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What happened to all the female developers?

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Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#71

Post by kenjackson »

gaius wrote: post #55
kenjackson wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the rise of males in CS was due to the rise of the personal computer. As someone noted earlier, as computers become more common in the home and males started using them, they picked up a stigma associated with the type of males that used them. Why does that have anything to do with primary school teachers? I'm fairly certain very little.

Because it's only a "problem" when an industry is male-dominated it seems. Question is do we want equality, or not?

Actually, it's only a problem because males dominate high paying industries.

There's a lot of talk about gender transitions on jobs. One common argument is if men leave jobs as they begin to pay less or is it that as more women take to a job, we value the job less.

Outside of a few niche industries (modeling, porn, etc...), men generally are in higher paying industries. And gender transitions within industries tend to favor men (for whatever reason).

I don't expect men and women to participate equally in every field of employment. But it would be interesting to understand why women aren't represented as highly in some of the higher paying fields, especially since the opposite is almost never the case (women are over-represented in a high paying field).

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#72

Post by krakensden »

rdouble wrote: post #10
Locke1689 wrote: post #7

And she said that one of the things that happens is that women don’t even think they’re qualified for something because it’s advertised in competitive language. The language of competition not only doesn’t appeal to many women, it actually puts them off. This doesn't make sense to me because easily the most competitive path I've ever seen is premed. Almost all of the premeds I know are competing for the best grades,…

Why are women turned off by competitiveness in CS ... but not in medicine? Maybe they are just more practical. The worst physician's salary averages about $50K more than the best programmer's salary. Nurses get paid as much as programmers. If you do pre-med but can't get into med school, you can still get into public health, physical therapy, dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, etc... If you do CS but can't get a job at…

> The worst physician's salary averages about $50K more than the best programmer's salary

And they have to spend ten extra years in school, none of which is guaranteed to do anything but leave them poorer.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#73

Post by joeyo »

gaius wrote: post #41
dpritchett wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't an M.D. imply more job security and a higher starting wage than any C.S. credential?

Quite. Can't outsource a surgeon, can you? Not to mention the social prestige.

At the risk of getting quite off-topic, in my opinion most physicians will eventually be replaced by a combination of Bayesian diagnostic software and surgical robotics. There will be an intermediate period where physicians will control and oversee the software and robots, but this too will pass.

Those tasks which cannot be easily roboticized (for example, all the soft skills) will be shifted over to nurses.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#74

Post by MostAwesomeDude »

FeministHacker wrote: post #25
true_religion wrote: post #5

It's my understanding that in the early days working with computers was considered manually labor, something akin to data-entry of today. The "real" scientists and business people would instruct their CS conterparts to do a task, and how that task was accomplished was neither interesting nor remarked upon. As computation became cheaper, CS still retained many qualities of data entry especially in the business sector.…

Somewhere buried at home I have an old Cobol programming book, talking about how, as a programmer, typing was beneith you. Instead you were instructed to write neatly on cards and supply these to the typist for her to type in.

I'd like to think we've grown a lot as a culture since then. I mean, seriously, do we really want to return to a time when the ALTER verb existed? :3

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#75

Post by gdilla »

Locke1689 wrote: post #7

And she said that one of the things that happens is that women don’t even think they’re qualified for something because it’s advertised in competitive language. The language of competition not only doesn’t appeal to many women, it actually puts them off. This doesn't make sense to me because easily the most competitive path I've ever seen is premed. Almost all of the premeds I know are competing for the best grades,…

Aren't we missing something here? Med schools try to have 50/50 gender split in their incoming classes. Heck, patients certainly 50/50. Med schools don't even want gender diversity, they want gender parity. CS departments can't fathom such a thing. And while employers like diversity, they don't need parity. Startups need skills, not stats, so it's not a priority for them either. I'm not saying females are not on par with their male counterparts in s/w and medicine by any means. But at least their are role models and courtship in medicine.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#76

Post by ry0ohki »

true_religion wrote: post #5

It's my understanding that in the early days working with computers was considered manually labor, something akin to data-entry of today. The "real" scientists and business people would instruct their CS conterparts to do a task, and how that task was accomplished was neither interesting nor remarked upon. As computation became cheaper, CS still retained many qualities of data entry especially in the business sector.…

That was my first thought, that these "computer analysts" of the 70s were glorified secretaries running punch cards through a system. It seems like I would have remembered or known a few more older female computer scientists if they were really 40%+ of the work force.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#77

Post by jamii »

Cushman wrote: post #18
Locke1689 wrote: post #7

And she said that one of the things that happens is that women don’t even think they’re qualified for something because it’s advertised in competitive language. The language of competition not only doesn’t appeal to many women, it actually puts them off. This doesn't make sense to me because easily the most competitive path I've ever seen is premed. Almost all of the premeds I know are competing for the best grades,…

Yeah, it's not a necessarily female response. I'm sure lots of male devs would be more attracted by constructive rather than competitive language. But actually, I love that. They asked her for advice on marketing their program to women, and she gave them advice on marketing their program in general. Good show.

> I'm sure lots of male devs would be more attracted by constructive rather than competitive language.

I usually look for some measure of professionalism. There is nothing wrong with being passionate about your work but talk of ninjas and rockstars stinks of arrogance and is always offputting. Things like this are much more attractive, personally:

Rethinkdb: "While everyone at RethinkDB has the determination to move heaven and earth to succeed, we prefer to get stuff done quickly and go home to our families, instead of living our lives in the office."

Jane St: "We put aside ego, politics, and appearance to focus on truth. We try to admit when we are wrong, talk about our mistakes, and challenge our previous conclusions."

Basho: "If you are smarter than everyone else, the absolute smartest person you know -- as in you win every argument because you are so smart and no problem cannot be solved by a quick application of your smarts -- please do not apply. We are human and will disappoint you."

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#78

Post by politician »

ma2rten wrote: post #34
curtis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's just perception. Doctors really do deal with other people -- both patients and coworkers -- more than software engineers do.

Yes, but that does not mean that software engineers are not helping people (indirectly).

Indeed! Warehouse automation software prevents scores of back injuries in the first place, ergo women are shallow.

That's tongue-in-cheek, but I'll bet there is a study out there to support the idea that humans do not value indirect effects as much as direct effects.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#79

Post by FargoNorth »

Every company I have worked for has treated developers like sh!t, so I can imagine women would not put up with that.

Like expecting you to code over the weekend for 16 hours, and not being understanding if you want to take Monday off.

Or forcing them to program like crazy for non-important projects, just because you can. It's a thankless job, I don't recommend programming/software development to anyone.

It's a joke of a field really...

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#80

Post by klaut »

curtis wrote: post #44
curtis wrote: post #16

I wonder what the percentage of high school graduates who can program is, broken down by gender. My guess is there's close to an order of magnitude more 18 year-old males who can program than there are 18 year-old females, at least in the U.S., anyway. Furthermore, I'd guess that many if not most 18 year-olds who can program (male or female) are largely self-taught. My thesis here is that teenage boys are much more l…

To extend the argument, incoming freshmen who have an aptitude for chemical engineering are likely to start on a level playing field, regardless of gender. If you consider the CS track, though, the same is not true. Regardless of base aptitude, many more male freshmen will know how to program than will female freshmen. Females (on average) start out behind, and never catch up.

that;s just so wrong. speaking from my experience, I was one of the 10 girls in a freshmen class at uni (100 of us) and yes, i was the only one that knew how to program (taught myself) but then, maybe only 10 out of all the other boys knew how to program.
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