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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

#221

Post by troupe »

ghaff wrote: post #59
walshemj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to admit if you only started programming after you went to University your going to struggle with the course and afterwards work. You would not expect to do a Degree in English lit and have done no reading of the cannon before getting to university.

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.

> The number of Western classics the average incoming English major has read is probably pretty small.

You think there are a lot of kids declaring English Literature as their major who haven't really read any English literature? What type of college are you assuming?

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

#222

Post by tptacek »

stcredzero wrote: post #218
tptacek wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm not "vilifying men or the masculine". I am a dude. Also a dad, of a STEM college boy and a STEM HS girl. I like beer and pork fat and whiskey and cars. I don't so much like video games, but only because I'd rather code or yell on message boards. I'm happy to keep talking to you about this stuff, but I will not do that if you're trying to trap me in some weird ideological conflict about the persecution of men. The problem with the field is not that "men are bad".

Would you like to try asking me that again? It's also OK if you and I just don't try to have a dialog on this thread.

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

#223

Post by [deleted] »

octorian wrote: post #143
commandlinefan wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep reading about a "women in tech" gap, but if it exists, it must be regional. I've lived and worked, as a programmer, in the Dallas, TX area for over 20 years across 5 different employers. There have always been _lots_ of women in technology-related roles, everywhere. The vast majority of them (as well as the vast majority of the men) have been Indian, though. Is this different in San Francisco/Silicon Valley?

I think the gap varies dramatically by ethnicity. Its possible, perhaps likely, that different cultures have different biases towards women in tech fields. If you add that as a variable to all these charts, I think things may look significantly more skewed than they already do.

[deleted]

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

#224

Post by lilactown »

Mythanar wrote: post #156
lilactown wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JFC. If you're afraid of accidentally harassing or molesting someone I think you have the wrong idea of how to interact with people.

What you think is harassing might quite well disagree with target female view of what harassing is, complicated by the fact that HR department might disagree with you both. And should that whole thing become public, you'll be judged by the entire office, with the entire spectrum of views on what harassment is. Personally, as a male, you have absolutely nothing to gain, and everything to lose. The most rational thing…

> as a male, you have absolutely nothing to gain, and everything to lose.

Having friendly, healthy relationships with your colleagues isn't valuable? Or just with the ones who are women?

Some of my best friendships/allies/contacts have been women who I worked with. I'm very thankful for the opportunities they have provided me and the value they add to my life.

The fact that you see /zero/ value in having genuine connections with women has me even more worried than the fact that the OP was afraid of harassing someone accidentally.

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

#225

Post by drak0n1c »

stcredzero wrote: post #140
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 blamin…

Programming started as a field very similar to Accounting. You manually assembled a list of operations to get the necessary numerical result. There was creativity, but in the same vein of creativity in accounting it was confined to the realm of statistics and business intelligence. Computers were used to calculate numbers from other numbers, and rarely did much else. The set of computer instructions were limited, and nothing was automated so there was a lot of tedium in physically writing programming out on paper.

With the advent of personal computers and monitors the fields diverged rapidly.

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

#226

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

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…

> There is a real concern, and to be honest I don't totally think invalid, that many men don't want to be perceived in any way as doing something that could be construed (or misconstrued) as harassment.

This is very real. Why complicate things if I can be more relaxed and free talking to my male colleagues? They will even tolerate childish jokes I'd never do in front of any women (and as we all know, some people did and lost their jobs because of that). No, thank you.

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

#227

Post by [deleted] »

thucydidesofusa wrote: post #160
jrs95 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely a bit of a double standard here. I overhear comments like this fairly regularly. It's just normal and accepted behavior. (I wouldn't go as far as to say society generally has "deference to women's feelings", though.)

A sizable fraction of restraining orders are granted on women's feelings. And look at conversations around the social relations of men and women - women have rights and men have responsibilities. Women get to abort fetuses and unilaterally give children up for adoption, men get locked up if they dont pay child support. If you're a man go into public with a woman and get her to cry. Measure how long it takes until som…

[deleted]

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

#228

Post by cthor »

ryanobjc wrote: post #107
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…

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.

So, basically, stick your head in the sand and pretend the problem doesn't exist.

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

#229

Post by ChicagoDave »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #201

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…

How do we break the cycle?

Colleges need to get out of the business of teaching CompSci the way the do it now. Less emphasis on science and engineering and more on team building, project management, business analysis, and more. Don't make programmers. To me that's like forcing everyone that plans to work on cars to only understand how to repair brakes. There is a whole lot of car outside of repairing just the brakes.

Colleges need to engage in team-oriented software development practices. It shouldn't be computer science specific. It should be business oriented, social, teams, projects, testing, planning, white-boarding, _and_ programming.

This is how a lot of businesses run, so we should mimic the environments these graduates will end up in.

If we made this one valuable change, we'd possibly attract a more balanced gender population, create social environments for men to evolve properly, allow women to feel comfortable and respected, and generate advocacy for diverse and respectful work environments.

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

#230

Post by crankylinuxuser »

leshow wrote: post #184
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note the pay on those careers. "Women's Careers" pay significantly less. And they're all 'emotional' and 'soft skill' jobs. That's a problem. Edit: So, at -3 currently. Is the -1's a "disagree" or "stfu"? Please state where I am wrong.

Don't they pay about as much as the male dominated jobs? brickmason, drywall installation, crane operator, roofer, etc All of these jobs have 95%+ males. I can't imagine they pay very well. That's genuinely a question, not trying to be smart. It seems to me like jobs on both ends of the spectrum might not pay the best.

Stonemason - $42,370 - https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472022.htm

Drywall/Ceiling tile installer - $49,250 - https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472081.htm

Crane and Tower Operators - $55,690 - https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537021.htm

LPN - $45,030 - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/licensed-practical-and-li... !Requires licensure

Social Worker - $47,980 - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/community-and-social-service/social-... !Likely requires graduate degree

Preschool Teachers - $28,990 - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/presc...

Home Health Aides - $23,130 - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/home-health-aides-and-per...

----------------------------

Long story short, the trades (AKA: jobs that primarily men do) requires a time of apprenticeship, then you can work. Whereas the "women majority" jobs all pay around 45-50k and they require advanced degrees or state licensure. The nonlicensed primarily-women based jobs pay around 20-30k.

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