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

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

#201

Post by ChicagoDave »

I've never understood the anti-social stereotype of working software. In order to do the work, most of us need to interact with users of all stripes. It's rare that we're isolated in a bubble of men. There are business analysts, project managers, users, stakeholders, scrum masters, QA testers, story development meetings, and daily scrums.

It's one of the most social professions one could arguably enter. Sure we have to code in a cube for most of our week, but anti-social?

Hardly.

In fact, the most successful software engineers are the ones that _are_ social, understand complex social environments, listen well, and know how to engage.

I do agree with the OP that there's a _perception_ of anti-social stereotypes, but I'd argue the problem is that there are few women in tech, men would _love_ to find a tech-oriented partner or date, but the odds of that one woman in your group lining up in all other ways with us is narrow (we're analytical daters - we do the math), we tend to just resign ourselves to staying away from disappointment. And there is the whole sexual harassment aspect too. When we're doing the coworker math in our heads, we're worried about saying something stupid.

It's a self-fulfilling cycle. An unbalanced gender environment creates discomfort by both genders.

We need to actively reconstruct social dynamics within tech circles to break this cycle or it will just continue.

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

#202

Post by Veelox »

tptacek wrote: post #89
commandlinefan wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are the rest of the STEM career paths seen as more social than CS? This guy actually put some pretty decent work into researching this - he found that women dominate "sociable" STEM fields like veterinary sciences and obstetrics, while men dominate the "cold" STEM branches like surgery and computer science. http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

Alexander believes a lot of things. But you can just look up the stats on STEM fields yourself; they're not hard to find. There are STEM fields that approach parity, there are a couple in which women slightly lead men, and there are a bunch with more men than women. But CS is, by what to a casual glance looks like multiple stddevs, worse than the rest. Unless math is "warmer" than CS --- it isn't --- this explanation…

He address that in the article

"Women are around 20% of CS majors, physics majors, engineering majors, etc – but almost half of math majors" ...

"I was totally confused by this for a while until a commenter directed me to the data on what people actually do with math degrees. The answer is mostly: they become math teachers. They work in elementary schools and high schools, with people.

Then all those future math teachers leave for the schools after undergrad, and so math grad school ends up with pretty much the same male-tilted gender balance as CS, physics, and engineering grad school."

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

#203

Post by Draiken »

commandlinefan wrote: post #174
bmarquez wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> men don't want to even get close to the line of doing something that could be perceived as inappropriate Yeah I am wondering why someone would stick their neck out, especially if they have below-average social skills. Lots of personal liability for little personal gain, and #MeToo just publicized the existing uneasiness with professional interactions. It's not like any women helped when I was evaluating a career in…

Many years ago (almost 20, I think), I was working as a contractor on a remote contract in a foreign country with one other person from my company, who also happened to be a woman. Since we were the only Americans there, and were staying at the same hotel, we naturally ended up having lunch and dinner together, and talked quite a bit. She was married, and I knew that. She commented once that she was spending more tim…

This is such a big problem that is almost always thrown under the rug with an "exception" label.

Yes it's an exception but it's a possible life/career wrecking exception. If you look at it objectively, this entire scenario is only possible with a man to woman interaction.

If the woman had said the exact same thing to a man, he could never file a sexual harassment complaint against her. In fact he'd probably be laughed at if he tried. The same situation would happen if both were men. Logically speaking, why take the risk?

I don't know how we tackle this though.

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

#204

Post by jandrese »

as1mov wrote: post #139
Rotdhizon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or if you generalize it all the way, the advice is "men should be more like women" but never "women should be more like men".

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

#205

Post by arkis22 »

yosito wrote: post #162
as1mov wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been browsing this thread for about 45 minutes. Not a single comment is rude, most of the comments are trying to debate about the issue. If you post a submission on a forum and expect everyone to blindly agree with you or you else you consider it as "hate", then the problem is perhaps with you.

You must have missed all the comments of men complaining that they can't be friendly to women because they're an unattractive man. Not sure where you got the word "hate" from. I'm not saying anything about hate.

Are you saying that the men here aren't being empathetic because they feel like when they talk to women they get called creepy and therefore don't want to? Please, be specific.

Otherwise it just sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.

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

#206

Post by wieghant »

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…

We recently got a new female analyst. We invite her for lunch and sometimes have small talk. Thing is, there's literally zero chemistry. We can't include here in our dumb Skype chat because its usually filled with incredibly dumb offensive memes - so we just try to keep our laughs down. We tried invite her to video game night and even organized board games just because she wasn't into video games that much. But again, there just isn't any chemistry. I genuinely think that the border isn't just between anti-social/pro-social. I also wouldn't ever consider making deprecating jokes towards her. What's considered inappropriate is too blurred also. I can make fat jokes/racist jokes/generally inappropriate jokes with most guys, since we know there's no malevolent intent. It's kinda cathartic and it's a two-way street. I genuinely don't think I can be like that with any woman in the workplace. I know comedians can have such a relationship though, so maybe there is a chance? Maybe not now when people are publicly executed for speaking their mind but in the future.

