There is nothing about programming computers that is gender specific; in fact it seems kind of weird and awkward that we have to discuss this at all.
Given that so many of the foundational figures of the field ( Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, etc. ) were female, the fact that programming and IT became an almost entirely male-dominated profession is suspicious, and should make us question the attitudes and social constructs that brought this about.
Its not about programming. Or anything to do with the profession. Its has much to do with the culture.
In my first project near impossible work conditions and deadlines were placed on us. Most of us had to make extreme sacrifices(health wise, socially and in many aspects)- The other option was being out of the job. The problem is you need a supporting family. Here in India, its difficult for women at least socially and even in your own family to justify working whole nights, weekends and late hours consistently. You can try to fight that when you are single, it gets near impossible to do that after marriage and kids. Plus women have to take breaks in their 20's and 30's for maternity reasons.
At the other end, super success in software depends on all this start up culture which is very hard on most women.
It's very simple for me: From 20s to 30s most women are having babies, because it's the only time on their lives when they can do it safely. They can go startuping later.
Male coders on their 20s are mostly coding and brofounding because they don't have a better thing to do. IMHO It's even not such a good idea to go having babies at this age for a male because you are mostly broke all the time and you are still a teenager.
When people talk about Female founders or coders I think they mean young pretty female founders. There are few, and for good reasons.
I see no shortage of older females in software managament or software arch. positions and many moms are just fine doing startups on their 50s.
Please note there are age related discrimination problems in our area of work. And frankly speaking when you talk of management you are talking of glorified desk supervisors and when you talk of architects you are talking of UML-drawing clueless people in semi-managerial roles.
Almost anything that requires solving hard engineering problems like scalability, quality you will again get back long hour working engineering culture.
The competition is fierce from younger people. Also the level of learning you are required to do to just 'catch-up' with existing trends in technology in simply too much.
In all the problems look very similar to that in other branches of engineering too. Mechanical engineering for that matter sees too little enrollment from girls, same with civil engineering.
It is worth noting that it is very common for women to be 'promoted' out of technical roles into managerial or administrative positions, often before they have been able to develop true competencies or career plans.
>>those conditions would suffice for a class action against the employer.
What good would that do?
If you pass laws that make it difficult to start and sustain a competitive company, next time around you will see such companies would be starting up in some other country.
you mean to run a "competitive company" you have to abuse your employees? I know a lot of companies that are the best in their business and never have to.
It is just unfortunate for India that our so-called IT Industry is just marketing itself as cheap and easy-to-abuse labour.
>>you mean to run a "competitive company" you have to abuse your employees?
Not at all, but to be a "competitive company" you have to be "competitive" which is essentially doing better than your competition. The issue is someone is always willing to put more effort than you/your company. This is where it all breaks down.
This is exactly what makes our profession so much sought after. Because at some point you can make money non linear to your effort, and if you compress that effort into a small period of time you can make a fortune.
For every person that is happy to go back working 4 hours a day, there are people to put in 16 hours a day.
>>It is just unfortunate for India that our so-called IT Industry is just marketing itself as cheap and easy-to-abuse labour.
IT professionals in India are not cheap. Compare it with any other profession in India, even engineers. We come out easily as better paid people here.
And even a cursory look at the start up industry across the world, not just in India will tell you what kind of a fierce competition it is.
>> I sometimes wonder if HN commentors ever think that maybe their comments might leave them open to legal liability in some future case
While I agree with advising caution, and disagree with the gp sentiment, I don't think that mild gender insensitivity and poor communication skills are as of yet civil or criminal offenses on comment sections.
The other comments here are talking more about the work-life balance issues that might be causing the gender gap... but I personally just think it's to do with parents/relatives, role models, and the time between grade 1 and grade 12.
I myself am a coder because I loved modding games when I was younger. I do like creating things regardless, but I got to that point because a childhood friend shared PC games with me (games that his uncle shared with him)... and then you end up spending a large chunk of your childhood on the computer, so it's natural to progress down that path. But I know both guys and girls that played games like me and chose not to do a career that is computer-related.
It'd be great to have more gender balance in computer science, but actually in all fields too. I found in my art history classes in college that the class was around 80-90% female, for every class I took. This was basically the opposite of my computer science classes...
Man though, it's tough to judge society in the present lol.
I think for a long time programming has been presented as very hostile to work life balance, I had read about examples in high school like horror stories of crunch time. I think this does a lot to discourage women and men. My brother in law is doing programming at the same University that I did and the class sizes are 1/5th what they were when I was there.
Really? I would imagine it's exactly the opposite - it's one of the rare professions that can earn you a livable salary without working overtime/two jobs. Though, maybe if one extrapolates about the entire profession from the few famous startups (and movies about them), you're quite correct.
Well, with the combined factors of WWII keeping the men busy, and the general conception around that time that "computing" was boring data-entry work -- and so, fit for women -- the fact that those handful of pioneering women (Hopper et al) were alive around early/mid 20th century isn't coincidence. The last real "wave" of women programmers has long been over..
@poorelise - I admit that I'm ignorant of modern figures in programming who are women. What I meant with "wave" is that the famous women programmers that are often mentioned/taught about, cluster around a time period where we can identify a trend.
What's weird is that people assume that this has to do with programming specifically, instead of the larger workings of gender as a social construction and hierarchy (laid upon the material reality of sex dimorphism). Discussing gender isn't weird, men (and many women) just aren't very literate about the thing.
Actually most men who program are just interested in it. Same with the ladies. Discussing gender is irrelevant to this forum. This new age jargon will have a short shelf life once the truth gets out. Those who sow seeds of discord will soon have to reap their crops.
There's a gender imbalance in the programming field. This, to many, is worthy of thought. If you think you really know what's relevant to be discussed on Hacker News, you should shoot pg an email volunteering to moderate, see how that goes
Cherry picking incidents involving the actions of disturbed individuals to attempt to smear a multifaceted movement is intellectually dishonest. That's like claiming all Muslims are terrorists because some Muslims are.
That is not to say there there is no benefit to considering the rights of men or the problems that men face with issues like violent attack or custody disputes.
"Disturbed individuals"? Did you read the articles? The people being describes are the leaders of the "movement", like Elam. The "movement" obviously encourages the behavior being described -- meanwhile, groups like CAIR work hard to address the popular image of the terrorist Muslim. Where is the CAIR of "men's rights" I wonder
There are some Muslim leaders that express disturbing things as well. Once again, this does not make them the voice of mainstream Islam. If you actually visit a large men's rights community, like http://reddit.com/r/mensrights, you'll find that some women participate in discussion as well and the men are not the rape-happy bugaboos that many paint MRAs in general to be.
Mainstream segments of the movement, if you will. The mainstream of any movement is where a sense of tribal identity emerges that's likely to engage in partisan disparagement of other movements seen as opposition.
I read the first article you linked to, but couldn't find any reference to rape threats by Men's Rights Advocates. That some women receive rape threats on the internet is an entirely different matter. There have also been episodes of feminists faking such rape threat comments. Let's stay on the sane side.
In any case, I only know Karen Straughan (Girl Writes What), who seems very reasonable to me. Not sure how she is associated with A Voice For Men, but she did call for donations for them recently.
And, let's step back a moment: did animus9 write any death threats to women, or did he indeed write anything about men's rights before being accused of being an MRA member? Then why are we having this discussion again?
Your label, not mine. I don't believe in the MRA movement or whatever you call it. I am opposed to off-topic gender politics articles (which are becoming more frequent here) as I believe they are divisionist and ruin the spirit of this forum. This is Hacker News NOT Gender Politics News.
I didn't say there was anything military right-wing in them? I said his posts had the rhetoric of a militant cult.
