35 years ago MIT was less than 20% women and significantly more unbalanced in software classes (and it was actually a huge accomplishment that the number was that high given the low numbers of women who even applied in those days). Of the badass women who were writing code in the mid 80's, most were pushed into people management early in their career due to heavy implicit bias around people skills. There were vanishingly few women who entered the top of the funnel with the potential to become 35 year hands on coders 35 years ago, and the pressure they were under to jump out of that funnel during those 35 years was far higher than it was on men (and there are hardly any men who stayed in the funnel to reach that 35 year mark). We're probably talking at most 2 orders of magnitude fewer 35 year women coders than men at this point, probably less, given a handwaving calculation.
Eventually, hopefully, we'll have significant numbers of them and need a new term, but it's hard to go back 35 years to fix the top of funnel and funnel leakage problems that existed then.
At risk of not being overly defeatist here, every programmer who follows the SOLID principle should know Barbara Liskov (the L in SOLID) who definitely stayed hands on long enough to be a conceptual graybeard.
I've been fortunate to know a number of women who stayed in extremely technical engineering management to the 35 year point, but the longest lasting hands on woman coder I know is probably 20 years in the code every day, and even her title is a management title now (though she stays hands on in the code) so that's going to get progressively harder for her to sustain, just as it is for guys who take management titles. Like 35 year graybeards, she's a total badass, but she still has quite a few years to go before her hair starts to gray.
Yes, we'll one day need a new term for 35 year hands on coders, but let's not let virtue signaling blind us to the problems of the past.
Eventually, hopefully, we'll have significant numbers of them and need a new term, but it's hard to go back 35 years to fix the top of funnel and funnel leakage problems that existed then.
At risk of not being overly defeatist here, every programmer who follows the SOLID principle should know Barbara Liskov (the L in SOLID) who definitely stayed hands on long enough to be a conceptual graybeard.
I've been fortunate to know a number of women who stayed in extremely technical engineering management to the 35 year point, but the longest lasting hands on woman coder I know is probably 20 years in the code every day, and even her title is a management title now (though she stays hands on in the code) so that's going to get progressively harder for her to sustain, just as it is for guys who take management titles. Like 35 year graybeards, she's a total badass, but she still has quite a few years to go before her hair starts to gray.
Yes, we'll one day need a new term for 35 year hands on coders, but let's not let virtue signaling blind us to the problems of the past.