Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

kapwing.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 482 posts

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#131

Post by Zarath »

ravenstine wrote: post #60

What I read from this is that women are less interested than men in a job by itself and more in what the job fits their desired lifestyle. I and many other programmers I've talked to got into the career they have because the craft is naturally compelling to them, with the lifestyle of programming being secondary or even tertiary. I don't think most male programmers do what they do because they particularly like each…

Right, given the option for a man to try to befriend two people: a man and a woman, it's far lower risk to try and befriend the man, assuming both friendships have an equal probability of being fulfilling.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#132

Post by wyoh »

089723645897236 wrote: post #119
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #58

> [If you’re a dude and you’re reading this article] Go befriend a girl in your class or company. It’s not creepy. Include her, ask her for advice, introduce her, learn about her work and her life in the same way you would with any male friend or coworker. If you’re an investor, professor, journalist, or manager, take it on yourself to sponsor a young woman’s career. While I totally agree with this advice, I think th…

You don't get to check out because you are a jerk and are afraid you won't be able to stop being a jerk. You have to try HARDER because you are PRIVILEGED to be part of the majority. This applies to race, culture, whatever. Just because you suck at social skills (hello HN!) doesn't mean you get to check out and not try. In fact if you are reading this and making excuses on why you don't have to make an effort, YOU AR…

Are you a troll account? Because you speak like a troll account.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#133

Post by eli »

ajkjk wrote: post #130
eli wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Girls aren't interested in playing games?

No, that's an uncharitable simplification. I'm talking about statistical trends, and specifically about games- and nerdery- _in lieu of all socialization_.

And I'm rejecting it as unfounded. What specific statistical trend are you talking about?

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#135

Post by Draiken »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #58

> [If you’re a dude and you’re reading this article] Go befriend a girl in your class or company. It’s not creepy. Include her, ask her for advice, introduce her, learn about her work and her life in the same way you would with any male friend or coworker. If you’re an investor, professor, journalist, or manager, take it on yourself to sponsor a young woman’s career. While I totally agree with this advice, I think th…

I'd also add partners and gossip into the mix.

It's very easy for a third party to see a man and a woman having regular workplace relationship and associate that with flirtation and even cheating.

Of course this varies wildly in intensity depending on companies/partners, but it almost inevitably generates gossip. It's even worse if you're above her in the company hierarchy.

I know I would probably stray away from attempting this sort of work relationship with a woman for both my job and my partner's sake. It's a really thin line to navigate on both cases.

I've seen people get fired because a woman hinted that a man harassed her when I knew it was not the case.

But as said on another comment, this was true way before #metoo, that just brought even more visibility to this.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#136

Post by blattimwind »

0x4f3759df wrote: post #62
jdavis703 wrote: post #8

The first part of this had great citations to cite that women are more social. Where the data was lacking is that 1) software is perceived as anti-social and 2) that other anti-social careers face similar problems to software engineering. For example if socialization was such a critical decider, why are some many women maids or professional housekeepers? Most people in this career don't get much on-the-job socializat…

>software is perceived as anti-social My experience is that this perception has a strong grounding in reality.

IME about 90 % of that is enforced and actively pursued by the workers. E.g. preferring HCCH-based reviews over pair reviewing, "don't disturb me", [noise-cancelling] headphones, locked office doors, mail and instant messaging over talking and so forth

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#137

Post by 089723645897236 »

wyoh wrote: post #132
089723645897236 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get to check out because you are a jerk and are afraid you won't be able to stop being a jerk. You have to try HARDER because you are PRIVILEGED to be part of the majority. This applies to race, culture, whatever. Just because you suck at social skills (hello HN!) doesn't mean you get to check out and not try. In fact if you are reading this and making excuses on why you don't have to make an effort, YOU AR…

Are you a troll account? Because you speak like a troll account.

Am I troll if I'm sharing an opinion you don't agree with in a style and tone you don't like? Nope, just a contrarian trying to make you pay attention. Downvotes are just upvotes in reverse.

edit: I noticed my reply was flagged. Congratulations to the fascists who missed the point as it flew whistling over their heads. HN echo chamber in full effect.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#138

Post by jrs95 »

taurath wrote: post #108
jrs95 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the programmer stereotype is that you basically have to be socially handicapped to fit in. Which may draw more people like that in and keep more well adjusted (or socially conscious) people out. In general, it seems that from a relatively young age women are given the impression that "nerds" are to be avoided at all costs -- we're stereotypically "weird" (meaning creepy perverts). Even though I haven'…

I feel like if you talked to code conference runners, you might have a different opinion - being one of the few women at a social event really brings out the socially awkward or aggressive advances.

I'm sure it's more of a problem at these events than others, but I doubt it's never an issue at any type of event with that much of a gender imbalance. I'm absolutely not suggesting that there isn't a serious issue with harassment in our industry, I just don't think that is the actual root cause of the gender imbalance that exacerbates this issue. Clearly workplace discrimination broadly is an issue, but that all happens after the talent pool is heavily skewed towards men.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#139

Post by as1mov »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #17
jandrese wrote: post #5

Interesting that popular perception is that it is hard to be a woman in STEM because you get so much unwanted attention, but in this case it was exactly the opposite. She wasn't able to find lab partners for projects in male majority classes and felt lonely.

Also notice that even though she had the option, she didn't approach anyone to try an secure a lab partner. She posted her own position opening and waited until all spots were taken. She could very well have clicked on anyones post and that would have been the end of it.

This seems to be a common symptom in most of these 'women-in-tech' articles. Each one of them has advice for men who are in the industry, but never for any women trying to get into it.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#140

Post by stcredzero »

jdavis703 wrote: post #8

The first part of this had great citations to cite that women are more social. Where the data was lacking is that 1) software is perceived as anti-social and 2) that other anti-social careers face similar problems to software engineering. For example if socialization was such a critical decider, why are some many women maids or professional housekeepers? Most people in this career don't get much on-the-job socializat…

Or what about accounting and book keeping; which is a professional, white collar career that also happens to employ more women than men?

Women were programmers very early on. I think we should look for some common thread between computer programming in the late 1950's/early 60's and accounting and book keeping today.

While socialization may be a part of the equation, there's a lot more going on here and simply blaming women for being "too social" just panders to common stereotypes.

I don't think you should be characterizing it as "blaming." Things are as they are. I remember reading a paper in grad school finding that software engineers actually had more need of interaction than other fields, despite stereotypes. I think there is some important factor we don't quite understand.

Post reply on HN