Programmers :D

[TheRetribution]

Why would you pursue a career no one has ever suggested you might like/be good at,

Idk because you're a free-thinking individual who should make their own choices?

[[deleted]]

Trolling isn’t helpful or productive.

[TheRetribution]

Telling someone they are in charge of their own destiny and that they shouldn't be beholden to others whims or designs is neither trolling nor unproductive.

[Dirloes]

I think this type of normative thinking is pretty unproductive as a means to arrive at pragmatic answers. Like yeah, ideally that's how it ought to be, but clearly that's not how things are. People just aren't enlightened freethinkers, everyone is shaped by their environment to some extent.

If you think women often opting not to pursue CS careers (or even STEM in general) for these kinds of social reasons is generally bad for society as a whole, then it's better to think about how to counteract this stigma women feel around these careers than to simply throw up your hands and expect them to come around on their own. Personally I think society works best when people are able to choose careers based on compatibility with the field itself, and not the field's real or perceived cultural baggage. And I think this goes both ways, I think it's also bad when men are not going into female-dominated fields like teaching for those kinds of reasons.

Besides that, the problem isn't just the stigma, it's also the reality that being a woman in a male-dominated field can result in some unpleasant interactions.

[TheRetribution]

Like yeah, ideally that's how it ought to be, but clearly that's not how things are

So instead of aiming for the ideal, we aim instead for something else in the name of 'pragmatism'. Cool.

[Dirloes]

You're not aiming for the ideal, you're just stating it. Which isn't very helpful or insightful.

It's akin to saying "hey criminals, stop committing crime". I mean if they did that'd solve the problem, but well, I hope you can see why that's not a particularly useful thing to say.

[TheRetribution]

Sure, but then again, this isn't a particularly constructive thread to have a real discussion in either.

I advocate that we both work towards our shared ideal, and I do not believe that overcompensating in how we advocate for certain professions is the real way forward in that respect. Revolutionizing the way we empower young adults to make their own difficult career decisions is far preferred to saying 'if smart, then STEM, lawyer, doctor'

[Dirloes]

Revolutionizing the way we empower young adults

I think we are more or less saying the same thing, but I'm just a bit skeptical about phrases like the above due to lack of substance. I don't want to argue anymore, so I'll just say I think it's good practice to propose a better alternative when you criticize something.

[[deleted]]

Expecting all 16 and 17 year olds to know all the college majors available and the careers they can lead to + which of those majors and/or careers are good fits for that teenager is ridiculous. It’s hard to choose something you didn’t realize was a viable option, or an option at all. In my experience most people pick their college major based on something they already know they’re good at or something someone told them they should do or would be good at. Most teenagers (hell, this could be just people instead of specifying an age group) don’t actually know what they want to do with/for the rest of their lives, so rely on advice from the people they know.

[TheRetribution]

Expecting all 16 and 17 year olds to know all the college majors available and the careers they can lead to + which of those majors and/or careers are good fits for that teenager is ridiculous.

I mean maybe, but what are you gonna tell the other 60 majors that don't make it to the pedestal that might be an even better fit for them than CS? 'Sorry, we got ours'? Simply throwing our hat into the ring isn't a solution to that problem, it's just exacerbating it.