Some exmaples:
> "An all boys class sure would be a breath of fresh air: it might be possible to focus on the actual education for once. Voluntary segregation seems like it would solve a lot of problems and eliminate our favourite scapegoats."
> "This new age jargon will have a short shelf life once the truth gets out. Those who sow seeds of discord will soon have to reap their crops."
> "The only thing suspicious is the propaganda machine which is creating this never ending list of gender-tech articles and their associated divisionist jargon."
Your statement is about as intelligent as saying feminists are indistinguishable from trolls. The men's rights movement, like feminism, isn't monolithic.
It is reactionary, i.e. its MO is to paint "feminism" as monolithic and dangerous. If these men really cared about gender inequality and the problems they face as men, they would see that many branches of feminism, like radical feminism, offers solutions where everyone comes out the winner. But that's not what "men's rights" is for.
This is coming from a man who has learned a lot by listening to women instead of constructing male echo chambers.
There are men's rights practitioners that support the egalitarian aims of feminism. Equality is what reasonable MRAs and feminists want. Unreasonable MRAs and feminists, however, are more interested in having someone to blame.
The popular understanding of feminism is that it aims for equality between men and women. You've more or less said "you don't understand feminism" without explaining how, exactly, feminism doesn't aim for equality. Not very useful if your aim is to increase understanding of your viewpoint.
Nothing about the 1s & 0s themselves, but most of the environments & presentations where it happens? Those tend to lean stereotypical-male-centered[1][2].
The only thing suspicious is the propaganda machine which is creating this never ending list of gender-tech articles and their associated divisionist jargon.
Social construct theory is dead. Girls who have a genuine interest in technology couldn't care less about the sex of their coworkers (because if they did then they would be sexists).
I have watched the manipulation of online forums in real time by a specific group with a specific political agenda. Hacker News might very well be the next victim.
It used to be about technology. What place does subversive gender politics and social construct theory have amongst hackers and lovers of technology?
Before the dotcom era and the mainstreaming of geek chic, programming used to be considered pretty uncool. Men and women who went into it were seen as nerds. For women, more so than men, finding a mate has been seen as part of being able to survive comfortably. So women stayed away from the stigma of programming, lest it lessen their attractiveness. Now, after things reversed and geek chic became mainsteam, the profession's seen as cool. Other professions seen as less cool (trades for example) don't seem to be the targets of the diversity lobby.
I run a private education organization that teaches kids how to code at a physical facility, and we get a gender breakup of male and female students that is similar to that of the industry (around 80 - 20). Because of the overwhelming male presence, it is difficult to make a comfortable learning environment for the female students, who may often feel uncomfortable, at odds with, or ostracized by pseudo-masculine efforts undertaken by adolescent males. It's at this level that computer education becomes challenging for females, at that awkward stage where not all the boys have yet learned how to shower daily.
Our solution was to simply make a small set of our classes for girls only. This provides girls with the option of learning either in an all-girls or a regular environment, so girls who feel uncomfortable are not discouraged to the point that they drop out.
>>Our solution was to simply make a small set of our classes for girls only.
Your solution will make the problem worse. Because nothing will really change in the way boys work, and you will see the same late night, whole night, full weekend culture among them.
Girl's classes will see a far little attendance totally detached from culture in the other part of world. Soon the rewards will dry out and move towards crazy work culture and attendance in girls classes will decline.
I think you missed the description of my organization - we're not doing professional development. We're training kids on how to better access technology, and quite frankly people on HN don't really understand what our atmosphere is like. Girls and the parents of girls really appreciate our all-girls classes and events, they have excellent attendance and the girls really come together as a community.
I honestly couldn't care less about idealistic principles when the all-girls classes have been working great for us and have boosted the number of enrolled female students.
I can understand purely from an academic perspective- attending classes, passing tests, completing assignments. But again this model breaks down in the real world.
One must really treat engineering as a practice and not as a degree. More like law and medicine.
Throughout India, girls outscore boys in nearly every exam. Somehow that doesn't last at workplaces.
I disagree, not just on this issue, but in general. I think academic education should be more the learning and less training - teach creativity, abstract thinking, curiosity, thinking out-of-the-box, ... The student's then become faster learners of the more mundane things, because they have a better mental abstraction framework, and can learn the things that are required on the job starting to work on the job!
How about just being harsh on "psuedo-masculine efforts"? Just like if you had mostly white kids and they made the black kids "feel uncomfortable" by "awkward" kids, the answer is to meet the stupid jokes and what not with sincerity and make them realise how absurd the behaviour is. Just like in other co-ed classes if boys make whatever jokes, it gets slapped down.
Separating things sounds like it'd just make the male stuff even worse since there's no negative feedback. And it doesn't strengthen the girls to speak out when a guy tries some dumbass posturing or whatever.
And I say this even while planning to send my daughters to all-girls school just for possible reduction in the general adolescent "distractions". I just don't see what's comp-sci specific.
We don't segregate, we simply offer the all-girls class as an alternative. We still have girls in our regular class and they are very chill. I'm not saying we have an issue with boys acting out, I'm saying that when we get that occasional kid who makes things uncomfortable, some girls get visibly put off by it. I train all my instructors on how to deal with inappropriate comments and to let me know about them, so my decision to provide girls with a more comfortable environment is rooted in the observation that 100% of the inappropriate comments we've had to deal with come from a male student.
When any student, regardless of gender, is uncomfortable in a class, they will pay less attention and perform noticeably poorer.
An all boys class sure would be a breath of fresh air: it might be possible to focus on the actual education for once. Voluntary segregation seems like it would solve a lot of problems and eliminate our favourite scapegoats.
I agree -- kids receive all kinds of messages about how girls and boys should act, from the media, their parents, and their peers, and a lot of it is just plain toxic and manifest in masculinity-affirming posturing and violence. It's essential to look at these things if we really want "equality".
This is one sided. No doubt there are those men who are violent and indecent: But nobody ever suggested that we mould man after these barbarians, or generalize masculinity based on such poor examples. The same character flaws exist in the opposite sex but manifest themselves differently (with comparable detriment).
Equality is a one dimensional metric and a kind of tunnel vision that undermines true ethics. Should a small man eat the same quantity of food as a large man? It would be equal. Have you given away most of your wealth to the poor and needy so that everyone has an equal share? Shall we cut the legs off the tall so that they are the same height as the short? Or throw acid on the beautiful so they have no advantage over the ugly?
No one is suggesting that opposite sex negative things (cliques, shaming girls based on clothes, whatever other things they do) is acceptable.
But I've yet to hear anyone complaining about boys being intimidated and not participating in a class because it was full of girls being bitchy. And to the extend that it happens (someone mocking an ugly kid in class), I'd assume it'd get slapped down in the same way.
The "masculinity-affirming posturing and violence" that the parent refers to is pretty much entirely negative. There's no benefit to praise, accept, or encourage that kind of behaviour.
That's right you haven't heard any complaining: because they just go to a different field to avoid it. And then all the noise eventually follows along and complains that the field is all male. And the cycle repeats.
Men are interested in doing something and creating something, and we will continue doing this forever. Those who cannot do this will continue to complain and blame someone else for their situation. A lack of personal responsibility (independent of gender) will always result in failure.
Isn't there a way how to teach those adolescent males to behave like humans? If their behavior is that bad that it makes uncomfortable learning environment for other students, then it needs to be addressed.
I'm woman and my experience is that most adolescent males are not apes and are able to act like human. Separating them by gender is accepting bad behavior as norm when it actually is not a norm. Young polite males are often off putted by pseudo-masculinity too, but you just told those that they have to suck it up.
