How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
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How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
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Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#2I would like to see some more research done with this study: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1943412 basically a writing exercise that seems to remove most of the effects of stereotype threat.
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#3This is an ongoing made up fake crisis.
First, I've yet to see any women engineers who have demonstrated they are good at their jobs make this argument. It's mostly bloggers and journalists writing these things. Women engineers who are good don't describe having problems any different from the rest of us.
As far as the actual incidents of harassment from asshole managers and socially inept coworkers, I've got the same stories too. Management is clueless in general and the profession, although respected by the public, is not generally respected by managers, executives or journalists.
Most developers employed these days are not competent, regardless of gender, man and woman alike. The few that are competent cluster in competent firms where harassment and disrespect of employees, man and woman alike, is not tolerated.
I'm a bit hyper-aware of this right now. I resigned my job last month after 6 months of abuse and harassment of engineers by non-engineering sales staff, which they viewed as hilarious pranks on worthless geeks who think they are so smart. Complaints to management were handled with suggestions to "man up", "learn to deal" and "stop being a pussy". I received over 100% salary increase in return for my willingness to quit and leave for a more sane firm.
If you are good and you are being harassed, there is high demand for people who are good. The companies that permit harassment deserve to fail. Leave and don't look back. I offer this advise because I would hate for someone to think they can't find a place where there work is appreciated and they are valued because of their gender or race. There are places out there that are sane and professional, and they are generally more profitable so you make more as well. The only thing is that you need to be competent, that is the most important thing in this field because that's your ticket to success.
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#4Why is it so important that we close the gender gap? Why is it so important that we believe that there is no difference in intelligence between men and women?
Statistically, men have a wider variance in IQ score than women do. This means that there are likely to be more highly intelligent men than highly intelligent women in a room, and that the most intelligent man in the room is probably more intelligent than the most intelligent woman.
With that said, if you were to select the top 10 intelligent people in a room of 1000, a statistically significant amount of the time a majority will be men.
If you are hiring for a job that requires the top 1% of intelligence, it is no surprise that you are going to have more men than women.
Disclaimer: I hope some day that my daughter chooses a position in STEM, I realize that there are limitations and gaps in the IQ test, and that I might sound like a complete troll but I'm asking this question legitimately.
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#5Likely the solution starts from parenting as author points out at the beginning of the post. Programs that start at age 13-14 have those early years to fight with in order to create an interest in software and instill self-confidence. It reminds me of an old article on gender imbalances from 1970, where it argues that while we say people have free will when they choose their careers, they combat 20 years of social molding that's difficult to break. [1]
It'd be interesting to see the differences in upbringing that allowed for the Soviet Union back in the 60s to have a stat where "one-third of the engineers and 75 percent of the physicians are women." [1]
Having been in the role of a guy in a computer science class at a large public university with roughly similar ratios, I wouldn't say that the motivation that people don't work with women is mostly due to the stereotype. It's likely due to the social ineptitude of engineering students. I definitely could relate to Max Levchin talk about how PayPal had difficulty in hiring women because they were nerds that didn't know how to relate to women. [2] Granted, as the author points out, the stereotype threat exists due to the outcome being perceived as social bias.
Perhaps a solution as well is to help nerdy guys interact with girls in high school while the gender balance is fairly balanced. Perhaps projects with "random" (assigned) partners. Looking back at some of the things I did, I can't believe I was that socially awkward.
[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=dwTvE44DOgQC&lpg=PA145&... pg 188
[2] http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels...
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#6This is an ongoing made up fake crisis. First, I've yet to see any women engineers who have demonstrated they are good at their jobs make this argument. It's mostly bloggers and journalists writing these things. Women engineers who are good don't describe having problems any different from the rest of us. As far as the actual incidents of harassment from asshole managers and socially inept coworkers, I've got the sam…
The article has nothing to do with harassment.
As a female in the software industry, I have experienced harassment perhaps once, and it wasn't from my colleagues.
Stereotype threat can occur even at 'sane firms'. It has to do with a person's perception of herself and what people might be thinking, not the way others are acting.
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#7This is an ongoing made up fake crisis. First, I've yet to see any women engineers who have demonstrated they are good at their jobs make this argument. It's mostly bloggers and journalists writing these things. Women engineers who are good don't describe having problems any different from the rest of us. As far as the actual incidents of harassment from asshole managers and socially inept coworkers, I've got the sam…
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Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#8Why is it so important that we close the gender gap? Why is it so important that we believe that there is no difference in intelligence between men and women? Statistically, men have a wider variance in IQ score than women do. This means that there are likely to be more highly intelligent men than highly intelligent women in a room, and that the most intelligent man in the room is probably more intelligent than the m…
That's a pretty strong claim to make without citing sources.
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#9Why is it so important that we close the gender gap? Why is it so important that we believe that there is no difference in intelligence between men and women? Statistically, men have a wider variance in IQ score than women do. This means that there are likely to be more highly intelligent men than highly intelligent women in a room, and that the most intelligent man in the room is probably more intelligent than the m…
Statistically, men have a wider variance in IQ score than women do. This means that there are likely to be more highly intelligent men than highly intelligent women in a room, and that the most intelligent man in the room is probably more intelligent than the most intelligent woman.
No. This means that there are likely to be more men who scored highly on an IQ test than women who scored highly on an IQ test in a room.
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#10Why is it so important that we close the gender gap? Why is it so important that we believe that there is no difference in intelligence between men and women? Statistically, men have a wider variance in IQ score than women do. This means that there are likely to be more highly intelligent men than highly intelligent women in a room, and that the most intelligent man in the room is probably more intelligent than the m…
I think women are just as intelligent as men.
I also think that men's and women's intelligence manifests itself in different ways.
It is explicitly because of this difference, that I believe having more women in STEM fields can only be a good thing.
Advances come when a problem is approached from many different angles, by many different bright minds.
Thanks for perpetuating the stereotype. I feel sad for your daughter.