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What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

nytimes.com

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Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#301

Post by userium »

natvod wrote: post #76

Ok so I'm a girl who codes/programs and I'm my take on the issues she raised: Stereotypes about STEM fields putting girls off I can only talk about my own experience but I saw very few negative stereotypes about STEM fields growing up. Definitely not enough to put off girls. However, while I did start coding at a young age, I didn't apply my skill to a work/business purpose until my twenties. Why? I think this issue…

Thanks for your post, sounds familiar. We have (http://keepwomen.com/) talked to lots of women, who left or were thinking about leaving tech, and many of them mentioned how hard it is to "fit in". Many of whom ended up changing jobs eventually found a better cultural fit in another tech company and enjoyed their job more.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#302

Post by belovedeagle »

Mz wrote: post #110
rewqfdsa wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It does, however, make it harder for most women to participate here I've seen many people make this claim, but I haven't seen anyone back it up with evidence. What do you mean by "harder"? Do you mean "more difficult"? In what way? Right now, I believe claims that tiny linguistic differences create meaningful barriers to female participation in technology are all specious. I could be convinced otherwise, but have s…

Right now, I believe claims that tiny linguistic differences create meaningful barriers to female participation in technology are all specious. I could be convinced otherwise, but have seen no evidence that might move me. Years ago, I joined an urban planning forum. It had been around for 10 years. It was the most prominent forum of its kind in the world. The majority of members were in Canada or the Continental US.…

> they would make ugly comments about clearly not having a life that they were posting there outside of work hours.

How is this a "small linguistic detail"? It has nothing whatsoever to do with using 'he' as a gender-neutral pronoun; it's on a completely different level.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#303

Post by lightcatcher »

blackguardx wrote: post #167
tptacek wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's an overwrought reading of the article, for two reasons: first, the article isn't prescriptive about Star Wars, and second, it's reporting simple facts; whether you feel comfortable about it or not, nerd culture's coupling with software development does alienate potential entrants to the field. But let's not bother deploying dueling readings from the article, and instead see how much you and I actually…

Do companies do that? I've never experienced any embrace of "nerd culture" at any place I've worked.

Palantir is named after an item in Lord of the Rings. From what I've heard from friends working there, they have an internal conference called HobbitCon, meetings rooms named after LotR, and refer to their office as "the shire".

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#304

Post by icanhackit »

somberi wrote: post #289
natvod wrote: post #76

Ok so I'm a girl who codes/programs and I'm my take on the issues she raised: Stereotypes about STEM fields putting girls off I can only talk about my own experience but I saw very few negative stereotypes about STEM fields growing up. Definitely not enough to put off girls. However, while I did start coding at a young age, I didn't apply my skill to a work/business purpose until my twenties. Why? I think this issue…

Thank you and a great post. Icanhackit suggested that these present traits are "extrovert" in nature, however there are traits that are feminine that are extrovert as well - communication, team-building, etc. My wife who is an extrovert and holds a position of corporate importance half-jests about putting a poster in her office that says "I am your manager, not your mom". Here is an article (well shared by now) that…

I'm not really qualified to be talking about psychology, but I'm a reductionist and a bit of a loud-mouth so let's get started...

Icanhackit suggested that these present traits are "extrovert" in nature, however there are traits that are feminine that are extrovert as well - communication, team-building, etc.

I'd argue that if a male or female can have good communication or team building skills, we should really do away with any gender connotations and just focus on the fact that it's an extroverted skill. I've worked for a female who possessed what you might call masculine behavioral traits, but from what I know about her she'd been that way her whole life.

I suspect that because she and I both lived and grew up in a secular environment there wasn't as much of an emphasis placed on gender roles. Now with that massive sample size of 1 person we can, perhaps haphazardly, deduce that some gender roles aren't innate to a persons gender. Of course men and women are different and do react differently to various forms of stress and stimuli, but a good portion of behavior stems from culture.

So what do we gain by not forcing gender-specificity upon certain behaviors? We can see people as independent from their appearance and treat them in a way that doesn't pigeonhole them with certain expectations.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#305

Post by Kalium »

bduerst wrote: post #270
pkinsky wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of college students are female. Most prisoners are male. Most homeless people are male. If we take it as a given that any group being under- or overrepresented in some category is a violation of the social contract, maybe we should start by fixing these glaring injustices.

>glaring injustices Kind of a false dichotomy. The APA has found that men are more likely to become substance abusers, which is linked to homelessness and conviction rates. Why not help both men and women? Why does one need to be first?

> Why not help both men and women? Why does one need to be first?