The stereotype of adolescent male being half ape is as a accurate as the stereotype of woman being way too much emotional. Despite stereotypes, most young males are ok people and most young females are able to reason rationally.
You mean 12 years old? Yes they are immature, but oddly enough I did not encountered all that much uncontrollable pseudo masculinity in them. Someone occasionally acts in a way uncomfortable for girls, but it is usually considered "bad behavior" and he is called on that.
Maybe because such behavior is not considered "normal" here. They do display such behavior more often when they are in boys only group eg. physical education class. Not coincidentally, it is class where it is tolerated more.
This is extremely sexist and needlessly hostile. It's like being male and interested in coding is somehow associated with all the stereotypical male attributes which turns off women from coding. Ah, so we need to have boys acting less like boys because it's clearly why we don't have more women in tech. So we all need to teach teen boys to become meterosexual so it can be more inviting and suitable for females?
I think if you want more women to be coding, you have failed definitely. Why not show that women can be as strong as the boys, can rub shoulders and brain and still come out on top? By segregating based on gender, you only support that women have stereotypical attributes which prevent them from being as good as men, and men are good because of their stereotypical attributes.
Your genitals do not make you a coder, it's really down to the culture and societal expectations of both genders.
I respect your idealism and definitely did not want to sound sexist or hostile with my comment. I completely agree that segregating by gender doesn't do much good when it comes to lifelong skills of working with the opposite gender, but at the age group levels that we deal with, it becomes incredibly difficult to handle the disparity in average maturity levels between genders.
I merely wanted to point out a practical experience and was not trying to advocate gender segregation.
I will do that as soon as you explain how treating female coders as if they were freaks, segregating them in their own class, decreases the problem of integration of more female coders in tech.
Perhaps the issue of "feeling alien to the community" would be improved by, you know, not alienating females from the community, with sexist behavior such as this.
I would never consider a female coder to be any different from a male one. I am merely giving anecdotal evidence that female students of the 11 - 17 age group learn significantly better when they are amongst their peers. My decision to make a few of our classes into girls-only ones was to allow the girls who felt uncomfortable in a male-dominated setting to still have an opportunity to learn in a setting they found comfortable. My underlying motivation was not to segregate them, but to give them another option - we still have girls attending our regular classes, and this is hardly the issue that some of the commenters here are making it out to be.
>I would never consider a female coder to be any different from a male one
You literally segregated males from females in your coding class. That is considering them to be different.
>female students of the 11 - 17 age group learn significantly better when they are amongst their peers.
So male students aren't peers of female students? Really?
I'm pretty sure you're not being purposefully malicious, but jeeze... Your philosophy is kinda broken, you don't really seem to realize the (incredibly sexist) assumptions you're making, and that's going to lead to reinforcing a gender divide, not solving any problems.
I understand that from an idealistic perspective what I'm doing can be regarded as malicious or sexist, but I'd like to point out two very important things:
1. there is no requirement for girls to only attend the all-girls classes.
2. this is not my philosophy, this is a data-driven decision that has nothing to do with my perception of the abilities of males or females. The all-girls classes were a result of us seeing a significant drop in the percentage of girls enrolled in a programming class.
It was a management decision that many of the parents in our community appreciated, and quite frankly I'm a bit shocked by how quickly people on HN jump to the conclusion that I'm some kind of misogynist.
@DanBC There is not that much evidence and I do not see best education system in the world moving to gender educated classes. There is one experiment on few kids with all kinds of special conditions.
Plus, there are some proves that girls perform worst when reminded of all "incapable woman" stereotypes.
You make it sound like there were boys running around them in circles every class all class long.
But its a good discussion, hope one of you comes with a less dramatic solution.
"Hey, female coder, you can choose to be in a co-ed class or a female-only one, your choice" is hardly treating them as freaks. You're completely misrepresenting the original commentor.
imho, I think we should target less popular and possibly more important situations (all relative, I know) such as helping people in 3rd world nations to get better access to IT & education.
primitivesuave was literally recounting their own experience with young children; are they "sexist", or is describing reality just not to your liking? What does "acting like boys" even mean, may I ask? primitivesuave was taking about the toxic masculinity that involves macho superiority and violence, sorry if it upsets you that that's what masculinity involves.
primitivesuave wasn't talking about genitals, they were talking about gender, and you know this -- "acting like boys" has nothing to do with genitals -- but seem profoundly confused and angry about it.
primitivesuave's post is fraught with unconscious sexism. That is the problem.
First he generalizes that all adolescent males put on "pseudo-masculine efforts". No they don't. That's just as much a stereotype as "all girls suck at coding" or whatever stereotype-du-jour militant feminists are raging about this week.
Maybe a few of the students put on "displays" that he considers to be "pseudo-masculine efforts". That is a reflection of his own judgment of stereotypes though, not something innate to adolescent boys.
Then his proposed solution is to segregate males and females to facilitate learning.
Think about that.
Rather than discipline the kids who are acting out, teaching them to act in ways appropriate to civil society, he thinks that segregating boys and girls is the correct play. Even by his own logic, he's perpetuating the gender divide. Rather than stop the "pseudo-masculine efforts", he removes the women from the situation so that said "pseudo-masculine efforts" can continue. It's a really, really bizarre 'solution' when smoothing the gender divide is a stated goal.
It's akin to a company's HR getting complaints from female staff that the male executives are swearing too much or making sexual jokes or _insert_stereotypical_sexist_male_exec_behavior_here_. Rather than addressing the offending behavior, HR chooses to give females the "opportunity" to go have their own meetings down the hall on different days. No sane person thinks that will make strides towards gender equality. It will end in females being relegated to admin/secretary land while the executive boys club carries on.
I'm not saying all males put on pseudo-masculine efforts, I'm saying it only takes one kid who makes an inappropriate joke like changing "public void" to "pubic void" when we're doing a code review. In such a situation, the boy will suppress a smile while he innocently exclaims he made a typo, while his friends all giggle innocuously. If you don't work with kids, you will not fully understand how the adolescent mind manifests itself in the classroom environment, and how difficult it is to suppress it. In the situation I just described, all we can do is mentally make a note to not call that same student up again. And in this situation and all related ones, we're dealing with a male student. Girls simply don't find stupidity that funny, and as an instructor I get pretty sick and tired of it.
I've spent the last 30 minutes defending myself on HN so I will conclude with this. We are not segregating our classes. We are not trying to shield female students from the realities of the world. We are simply making a business decision to offer an alternative environment for our female students who would otherwise have to deal with awkward situations like the one I just described. The all-girls classes are ridiculously chill and my instructors leap at the opportunity to teach them, because girls in middle and high school are on average more attentive and respectful than their male counterparts. You can tear apart my real-world observation all you want, but that is the simple reality of it and once you open your mind beyond some idealistic vision of what education should be, you'll understand that my reasoning is not just "unconscious sexism".
Thanks for your posts, primitivesuave. I have to say I was surprised and extremely disappointed with the ridiculously defensive (of mostly strawman arguments) and needlessly accusatory posts in response to yours.
Needless to say this is an issue which constantly generates weird hate from certain aspects of geek culture, but I'm glad you're taking actual steps to improve the situation.
It's upsetting that these men, who seem uncomfortable at the prospect of someone describing reality, have bullied you into silence. Thank you for your anecdotes and viewpoint, your experience is valuable and contribution appreciated.
You may well be justified in doing what you do, I'm not arguing for or against it, but comments like the ones you make contribute to the whole popular "women are better than men" trend that we are experiencing.
I'm saying it only takes one kid who makes an inappropriate joke like changing "public void" to "pubic void" when we're doing a code review. In such a situation, the boy will suppress a smile while he innocently exclaims he made a typo, while his friends all giggle innocuously
This is an expression of "masculinity", pseudo- or otherwise?
