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A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

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Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#61

Post by yosito »

modbait wrote: post #2

> Go befriend a girl in your class or company. It’s not creepy. As an unattractive computer nerd, I've been regularly reminded my entire life that I am creepy. Skipping.

You're conflating attraction and friendship. Being creepy means that you seem to have unwelcome intentions. If you're saying that your attractiveness is the reason you've been told you're creepy, the reason for your creepiness is that your intentions are to attract someone, not to befriend them. Fix your intentions if you don't want to be creepy. And listen, I'm not saying you shouldn't want to attract someone, just that if another person isn't attracted to you, it's creepy to "befriend" them while hiding other desires. You've got two options in that case, 1) change your desires and genuinely appreciate them as a friend or aquaintence (it is possible, but takes a certain level of emotional maturity) or 2) Be straightforward and respectful about your desires, and then respect their boundaries if they're not interested realizing that no one is obligated to reciprocate anything.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#62

Post by 0x4f3759df »

jdavis703 wrote: post #8

The first part of this had great citations to cite that women are more social. Where the data was lacking is that 1) software is perceived as anti-social and 2) that other anti-social careers face similar problems to software engineering. For example if socialization was such a critical decider, why are some many women maids or professional housekeepers? Most people in this career don't get much on-the-job socializat…

>software is perceived as anti-social

My experience is that this perception has a strong grounding in reality.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#64

Post by jrs95 »

tptacek wrote: post #50

Are the rest of the STEM career paths seen as more social than CS? Is mathematics more social than CS? Because CS is almost (not quite: physics is almost as bad) unique among STEM specializations for its gender disparity. I talk regularly to academic math people (because cryptography) and the sense I have is that if anything, CS is far more social than the work they do --- to get anything significant done in technolo…

I think part of the programmer stereotype is that you basically have to be socially handicapped to fit in. Which may draw more people like that in and keep more well adjusted (or socially conscious) people out. In general, it seems that from a relatively young age women are given the impression that "nerds" are to be avoided at all costs -- we're stereotypically "weird" (meaning creepy perverts). Even though I haven't met a single person out of hundreds of people in this profession that overtly acted that way (although I've heard 2 anecdotal stories from people who had). Of course I'm not trying to say that there isn't a legitimate problem there, because there likely is, and especially with the small proportion of women in this profession they are very likely to run into those types. But I think the perception of the problem, or the quality of the people who are in CS, is probably greatly exaggerated by the stereotypes and that keeps people away.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#65

Post by 21 »

JPKab wrote: post #26
modbait wrote: post #2

> Go befriend a girl in your class or company. It’s not creepy. As an unattractive computer nerd, I've been regularly reminded my entire life that I am creepy. Skipping.

I have a talented, and wonderful, female dev on my team. One thing though:. She has described to me some of the male coders as being "creepers". When I asked for specifics, she couldn't provide them. She simply stated it was a "feeling". The one commonality I found with the creepers is that they are pretty clearly below average in looks. The question is whether this is a correlation or a casual factor. But definitely…

Once I was searching for the definition of a slang word and ended up on a teen forum.

One question there was along the line "What would you do if a boy you don't know came next to you and said you are pretty". One answer was: "If he was cute I would make out with him, if not I would yell: Get lost freak".

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#66

Post by WallWextra »

tptacek wrote: post #50

Are the rest of the STEM career paths seen as more social than CS? Is mathematics more social than CS? Because CS is almost (not quite: physics is almost as bad) unique among STEM specializations for its gender disparity. I talk regularly to academic math people (because cryptography) and the sense I have is that if anything, CS is far more social than the work they do --- to get anything significant done in technolo…

The math majors in my upper-level math classes had significantly better social skills than the people in the CS classes I took.

This is only an anecdote, but it's not obvious to me that mathematics isn't more social than CS.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#67

Post by leshow »

eecks wrote: post #27

> young men are less likely to approach women and invite them to join a study group or happy hour, poker night, or whatever else they do with their male peers/coworkers. As a man I've never been approached and invited to anything like this..

I wonder how many men get invited to the inverse 'girls night' also.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#68

Post by vowelless »

nicoburns wrote: post #55
ajkjk wrote: post #23

Most of the theories I've seen about the women-in-tech gap don't resonate with my experience because there was a very obvious 'women-in-tech' gap in about... 5th grade? in my (typical, I think) American elementary school. It was nerdy boys, almost entirely (I remember one exception), who wanted to stay after school playing games on the iMacs in our classroom, and I am pretty sure that it would only be the boys in my…

An interesting data point here ia that girls at all-girls schools tend to take much more interest in STEM subjects, which suggests that he issue might be more to do with social percpetions of what is for girls and boys rather than inherent interest differing between genders.

Can you share sources on this? I'd be very curious to see how this changes relative to coed schools.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#69

Post by jrs95 »

jdavis703 wrote: post #8

The first part of this had great citations to cite that women are more social. Where the data was lacking is that 1) software is perceived as anti-social and 2) that other anti-social careers face similar problems to software engineering. For example if socialization was such a critical decider, why are some many women maids or professional housekeepers? Most people in this career don't get much on-the-job socializat…

Perhaps software is perceived as anti-social because software developers are perceived as people you don't want to socialize with.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#70

Post by always_good »

chrisseaton wrote: post #37
throwaway84742 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they be “weaker”? I don’t get what you’re trying to say.

I don't think they would be weaker - where do you think I said I thought that? But lots of men definitely do think women are likely to be weaker in computer science. I don't know why they think that - you'd have to ask them?

But you're making the claim that men think that. You can't just pass the buck to your own premise with "dunno, you'll have to ask them."
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