Live data from Hacker News

What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

nytimes.com

361–370 of 437 posts

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that girls and boys naturally (either through differences in neural architecture, hormone exposure, or early acculturation) simply have different average preferences, and that these preferences manifest over their lifetimes as differences in life stories and career choices. I don't think this difference is a problem we need to solve. Diversity is supposed to make our culture richer, right? If so, why are so…

This comment says everything better than I could say it. Programming is a solitary activity where you solve logic puzzles. Anyone can do it. Another activity that is very similar is playing chess - yet no one is up in arms that chess schools aren't including 50% girls in elite chess training. If you took a group of girls and a group of boys and put them in a room where they played chess for a few hours, then asked th…

Programming can be done very easily by yourself, but when you actually want to get something finished or do more than 30 person-hours a week it's best to go find some other people to make a company with.

If you want to see it as a job, compare it to other businesses where you have to write things on a schedule, like writing a newspaper. There's more conversations with strangers involved in that one and it sounds a little friendlier.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#362
post #359
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…

> Rather, I think the problem is, the professional/business world as a whole rewards and values masculine traits (competitiveness, talking highly of yourself and accomplishments, etc.) much more than feminine ones. Exactly. Masculinity is all about taking risks. Capitalism is about risk. So of course men lead the way.

The inside of a business is a socialist command economy. Capitalism only exists outside the office.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#364
"Computer scientists and engineers are going to be designing the future that everyone inhabits. We need women and minorities to enjoy an ambient sense of belonging in those professions if the future they create is going to be one in which all of us feel at home"

Oh how tired I am of this tech ignorant BS "argument" - "women use tech too, so we need women designing tech for women" or "women need representatives in politics too!"...

Listen crefully - technology is created so that everyone could use it without man/woman distinction. If product is created specifically for women by 100% man team then they WILL CONSULT WITH THEM WHILILE ON IT OR GET FEEDBACK LATER. You know why? Of course you don't - not doing what your target demographics want is suicide. That hawing said - women are majority so their influence is huge on tech. Same woth politics - good polititian doesn't just represent one group, they strike ballance to help everyone.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#365

> Over and over, Dr. Cheryan and her colleagues have found that female students are more interested in enrolling in a computer class if they are shown a classroom (whether virtual or real) decorated not with “Star Wars” posters, science-fiction books, computer parts and tech magazines, but with a more neutral décor — art and nature posters, coffee makers, plants and general-interest magazines. That last part sounds s…

I guess Star Wars and (much of SciFi) has no strong tie to a computer class except for a certain subcultural influence not shared universally (and so they don't _need_ to be part of the class room). But if the computer class isn't just a editor/spreadsheet/media class (which is okay, and maybe even important, but not "computer"), having computer parts and tech magazines around (within reason) provide a relatively rea…

The "Star Wars" reference is really just an insinuation that geek culture signals social suicide to conformist high schoolers. But geek culture also signals passion.

My objection is really that mandating bland décor in the name of some "ambient sense of belonging" discourages passionate teachers, however their offbeat classroom decorating may or may not relate absolutely to the field. And the system already discourages passionate teachers in countless ways. We don't need one more nail in the coffin for love of learning and those who encourage it.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#366
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a sort of culture (in geographic terms) thing to be honest. There was a very nice article somewhere that compared the values of the East and the West. Talking highly of yourself actually comes off as negative in the East. In the East, humility is considered far more respectable, where as the same comes off as weak in the west.

Eastern United States? Asia?

Asia

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NCIS LA: Female hacker -> cool. Male hacker -> bumbling idiot.

That was probably just the writers trying to use an inverted trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InvertedTrope

What's inverted about "bumbling idiot male hacker"?

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great post though I'd like to add some thoughts to this bit: the professional/business world as a whole rewards and values masculine traits (competitiveness, talking highly of yourself and accomplishments, etc.) I'd argue those are better classified as extroverted traits rather than masculine traits. Believe me, there are more than a few males that suffer from this being the dominant culture in business (or anywhere)…

This is a sort of culture (in geographic terms) thing to be honest. There was a very nice article somewhere that compared the values of the East and the West. Talking highly of yourself actually comes off as negative in the East. In the East, humility is considered far more respectable, where as the same comes off as weak in the west.

That's not as much a "east vs west" thing as it is an "US vs rest of the world" thing in my experience; as someone who lives on northern Europe.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#369
I had a run-in with a woman on my team. We disagreed on the design for a module she had just implemented. It wasn't going to meet the requirements, I argued. She disagreed - it'd be fine. Many times we sat in front of her code, I took her through exactly how her design was failing. You know that extra 250msec mental processing time where you see it click in their heads when they realize they were wrong or had a faulty assumption? There were like 3 of those times sitting with her, and she always changed the subject or insulted me for not understanding what she was trying to do - end of discussion. Other team members backed me up from time to time when the issues I was raising were serious enough, I wasn't completely alone. There were other communications breakdowns, she NEVER requested anyone to pair with her, never did any design work nor discussed with the team what she was going to develop that sprint, was frustrated and defensive when her PR's were full of criticisms (primarily from me.)

I was vocal, I was dissatisfied with her performance and did not keep it a secret, and I was demanding the same level of excellence from her as from anyone else on the team. This went on for about two weeks ... and then she cried to the boss. Told him she thought she might have to quit the company over the altercations with me. So, they gave me the official sit down reprimand. There was no interest hearing in my side of the story, not that it would matter the way HR is structured. And, I got the distinct feeling they started keeping a file on me to try and get me canned.

My reaction to this, so as to keep my sweet job and food on the table, was to be just one more go-with-the-flow, smiley-faced, that-all-sounds-good kind of guy. No more confrontation trying to get the best out of people. Life is really nice now, I don't have to care. My work is still good, but I'm just doing as I was told and cashing my paycheck now. Any actual love and passion for the work now goes into my hobby projects, and I don't work late anymore. Soon after all this blew over, the bosses remarked cynically that I was working so well with this woman, like it was surprising that I could turn off combat mode so easily/at all! I just smile and laugh meekly, "yeah, we're working well together. It's all so great" as I choke back the bile.

God help that woman if she ever needs help and I'm the only one to give it. I've had to endure team dynamics 10x worse in my career than what she experienced with me and I didn't rat out the other guy. I cannot countenance such disloyalty. The team must resolve its differences internally and not go informing on each other at the drop of a hat!

Anyhow, we are still on the same team, (thanks management!), and I casually try to avoid pairing with her most of the time and smile with gritted teeth when we do have to work together. When I see her make a mistake, I don't point it out and just laugh to myself about it.

I will outlast her but she has definitely put a damper on my moving into a lead role unless I switch departments.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll confirm this anecdotally. My sister was extremely good at math and science... until the end of middle school, when she started hanging out in earnest with her friends. Her friends thought that any intellectual interest was nerdy and stupid, and my sister acted accordingly. Now, the girl who was easily learning algebra in elementary school "just can't do math." I think that the big difference in STEM is that nerd…

There are hundreds of thousands of boys who excel at math and science until their bodies mature to the point where they become competitive at track or football. Unlike "hanging out with friends", a universal activity, extracurricular sports actually do conflict with early computer science exploration (they're a huge time sink, as any parent of a kid in a sport will attest). Meanwhile, sports draws in more boys than g…

According to the anecdote, "Her friends thought that any intellectual interest was nerdy and stupid, and my sister acted accordingly" had an impact, not that it took time to hang out with them.
Post reply on HN