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!
How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
31–40 of 79 posts
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
It's not counterproductive at all. Knowing how to deal with such biases (whether they're internal or external) makes them easier to overcome.
For example, I'm self-taught, and while I have many years experience now and have done some significant projects, I still second guess myself quite a bit. (This is often called "Imposter Syndrome", see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imposter_syndrome.) I found it tremendously helpful to discover that people I've looked up to for years have felt the same way, and had helpful suggestions for getting over the internalized anxiety.
Everybody has nagging fears like this. Learning how to see them for what they are and to avoid making things worse for other people benefits everybody.
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
You're mixing different layers of worrying.
People underperform because they're worrying about problem X (confirming stereotypes). Let's refer to this as problem Y (stereotype threat).
Education about problem X would be counterproductive; the article is suggesting education about problem Y.
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#34What 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!
> no one is complaining about low presence of men in female-dominated industries.
Do you actually know that?
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please do show us statistics though. I'm not saying you're wrong (I genuinely don't know) but you can't say other people don't have data to back their claims when you don't put any data forward yourself. Especially since you brought up the (controversial) argument, the burden of proof is on you.
Actually, since this is an Internet forum, the burden of proof is on neither of us and you may be taking things just a bit too seriously. But if you can't be arsed to Google it, here you are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_psychology http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/SexDifferences.aspx
That wasn't so hard to avoid the guaranteed s*storm that would obviously emerge from claiming one sex was smarter than the other.
Also, taking discussions seriously is exactly the reason why I come to HN. I'm sure I'm not alone.
That being said, those two links where interesting although they left me with even more questions than when I began. On one hand it's claimed that
"The mean IQ scores between men and women vary little." then "gender differences tended to disappear on tests for which there was a male advantage and to magnify on tests for which there was a female advantage" then "These tests have been complied over the years so there is no sex difference." but then oops, "some researchers have concluded that men have slightly higher IQ scores than women"
I'll blame that on Wikipedia I guess.
To be fair, the research of the second link seemed a lot more serious. I'm no IQ scientist so I won't try to guess things I don't fully understand but it was a good read.
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#36What 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!
They do complain about it, they just don't do it on Hacker News! My wife teaches preschool at Stanford's Laboratory School and they often talk about the teacher gender gap and what they can do about it, especially at young-children education conferences and the like.
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#37What 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!
I think it's because men working in female dominated industries don't think of it as an injustice that requires an organised social movement to set right. They do what they want to do and just don't give a monkey's. Much like all the female programmers I know.
It's just the blog-people I ever hear raising this issue.
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#38First let me say that yet again, another blog post that contains little to no science to back up claims; instead, personal feelings and an individual's experience become the standard by which apparently all people experience working in STEM. We should not immediately concede that one person's experience defines an industry, or several. (The "stereotype threat" article is not a compelling enough argument to me that there is some gender stereotype conspiracy only found in STEM)
Second: all these things the author experienced can be said about any minority group, and women is just one of them in STEM. Therefore, can we really say that there is a particular bias against women, when the bias actually exists among many minorities? Therefore, can't we assume that really it's the monopoly of the majority that we should combat, and not specifically the gender gap?
Third, holy shit. If your self confidence is so low that any critique by a peer could shatter your world and cause you to abandon your career, you need therapy, or at least some kind of daily affirmation exercise. And being too afraid to ask to join a group is no excuse, for any person. You have to be able to work with other people.
Often times they will not be the same gender or ethnicity as you. Simply saying it's difficult or scary is not some big revelation: many people find it intimidating to work with groups of people they know nothing about. Luckily, that's what college is good for: overcoming those fears and becoming comfortable with what will eventually be a requirement of your job.
I agree with all her Eliminating the Threat points (even though that's kind of a harsh way of saying "Overcoming Obstacles")
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#39Why are women such an entitled demographic? Where is the love for programmers who are old? Or black? Or hispanic?
Re: How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it
#40Maybe we don't need more women in software.
Maybe people shouldn't be persuaded to pick careers based on what "society wants" or what demographic ratios "should" be.
Maybe we need more women, no, more people to pick the most advantageous careers for them personally.