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What happened to all the female developers?

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Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#281

Post by rakden »

temphn wrote: post #222
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,…

This whole endless search for the reason why "women aren't in computing" is just a modern day version of epicycle theory. In ancient times, they couldn't admit that the earth went around the sun, so they came up with the increasingly baroque epicycle theory, where planets were postulated to do loop-de-loops just so that no one would have to concede heliocentrism. Today we face a similar taboo, held for similar quasi-…

Just pointing this out as a woman who is in CS. There is rampant sexism within the field on the lower tier levels.(Still in school so I have yet to deal with higher level positions) Your grunt programmers, techs, and general support staff are down right scary. I have been hopping around company to company for a bit now and some of the places are just down right creepy. I worked one job where open sexism was encouraged and there was a massive boys club mentality. There was one guy who kept joking about how sexy I was and pulled pulled on my hair whenever he walked by.

Also as a whole I have found that even if I am more knowledgeable than everyone around me, I still have people come up and in some of the most condescending ways possible. Many times I am talked down to like I am some sort of child. (I once had someone try to explain how multicast and ssl works to me. They are studying for their A+, I am about to get my CCNP and also churning out all sorts of neat code for our department to help automate a lot of the boring tasks.)

I would say its not so much a genetic issue, but more the field itself has many cultural issues it needs to get past.

Last note: Filing complaints about a lot of these problems would most likely hurt me in the long run. I figured out after my first couple jobs it is easier to ignore them than try to find a new job.

Edit: Regarding skills themselves. It is a much simpler answer to claim that society 'encourages' woman into positions. Even if there was such a gap (Not saying it may not exist mind you) their would still be tremendous overlap and there would be some males within female bounds and females within the male bounds. The odds of that gap being massive enough to overshadow cultural issues is highly unlikely.

Also these stories are not representative of my whole experience in the field. They have been cherry picked to help illustrate a point.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#282

Post by danvet »

chalst wrote: post #266
bugsy wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I wonder what percentage of Fields medals have been earned by women mathematicians?

None, I think. The Wikipedia category for Women mathematicians [1] has 125 pages, many of which are to women who were not professional mathematicians. If in response to the challenge "name at least one woman amazing at math" you don't think of Emmy Noether, then you are not all that interested in maths. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Women_mathematicians

I've studied math. The most recent mathematician I can recall by name (due to a few important theorems) has been doing his great work in the 1930s. Most of the stuff is older. I don't care squat about the gender, but they're likely all male.

Looking at gender ratios in students it's about 50-50 now (ETH Zürich, Switzerland), massively thinning out towards the top (professors are just a few out of 50). It'll take time and untill female mathematicians have an about equal importance in the curriculum students learn, likely a few hundres years. Maths really ages slowly (often because theories get update/extended, but the name sticks).

So being able to name female mathematicians imo doesn't have much relevance to the gender discussion. Luckily society changes faster than math ages ;-)

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#283

Post by rakden »

protomyth wrote: post #63
gaius wrote: post #4

This question makes no sense unless it is also asked in conjuction with "what happened to all the male primary school teachers"?

The reasoning for the decline in male primary school teachers (and daycare workers) has very little to do with women in CS. Guys have much more danger points in the legal system when accused of something. The risk / reward ratio is too far gone. This does not happen to women in CS.

The point isn't so much a direct comparison but more pointing out that their are different societal pressures on all of us that influence what we do. A male is less likely to be a primary school teacher because there are many factors that make it difficult for them. The same is true of women and CS. There are various forms of societal pressure that are most likely making CS a harder field to enter.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#284

Post by rakden »

philwelch wrote: post #204
Udo wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditionally, dominant groups have often invoked (fake) claims of a naturally fixed order to protect, justify and market the status quo. For example, this line of reasoning has historically been used to assert that black people are a subhuman race incapable of higher intellectual thought and that women shouldn't be allowed to vote on the grounds that they are immature and hysterical by nature. Another reason why I b…

For one, there are observed gender disparities in certain things (you mentioned spacial reasoning) which there is no apparent or plausible political agenda in artificially creating. In fact, the predominant political agenda is largely the idea that there are no differences between men and women. For another, disparities are often observed in infants. What mechanism do you propose communicates subtle social norms to i…

I agree on the point that on average there may be some differences between genders when it comes to mental capabilities. That said the range that it varies from may be quite large for both genders and there is plenty of overlap to it might be quite small and their is little overlap. Even when phrasing this as a question when it comes to populations there is lots of wiggle-room depending on how the data plays out.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#285

Post by philwelch »

rakden wrote: post #284
philwelch wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, there are observed gender disparities in certain things (you mentioned spacial reasoning) which there is no apparent or plausible political agenda in artificially creating. In fact, the predominant political agenda is largely the idea that there are no differences between men and women. For another, disparities are often observed in infants. What mechanism do you propose communicates subtle social norms to i…

I agree on the point that on average there may be some differences between genders when it comes to mental capabilities. That said the range that it varies from may be quite large for both genders and there is plenty of overlap to it might be quite small and their is little overlap. Even when phrasing this as a question when it comes to populations there is lots of wiggle-room depending on how the data plays out.