Seems more like a silly juvenile joke that some kids (or adults) of both sexes might enjoy, and some might roll their eyes.
I mean, if you made me guess the sex of the person involved, I would certainly suspect it was a boy. Mischief of this kind tends to be more popular among boys. But a joke like this isn't intrinsically sexist, or anti-girl, or silencing of female voices
(Obviously, it's good if genuine sexism is halted in coed classrooms so that both boys and girls can learn.)
"ostracized by pseudo-masculine efforts undertaken by adolescent males" - I don't see the word "all" in there
"militant feminists"? Really?
Masculinity is a socially constructed, we can identify [1] masculinity as a phenomenon, that's what the field of sociology is for.
I do agree that segregation is not a solution, but you're assuming bad faith on primitivesuave's part, who apparently was is trying to give kids the best environment to learn in. One has to wonder why you do this.
primitivesuave wasn't talking about genitals, they were talking about gender
No difference. Genitals are gender - they define the sex or gender of a person.
(And transsexual / transgendered persons feel like they have they 'wrong' genitals compared to what their brain feels like - the brain of a woman and the body of a man, or vice versa)
To the author of this blog and all ladies reading this:
I'm sorry, but just like stories around racial diversity in tech you're about to see a bunch of HN comments making _EVERY EXCUSE CONCEIVABLE_, and then some, to dismiss your concerns and/or say this blog is doing damage instead of helping. I think they're all wrong, but I can't argue against all of them. All I can do is upvote your supporters and downvote the detractors.
Please just keep on keeping on. I have a daughter here who will benefit from the path you're creating. You won't see it in the comments of HackerNews, but there are men in tech who can actually see the glass walls & ceilings women run into in this field starting back to at least high-school and won't deny it with pedantic arguments that go nowhere & prove/disprove nothing.
Way to throw out the righteous indignation before anything actually happened. That doesn't add to the conversation at all and, if anything, just invites problems.
I miss the days when things that gratify my intelectual curiosity where the things that got upvotes on HN and things that attract low value flaming didn't get upvoted.
Have a look through this thead for the number of people making the "we don't have programmes to get men in nursing" point. Then see that point being made, and rebutted, in every single previous similar thread. There is no point trying to hold logical conversation with people who are dishonest.
These people don't recognise their bias. Indeed, they have a weird pride in that bias, as if they have The Truth and all those other sheep are being duped by The Women.
We all carry some bias. It's like telling a strong animal rightist about hunting. They are not going to agree with you whatsoever, even if it's just philosophical discussion.
> Then see that point being made, and rebutted, in every single previous similar thread. There is no point trying to hold logical conversation with people who are dishonest.
People are just trying to bring out their own arguments. It's not all that weird to argue that someone would want to have more male nurses because the public image of nurse is feminine.
Some arguments are weak and some are strong. For example, in abortion, the two most flammable are status of the fetus and the woman's right, but to be honest, after reading Rosalind Hursthouse's Abortion paper, you will that neither is relevant in the discussion of abortion. But we still bring them up because that's just how people view the issue and I think that's fair and not dishonest.
Dismissive and dishonest responses are those just reject facts without proof. For example, if someone says there are enough women in the tech sector that's a lie because we know the number is not high and we shouldn't place any quota at all. But if someone says that we have enough opportunity for women to enter the tech sector that's not dismissive or dishonest. It's a fair argument because the lack of resource vary from location to location, from age to age, from school to school and vary from personal experience.
Downvote simply because someone disagree is like telling other to shut up and don't ever talk about it. That's not the right attitude to respect disagreements.
Tongue in cheek, but I think there might be a point here struggling to see the light of day...
Why? I mean, why would women want to get into coding?
If one is not already working with computers, from the outside world, its a crappy job, and the money isn't better than many other things. Not to mention the insane hours culture. Women have a clean sheet choice. Why work in an office, killing your brain on hugely complex things for not much extra money, sat in front of what is essentially a complex toy?
Has it ever occurred to people that perhaps girls take an objective choice based on purely the work and reward (money or psychological) and make a wise choice to do something else?
Also, coders are seen widely was geeky, spotty, awkward, weirdos, who cant get laid. And, um, they are often banging on about getting more women in the workplace. From a girls POV, that's sounding a bit iffy at best.
My attitude is to just let women do what they want to do, and if I get a CV from one, well, I dont want to know if its a woman or not. I just want the skills. I dont care if its a man, woman, or what ever. Just don't get in anyones way and let nature take its course.
But personally, I cant help thinking women are making a smart choice, and going for better way to spend life earning a crust. I mean, really, look at what we do. Its a terrible way to be. And we know this is true because even the big tech companies go out of their way trying to make offices and environments fun and exciting. And that is for men. Heh, even men hate it, and need a bouincy toy to distract them!!! I don't see many of other companies going this far. Why? Because the job is awful.
So, men, stop trying to shit up womens lives by making them feel bad for not wanting to work down the mine.... sorry, code.
" All the money, fame, and the joy of owning your own company..."
Yeah, I think maybe you're the one that is slightly deluded. OP offered a realistic view of what a coding job often implies, and why it might not be that glamorous to many women.
You pretend they're all going to own their own company and make a ton of money.
No, he didn't. He said "smart women choose not to go into coding. Leave that to us men to handle for you". Men hate the job? Really? Then why has Silicon Valley filled up with men from all over the world struggling to crowbar their way into it? Coding isn't a horrible job - if it was, you wouldn't have such high salaries and companies with anti-poaching arrangements to prevent further inflating those salaries. It was an extremely patronising comment, and seemed to verbally pat women as a demographic on the head. "I don't discriminate against applicants on gender, but hey girls, you don't want to apply anyway"
The irritating thing is that you can only rarely group men or women together as being one way or the other. Once you get past primary and secondary sexual characteristics, there are no blanket statements which apply. Pick pretty much any blanket statement you like, and if you actually look at the men and women around you, you'll find plenty of exceptions.
I actually think that the comment was a troll, but Poe's Law applies, and plenty of people will support his view.
I originally thought his comment was sarcasm as well. His subconscious bias is making itself apparent and he's not consciously aware of it. Same with the other posters who replied to my comment. They're trying to disagree without actually making a point.
Are you looking at all the people around you? Retirees? Homeless bums? Quiet, bookish people? The religiose? Conservatives, progressives, anarchists, libertarians and the apolitical? Gym junkies? Down-to-earth pragmatics and scatterbrained airheads? Stern, humourless people? Workaholics?
I'm interested to know which blanket statements you're thinking about that have only rare exceptions.
> Don't become entrepreneurs. All the money, fame, and the joy of owning your own company is just ~terrible~.
I think that a generally good advice, not just for "the Ladies" you refer to. Most businesses fail, many entrepreneurs burn out, and attributing money and fame to startup owners is caused by the survivorship bias.
I disagree. There are 28 million small businesses in the US, employing 50% of the working population, and having generated 65% of new jobs since 1995. Shooing people away (especially women) thinking it weeds out the pussies is like telling your kids to not go for that job promotion at work.
> All the money, fame, and the joy of owning your own company
I think drug sellers says the exact same thing.
Of course, thats the problem here. One person is describe the work, while the other is describing the sought result.
Everyone wants money, fame and a rich life. That is not the issue. The question is how to get there, and what you need to do in order to get the money, fame and rich life.
I'm a high-end coder working as a consultant for a major international bank (etc etc etc), and your assertions / sweeping generalisations about coders are wrong; first, not all of us are weirdos; most are married or dating, and we work regular 9 - 5:30 days (with some flexibility). Definitely not a mine (although I wouldn't mind a bit more natural light, but then, office buildings).