Because whenever there are limited resources available to help people, there's going to be a need-off to decide who takes priority.

A lot of politics flows from this. This is why you will often find lots of jockeying for position and heartstring-pulling from nonprofits and NGOs. If you don't do well enough in the need-off, you might not get any resources.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#306

Post by finance-geek »

ken47 wrote: post #240

Does anyone else feel that targeted statistical studies would advance this discussion far more than yet another anecdote? The state of understanding of this situation could be much improved. And yet, despite how strongly people feel about this issue, the studies are still sparse to non-existent.

I'm only half-joking here -- I wonder if the n value is too small for statistical significance?

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#307

Post by lightcatcher »

tptacek wrote: post #202
rewqfdsa wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the connection between beer and nerd culture --- or masculine culture, actually, since plenty of women I know love beer.

I wasn't trying to be gender-specific with my example, just showing how something you can do as a manager to build culture can exclude and alienate people. (Though: I do think beer drinking trends masculine.)

Beer seems more in-line with bro culture than nerd culture. This particular article seems more against corporate nerd culture than against corporate bro culture, but I've definitely seem articles speaking out against brogramming culture. Bros and nerds are quite different things (even though it seems like there are a lot of hybrids in Silicon Valley), but it seems to me that the only way to not alienate anyone is to have zero corporate culture.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#308

Post by nether »

natvod wrote: post #76

Ok so I'm a girl who codes/programs and I'm my take on the issues she raised: Stereotypes about STEM fields putting girls off I can only talk about my own experience but I saw very few negative stereotypes about STEM fields growing up. Definitely not enough to put off girls. However, while I did start coding at a young age, I didn't apply my skill to a work/business purpose until my twenties. Why? I think this issue…

> Thus as a girl, you're forced to act more masculine to achieve business goals. But it's hard to suppress your natural state of being. Additionally girls are still expected to (and want to) act feminine in their personal relationships so women "who want to have it all" have to toggle back and forth between being masculine and feminine. It can be exhausting.

It's exhausting for men too to switch from exact equals professionally, and then being dominant romantically. Sheryl Sandberg says more women should ask out men, given that equality in romance carries over into the workplace, but that seems pretty low on feminist concerns.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#309

Post by Kalium »

duaneb wrote: post #288
muddyrivers wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a software engineer, male, Asian. Somehow I can relate to the article. Although I was always one of the top students in math and science and enrolled the top university, I was both intimidated and kind of disgusted by the culture stereotypes at the beginning of my career. I had self doubts if I would ever become a good software engineer, since I was far from the stereotypes. Sometimes, I was deeply disgusted by…

So—first, empathy, I don't get video games at all. Second—this strikes me as fairly standard cultural shock. It's one thing to find yourself immersed in a culture, it's quite another to find that you have to immerse yourself in that culture to reach your teammates. This is an experience I have not encountered before; people have surprised me with the lengths they go to ensure a healthy diversity in company culture so…

> It's complicated. But monocultures are certainly terrible teamwork oriented groups of people—I think we can all agree with that.

I don't know. That thought sounds kind of monocultural.

So -- first, empathy. I've felt cultural shock. I've lived places and done things where many people around me lived lives that made no sense to me.

Second -- that's not just a snarky one-liner. I'm suggesting that your notions, as explained, constitute a different kind of monoculture. You've gone up a meta-level. Instead of everyone having the same interests, you now expect everyone to have the same general attitudes.

Don't you want people with different attitudes around? If you encounter someone with different attitudes, isn't that an opportunity to expand your mind and come to understand a different perspective?

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#310

Post by Kalium »

hackuser wrote: post #272
omonra wrote: post #178

I don't get something. There seems to always has been a problem of diversity in tech. Yet US has done just ok with males (white and asian) doing this stuff. Ie better than anybody else in the world. Why is this a problem (something the writer - who is a literature professor, by the way) considers a given? Is there any proof that increased diversity has any effect (except employment opportunities for the otherwise und…

I think it's a serious problem when more than half of society is denied a fair opportunity. > Yet US has done just ok with males (white and asian) doing this stuff. Ie better than anybody else in the world. That doesn't mean the US and others can't do much better. Think how much talent is lost - more than half of it. There's a shortage of talent in SV. There is much that needs to be done in the world. > Is there any…

> I've read about a lot of evidence that more diverse groups make decisions significantly better.

You have to be careful with this one. It only applies to certain kinds of diversity and certain kinds of decisions, and even then only over a sizable number of decisions. It's not as simple as diversity makes things better, full stop.

And this is without weighing costs!

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