Oh, yeah. Even differences in standard deviation, for instance, might be more important than differences in average. And it's not just a matter of mental capabilities, but also in interests and desires.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#286

Post by peterwwillis »

rakden wrote: post #281
temphn wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole endless search for the reason why "women aren't in computing" is just a modern day version of epicycle theory. In ancient times, they couldn't admit that the earth went around the sun, so they came up with the increasingly baroque epicycle theory, where planets were postulated to do loop-de-loops just so that no one would have to concede heliocentrism. Today we face a similar taboo, held for similar quasi-…

Just pointing this out as a woman who is in CS. There is rampant sexism within the field on the lower tier levels.(Still in school so I have yet to deal with higher level positions) Your grunt programmers, techs, and general support staff are down right scary. I have been hopping around company to company for a bit now and some of the places are just down right creepy. I worked one job where open sexism was encourage…

The condescending thing happens to people in tech all the time regardless of their sex. I have done the same thing to men because I think i'm smarter then everyone and have a big ego. I'm sure there are a few really dumb people who condescend to women particularly, but trust me that it's a bigger problem that everyone does in our industry if they have an ego.

As far as the blatant sexism in every job you work at, that does sound pretty bad. Level 1 techs are (imho) ridiculously crass and politically incorrect, imo because they get paid crap and have a stressful job and you're not going to find pillars of polite society in that kind of environment. In higher level positions I don't think i've ever personally seen an example of sexism directed at female co-workers, though i'm sure it must happen somewhere.

In fact, heh, i've often seen politically-incorrect jokes and sexism amongst guys (because let's face it that's what guys do when they're together in a group) but they explicitly stop as soon as a female is around to prevent her from being made uncomfortable. Granted, it's bad that they're making those jokes whether or not a woman is around, but I think them choosing to censor themselves is a positive thing (because let's face it, there's no way to change the thought process of a sexist, but you can at least prevent them from speaking or acting out based on their thoughts).

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#287

Post by sapphirecat »

nl wrote: post #254
sapphirecat wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The prejudicial reaction to buzz words is one of the things that I've found really weird in the programming fields. At one level, like Google aggregating signals, responding to an abundance of buzz words is one of several ways to classify a given posting as promising or not. A few buzz words could be fine, but a company actually saying they "are building every website in AJAX, MVC, REST, and HTML 5" all in the same…

This is wrong. What you call "Buzzwords" many would call technical jargon. Jargon is a shorthand way of communicating quickly with others who understand it. You see "Buzzwords" in are building every website in AJAX, MVC, REST, and HTML 5 , where as I think "I wonder if the MVC is a front end Javascript MVC framework operating against the REST backend, or if the model & controller parts are shared by the REST and AJAX…

My post was not about the specific buzz words, which is why I borrowed the example from the grandparent.

If I were describing a technology stack, it would include the actual development language and further specific, relevant details. That might include the exact example as given, but the example standing on its own still ranks low on the desirability scale.

Also, my description would exclude "building every website in".

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#288

Post by sapphirecat »

stcredzero wrote: post #228
sapphirecat wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The prejudicial reaction to buzz words is one of the things that I've found really weird in the programming fields. At one level, like Google aggregating signals, responding to an abundance of buzz words is one of several ways to classify a given posting as promising or not. A few buzz words could be fine, but a company actually saying they "are building every website in AJAX, MVC, REST, and HTML 5" all in the same…

To me, undiscerning resentment of buzz words is a sign of one level "Cargo Cult" mentality looking down upon another level of "Cargo Cult" mentality.

I thought when you said you find it really weird, that you didn't really understand it, or the reasons behind it. Now, it seems you do, and you simply think it's irrational? Irrationality in humans and their dealings is not something I find particularly weird anymore, in myself or in others.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#289

Post by Sandman »

akronim wrote: post #238
Sandman wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you want a stable career, this is not the industry for you. Well, yes and no :). Depends on where you work. If you work at a tech company then yeah, that's probably not the most secure workplace, but I work at a bank, and the only way you're ever going to get fired from there is if you're a really, really crappy worker, or if you screw up big time.

If you work at a bank there's a good chance you'll next laid off en masse as soon when there's a really bad year.

Well, as far as my bank is concerned, nobody got laid off during the recent recession (I don't work in the US, mind you). There was just a hiring freeze and smaller bonuses at the end of the year. We really weren't hit that hard.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#290

Post by gonehome »

Cushman wrote: post #12
gonehome wrote: post #2

"In 1987, 42% of the software developers in America were women. And 34% of the systems analysts in America were women. ... the percentages of women who earned Computer Science degrees rose steadily, peaking at 37% in 1984." While that's definitely higher, still seems like the field was male dominated (the majority were male).

That 37% dropped to 20% by 2006— nearly halved. It might not seem like a large percentage difference, but consider that that's the difference between the field being under 2:1 male and 4:1 male. That's the observation of interest here.

Definitely true, I was actually surprised the field wasn't originally the majority female since I remember reading that the original programmers were nearly all women.
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