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Are women exiting engineering because men get the challenging assignments?

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Re: Are women exiting engineering because men get the challenging assignments?

#31

Post by theseatoms »

MattGrommes wrote: post #12

I think using the word 'fun' in this title is demeaning and misleading. Women aren't looking for fun, they're looking for meaningful, interesting work and are being denied it. (Obviously not all women, etc. etc.) I know a very talented woman with more experience and talent than her teammates who constantly deals with the interesting work being given to men instead of her. In meetings men look to the other men for opi…

> Partly it's because corporate environments prefer bluster to quieter expertise but the answer shouldn't be to tell women to be bigger blowhards than the men in order to get to do interesting stuff.

This often seems like a better dimension on which to analyze these "gender in the workplace" issues. That is, these issues arise more often due to the typical characteristics and behaviors that members of each gender display and engage in, rather than something essential about gender in and of itself.

Blowhards versus... well.. what's the opposite of a blowhard? "Introvert" doesn't seem quite right.

My point is that gender issues are often actually personality type issues.

Re: Are women exiting engineering because men get the challenging assignments?

#32

Post by kogepathic »

My company has desperately tried to hire female candidates into our engineering team, which is currently all male.

From the dozens of applications that we got for the position, only about 5% were female. After interviewing them, they either declined the position, or weren't able to complete our take home challenge (nothing against these women, we have lots of guys fail it too!)

So, yeah, I'd love to have some females on our engineering team. Unfortunately it's really rare for us to have a female applicant, and those we have talked to thus far haven't made it onto the team.

Please, tech, do something to fix this. I would very much like to have women on our team, because I went to university with a lot of smart women in Engineering, and it kills me that now in industry we can't hire any!

Re: Are women exiting engineering because men get the challenging assignments?

#33

Post by sp332 »

loco5niner wrote: post #21
sp332 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn't explain why men were assigned different jobs than women. ...sexist infrastructure was in place that kept female interns shuffling papers while their oftentimes less experienced male counterparts had legitimate “engineering” assignments.

Actually, it would. Example: "Hey boss, why wasn't I assigned to X project?" is something someone more assertive would say.

If the women have to push back because the men got better assignments to begin with, that means the sexist behavior already happened. Women shouldn't have to play damage control constantly.

Re: Are women exiting engineering because men get the challenging assignments?

#34

Post by wvenable »

sp332 wrote: post #10
snovv_crash wrote: post #4

Couldn't this come down more to men being conditioned to be more assertive and women being conditioned to de-escalate?

That wouldn't explain why men were assigned different jobs than women. ...sexist infrastructure was in place that kept female interns shuffling papers while their oftentimes less experienced male counterparts had legitimate “engineering” assignments.

Assuming the premise is valid, it would explain the differences. Everyone has to do crap work for time to time. I try and spread it around as evenly as possible to my team (which is a mix of men and women). But if one group is seemingly alright with that work and another group is loudly asking for better work and complaining -- it's easy to see how that would factor in.

I try and ignore all that and just create variety based on whatever the last project was. So if someone just got off a 7 month project, they'll be doing small tasks for a while. If someone had to create 25 boring reports last month, they get to do use some new technology. It doesn't matter who it was.

Re: Are women exiting engineering because men get the challenging assignments?

#35

Post by dpark »

DisposableMike wrote: post #19
sixhobbits wrote: post #6

I just heard another first hand account of a female computer science masters candidate dropping out shortly before completion due to sexual harassment from her supervisor and no support on the matter from the University. Interesting that the study focuses on the "fun" aspect while the journals themselves highlight unwanted advances and "creepiness" from males. There are many factors keeping women out of computer scie…

Unless your first hand account involves an actual rape, please leave the term 'rape culture' to situations involving actual rape. The linked story certainly didn't invoke any mentions of rapes occurring - why dilute a real problem with unrelated 'creepiness'? Secondly, females complaining about 'creepiness' is a difficult problem to quantify or solve, as females find attention from unattractive males 'creepy' regardl…

I agree that the term "rape culture" is unhelpful. It's an extreme term that alienates people. When you equate undesired behavior to rape, you both trivialize rape and cause people engaging in the undesired behavior to disregard anything of substance you might say. When you call someone a rapist, they aren't going to listen to you when you try to explain why hitting on a 21-year-old coworker is inappropriate.

I do not agree with your dismissiveness of female complaints about "creepiness". Solving "creepiness" is a hard problem, but not because women are bad at distinguishing between creepy guys and normal guys who happen to be unattractive. If you repeatedly hit on someone and fail to pick up on the social cues that say your advances are unwanted, you are a creepy person, regardless of whether you are unattractive or not. It is not reasonable to disregard the discomfort this causes the recipient of the unwanted attention. It is also not reasonable that the recipient should have to be blunt, abrasive, or combative to make the unwanted attention stop.

Re: Are women exiting engineering because men get the challenging assignments?

#36

Post by cowpewter »

rarec wrote: post #11

Is it also possible that the men are usually being more aggressive towards getting more interesting work? After all, in their example the girls could've just told the guys no and came to an agreement instead of just accepting their lot.

The problem with that is that once you do it a few times, you get a reputation as a "bitch". Assertive men are seen as a "leaders", assertive women are seen as "bitches".

Re: Are women exiting engineering because men get the challenging assignments?

#38

Post by oldmanjay »

MattGrommes wrote: post #14
utternerd wrote: post #3

I question the method of this "study". I don't think it's a leap to say 40 undergrads writing in their journals is anecdote.

It's a very common methodology and it's hard to do sociological studies any other way really. They can't follow subjects around with cameras or something without creating a fake environment.

That doesn't seem like an argument that the technique is valid

Re: Are women exiting engineering because men get the challenging assignments?

#39

Post by ffn »

Or it could be that tons of girls get sold into taking up the tech field at a young and impressionable age by presidential speeches, books telling them to "lean in", and articles like this that hint there is some conspiracy of men out there actively working to damage women and they are needed to right the wrong.

Then, after spending 4+ years in college studying surface friction losses or CRDT applications without tombstones, and n+ years in industry trying to debug someone else's too-clever binary-flag-in-ruby code, a large number of them (the ones who dreamed of sexist careers like fashion designer, models, teachers, or most sexist of them all mothers) realize they really don't enjoy this work, there was never any "painful injustice" that needed their "sacrifice" to right, and that they've just been tricked by the popular political agenda. And, after effectively wasting a decade of their lives chasing careers that means nothing to them, they quit and actually go follow their dreams (instead of someone else's).

Re: Are women exiting engineering because men get the challenging assignments?

#40

Post by kilroy123 »

heartbreak wrote: post #23
MattGrommes wrote: post #12

I think using the word 'fun' in this title is demeaning and misleading. Women aren't looking for fun, they're looking for meaningful, interesting work and are being denied it. (Obviously not all women, etc. etc.) I know a very talented woman with more experience and talent than her teammates who constantly deals with the interesting work being given to men instead of her. In meetings men look to the other men for opi…

The example seems like a problem that quiet people have. Not all women are quiet, and not all quiet people are women.

Was thinking the same. Lot's of introverted and shy men, deal with the same issues as well.
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