Given the complexity of the feelings a lot of people have and are developing over time, I think it's worth emphasizing how the push for gender balance can backfire. The linked writeup mentions "diversity fatigue", and it can turn people who would otherwise support fixing the pipeline into cynics.
We have a woman who was hired on my team at work. As soon as management saw an actual woman had applied, the interview process was just a formality. She has been with us for several months now and has performed abysmally. If she were a white guy she would not have made it in the front door. Working with her is a constant frustration - explaining basic programming concepts and constantly reminding her what the current task is when she gets distracted looking at cat pictures.
The issue is that the male members of the team resent her and our bosses because she's unfireable as a woman. We want in good faith to support women and other demographics that might be interested in our field! We'd love to do whatever we can to foster interest among any human beings at any stage of the pipeline! But what we're coming to realize is that because management needs to meet some "quota", we'll be providing a subsistence for a net-negative-productivity member of the team for the foreseeable future. Nobody can say a word about it to our manager or director for fear of being labeled a sexist. It's making us resent the whole push for diversity as a whole.
We have a woman who was hired on my team at work. As soon as management saw an actual woman had applied, the interview process was just a formality. She has been with us for several months now and has performed abysmally. If she were a white guy she would not have made it in the front door. Working with her is a constant frustration - explaining basic programming concepts and constantly reminding her what the current task is when she gets distracted looking at cat pictures.
The issue is that the male members of the team resent her and our bosses because she's unfireable as a woman. We want in good faith to support women and other demographics that might be interested in our field! We'd love to do whatever we can to foster interest among any human beings at any stage of the pipeline! But what we're coming to realize is that because management needs to meet some "quota", we'll be providing a subsistence for a net-negative-productivity member of the team for the foreseeable future. Nobody can say a word about it to our manager or director for fear of being labeled a sexist. It's making us resent the whole push for diversity as a whole.