Women are more concerned than men about gender discrimination in tech industry by Kim Parker and Cary Funk.
From the post:
Women in the U.S. are substantially more likely than men to say gender discrimination is a major problem in the technology industry, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in July and August.
The survey comes amid public debate about underrepresentation and treatment of women – as well as racial and ethnic minorities – in the industry. Critics of Silicon Valley have cited high-profile cases as evidence that the industry has fostered a hostile workplace culture. For their part, tech companies point to their commitment to increasing workforce diversity, even as some employees claim the industry is increasingly hostile to white males.
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Was Pew repeating old news?
Well, Vogue: New Study Finds Gender Discrimination in the Tech Industry Is Still Sky-High (2016), Forbes: The Lack Of Diversity In Tech Is A Cultural Issue (2015), Gender Discrimination and Sexism in the Technology Industry (2014), Women Matter (2013), to cite only a few of the literally thousands of studies and surveys, onto which to stack the repetitive Pew report.
Why waste Pew funds to repeat what was commonly known and demonstrated by published research?
One not very generous explanation is the survey provided an opportunity to repeat “fake news.” You know, news that gets repeated so often that you don’t remember its source but it has credibility because you hear it so often?
“Fake news,” is the correct category for:
…even as some employees claim the industry is increasingly hostile to white males.
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Repeating that claim in a Pew publication legitimates the equivalent of cries coming from an asylum.
One quick quote from Forbes, hardly a bastion of forward social thinking dispels the “hostile to white male” fantasy, The Lack Of Diversity In Tech Is A Cultural Issue:
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It has been a commonly held belief that the gender gap in tech is primarily a pipeline issue; that there are simply not enough girls studying math and science. Recently updated information indicates an equal number of high school girls and boys participating in STEM electives, and at Stanford and Berkeley, 50% of the introductory computer science students are women. That may be the case, but the U.S. Census Bureau reported last year that twice as many men as women with the same qualifications were working in STEM fields.A USA Today study discloses that top universities graduate black and Hispanic computer science and computer engineering students at twice the rate that leading technology companies hire them. Although these companies state they don’t have a qualified pool of applicants, the evidence does not support that claim.
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When 2/3 of the workers in a field are male, it’s strains the imagination to credit claims of “hostility.”
I have no fact based explanation for the reports of “hostility” to white males.
Speculations abound, perhaps they are so obnoxious that even other males can’t stand them? Perhaps they are using “hostility” as a cover for incompetence? Who knows?
What is known is that money is needed to address sexism in the workplace (not repeating the research of others) and fake news such as “hostile to white males” should not be repeated by reputable sources, like Pew.