been in a similar situation though lucky for me I was much younger so could get a new job.

Anne, my understanding of that visa program is that companies have to show they cant hire enough american workers, given they are firing you to make room for them, it seems to me you have a good claim if you want to sue, and an excellent complaint for what ever agency investigates companies for immigration fraud

Thanks for the tip lujlp. Unfortunately, in the real world, the companies get to do what they want.

Talked to a recruiter today and he confirmed what I already knew. They tweak job descriptions to suit what they want. It's a shell game.

Best part though is feminists have made it more difficult for me to find a job. Companies just don't want to take a chance that a woman might go to the media about something someone said, wore, or might have done, so they are not even letting them in the door for an interview.

Yeah, they might get some trouble for that, but they're sneaky about it and still think it's better than having a woman in the place.

And if I were to fight it, I would be eligible for retirement before it was done.

Anne, my understanding of that visa program is that companies have to show they cant hire enough american workers, given they are firing you to make room for them, it seems to me you have a good claim if you want to sue, and an excellent complaint for what ever agency investigates companies for immigration fraud

Dont know why it posted a second time.

You could always wait until you get your severance and then have a lawyer threaten a lawsuit over wrongful termination citing the visa rules to see if they will pay you to go away.

Have him point out a settlement will be cheaper than what they'll have to pay lawyers in an investigation even if they make the investigation go away

RE H1B Visas: I would really like to see the best data on this issue. It is disgusting to think that we would grant such visas if it means that competent American workers will be fired/not hired. Yet, I just read an article detailing a recent, broad survey of Silicon Valley tech workers and the results indicated that a huge percentage of these tech workers do NOT think there is any problem with H1B. That we "need" to bring in workers on this visa program. I don't know how to square this with reports that workers such as Anne are being jettisoned. I tend to believe that companies will take advantage to save money and that we need to limit the visas at the source.