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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

#211

Post by arkis22 »

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…

What you're calling empathy can be rephrased as "you go girl!"

Not sure I'd call that empathy.

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

#212

Post by AnimalMuppet »

walshemj wrote: post #194
ghaff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m honestly not so sure about that. The number of Western classics the average incoming English major has read is probably pretty small. And it really isn’t true of just about any other branch of engineering or science. How many bridges do you think someone majoring in civil engineering has designed? The fact that a lot of CS curricula only address those who have been programming as a hobby is a bug not a feature.

Many other countries mandate that you study at school the subject (or direct precursors) you take at Uni. You not going to study Physics at Oxbridge if you don't have GCSE and A levels in the Subject why is EE and CS considered different. Some lists of the "English" cannon are 200+ texts and that's not counting some of the classical authors you should have read - and that's not counting any BAME texts you might want…

The English cannon should be shot.

:-)

The word you're looking for is "canon".

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

#213

Post by EamonnMR »

tptacek wrote: post #50

Are the rest of the STEM career paths seen as more social than CS? Is mathematics more social than CS? Because CS is almost (not quite: physics is almost as bad) unique among STEM specializations for its gender disparity. I talk regularly to academic math people (because cryptography) and the sense I have is that if anything, CS is far more social than the work they do --- to get anything significant done in technolo…

> Is mathematics more social than CS?

Many people who major in math are aiming to become math teachers, so yes.

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

#214

Post by TACIXAT »

Jach wrote: post #76
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.

Yeah, this is what bugs me with the advice to "Go befriend a girl". How about they come and befriend me? Like with dating, there's the expectation that the men need to make the first move. (Whatever, it's not necessarily a bad expectation, but when it's implicit like this I'm not always sure it was intentional...) Of course in the friend case I think it's more of a function of your local environment than anything els…

It's hard as hell to befriend anyone. I probably have superficial conversations with 100 people before I find someone I connect with on a friendship level. I don't know if it is because people in this industry (myself included) mostly talk about work or the technical problems we're interested in. In my experience though, it's so rare that people open up personally to each other. I don't have any meaningful commentary on the gender stuff, just been thinking about making friends a lot recently.

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

#215

Post by peoplewindow »

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…

That attitude doesn't help the cause of women in tech. It makes things worse.

Machines don't have empathy. They do not care about feelings. Code is harsh. So are professional code reviewers. Therefore if you're a programmer, you will in fact spend a lot of time dealing with nitpicking issues, finding sources for claims you make, debating alternative theories and so on.

If women can't even do that in debates they start then they should give up in being programmers. They won't make it and they won't get along with their colleagues.

I don't think they are incapable of such things, as I always get the impression posts like this one ("why can't you just respect her opinion") are actually written by men. But her compiler won't give her opinions automatic respect. Why should anyone else?

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

#216

Post by furi »

mikeash wrote: post #151
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…

Women are people. Talk to them like people. If you’re so bad at socializing that you might accidentally harass someone, fix that! Don’t just retreat from the world because you can’t handle a basic skill. Edit: Interesting downvotes. Is it the suggestion that women are people, or the suggestion for self-improvement if you’re incapable of treating them accordingly?

It's the ignorance of reality mostly. Whenever my girlfriend gets a guy approaching/messaging her both of us default to an immediate suspicion of romantic intent. It doesn't require them treating her in a dehumanizing way or harassing her (although those certainly happen and quickly remove all doubt about his motives), they just have to turn up and the suspicion starts. That suspicion alone (especially in an environment with third parties who are watching and talking) can be quite damaging, no hysteria about false accusations of harassment required.

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

#217

Post by tptacek »

EamonnMR wrote: post #213
tptacek wrote: post #50

Are the rest of the STEM career paths seen as more social than CS? Is mathematics more social than CS? Because CS is almost (not quite: physics is almost as bad) unique among STEM specializations for its gender disparity. I talk regularly to academic math people (because cryptography) and the sense I have is that if anything, CS is far more social than the work they do --- to get anything significant done in technolo…

> Is mathematics more social than CS? Many people who major in math are aiming to become math teachers, so yes.

You're like the 3rd person on this thread to write the same comment. No, see the other comments, that explanation falls flat.

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

#218

Post by stcredzero »

tptacek wrote: post #166
stcredzero wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talk regularly to academic math people (because cryptography) and the sense I have is that if anything, CS is far more social than the work they do --- to get anything significant done in technology, you have to coordinate and cooperate amongst teams of people. I recall a paper I read in grad school which found that programmers actually had more need of interaction than other fields. As jdavis notes elsewhere, acco…

I don't know. But I do know that the masculinization of computer science seems to line up chronologically with the emergence of the home computer movement, which was began as a male-dominated 1970s hobby. And I don't think it's hard to find serious CS people who can trace other malign influences from "homebrew hobbyist CS" in our field. We're basically a field that experienced a bizarre and potent deprofessionalizati…

just look at poor engineering practice, a lot of which is traceable to programming cultures that emerged from hobbyist computing.

Do you have citations? I do think you're onto something here, though I don't think it's necessarily the best idea to vilify men or the masculine. Anthropologically speaking, didn't the subculture of hobbyist programming come out of the subculture of model train building?

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

#219

Post by morethanmachine »

Thanks for posting this, a refreshing perspective, on which I couldn't agree more. I founded and operate a software startup, and have > 20 years of semiconductor manufacturing and software development experience. As a very extroverted male, when I meet new people they almost always show genuine surprise when discovering what I do for a living. It’s a fact: there’s a social bias in tech. Personally, I can’t stand the term nerd, or anything like it - it’s derogatory to me, making it appear there is something lacking socially. Thanks for the positive advice here, I am already practicing a lot of it in my daily work life. And you’ve given me a couple more things to add to that practice.

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

#220

Post by mikeash »

furi wrote: post #216
mikeash wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women are people. Talk to them like people. If you’re so bad at socializing that you might accidentally harass someone, fix that! Don’t just retreat from the world because you can’t handle a basic skill. Edit: Interesting downvotes. Is it the suggestion that women are people, or the suggestion for self-improvement if you’re incapable of treating them accordingly?

It's the ignorance of reality mostly. Whenever my girlfriend gets a guy approaching/messaging her both of us default to an immediate suspicion of romantic intent. It doesn't require them treating her in a dehumanizing way or harassing her (although those certainly happen and quickly remove all doubt about his motives), they just have to turn up and the suspicion starts. That suspicion alone (especially in an environm…

It sure doesn’t match the reality I live in. I see guys with really bad social skills struggling with this, but that can be overcome.
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