Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#451

Post by watwut » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 5:27 AM UTC

FT_intern wrote: post #410

cthalupa wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only have experience in a few fields, and none of them are sales/administration, but my experience is that tech has been far worse. Introversion is no guard against sexism, and I'd argue, it might actually make some facets of it worse. I don't think introversion in specific is bad, but the way it manifests in tech in this male-dominated industry often results in a lack of experience and understanding in how to work…

> often results in a lack of experience and understanding in how to work with women > There's a hell of a lot more challenges that women face in tech than outright harassment. Unintentional sidelining, the bar for proof being much higher, general unwarranted skepticism in their abilities, etc. These are very bold claims of sexism. No one can really comment until they're somewhat proven. My comment was mainly about a…

If the bros in question assume I am competent, they are milion times easier to work with then dudes who assume my idead are bad without listening to them. Not that it would be exclusive. The things parent poster listed affect you career and ability to achieve more then sex jokes.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#452

Post by rejschaap » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:06 AM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #309

anothercomment wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not "obviously" something wrong. Would you say there is obviously something wrong with the plumbing industry that keeps women away? Or is it just that the smell of shit is too unpleasant? Likewise, some aspects of tech could simply be unpleasant to women, and there are reasons why men are more likely to put up with unpleasant work (like the need to feed a family). I have personally experienced a lot of unple…

For any given job where biology is not a factor (which is all of them except weight lifting and highly athletic sports), cultural norms are. Women take care of children, typically, and their shit does not smell like roses. So you need a new hypothesis.

I would say weight lifting is not an exception at all. The cultural norm is that women should not be too muscular.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#453

Post by wolco » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:17 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #451

FT_intern wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> often results in a lack of experience and understanding in how to work with women > There's a hell of a lot more challenges that women face in tech than outright harassment. Unintentional sidelining, the bar for proof being much higher, general unwarranted skepticism in their abilities, etc. These are very bold claims of sexism. No one can really comment until they're somewhat proven. My comment was mainly about a…

If the bros in question assume I am competent, they are milion times easier to work with then dudes who assume my idead are bad without listening to them. Not that it would be exclusive. The things parent poster listed affect you career and ability to achieve more then sex jokes.

Focus on the code. Who cares how others see you.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#454

Post by bilch » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:23 AM UTC

FT_intern wrote: post #440

aianus wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What changes around that age? I'm pretty sure it has something to do with women being pursued by men at that age and generally having better things to do than sit in front of a computer screen throughout their teenage years. Then, by the time they have to pick a university program, they feel so far behind the computer nerds that they don't feel they can compete or succeed in tech. That and they don't want to be lum…

> by the time they have to pick a university program, they feel so far behind the computer nerds that they don't feel they can compete or succeed in tech At the college level, I think that the social gap gets even worse. Women can get into frat parties where they don't know anyone, though they don't even have to because they are much more likely to be invited in the first place. Bouncers at bars/clubs will let them s…

By this line of reasoning, shouldn't there be a lot of unattractive women flocking to tech?

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#455

Post by watwut » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:28 AM UTC

throwaway729 wrote: post #439

ccc111 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello and thank you for your response :) Actually i am quite an average programmer at best but thanks for thinking highly of me for your response. To be quite frank, and ill add another point to this discussion, i got the job i currently have because i believe i just have more personality than most, me and my higher ups get along quite well. I find this friendship to be almost impossible from a woman's point of view.…

So now women don't belong in tech not because they're under qualified, because you can't imagine not wanting to have sex with them? At least we are all clear on what the actual problem is.

I used to defend tech against radfem until I realised I was just lucky and guys like him exist and do well there.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#456

Post by madsbuch » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:31 AM UTC

brianmurphy wrote: post #213

madsbuch wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's completely fair. But my proposition was not about your preferences. I conjectured that a shift to a more whole view of employers (rather than just machines) would be beneficial for most people.

The purpose of my life outside of work right now is dating women so I think you are treading dangerous waters by asking people to bring a more "whole" view of themselves into the workplace when that is perceived to be the problem in the first place.

Again, a "more whole view" is not a complete view. I didn't suggest that we bring in all aspects of life. Why is it that people purposely misunderstand my words / does not see the scope? (I talked generally, not individually, and I did not talk about bringing all aspects in)

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#457

Post by madsbuch » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:36 AM UTC

bigger_cheese wrote: post #401

nialo wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to Georgia Tech for Mechanical Engineering, I think generic engineering has approximately the same set of sexism problems as CS. I wouldn't try to use it as a way to say that CS doesn't have a problem

My sister and I(male) are both engineers, she is a mechanical engineer and has related to me a lot of the difficulties she has faced with this career. I think engineering is probably worse than CS because there is discrimination from technical as well as non technical peers. Among non technical peers (Operators, fitters, boilermakers etc) side of things there is a tendency for people to assume female engineers lack p…

I think this is spot on. But I also think it is a structural thing: We have always been told "children and women first to the lifeboat, then men". I think this is a bi-product of the spare-the-women culture we are living.