If it was a 'terrible way to be', I wouldn't be working here; I like my job. Also, if they try to lure me in with bouncy toys, I'll tell 'em to fuck right off - that probably means the other working conditions, pay, etc are shit.
I dunno, programming can be as fun as any other art, and the money is good and secure. And I don't see how this analysis incorporates gender at all -- unless you're saying women are better at decision-making than men, heh
It would be really nice to see more females in the industry, but I rally have to ask myself if those artificial promotions will help much.
I never learned to program because of some courses or because the industry needed me, I started programming because I wanted to create things. There was just a natural interest in computers and how they work, that's what drove and often still drives me today.
If females have the same passion and/or will to create things, then I don't see what is stopping them from doing so. Sure it might be intimidating to work in a rather male-dominated profession, but personally I have enough of all the generalization that is happening. Not every company/community is unable to respect anyone just because of their gender. Then again maybe it's quite a bit different here in Europe.
How did you develop this 'natural' interest in programming? I am male, but had literally zero role models, and my school system never covered computers. I made it to age 25 without knowing what a programming language is.
But when I found out I was bloody hooked on the idea!
Fair point, I might have been "spoiled" with growing up in a rather techy environment, my dad worked with PC ever since I can remember. I however think that the schooling system needs to start including computer science subjects and by that I don't just mean how to use Microsoft Word.
Then again the question is, why do females not get hooked on the idea, even when they don't grow up in such a techy environment. Is it really "our" fault or is even "our" job to trying to confince people how great programming is? We've a lot of events especially made for females where we try to excite them for computer science, but so far it didn't add much to the imbalance. So for me it seems (at least here in Switzerland) that we're doing everything possible to get women into programming, but if their interests are somewhere else, what else is there to do? Do we really need to play a blame game?
That's what I meant with "natural" interest. We can't force women to get "hooked" on the idea, they need to get there on their own.
>>I however think that the schooling system needs to start including computer science subjects
No amount of teaching CS subjects to kids will ever get them hooked to programming. Because in their case, most kids think programming is synonymous with math and they hate it with a passion.
Instead of teaching them sorting and Big-O, which are nothing but math in different forms what we need to teach kids is a taste for building. It can be as simple as a building complex models with lego, to encouraging them to take part in science exhibitions.
Here in India we had a subject called SUPW(Socially useful productive work). One of the projects I did was to build a mat with cigarette packets. Stuff like that help kids 'get into the zone' or 'get hooked' to productive/creative projects. They can slowly graduate to programming as they start dealing with complex projects.
It's probably not the fault of the "programming world", but rather gender roles in their entirety, where boys and girls are pushed toward certain interests and away from others.
Programming is often seen as "geeky" (lesser so today than in the past) and girls are encouraged to "not be geeky," to fit in with their peers. Boys are, I think, much less socially penalized.
It's something one can certainly think about and be aware of, but then again it's just a theory. Personally I haven't experienced this. I grew up with my sisters and they had the same exposure to computers as I and my brother did and there was never any pressure from my parents or us that computers is just a boy thing, but my sisters never had the same natural interest in programming. I actually even tried to teach a few things to them, but it seemed to be too complex for them and their own curiosity didn't drive them to learn more on their own, as I did.
While I see and lived that parents have an influence on PC usage at a young age, I wouldn't say they are push children towards or away from it, but I guess there is always something going on. I agree that every boy and girl should have the same chances on learning computer stuff, but I don't see it necessary that one has to artificially push girls or boys towards a topic. If they don't have the interest at the topic, there's no reason to teach them all about it, just so we can "solve" an imbalance.
I know some believe that interest is purely influenced, I can't agree with that. Interests can be hugely influenced, yes, but there are studies showing that there exists natural interests for certain kind of toys of around one year old children.
How do you make the determination that the interest is necessarily "natural" when children's minds are so pliable growing up? It's a proven fact that boys and girls are treated differently by their parents and the media, and surely their older peers...
As I said in the other replay above, the "natural" interest isn't just from growing up, but it's also the unforced way of being interested in the topic or simply getting hooked on the idea of programming.
Sure you can learn to program as you can learn to play a game or learn how to knit, but why do we have to artificially get women into the industry just to get number imbalance up? I guess the situation is simply different than here in Switzerland, because here we do all kinds of stuff to get more women into the industry but the numbers haven't really changed, so is it still "our" fault? Can't we just accept that women might not be so interested in computer science as much as most men are not interested in female-dominated professions.
I won't stop anyone promoting computer science, regardless whether it's for women or men, I'm just fed up with all the generalizations and prejudice regarding "the industry" and the fact that people simply don't want to accept that there are generally differences in interest between genders.
What girls of hackernews? that's my question. 224 comments as of writing this, and most of them ignorant straw man whiny responses by (surprise!) men. Hard to imagine why some women wouldn't enjoy coming here and discussing things with so many enlightened, educated folks.
If you're threatened by the thought of more women in coding, then you don't really believe that we're a meritocracy. If you're one of those folks, then somewhere, deep in your heart, you know that things aren't fair, and when kick ass women programmers come in, you as a mediocre participant, will be pushed down to the bottom.
Meritocracy wants the very best. Seeks out the very best. Welcomes the very best.
To use an analogy, I can't imagine Olympic athletes being happy for the best competitors from another country being sidelined due to their sexual preference. No, that's not happening. because world class athletes know their victories are hollow unless they're truly competing against the very best in the world. Unlike Silicon Valley. We don't want competition. Nope, we want our nice, cozy little in crowd, keep that money nice and close so we can control it.
As Chris Rock said, there's a difference between rich and wealthy. Michael Jordan is rich, the owner of the chicago bulls is wealthy.
Women want to be wealthy, not just rich. African Americans want to be wealthy, not just rich. And right now, according to PG himself, the path to that wealth is by learning to code.
So anyone trying to stop that from happening, can pretty much categorically be described as a bigot.
No. No one is threatened by women, just perhaps annoyed by their endless complaining.
> To use an analogy, I can't imagine Olympic athletes being happy for the best competitors from another country being sidelined due to their sexual preference. No, that's not happening. because world class athletes know their victories are hollow unless they're truly competing against the very best in the world.
But you can probably see how male Olympians would be annoyed if they had to put up with 24/7 accusations that their superior performance in comparison to female Olympians was only because how much they hated them.
Kudos to Susie for putting herself out there to make a point! For everyone else debating this issue: to look at the problem objectively, we have to break down the different clusters of people that need encouragement and support to get into tech/startups in order to see how we measure and fix each cluster:
1. American children of any affiliation (race, sex, gender, location) need to learn how to code, because it is the literacy of the future - without it you are left behind in both earnings potential and career choices. To make that happen everyone here can take a step to show a child something cool they can do with code. Get them fired up about expressing their creativity with the tools of tech! For every one child that reminds you of you when you were young, pick three that don't, to make things even in the long run.
2. Niche groups, previously underrepresented in tech need better representation, because diverse perspectives raise the permutation of potential problems noticed, problems tackled and solutions possible, period. Representation also leads to better mentorship, resources, and an even start for everyone with talent and grit, regardless of background. Once we get a unicorn IPO from each underrepresented group, things will change. If we aren't getting those, something is wrong with 1) or 3) or both.
3. Existing representatives of underrepresented groups in tech who have the experience and skills to lead and build successful businesses today need to be able to receive the same support and the same proportion of support as regularly represented groups. Nothing more, nothing less. We have yet to see data from anyone about percentage of seed* funded startups out of 1000 applicants from their representative group. That data can easily close this conversation for good or surface a problem that can be addressed next if need be. If there is a real problem here however, teaching children how to code won't be the way we need to solve it. This is the only data we have seen and it is not encouraging: http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/11/02/how-female-en... .
