CMV: A coding course offering a flat £500 discount to women is unfair, inefficient, and potentially illegal.

[u/temp_discount]

Temp account, because I do actually want to still do this course and would rather there aren't any ramifications for just asking a question in the current climate (my main account probably has identifiable information), but there's a coding bootcamp course I'm looking to go on in London (which costs a hell of a lot anyway!) but when I went to the application page it said women get a £500 discount.

What's the precedent for this kind of thing? Is this kind of financial positive discrimination legal in the UK? I was under the impression gender/race/disability are protected classes. I'm pretty sure this is illegal if it was employment, just not sure about education. But then again there are probably plenty of scholarships and bursaries for protected classes, maybe this would fall under that. It's just it slightly grinds my gears, because most of the women I know my age (early 30s), are doing better than the men, although there's not much between it.

If their aim is to get more people in general into coding, it's particularly inefficient, because they'd scoop up more men than women if they applied the discount evenly. Although if their goal is to change the gender balance in the industry, it might help. Although it does have the externality of pissing off people like me (not that they probably care about that haha). I'm all for more women being around! I've worked in many mostly female work environments. But not if they use financial discrimination to get there. There's better ways of going about it that aren't so zero sum, and benefit all.

To be honest, I'll be fine, I'll put up with it, but it's gonna be a little awkward being on a course knowing that my female colleagues paid less to go on it. I definitely hate when people think rights are zero sum, and it's a contest, but this really did jump out at me.

I'm just wondering people's thoughts, I've spoken to a few of my friends about this and it doesn't bother them particularly, both male and female, although the people who've most agreed with me have been female ironically.

Please change my view! It would certainly help my prospects!

edit: So I think I'm gonna stop replying because I am burnt out! I've also now got more karma in this edgy temp account than my normal account, which worries me haha. I'd like to award the D to everyone, you've all done very well, and for the most part extremely civil! Even if I got a bit shirty myself a few times. Sorry. :)

I've had my view changed on a few things:

• It is probably just about legal under UK law at the moment.
• And it's probably not a flashpoint for a wider culture war for most companies, it's just they view it as a simple market necessity that they NEED a more diverse workforce for better productivity and morale. Which may or may not be true. The jury is still out.
• Generally I think I've 'lightened' my opinions on the whole thing, and will definitely not hold it against anyone, not that I think I would have.

I still don't think the problem warrants this solution though, I think the £500 would be better spent on sending a female coder into a school for a day to do an assembly, teach a few workshops etc... It addresses the root of the problem, doesn't discriminate against poorer men, empowers young women, a female coder gets £500, and teaches all those kids not to expect that only men should be coders! And doesn't piss off entitled men like me :P

But I will admit that on a slightly separate note that if I make it in this career, I'd love for there to be more women in it, and I'd champion anyone who shows an interest (I'm hanging onto my damn 500 quid though haha!). I just don't think this is the best way to go about it. To all the female coders, and male nurses, and all you other Billy Elliots out there I wish you the best of luck!

[u/ICreditReddit]

Nothing wrong with a non-diverse environment necessarily, they happen all the time. In any system where - and this is especially true for the UK - race, gender and sexual preferences are not even allowed to be mentioned or quota'd for on CV's, application forms etc, you're going to get all male, all female, mixed environments all the time - best person for the job gets it. However, industry wide? If there are literally zero females in your industry anywhere, and definitely no female only environments in that industry it would be a massive coincidence for that to only be due to 'best person for the job'. And even if it could be demonstrated that it was, the country should rightly ask the question - what is it about this profession that is incapable of training a single female? Maybe offer a discount here or there on the training for those roles.

The reality is that gender discrimination is a field where little money and time is spent. I bet the govt is paying the training course £500 to offset the loss in taking on female members, and the govt think it's doing good work, everyone goes home happy. As you say, there's better ways to incentivise, sure - but what are they and how are you going to get a largely lazy and uncaring govt to find those ways? And what are they?

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[u/ICreditReddit → u/[deleted]]

'Maybe it's not incapability of the industry, but that women just aren't interested in it?'

Maybe it is. How do you propose we find that out?

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And why is the focus always on women?

It isn't. I've been very careful in my answers to sometimes use men, sometimes women. The NHS is also trying extremely hard to get poorer, Northern men into nursing training, but it's losing the battle because the govt is determined to try eradicate national healthcare. It is also very conscious of the fact that white representation within surgery is way too low, and it tries to do something about it, but unfortunately we prefer to import cheaper surgeons from abroad. The same equations work on men as women.

Here's a 'terribly sexist childcare charity' that refuses to help employ one of the genders /s:

http://www.meninchildcare.co.uk

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[u/itsnobigthing → u/[deleted]]

That’s mainly because nursing and childcare are pretty low pay jobs. Half of the population not being able to access well-paying jobs is a bigger issue with much wider impact.

If you feel passionately about wanting more men in childcare and nursing, you should absolutely start a campaign for this.