The passion for women/girls (referred to as females from this point on) representation in programming is so strong that they try and make villains out of the wrong people as if it will help their cause. From all of the reading I've done of PG's writings I think he has always taken a rather binary approach at whether you're the startup kind of person. I don't think he cares about sex at all. He wants people that are hackers/founders by personal interest rather than being pushed to it by others.
I really like when the move for more female participation in programming is more of removing barriers that would otherwise discourage females from participating (sexism, snickering, etc.) and less pushing females into programming.
As we all know, PG runs a company where his bottom dollar comes from the success rate of startups. It's not hard to draw the conclusion that people who naturally enjoy doing something are more successful at it on the whole than people who are pushed into doing something.
PG just happens to operate in a space dominated by males, because of this I imagine some people feel he has a responsibility to push the female programmer movement forward. I certainly don't imagine him holding female programmers back, with the female founders conf he's announced it sounds like he's trying to help. That said, I think PG is a "pull no punches" kind of guy, so while he is aware of the lack of female founders I don't think he's going to lose sleep over it as long YC continues to succeed.
I feel bad for the female children of HN. I imagine them thinking, "Why do all the adults in my life want me to be a computer programmer? I want to be a veterinarian or teacher, but daddy says that's a patriarchal stereotype."
There's nothing wrong with offering people an easier onramp to hackerdom, of course. But there is a subtext of devaluing all female-dominated lines of work.
You should feel bad for anyone who gets pushed into any career they don't really love. I strongly doubt it's at epidemic levels for the daughters of HN.
I'm not applying any pressure at all to my daughter, I'm telling her she can practice any kind of medicine she wants.
An earlier comment mentioned that all the different professional programs (law, medicine, business, etc) that lead to top, well-paid jobs, are competing over the same top-5% elite group of girls/women.
Adding CS/CE to this mix won't necessarily solve things. Improving the pipeline is a reasonable step, but it takes time for the effects of those efforts to be realized.
I really like when the move for more female participation in programming is more of removing barriers that would otherwise discourage females from participating (sexism, snickering, etc.) and less pushing females into programming.
As we all know, PG runs a company where his bottom dollar comes from the success rate of startups. It's not hard to draw the conclusion that people who naturally enjoy doing something are more successful at it on the whole than people who are pushed into doing something.
PG just happens to operate in a space dominated by males, because of this I imagine some people feel he has a responsibility to push the female programmer movement forward. I certainly don't imagine him holding female programmers back, with the female founders conf he's announced it sounds like he's trying to help. That said, I think PG is a "pull no punches" kind of guy, so while he is aware of the lack of female founders I don't think he's going to lose sleep over it as long YC continues to succeed.