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China Businesses The Almighty Buck

In China's Booming Tech Scene, Women Battle Sexism and Conservative Values (reuters.com) 225

Posted by msmash from the growing-problem dept.
In recent years, even as China's tech industry has boomed, many women say they make far less than their male counterpart for the same job. An anonymous reader shares a report: Reuters spoke to more than a dozen women -- and some men -- in the sector, from entry-level employees to executives, who described an industry where female engineers and coders battle against ingrained biases favoring men. "The traditional view is simply to think that women aren't suitable to be programmers," said Chen Bin, a former Microsoft engineer and the Beijing-based founder of Teach Girls Coding, a campaign to get more women into the sector. "Things are better now than ten years ago, but overall the number of women getting into tech is really small," he said.

China is not the only country where the tech industry has faced heat over a lack of diversity in the workplace. But unlike U.S. peers that have faced legal action over discrimination, including Uber, Alphabet's Google and Microsoft, Chinese technology companies are relatively opaque about gender issues. Most give little data on hiring and none of the industry leaders share the diversity reports that are now customary in the United States, shedding doubt on whether women in Chinese firms hold a comparable number of technical or leadership roles.
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In China's Booming Tech Scene, Women Battle Sexism and Conservative Values More

In China's Booming Tech Scene, Women Battle Sexism and Conservative Values

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  • Oh f---ing jeez (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Had to hear it for years from this side of the pond, now I have to listen to these fake stories from the other side of the pond?

    From my observation, 99% of the time it was due to innate gender differences (guys will geek out over shit much more easily and spend an inordinate amount of time on it while even Asperger girls are more social than their male counterparts). As well as genders valuing different things and taking different career paths and willing to make different sacrifices.

    But whatever, I'm sure

  • evidence? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ooloorie ( 4394035 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @02:34AM (#56691704)

    "The traditional view is simply to think that women aren't suitable to be programmers," said Chen Bin, a former Microsoft engineer and the Beijing-based founder of Teach Girls Coding, a campaign to get more women into the sector. "Things are better now than ten years ago, but overall the number of women getting into tech is really small," he said.

    So she is actually saying that women choose not to go into coding. There is no evidence that once they do, they are evaluated or treated unfairly.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Their tears provide more proof than any evidence.

    • Re:evidence? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Cipheron ( 4934805 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @03:30AM (#56691850)

      Actually Gender equal nations see bigger STEM gender gaps [theatlantic.com] than sexist hellholes do.

      e.g. in nations which don't provide many social avenues or financial support, such as *Algeria* you have near-equality in STEM graduates (41% female). That drops off a lot in nations with good social welfare systems. *Because* women have more choice. More women doing STEM classes isn't necessarily a sign that the society is providing well for women in general. Mainly because things like Engineering and Computer Science aren't just a course you do, they're a lifelong commitment to keeping your skills up to date. e.g. a Comp Sci person is going to be dedicating unpaid hours FOR LIFE to keep up. Women generally want more work/life balance than that allows. e.g. doing a job where you can't "clock out" and have to keep studying after-hours for your whole life, just to tread water, isn't a great idea if you plan to start a family later. Computer Science is the kind of thing that completely dominates your life if you choose it as a career path, you have to be 100% focused on that or you fall behind. e.g. you have to be near-autistic about it to even think about starting. Women are just more *balanced* than men and less of them are one-track obsessive idiots, so less women go into obsessive niche careers. That's not a "problem" for women.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The paper that article is based on can be read for free here: http://journals.plos.org/ploso... [plos.org]

        Note that it doesn't support the conclusion to draw.

        Based on previous work they attribute lack of participation in STEM to be strongly related to anxiety over ability in maths. They note that despite girls often out-performing boys in maths at school, they experience a lot more anxiety. In more developed countries there is less economic motivation to overcome those worries.

        The study concludes not that girls are in

        • So you're suggesting that the overall conclusion (the sexes are biologically different from each other in ways that lead to differences in vocational choice) is true even if the original poster's reasoning for the cause wasn't quite correct?

          Also, mathematics is a broad subject and it turns out that men and women are better/worse at certain parts of it. Here's a pretty good paper that references the research in the area quite broadly [ed.gov].

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            The study doesn't talk about biological differences being a factor. It looked specifically at anxiety over ability in maths and socio-economic reasons why boys have less of it.