Maybe men are more trying to be polite than hostile when they won't let women carry heavy loads?

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#458

Post by anothercomment » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:51 AM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #425

anothercomment wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not "obviously" something wrong. Would you say there is obviously something wrong with the plumbing industry that keeps women away? Or is it just that the smell of shit is too unpleasant? Likewise, some aspects of tech could simply be unpleasant to women, and there are reasons why men are more likely to put up with unpleasant work (like the need to feed a family). I have personally experienced a lot of unple…

Perhaps you are not aware of this, but there are numerous studies that show bias, for example random shuffling of names on resumes and resumes with female names are rated lower than those with male names. Whether this bias is conscious or unconscious is of course hard to establish, but I think it's beyond dispute that it exists.

I am aware of them, but I am not convinced they tell the full story. For example there was the one of professors choosing PhD students (or assistants, something like that). It seems possible that they acknowledge the likelihood for women to drop out is higher than for men, so women are simply the worse investment. The bias was also shown by both male and female employers. The elephant in the room is: what if they had reasons to be biased (like having had the experience that women drop out)?

Also, it doesn't seem as if getting hired is the problem for women in tech, the problem is that there are not enough applicants.

And there also studies showing bias against men. For example the one where they made women conduct phone interviews with male voices and vice versa, and the women did slightly worse when they were given the male voices. There was another one were women were twice as likely to be hired for tech jobs than men.

I'm too lazy to look them up, but I find it interesting that only the "poor women" studies are being mentioned, and the others are quickly forgotten.

Edit: OK, I googled https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/women-twice-as-likely-to...

https://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-ma...

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#459

Post by anothercomment » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:57 AM UTC

cthalupa wrote: post #407

anothercomment wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not "obviously" something wrong. Would you say there is obviously something wrong with the plumbing industry that keeps women away? Or is it just that the smell of shit is too unpleasant? Likewise, some aspects of tech could simply be unpleasant to women, and there are reasons why men are more likely to put up with unpleasant work (like the need to feed a family). I have personally experienced a lot of unple…

Women are just as interested in STEM fields until about the middle school/high school level. What changes around that age? All sorts of external peer pressures. I work with a lot of women. They're not anything near a majority, but the org I'm in is big enough that there are plenty to speak with. They almost universally have many bad experiences and stories to tell that are specifically due to their gender. By no mean…

Do you have a citation for the interest of girls in STEM? And also, especially, citations about the peer pressure? Not my experience from High School - in my Maths class, there were only 3 girls out of 16 pupils.

When I was in school, there was also nobody being encouraged to pick up Computer Science. Boys were into computers despite the disdain by society, peers and parents. On a scale of 1 to 10, how attractive did being into computers make you to girls in High School?

Also, much is being made of the performance of girls in High School Maths, but let'S be honest, Maths at school often is not really Maths, it is calculating stuff. So it is perhaps not the ultimate measure.

Also, significantly more women than men study Medicine or Biology - somehow they don't seem to count as STEM? Why not? Given the choice between Medicine or Computer Science, I am not even convinced that Computer Science is the better choice in the long run. My stance has always been that women are too smart to choose CS - they shun the long hours in front of a screen in a windowless basement, devoid of daylight and human contact.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#460

Post by anothercomment » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 6:59 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #450

anothercomment wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My niece wanted a Lego Friends set from me for her birthday. It is not just misguided grannies... And dancing boys will probably care more about the reaction of girls their age than about ashamed grandmothers.

The boy in question was 5, at that age he don't care about girls yet. Girls his age don't care about his dancing. Yes, girls want things that belong to girls. But grandma won't buy boy lego even of kid wants it and ask for it. And definitely not randomly for birthsday or something.

If grandma won't give things that are explicitly wished for, maybe you should have a talk with grandma, or only wish for money in the future. Your sample size seems to be 1.

I must admit I also have mixed feelings about the disapproval of boys doing girlish things. The adults doing so might actually save the boys from embarrassment later on.

You might see that as proving your point, but there are different expectations from society to men than to women. The assumption that expectations should be equal is just that, an assumption, because there are differences (wombs, physical strength). So men can not simply opt out without issues, and neither can women. The expectation that men should literally do the heavy lifting makes sense, for example.