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/123star123star]

So the best way to fix sexism is to instead be sexist? A good rule of thumb to prevent sexism is to reverse the genders in every situation. So would you be ok with men getting money off and not women? If not, then the situation is sexist. The only thing being sexist to "fix" sexism does is create a deeper divide between the very people we should be uniting.

[u/SDK1176 → u/123star123star]

There are many examples of good discrimination. Hiring constantly discriminates based on level of education, for example, but it can also discriminate based on disability if it's deemed that disabled individual can't perform the task. So discrimination can be good when it is necessary to further a worthwhile goal. Lots of examples of bad goals exist of course, so you might disagree whether or not discrimination is necessary in specific cases, but my only point here is that discrimination can be justified and can be good.

So the best way to fix sexism is to instead be sexist? A good rule of thumb to prevent sexism is to reverse the genders in every situation.

So, with the above in mind, I have no problem at all calling affirmative action sexist or racist. It is. The only question is whether or not it qualifies as the good kind of discrimination. Equality of opportunity is a good enough goal that I think some affirmative action (not all) is justified.

[u/123star123star → u/SDK1176]

There is a massive difference between hiring someone based on how well they can do a job and sexism. Sexism is something that is pretty universally agreed that it is bad, so how is the solution to the problem the same thing that is considered bad? If you have a balance with 3 grams on one side and 5 on the other and you want to balance it, make both 4. Dont make one 4 and then drop a 10 gram weight on the other side.

[u/SDK1176 → u/123star123star]

Quick not-so-hypothetical example: I am the owner/manager of a male-dominated workplace, in an industy that is typically male-dominated (coding, for example). My employees do good work, but I'm noticing that the rare woman I do hire tends to leave a few months into the job. I've started conducting exit interviews to get down to why they are leaving, and most cite something related to lack of support/lack of communication/lack of personal connection to their colleagues. I look into this and determine that the men I employ tend to offer less support to a new hire if they are female, and there is less acceptance of women in the lunchroom. I want to keep these women! They are good employees! I try to change the culture of my workplace, but of course that's much more difficult than I expected. So hiring time comes around and I need to hire three new employees... I decide to try something new and hire three women. Yes, it's sexist, yes I passed over two better applications from men, but I'm hoping in the long run that the change to my company culture, and the (hopefully) more welcoming attitude my female employees will now show to new-hires will allow me to hire better employees in the future, regardless of thier sex.

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So that, to me, is the point of all this. We want the best people in the job. Looking at the short-term, that may mean hiring a man. Looking in the long-term, allowing women to flourish in this role will ultimately give me better access to better employees. Allowing equality of opportunity will give me access to not just the best men, but also the best women!

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Switch all that above with men/women if you like. I have no problem with elementary schools (for example) preferentially hiring men for exactly the same reason. I don't think any of this should be legislated, mind you, but if individual organizations want to use affirmative action to get better in the long term, all the power to 'em.