            Interestingly some of the countries where the participation in STEM is uneven are also the ones where girls tend to out-perform boys in maths. There is this disconnect between their actual ability and the amount they worry about not being good at it.

            • So your argument is that young boys experience less anxiety about math, which means that they are less likely to become disinterested in it or averse to it which leads to higher likelihood of employment in fields that require larger amounts of math, but also that the levels of anxiety experienced by boys/girls in relation to math is not biological? The first part of that sounds perfectly reasonable, but the last half of it is a rejection of reality in favor of constructing a hypothesis to fit a conclusion t

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                If it's biological then why are girls at least equally good, if not better at maths? The anxiety isn't related to actual performance. It's a mistaken belief, a myth that can be addressed.

      • There may be hidden sexism in the statement that women "want to start a family" IF that kind of implies they would be doing more of the family-related stuff than their hypothetical future husbands, well other than bearing and breastfeeding obviously. If we want a true gender equality, perhaps a good look at traditional family roles is due. If said women could realistically expect they would be in a family with a man who would do their half willingly perhaps they would have made different life choices. Or ma

      • Women or men for that matter, don't want to go for STEM fields in *Algeria* because the only job prospects are as a NYC cab-driver. Students go for a STEM degrees because you got rejected for coveted fields like law and medicine

  • Stop posting this shit. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @02:46AM (#56691732)
    Just stop.

  • China will have a very long way on this matter... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by XSportSeeker ( 4641865 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @03:56AM (#56691930)

    I don't wanna sound racist or anything, but unfortunately I think China will have a very long way 'till it gets even close to western countries on this matter, which is still not ideal.
    Setting US aside, let's consider some european countries and whatnot. There are very few countries that are really getting there, but still not quite.

    Currently, China as a society has evolved at unprecedented speeds in comparison to the history of evolution of other societies.

    I still remember a time when China was mostly rural, exporting mostly primary resources, and didn't have much in the way of technology to talk about. This was the case not that long ago. If you are too young to remember this, probably your parents will know.
    Over just a few decades, less than a lifetime, China went rushing through industrial revolution, raising extremely modern metropolis in cities formerly pretty run down and primitive, and now the country is activelly participating at the forefront of technology and research in some areas.

    Some people might not realize this, but it's because lots of people don't really know China. There are cities there that are basically on par with Japan in terms of technology, public transportation, technology in common spaces and whatnot. There are research areas like biomedicine and genetics that China is arguably ahead. Read some of the recent news... China just launched a communication probe in space to aid a mission that will be launched still this year to explore the dark side of the moon.

    It's crazy how fast it has evolved. It almost doesn't make sense when you think about the comparison on how technology evolves versus societies.

    But all that has a huge side effect. China did not evolve uniformly, these transformations had and still has huge costs, and of course things are not that simple.
    It became a country of enormous contrasts. You have cities that look like Tokyo or modern european capitals, while you have towns in the countryside with people starving and living a life of subsistence. You have billionaires and huge investment groups that are among the richest in the world while you have multitude of workers slaving away to a state they prefer suicide instead of living like that. Most of western societies also have huge wage gaps and inequalities, but it kinda pales in comparison to China when looking at extremes.

    Sexism can't be seen and treated in isolation, and people should not have some fantasy that it's gonna be solved anytime soon there because there are major shifts yet to happen before it even starts being addressed.

    Remember people, China is a country where not that long ago, baby boys were hugely favored over baby girls. And this is a cultural phenomena that endured over decades.
    https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
    https://www.nytimes.com/2009/0... [nytimes.com]
    This is a huge problem that cannot be solved in few years time, and it has massive cultural effects. Because it effectively created an artificial distortion... there are way more men than women in China when compared to proportions of other countries.
    It's not only China too, it's just something that happens a lot in poor countries or developing countries all over the world.
    https://www.npr.org/sections/g... [npr.org]
    http://www.ibtimes.com/deadly-... [ibtimes.com]
    Even though some of these countries don't necessarily have a majority of people of faith in patriarcal religions and systems, it's just a matter of favoring boys because of base manual labor necessities and a prejudiced view that comes with it. The concept also became ingrained in culture, so up to this decade the tendency still remains.