How would you detect or solve for a problem in this cluster?
* mentioning seed, since that sample would be most likely to be sufficient to gauge trust in underrepresented groups by investors. Later rounds could skew for industry trends in the short run. The goal is to run a regression that shows objective information.
I dunno about 1; in a similar line, you'd have to teach them electronics, farming, carpentry, household, and how to get unemployment benefits. But I'm in favor of teaching kids all of the above though.
I hope this article goes viral. I can't believe we're still not over these stupid preconceptions that intellect has anything to do with our reproductive organs. It shouldn't have anything to do with luck, but still: Best of luck to all you girls out there!
We know that we've reached gender equality when both men and women have the same possibilities, but for that to happen, each individual has to realise that just because you're a man doesn't mean that you can't work with girly products and vice versa.
Good article, I think you're right on target with the issue.
Probably offtopic and inane, but, using the term 'girl' implies children/teenagers or other immature women; can people just use 'women' instead? Will help with getting taken serious and such.
Well, that's cool. While I totally get the point of what the OP was trying to do (and it's awesome trying to be make female coders/founders more visible), I have to confess that as a fellow 'girl of HackerNews', I think the title could be less leading and a bit more constructive.
There are other female founders out there that code. I'm sorry to say that you're not the first, nor the last. It's about how we get MORE female founders and female coders to increase the diversity of the startup world.
(Incidentally, I'm female, a startup founder and I code. )
Not every brain is wired well for programming (can we please stop calling it "coding") - male or female, but there's some advantage men get due to being generally better at abstract thinking. Some believe this is due to cultural differences (http://phys.org/news/2011-08-disputes-notion-men-spatial-wom...), but I personally believe it's all due to hormonal differences. For example, estrogen affects cognitive function, testosterone definitely boosts competitiveness, and so on. I know some will rush to downvote me as a sexist, but this will be far from the truth. On the contrary - this is a good defense on the discrepancies in the statistics and suggests this to be a software rather a hardware problem. I personally don't need third-party statistics - I have nearly 30 years of programming experience and less than 10% of my colleagues have been female and this ratio hasn't improved over time.
"Assigning a label to myself like “hacker” or “developer” gives me the heebie-jeebies."
This in particular is not limited to women. As a guy from a non-CS background, I felt the same way for a long time. I'd say it's a function of experience rather than gender.
Any kind of label is imho somehting to be avoided. Hacker / developer / programmer, but also things like nerd/geek for that matter. Few of my colleagues here would be put into the latter categories if you met them on the street.
1. It is important to like who you are and what you do. I am glad you are proud of being who you are,
2. But at the same time I don't like when people are calling out initiatives like "more women in tech". Look, getting a job is tough. It can be luck or qualification. I know someone is going to cite some research studies but at this point, let's just say yes we get it, a lot of assholes out there are discriminating women. But in reality, you can't stop them by hiring more women. You wish you could just get more women in manager level so that more women can be hired. That's not going to happen magically and hoping women managers hire more women is also acting discrimination. I am not comfortable with that kind of initiatives. It is as if I was a broker setting a goal for myself. That's just number game, there is nothing we gain from it other than growing the numbers.
3. All-girls class is just bad. For one it's like containing them, like putting them in a zoo and wait for them to do something amazing and then we pay a visit and cheer them for their accomplishment. Events meant for helping girls to find self-esteem is great but then again, too many is going to do damage because they soon will get attached to these "all-girls" environment. To actually work in the real world, one must accept the flaws and be ready to work with unfriendly people. What is even more frustrating is that we are dogfooding people with the crazy things CS and programming are doing. The ability to code is great, awesome. But coding is just a tool. Like every other tool out there, you can either make something awesome and powerful or something ugly and useless. Knowing how to code doesn't make you smarter or special. It's like knowing quantum physics suddenly makes you a wantable guy among your girlfriends? That's just bullshit (for some it's true but then that's just bullshit). And that's pretty much stereotyping.
What we need is to stop telling girls or any group of people to do XYZ because they are the minority or is having disadvantage. Making exceptions to them isn't going to help them. I am Asian (Chinese to be exact) and if 20 years later Asian MD dominates like 80%, do we start another initiative to bring up other ethnicity? If all the ice cream truck drivers are Asians, do we want more diversity? If we think (or because studies have shown...) that girls don't end up in tech because they are afraid or because they were told they weren't good enough, having all-girl class won't solve the problem when they enter the real world either.
Teach people about computer and web literacy, about science and engineering, about what people do in their daily jobs. Teach regardless of gender or race. We all deserve to know them and we don't need to have special non-profit organizations going after XYZ groups of people. Bring those things into core education.
I dont think the gender split is the issue that needs to be fixed, if the ratio was uneven for some particularly boring reason then I dont think its an issue that people would care about as much.
The problem I care about is that this industry is hostile to a very large group of people, women arent around not only because they arent encouraged early on, but because they are being driven out when they do get here, ask any women in the industry what their experiences have been and it will likely be surprising and upsetting, it has been to me at least every time.
Its hand-waving comments like this that really annoys me when reading HN. As with anecdotal evidence, it tries to masquerade as scientific while being the exact opposite. My reply to such comment is like always: Bring in the real science (i.e. Sociology).
If women are being driven out as you describe, it should be possible to measure. For example, if they are being actively driven out, women in technology should then be naturally gravitating towards those companies, conferences and similar spaces which has an lower hostility than the average.
While some people do perform some studies like that, it still very much in a early stage.
From statistics and Wikipedia and HN have done, one shared answer that have provided is a cultural phenomenon, in which anonymous non-social interacting work is a male dominated area. I would very much like to see a study how true that is, if its located to the IT industry, and if it is true globally.
What is hand-wavey, that women are being driven out of stem or that any women I have talked about the subject has repeated how hostile it is?
The fact that women are leaving stem fields is very easy to measure and has lots of reports and studies, the fact that everyone I talk to about it has hostile experiences to describe is very much an anecdote, one that I think its easy for a lot of people to share.
The reference to sociology seems like some xkcd joke, are you annoyed that I commented on an issue without doing a pdh on the subject or that you dont think it is an issue?
You claim that women are getting into STEM, and then forced out through (the cause) a hostile environment.
But you have nothing to support your claim beyond "any women I have talked about the subject" says so. If you have "lots of reports and studies" to show that the cause is from a hostile environment, bring them on! Im calling on your bluff there.
There is "lots of" reports that show that the number of women in STEM subject are decreasing. However, they rarely if ever venture into the cause of the statistic decline. Since statistics are cold facts without much worthy of discussion, its the cause that people discuss.
And its such causes that study of human social behavior is useful to figure out. It using Science rather than grunting.
However if I didnt find any emperical studies to backup my anecdote I wouldnt really care, unless I have some reason to believe everyone I talk to is a habitual liar I will carry on considering it a real and upsetting problem. Problems are still problems and can even be worked towards without having an scientifically rigorous process applied to their definition.
Neither of those studies shows that women leaves STEM because of an "hostile environment".
Study1:
What does emerge is that investments and job rewards that generally stimulate field
commitment, such as advanced training and high job satisfaction, fail to build
commitment among women in STEM.
The second study is more interesting, but is only speculative (i.e. Not scientific).
“We suspect that the retention deficit in STEM may be due to the team organization
of scientific work combined with the attitudes and expectations of co-workers and
supervisors who hold more traditional beliefs about the competencies of women in
these rapidly changing fields,”
When a researcher says that they "suspect", it really does mean what the word says. Its a opinion without study. A study can produce findings, and findings are what the last linked research article (in the research) show.