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

#207

Post by commandlinefan »

blattimwind wrote: post #123
kazinator wrote: post #28

> Go befriend a girl in your class or company. It’s not creepy. "Honey, there is this random blogger who thinks I should befriend a girl in my company. It's supposedly not creepy or anything. What do you think?" If I didn't care what my wife thinks, I'd still have to think twice and consider the gender-political climate of the modern age. The mere perception of having some intention of wrongdoing can harm you. In all…

> In all corporate ethics training courses, you're always hammered with the message of avoiding even the perception of a conflict of interests and such. Some years ago I participated in a first aid course (these are required around here for many things). One of the others did it as part of retraining after leaving the navy. Problem for him was: He couldn't do any of the practical exercises in a group with women, beca…

I actually remember reading somewhere that women are more likely than men to die in situations that call for CPR because men are so shy about touching women's chests.

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

#208

Post by chrisseaton »

leshow wrote: post #154
chrisseaton wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't just pass the buck to your own premise with "dunno, you'll have to ask them." Yes I can. It's completely reasonable to be observe something even if you can't offer an explanation. I don't know why some people are racist but I can see that they are. I don't know why some people are sexist but I can see that they are. I don't know why some people think women are inherently weaker at computer science, but I…

We have no evidence that people do think that though. I have never heard that women are 'weaker' in computer science than men. My guess is most people think that competence in computer science is independent of sex. If you're presenting that they don't, where is that information coming from?

> My guess is most people think that competence in computer science is independent of sex.

I don't know how to break this to you... but a lot of people in this world unfortunately discriminate against people based on gender, either consciously or unconsciously.

> where is that information coming from

To give you a concrete example, I was at a conference just recently where the speaker took questions from the audience and when a man asked a question the answer was highly technical, and when a woman asked a similar question the answer was patronising and non-technical as if he thought the woman wouldn't understand like the men did. It was really obvious, and there was no other variable. I see this kind of thing all the time.

I don't know what more to tell you - if you can't see any evidence of men making assumptions that a women isn't going to be as competent in computer science just based on her gender then I think you must be blind to what is happening around you.

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

#209

Post by Jach »

kazinator wrote: post #142
ryanobjc wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's your simple rule: https://medium.com/@annevictoriaclark/the-rock-test-a-hack-f... Quoting: "It’s as clear cut as this: Treat all women like you would treat Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson." and "But definitely don’t hit on her. It looks like she could kill you with the chair you’re sitting on." It's really that simple.

If someone happens to idolize "The Rock", the rule doesn't go down very well. It possibly devolves to "behave like a bumbling star-struck fool around all women". Or possibly to "treat women like goddesses". Example: if I run a cafe, and idolize "The Rock", should I give every woman a free coffee and muffin, because that's what I would do if "The Rock" walked in? People who are famous get all sorts of unwanted attenti…

Ctrl F: "People's" -- 0 results found. Ctrl F: "Bottom" -- 0 results found. Ctrl F: "it doesn't matter" -- 0 results found. Ctrl F: "smell" -- 0 results found.

Yeah I'm going to ignore this advice, I think any sane person ought to do the same. Or at least if your mental model of the Rock consists of more than generic tough guy in some recent films who may have hit people with chairs in the past or something.

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

#210

Post by daenz »

turingcompeteme wrote: post #188
as1mov wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been browsing this thread for about 45 minutes. Not a single comment is rude, most of the comments are trying to debate about the issue. If you post a submission on a forum and expect everyone to blindly agree with you or you else you consider it as "hate", then the problem is perhaps with you.

They didn't say rude, they mentioned empathy. Julia Enthoven shared her experience as a Woman in tech, and this thread is filled with nitpicking, asking for sources, disagreement, alternate theories, debates, etc. There is no empathy here. So I'll start: Good for her for sharing her thoughts and experiences. It's a tough topic to talk about, and as we see here and elsewhere, people will immediately pick apart everyth…

Another way to look at the comments is to look at the audience. HackerNews readers are typically hard problem solvers. They discuss theories and solutions, and can't be afraid of avoiding potential causes because they make people uncomfortable.

So while your post has empathy, it doesn't really push the solution-finding process forward in the way that other, more active (vs passive), posts do.

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