    Th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )

      it's just a matter of favoring boys because of base manual labor necessities

      When I was in the Andes, all you saw plowing the fields were women (often with babies on their backs) while all the men were at the nearby bar...

    • Currently, China as a society has evolved at unprecedented speeds in comparison to the history of evolution of other societies.

      As opposed to every western society that went from travel by horseback to landing on the moon in a single lifetime?

      I still remember a time when China was mostly rural, exporting mostly primary resources, and didn't have much in the way of technology to talk about.

      You mean like Appalachia today? Step outside your bourgeois bubble and visit the poor areas of your own country before t

  • Social Justice Evangelism (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    As usual, SJW-ism has an effect of demonetization and loss of trust from the normal majority consumers, leading to loss.

    - FreeBSD suddenly forcibly coercing/demanding from users to become political "ambassadors" by a Code of Conduct copy pasted from some feminist wiki, completely unrelated to the object of the community or their initial interests in becoming part of it. Result? Skilled staff loss.
    - SJW publications such as Salon forced into adwall.
    - The GNOME Foundation running short on money because they w

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • However I think they have other more pressing priorities than coding. Last time I checked men can't have babies and for women who want to figure out if they want kids they have to have everything in place before they're 35 at the very latest before it becomes dangerous for them to give birth.

    So I'm gonna suggest that maybe, at the time of peak neuroplasticity when men can take their time to master IT, women have to answer a fundamental question and factor if their career path is compatible with having ch

  • What "conservative values" are they battling? Sexism isn't a conservative value you twat.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Sexism isn't a conservative value you twat.

      No, but sexism is generally associated with conservatives because they are less open-minded by definition of wanting to conserve the status quo and not being willing to experiment with change.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by sinij ( 911942 )
        Sexism associated with conservatives by non-conservatives. The same is true for racism, despotism, corruption, cronyism... I recommend skepticism unless backed by evidence.

    • Re:What "conservative values" are they battling? (Score:4, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday May 29, 2018 @07:32AM (#56692472) Homepage Journal

      In China the traditional gender roles are much stronger than they are in more progressive western countries. A lot of men in particular are very conservative about working with women who are their equals or superiors, and find it hard to get past the traditional ideas they were brought up with.

      It's not just men either, a lot of women feel the same way. The younger ones are more progressive, as always.

      That's classic conservatism, resistance to change and a preference for the existing way of doing things.

      • You have the exact same opportunity to despair and throw yourselves off of buildings (aka Foxconn) or contract cancer by age 35 (aka people who breathe in 40 packs of Lucky Strikes daily, aka Beijing) as any other technology worker.

        You also have way more opportunities what with that whole one-child policy thing and it's effect on urban demographics.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Conservative literally means "adverse to change". In areas where the prevailing historic values were sexist (e.g., China), sexism is a conservative value.

      In a lot of places mainstream "conservative values" are still deeply sexist: abortion should be illegal, women should bear the larger share of responsibility for childcare and homemaking, men should provide for their families and look after women, boys should do contact sports and metalworking whilst girls do non-contact sports and handicrafts, women weari

  • Forcing Chinese tech companies to have more diversity would be great news for tech companies in Western countries.

  • ... where those conservative Hollywood people are abusing women.

    Oh, wait !! Those guys are campaign sponsors of the Democrats !!

    Whoops

  • Seriously, the fact there are gender imbalances in employment in IT in every major industrialized country is old news. More interestingly the article seems to want us to unanimously agree that is a bad thing. I personally agree that it is , but I'm also smart enough to know that my belief that women should be treated with equal dignity to men is a direct result of my Judeo-christian value system and that such a system is far from universal.

    So, the reason I claim women should be given equal dignity of treat

  • China does have many aspects of its culture that have yet to be improved, but it seems that regarding women in STEM related fields they actually might be better than the Americans in that regard. Sure, size plays a factor, but that can also apply to instances of sexism in China. In any case, its not like America is much different with regard to female leaders and participation in tech; actually, China might be ahead there too, if some recent news articles are to be believable, and especially if Chinese immi
  • Didn't we just have an article on here 2-3 weeks ago about this, but with even worse sounding info? I seem to recall it saying that the job openings would literally say they only wanted men. And other things like "We need pretty women in the office that men can look at," or whatever.

    And I believe this part was a comment rather than part of the article, but I remember it stating something about women pretending to be men to get IT jobs.

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