A related 2012 study published in Sociology, “The Dimensions of Occupational Gender
Segregation in Industrial Countries,” examines why some jobs may be filled more by
men or women, be it by choice, obligation or exclusion. Among the findings are that
women tend to outperform men in the general desirability of occupations
So neither is a empirical studies to backup your anecdote. The findings however where an interesting read, and I hope similar studies are made on the "suspected" and "suggested" theories.
No one is "telling" girls to do anything. You seem to recognize that the issue is bigger than "women (and men) in tech," that it's actually more about "women and men" in general, but you don't want to put any effort into thinking or learning about gender.
Organizations for girls in tech offer resources to the few girls who are actually there. I encourage you to try to find me a program that isn't completely voluntary, but I doubt you will.
I did not say a gun was pointing at the girls to force them to program. If low female population in the tech sector is due to the lack of resource and the stereotyped masculine geek image, then how does inviting girls to an all-girl programming class help them in the long run?
If we want to minimize stereotype, and if the stereotype has to do with gender, then we need to educate both genders. This means bring in female speakers to educate and show to both the boys and the girls what they do as software engineer or as a mechanical engineer. The same resource we offer to girls can be offered to boys.
Because the popular culture has associated geek with a masculine image, a lot of girls don't think they are capable of or should be involved. Is mixed gender event less powerful than single-gender event? To some extent yes. For the beginning, the girls may feel comfortable with their own gender. But later on? First time working with a guy on a hackathon project? I am not shy, but if you ask me to work with a female for the first time, I probably end up being shy and careful.
but you don't want to put any effort into thinking or learning about gender
What do I need to know about gender? What is special there that I am not aware of?
In reality, people think differently about themselves. Some people think they are more capable than others. The best we can hope is that we can give each other a chance to show what they can do, to bust the myth that guys are better.
I agree that these classes should not be touted as "the solution", especially when the problem has not really even been articulated. But I'm of the opinion that women need all the help they can get financially, and so organizations offering resources to women for a good profession are doing good work. You may not see it that way, and I'm not going to try to sway you.
Increasingly many social scientists are thinking about "gender" ("women and men") as a social construction, laid on top of material reality (sex dimorphism, "males and females"). There's a wellspring of new thought, theory, and research in the past 20 years on gender, including:
Regarding social construction, no I haven't heard of it yet. I will take a look at that. Thank you.
I think we have reached a good discussion here. I do agree with you on "getting every help" they need, except, I just don't think it's a good idea to call for "hire more women" (some people literally turn having more women in tech into hiring more women). We are all for a better world.
You post strongly reminded me of the Physician's Oath.
I will not permit considerations of age, disease or disability, creed,
ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affiliation, race,
sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor to intervene
between my duty and my patient;
Teach like that. Everyone deserve the chance to learn and grow as human beings.
But that's the thing. In healthcare, we do find disparities in terms of things like race/ethnicity/national background, social standing and sexual orientation.
If you are born in the wealthy London suburb of Hampstead, you are likely to live eleven years longer than someone born in to a family in the much poorer Somers Town/St Pancras area.
If you are a sexually active gay man, you are more likely to contract HIV/AIDS than if you are a heterosexual. If you are an Ashkenazi Jew, your children are more likely to suffer Tay-Sachs disease.
If you are setting medical policy, you will sometimes need to target particular communities for intervention and prevention.
These factors should never be used as a reason for providing lower quality of care. But if an observable trend exists that is causing a particular problem for people in a specific community, it should be permitted for considerations of minority status to be taken into account for deciding health policy.
Like, I'm okay with the government spending less money and effort telling childless people to vaccinate their kids than the money they spend telling parents to. I'm okay with the National Health Service putting a free condom dispenser in gay sex clubs and not doing so in primary schools.
The comparison, while similar is not an fair one. I would call it intellectually dishonest comparison, but I am going to try give it the benefit of the doubt.
Free condom dispenser is quite minor, with a clear benefit. A black only hospital would however be a bit different. Most countries made away with such concept a life time ago, yet we do all-girls classes/schools.
There was also a new article a few days ago about grants given exclusively to female students. To compare that to the medical world, that is like giving gay people free HIV treatment, while demanding full price of people with different sexual orientation (resulting in some of those getting sub-optimal or no treatment plans). Would it be acceptable for government to make such policy?
To the Boys of HackerNews: I am a Male Founder who Codes but no one cares because there's too many of us and that makes us not at all interesting.
Have women have ever been robbed of being able to code like voting? Why does it receive so much attention? What adversity did they need to overcome to be where they are? Is it physical like someone who suffers from carpal tunnel syndrome or glaucoma overcoming their disability? Is it mental like someone who suffers from dyslexia mastering programming? Or was it political like a North Korean who discovered coding while facing imminent persecution for the forbidden knowledge?
I know women who can code just like men and they are great at it but their gender has nothing to do with it, it's just their ability and strengths as developers. Does a person's gender really merit so much of our attention when the basis for the argument is as superficial as a binary label society have placed on people, never mind the the other categories of people that fall in between and who are shunned.
Every female would have had to get over the constant systematic assumption that they didnt belong in this field, from the culture being the only girl in the room / on the team / to the constant assumptions that they are in marketing at meetups and generally just reminded at ever step that they 'dont belong'
You are right, it is not the level of oppression as seen in North Korea, but it is severe and blindlingly obvious, and by making that statement you are helping increase that hostility towards one gender, that isnt nice.
> Every female would have had to get over the constant
> systematic assumption that they didnt belong in this field,
> from the culture being the only girl in the room / on the
> team / to the constant assumptions that they are in
> marketing at meetups and generally just reminded at ever
> step that they 'dont belong'
Which they have in many more prestigious and traditionally more masculine fields, with medicine being the prime example.
Probably because some women think they are ostracized because of their gender only, and not because of their skills (or lack of?). It's always funny to see these kind of gender kind of statements, you don't see the same thing with races at all like "I am Asian and I code" - I just find this line of reasonning by separating people with one criteria (gender/race/eye color/hair color/whatever) really preposterous, yet some women insist on seeing things this way.
Your comment is fairly disgusting, it admits that women are ostracized in the industry but then implies its because they ... as a gender ... lack the skill to code.
A charitable interpretation of his comment: many women suck, just as many men suck. People who suck are treated as bad programmers. A subset of the women who are treated as bad programmers assume it is due to their gender rather than their poor ability.
An equivalent claim which I made in real life:
Steve, an old school NY boy with a south-asian family: "She dissed me because I'm brown."
Me, another old school NY boy more Italian than anything else: "She dissed you because your a bridge&tunnel boy rather than a wealthy hipster in $200 skinny jeans. She'd have dissed me too."
Even accepting it as a questionable hypothesis is ridiculous. Everything does not revolve around gender, which is why a lot of people (not just 'some women') question why this industry revolves entirely around the male gender. Comments like yours help exacerbate that.
I don't see guys complaining "why are nurses mostly females? OMG there must be some discrimination going on, let me find a user group on the internets to complain about that". Some professions have more females than males, and some others the opposite. And some workplaces have about an equal ratio. There isn't a great conspiracy at work going on here. It's fairly obvious that since the beginning of computing, most people interested in computers happened to be male, and therefore you end up with an industry mainly composed by male workers. This is going to evolve as there are more and more schools to learn coding/design/etc... than before, and therefore I expect more women to come in that workforce progressively. Whether it's 50/50, no-one knows, but honestly who cares? It's not as if women are prevented from entering or learning. There are very capable women in many IT-related industries (I know many working in video games), and honestly if a woman has the right skills and the right attitude, I don't see why a company would turn them down. But bear in mind that in terms of employment, men and women are not equal (women tend to want to have kids and maternity leave) and that's also something an employer factors in when they recruit people, especially when they are in a very small structure. Just stating the obvious.
