I'm not the OP, but I wanted to point out a few things.
Unpaid internships are illegal where I live. Also, IT workers can't be "trained from nothing" in a year.
But I've had "entry level" job postings up for several months, requiring nothing but a basic background in computers. You should know what TCP is and how IP packets are routed, at a high level. All other experience is entirely optional.
I have 116 male resumes and 1 female.
70 of the males have extensive experience in the field. 30 are extremely qualified.
What exactly compels me to throw away 116 of the resumes, hire that single poorly qualified female sight-unseen and then spend a year training her, only to have a candidate that is paid the same and still has way less experience than half of my original applicants did?
I don't think you have ANY idea how unequal the experience level is in the field. It's wild.
And for your information, I did hire a woman in our last round. She was very qualified and we're happy to have her. She is one of the higher paid techs, because she's damn good at her job.
But I won't hire some random person with no qualifications, while tossing out 30 qualified applicants, simply because of their gender. That's just a silly business decision.
Also, according to my reading of anti-discrimination laws, I simply CANNOT hire someone unqualified, based solely on their gender. That's illegal. The law is very clear that I cannot "discriminate based on gender", and I could potentially have 30 qualified applicants filing a lawsuit if I trash their applications and hire a completely untrained person instead, based solely on their gender.
Just imagine if it were the opposite and I trashed 30 qualified female applications so that I could hire the sole, unqualified, male? Shitstorm....