How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it • Hacker News Board

Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it

#11

Post by danilocampos » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:43 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #3

This 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…

If I have understood you correctly...

Women don't have unique, unnecessary, gender-specific challenges because once the suits were mean to you?

Puzzling reasoning.

Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it

#12

Post by timee » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:44 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #3

This 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…

In talking to my female colleagues and female friends in the engineering profession, I would say that there are a lot more forces at work that make it difficult for females and some minorities to realize their potential. Most that are successful have found ways to get through them, but it doesn't mean that it's an ideal situation.

As the author points out, it's largely due to the perception of the events at school or in a workplace than the true motivations behind them, which you might argue that a successful women engineer needs more mental strength to get through these barriers.

As you mention, there is a lack of quality talent and it would be in our best interest to bring out the potential in as many people as possible. It may be that society happened to turn off countless competent engineers due to these perceptions and social forces.

I believe the question is less on how do you balance the workplace, but rather how do you bring out the best out of people so that the pool of strong engineers becomes bigger.

Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it

#13

Post by jaems33 » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:44 PM UTC

I've said this before, but whenever I see these conversations on my Twitter and HN streams, huge segments of people are left out of the conversation.

In the U.S. at least, tech dialogue is about 'men' and 'women', despite the fact that a significant number of certain men are rarely represented in the tech industry. Asian/Asian America men might overrepresent their demographic in the tech industry relative to their % in the country, but they are rarely on leadership boards (especially compared to women). But more importantly, having worked in Silicon Valley and New York, I rarely saw African-American and Hispanic devs/engineers.

I just take exception to the idea that as a tech collective, we are supposed to 'fight' for one segment yet ignore other under-represented demographics.

Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it

#14

Post by powrtoch » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:44 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #4

Why 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…

The article doesn't mention intelligence, and I can't see how it's especially relevant. Yes, the best programmers are going to be very smart, but it seems to me that slightly above average intelligence is perfectly adequate for a successful career in software. Obviously that phrase will describe just under half the population of women.

The article is mainly about why so few women become interested in software, pursue it, and stick with it as a career, and not about why they don't get the best jobs or make the same money. While it seems plausible that men and women are probabilistically hardwired to find certain fields more interesting than others, this isn't "intelligence".

And of course, everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1%: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html

Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it

#15

Post by pwny » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:49 PM UTC

timee wrote: post #5

Likely 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 mo…

While I agree with your point, I believe "projects with 'random' (assigned) partners" to be a bad idea as far as encouraging social interactions. From my experience, no one enjoys being randomly assigned a partner (at least in high school) and starting your social contact with an unpleasant experience might ruin the chances of proper interaction.

I think you make an excellent point that a lot is at play during high school though. It seems like most kids are fine and don't notice gender differences before their teens and that the social issues manifest and strengthen from the start to the end of puberty. Teenagers are mean and that period of life is when people judge the most based on looks and social aptitude. Solving this situation (which probably can't be solved readily) would most likely raise everyone's social interaction skills, smooth the social differences across the board and solve a lot of gender stereotypes (and even other problems).

Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it

#16

Post by space_unicorn » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:51 PM UTC

jaems33 wrote: post #13

I've said this before, but whenever I see these conversations on my Twitter and HN streams, huge segments of people are left out of the conversation. In the U.S. at least, tech dialogue is about 'men' and 'women', despite the fact that a significant number of certain men are rarely represented in the tech industry. Asian/Asian America men might overrepresent their demographic in the tech industry relative to their %…

Great point.

I think the article speaks specifically about women because it was written by a woman, drawing from her personal experience.

The principles stated in the article can probably be appreciated by and applied by any group that's feeling marginalized in the tech industry.

Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it

#17

Post by flatline » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:51 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #3

This 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 biggest complaint that I've heard from female engineers who have been around for more than a couple years is that there are so few of them, and that it is such a male-dominated industry. I can't speak for them, but I have my own complaints on this front, as a guy. Overlooking the specific gender biases that women face, there are real differences between how men and women work and interact, and I find it rather tedious to just work with men all the time. I have come to despise many aspects of programmer culture, and I feel that a lot of what I dislike is due to a heavily male influence. "Rock star", "ninja", "brogrammer" and the like all sound like words generated by immature men in roles of power. I think that the more egoistic, individualistic trends in work behavior are outgrowths of a distinctly male influence. This behavior contributes to the poor perception of the profession.

Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it

#18

Post by borplk » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:51 PM UTC

What bugs me is the fact that no one is complaining about low presence of men in female-dominated industries. But god forbid if there are 10 male programmers and 9 female ones, DISASTER!

Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it

#19

Post by waqf » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:52 PM UTC

space_unicorn wrote: post #6

droithomme wrote: post #3

This 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.

The article appeared to be arguing: women underperform because they spend mental effort worrying about stereotype threat. So let's educate them about stereotype threat so they'll be more conscious of it.

That sounds obviously counterproductive. Did I misunderstand?

Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it

#20

Post by pwny » Wed, Aug 01, 2012, 3:53 PM UTC

space_unicorn wrote: post #6

droithomme wrote: post #3

This 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.

While you make a point that it doesn't always have to do with harassment, your second argument is very weak. There's nothing anyone but yourself can do about "[...] a person's perception of herself and what people might be thinking, not the way others are acting."

If your issue lies with what other people MIGHT be thinking, then the issue is within your own self-confidence.

I agree that stereotypes are destructive, but only when they actually are present. One should be careful not to feel threatened by hypothetical thoughts from hypothetical co-workers before the fact.