Unfortunately I believe there are gender stereo types in our culture which make many men view women as inferior coders (both in the workplace situation and an interview environment) simply because they are female.
A situation where I have experienced this first hand is where a fellow SDE (female) colleague by chance happened to sit at a desk next to one of the VPs at our organization. Many people instinctively thought she was the VP's assistant and spoke to her as such. She was a fantastic coder, had a PhD, but because she sat next to a man in a position of power was assumed to be an assistant.
Not trying to sound like a feminist (I am far from one) but I believe what women are being robbed of is 'equality'. It is a real problem in our industry.
I'm a bit fed up with people advocating more women in <insert male dominated industry here>.
As far as I can tell these same people don't complain that teachers and nurses jobs are mainly occupied by women.
Everybody seem to agree that a nursing job is not attractive for most men. Maybe the reason that women are few in tech is because these professions are not attractive to them.
I was doing a Ph.D to become a lecturer, which is technically a teacher. Have you seen the pay for teachers and lecturers? I'm making more in my first year of tech contracting than a mid-career academic or teacher would make in salary.
I've got a male friend working in nursing. I admire his dedication to caring for people, but there's no way I'd switch places. I get to write Python all day, he gets to clean up other people's bodily fluids for a dismal salary. We both think we've got the better deal in life because he gets to care for people while I just write dull programmes for computers to make some business more financially successful, and that's got no grand overriding meaning unless you are a hardcore capitalist Ayn Rand type.
Why is nursing not attractive to men? Because men don't care about people? Absolutely not. How about: because of low pay and because gender roles dictate that it's not a "manly" thing to do? Indeed, the friend who works in nursing is a campy and effeminate gay man. Which matches the stereotype.
The reasons men and women go into particular jobs isn't set in stone. There's no gene that turns one person into a programmer and another into a nurse. It's social conditioning, it's stereotypical gender roles, it's educational opportunities, it's pay and benefits - it's a whole bunch of shit we can change.
If a woman wants to go into computing, she should be able to without having to deal with stupid nerds-as-the-new-frat-boys brogrammer bullshit, and if guys want to go into nursing, they should be able to do so with their heads held high and without anyone questioning their masculinity or making assumptions about their sexuality. Blowing up society's gender roles and expectations is key to this.
I heard tons of people complain about that, though for other reasons - it would be really good for boys (and their social and academic performance) to have male rolemodels, the argument goes.
Consider the reasons for non-attractiveness. In the case of nursing, it's bad pay as well, presumably. In the case of IT, the general unfriendliness is one reason, though there might be others. Shouldn't we just remove the removable ones?
(I don't first-up reject the theory that there might be 'biological' reasons that apply to the majority of people, but we won't really find out until we try. And there will always be outliers.)
(Why, you ask? So that when I walk into a room, I could be the boss too, and not automatically be tagged with 'secretary'. It's about status and power in the end, maybe?)
Just curious why you think nursing is bad pay? Or what do you consider to be bad?
Where I live (Vancouver, BC.) entry level (students) pay for nurses is $50K/year. Average earnings for nurses I believe is on the order of $70-90K/year though.
I think it is mainly because nursing isn't a 'career' kind of a job. You can make $50K an year, but 10 years down the lane, now what?
While your engineering friend is aiming to sell his start up for some millions of dollars, your job doesn't even have the scope to even attempt anything like that even if you wanted to.
Nursing has career path through specialist forms of nursing (intensive care, nurse-prescribers, etc) to management of teams, wards, hospitals, health trusts, etc.
That's what a normal career. Most people don't have the sell-the-company lottery as an option.
Actually my point was, if you look at it carefully- Professions like teaching and nursing do have a degree of career progression, but that looks super pale in comparison with any anything in the engineering domain.
The argument is similar to the discussion about Wall Street traders and Programmers. Note each of those folks at the Wall Street are taking back millions in bonuses each year. Yet we are to them a nursing-like profession, what the nursing profession is to us.
It's almost like Vancouver cares more about nurses than software developers making up a significant portion of tech industry.
Think about this, an entry level nurse makes more than an entry level software developer in Vancouver, an experienced nurse ends up making more than a intermediate/senior developer with several years of experience at a firm in Vancouver.
Nurses get paid overtime, software developers are not, as overtime is almost expected with any software project.
Nurses get unions, software devs do not, because someone decided that tech jobs are not as valued or skilled as being a nurse, and that the market is efficient or protected from exploitation by employers knowing that the supply of jobs is seldom, so they treat them like commodity.
I think this argument also holds true about Vancouver when you replace nurse with [insert random trade] (e.g. HVAC technician, elevator technician, etc.)
On average I feel software devs are highly underpaid in Vancouver (even more so when you take into account the cost of living).
> As far as I can tell these same people don't complain that teachers and nurses jobs are mainly occupied by women.
THIS COMES UP EVERY SINGLE TIME THIS TYPE OF THING COMES UP. PEOPLE DO HARD AT GETTING MEN INTO WOMEN-DOMINATED PROFESSIONS SUCH AS TEACHING AND NURSING. I'M WRITING THIS IN CAPITAL LETTERS IN THE HOPE THAT PEOPLE WILL STOP BLOODY SAYING THIS EVERY BLOODY TIME!
You seriously believe we need more effort put forth in the nursing industry? Please list a single one of these <insert female dominate industry here> that is highly important for solving mankind's problems?
Gender isn't "just a binary label," it's a system of normalized roles, and girls and women, historically and now, were/are steered to roles that involve carework, "womenly" professions, etc.
In this system, women who find interest in coding, despite all the pressures to just stick to their role, need all the role models they can get. Could you tell me, did you read the article before making this comment?
What females need to realize is that they have the same God-given talents as anybody else (i.e. men).
I know many girls who are great coders and can stand toe-to-toe with men in a coding throwdown. But they don't make their sex a thing that everybody else needs to recognize, they just get on with the job. You don't read/hear them blogging and whining about how hard they have it because they use their talent to overcome obstacles, not complain about them.
While I agree with what your saying, the common man has only very recently and in most places 50 years more than the common woman been able to vote. It is a relatively new invention.
And you think it's by putting every message under the "I am a woman, look, I can code too!" will actually change whatever gender bias there may be in a positive way ? On the contrary, I think it goes in the wrong way, by highlighting the wrong differences instead of the common points no matter the genders.
Why not? This is an industry with precious few role models outside of heterosexual white males. Highlighting the fact that it is, indeed, possible to succeed in this field without being a member of this category is good, and encourages more diversity. It may even, you know, be a motivating factor for some.
I'm skeptical that drawing special attention to female founders who are coders will reduce gender-biased behaviors. The most effective way of combating gender bias is for the people who run companies to stop tolerating that kind of behavior in their employees. Do you have an employee who makes disparaging remarks to another employee based on their sex? Then tell them to cut it out, and if they don't, fire them. Do your hire "brogrammers" who behave like frat boys at work? Then start hiring people who can behave in a civilized manner in professional environments. That's the only way that real progress will be made.
I think the problem should be tackled from both sides.
The people who already make up the tech field, mostly men, should absolutely behave in a professional(non-frat-boy) manner as you say.
_AND_ everyone already in the tech field should let girls & women outside of the field know that they are welcome & fully capable of entering the tech field by showing more role-models and more blogs like this one.
Given that so many of the foundational figures of the field ( Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, etc. ) were female, the fact that programming and IT became an almost entirely male-dominated profession is suspicious, and should make us question the attitudes and social constructs that brought this about.