The power of role models
&gt;The best way to improve the representation of women in the field is not to recruit them, important though that is, but to promote them. To create role models. To push them into positions of influence.<p>I find the idea that we should &quot;push them into positions of influence&quot; abhorrent. These are zero sum games, to give them a special advantage over any other demographic is to disadvantage another. This is antithetical to everything most people believe about fairness and equality. And what of the girls who learn that their role models have been given a handicap, pushed upwards beyond their skill by well-meaning but naive men? What sort of message will that send to them?<p>None of this is even mentioning the basic question of, what do we even get out of trying to &quot;correct&quot; disparities in employment demographics? How do we even know that women as a demographic have an equal interest in computer science to men? If they don&#x27;t, what do we get out of &quot;correcting&quot; the disparity by given them special treatment, handicaps, incentives, etc?<p>Pushing people into positions of influence based on their gender is nothing other than deeply sexist, discriminatory to people who don&#x27;t need to be pushed, and should be absolutely unacceptable to anyone who actually cares about equality.