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Why are women leaving the tech industry in droves?

latimes.com

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Re: Why are women leaving the tech industry in droves?

#3

Post by littletimmy »

She extrapolated all of this from the story of one woman who left before becoming a manager? Where are the statistics on this? What a shoddy piece of social commentary.

It is almost as if journalists have decided that feminism is now fashionable and so everyone must write about it. Gone are the days were ugly women like Freidan and Hooks fought for women's rights. Now feminism's no-risk mainstream and so the Emma Watsons and Sheryl Sandbergs rush in to co-opt the nobility. What nonsense.

Re: Why are women leaving the tech industry in droves?

#4

Post by riskable »

> She had built a prototype for a travel website, she said, a feature to auto-suggest cities and airports based on the first three letters typed into the search field, fixing a long-standing problem.

> Her male bosses told her she'd built it without permission. Then they said only architects within the company could pitch features — and all the architects were male. In the end, the project was handed to someone else, and she was assigned to less interesting tasks.

To me, this sounds like "business as usual" at large companies. I am a male and I have encountered and will likely continue to encounter situations like this often. It has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with classic enterprise problems like "silos", "not invented here syndrome", and just general political BS like, "you/your team don't get to mess with our product/project."

I have no idea if this kind of "default deny" mode of operation results in less women in tech but if it's a major factor then I think it's safe to say that sexism isn't the reason why women are leaving/not entering IT careers.

Re: Why are women leaving the tech industry in droves?

#5

Post by rabbyte »

riskable wrote: post #4

> She had built a prototype for a travel website, she said, a feature to auto-suggest cities and airports based on the first three letters typed into the search field, fixing a long-standing problem. > Her male bosses told her she'd built it without permission. Then they said only architects within the company could pitch features — and all the architects were male. In the end, the project was handed to someone else,…

I'm curious. If the "default deny" theory pans out and we discover it does indeed result in less women, why would you conclude that sexism is not a factor? Seems to me it would be evidence of systemic sexism, reinforced by an inability to see that the rules and structures provide more mobility for some and not others.

For the record, I don't think women can't cope with "default deny" mode and I do think all genders have to face the anecdote you selected. However, when the hierarchy is dominated by one gender, there is an additional hurdle that the privileged gender will not encounter.

Re: Why are women leaving the tech industry in droves?

#8

Post by darkwingduck »

DownvoteMeToWin wrote: post #6

I'm very interested if these theories-via-media used to explain women's participation in tech are universal enough to apply to waste management and construction industries as well. Isn't testability important to theory?

It isn't a theory as much as a religion, requiring faith rather than any kind of facts as to problem or proposed solution. Welcome to the inquisition.

Re: Why are women leaving the tech industry in droves?

#9

Post by darkwingduck »

DiversityWorks wrote: post #7

Because there is rampant misogyny in the industry as the dismissive replies and often outright hostile attitude you tend to see from the tech community towards anyone raising these type of concerns.

Attaboy. You'll do well here. Have internet points for your swell show in obedience!
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