Why women leave tech: It's the culture

Why women leave tech: It's the culture
fortune.com

Things like "Try being the only woman over 40." for me sounds like desperately looking for an excuse for not wanting to work there without really having one - similar to "I'm the only tall guy with black hair and blue eyes - I can't work there".

Next, the "Halle Berry" thing: I'm not really into the specifics about her, but I'm not aware of anything negative. I only think of her as being really successful in her job. There is nothing about being a woman in there - when a guy with a huge beard would break the server there would be jokes like "Oh look, Gandalf broke the website today" which isn't bad either.

I do not understand their problem about "being different" - I think of it as one of the biggest reasons for having people to do the job instead of 1000 equal robots (only second to "robots are not that far yet"). In addition to this: Isn't the diversity thing one of ideas a lot of "feminists" preach to convince people to look for "women who could do this job" instead of "everyone who could do this job"?

And the last thing: In the article they complain about not getting a baby leave, which is totally valid, but doesn't that contradict the the other "we want to be treated equally" stuff?

1) >>"Try being the only woman over 40.... similar to "I'm the only tall guy with black hair and blue eyes - I can't work there".

The fact that you see those 2 things as anything approaching remotely similar is an error in social perception that I cannot begin to explain.

2)>>Next, the "Halle Berry" thing: I'm not really into the specifics about her, but I'm not aware of anything negative.

Halle Berry is a black woman; that's why her co-workers are using it. Calling her that is pretty much equiv to saying "Oh, the black woman broke the build this morning." Yes, she's black, she's a woman and it may very well be the fact that code she pushed broke the build. But, in the context of American history... and being the only black woman in an office of white males... that kind of phrasing is a problem and it's a subtle reminder that she's not "one of them" and they probably haven't accepted her. It's not at all the same as a bunch of same gender, same race people calling out one guy with a beard. Context is important.

3)>>And the last thing: In the article they complain about not getting a baby leave, which is totally valid, but doesn't that contradict the the other "we want to be treated equally" stuff?

Humans are not computers. It's not 1 or 0. You can treat someone as an equal while also gracefully resolving particular situations. What this article is probably alluding to is the vibe of an office where you're made to feel guilty taking care of your own child. For a mom, their are real biological things like recovering from child birth and choosing to feed the child naturally. If, say, a man broke his leg skiing he'd probably get some time off and the guys would joke about it and smile. The typical vibe of a tech office won't make him feel guilty. If a woman needs some time off for a new child... it's not usually the same vibe.

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P.S., I won't be replying anymore in this thread because I already know someone will come along with specious meta-debate and the thread will become like 3 pages long splitting hairs and debating the nature of the universe. I'm just posting here for the other HN readers who never post to let them know there are some in tech who do get it and understand what these women are expressing is a real issue and not something just made up in their heads.

EDIT:....and boom, off the front page in like 5mins. HN itself is an example of these problems. Someone should write an article about how HN can't handle any discussion about racism or sexism in tech and really shine a bright light on it. I use to collect examples; I might have to start that up again.

In the discussion of this story at Reddit [1], there were some interesting comments pointing out reasons that the article might be wrong in surmising that 50% women in introductory classes means they are entering the tech-as-a-profession pipeline at the same rate as men.

Computing has become sufficiently important in other engineering fields, science, finance, social science, and even some of the humanities that people interested in those areas can greatly benefit by introductory CS and programming. Introductory CS has become a course you can reasonably expect anyone to take now, and so it should have demographics that are close to that of the campus as a whole.

What you'd want to look at to see the real rate women are coming into the CS pipeline in college is the demographics of the first CS class that is generally taken only by people going into CS.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2ibeqk/why_women...

I'm not sure choosing to have a child and accidentally breaking your leg at the same thing, since you were so critical of people making false analogies. One is certainly much more of a choice than the other.

That being said, your point isn't even true: I've been pressured to start working from home, answering calls/emails for consults, etc by more than one company while recovering from various illnesses or injuries. It's even been hinted at smaller companies that not working from home while sick is not "being a team player" and that it might negatively impact my prospects there.