6 ms·

Why aren't there more women in tech?

14 points by williswee 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ogreveins 11y ago
Every week someone talks about the same thing. I get it but at this point this topic is passing the point of caring into annoyance and soon apathy. It honestly has crossed my mind to just make a quick script to filter anything that has to do with women/minorities/politics even though it's the equivalent of covering my ears and closing my eyes. Articles based on these things have nothing to do scientific progress and quirky/interesting technical concepts which are the main draw for coming here. Maybe I'll be enlightened? I don't know. Being completely honest I'm having a hard time getting past fact that the article was written by a woman who could instead get a tech job. My wife is a kernel programmer for goodness' sake. Perhaps I'm failing to see something obvious so it would be nice if someone could show me what's wrong with my line of thinking.
- scottmwinters 11y ago
  nope. I completely agree
littletimmy 11y ago
Why aren't there more women plumbers? Is that also because of the "bro-plumber" culture? There aren't more women in tech because women didn't want to be in tech back in the 80's and early 90's when it was not a sexy field. Someone else started the party. Now they want in because it's cool.
- andylei 11y ago
  actually the chart shows the opposite. there were a lot of women in tech in the 80s and 90s. now there are fewer
  - scottmwinters 11y ago
    but the number of women in tech is growing slower than the number of men in tech. To be fair, its not that "its cool now, so they want in the party", its actually that so many women just dont want in. I dont understand acting like the whole world needs to change because their are trends in peoples personal choices.
    - omginternets 11y ago
      >I dont understand acting like the whole world needs to change because their are trends in peoples personal choices. This is because feminism has become dominated by a very specific branch that renounces essentialism vehemently. Their a priori position is that there are no differences between men and women, other than those which are socially-constructed. Of course, this is a sociological and political theory, whose followers often mistake for a scientific one.
scottmwinters 11y ago
I can honestly say I have never heard the word "brogrammer" Anyway, I like how this article has a lot of facts. I dislike many other things. Diversity is great, it is an awesome thing to have, promote and embrace. But you can only do so much to force it. At some point, if females choose to stay out of tech, thats their choice. If they choose to get into tech thats great too. The fundamental idea of forcing society to change to have a higher proportion of women employed in "STEM" jobs is absurd. Personally, I know quite a few women (a much higher proportion than men) who went through STEM programs in highschool only to go into bio or environmental Engineering. Guess what? There aren't all that many jobs in those fields compared to more traditional tech/generic engineering roles. Some of them left their respective fields within a year for that reason alone
- funkysquid 11y ago
  Sure - stack everything against women working in tech - early education, hiring, work environment - and then if "they choose to stay out of tech, I guess that's their choice."
  - scottmwinters 11y ago
    how is everything stacked against them? None of those 3 things are true. Early education is identical. Most tech companies try very hard to hire women to help their statistics and diversity work environment? Modern HR is pretty damn strict on things like sexual harassment so please, back up that point...I dont even know what you could be arguing
    - funkysquid 11y ago
      Girls are discouraged from studying STEM from an early age, as the infographic mentions. Some tech companies do try to hire women, but many don't care. And sexual harassment is not the only problem facing women in the workplace.
      - scottmwinters 11y ago
Domenic_S 11y ago
The "why we need women" section is interesting. What's the cause and effect? Companies with women on the exec team get higher valuations -- perhaps that's because women are better at choosing winning companies? Or, since there are fewer exec-team-level women than there are men, they can be more choosy with their opportunities?
omginternets 11y ago
As usual, when one looks at the sources, it's disappointing: http://www.nextgeneration.ie/sources-women-in-tech-project http://www.nextgeneration.ie/sources-women-in-tech-project Very few empirical sources, and lots of political soap-boxing. Why are there few women in tech? The intellectually honest will begin by pointing out that nobody really knows. From there, we can talk about what we think might be responsible, but if we're going to continue in the spirit of intellectual honesty, we must acknowledge that the gender gap in technology is part of a large and very robust phenomenon by which women prefer to work with people, and men prefer to work with things [1]. Granted, the people vs things dichotomy may well be the result of social conditioning, but it might also be indicative of an intrinsic difference. (At this point, intellectually-honest feminists who oppose essentialism must also admit that the latter is a political and sociological theory, and therefore has no bearing on whether or not there actually are fundamental differences between the sexes from a cognitive and biological standpoint.) Indeed, just as de facto gender differences can be fueled by social conditioning, so too can social asymmetries be fueled by biological factors. While there certainly is evidence suggesting that the gender gap in technology is the result of systematic bias (or even discrimination), we must take care not to lose sight of effect sizes. I have not looked into this myself, but I would be extremely surprised if, say, the use of gendered pronouns had an effect size that even remotely resembled the people-vs-things effect. Social conditioning effects tend to be small compared to their biological counterparts (with notable exceptions). So why are there fewer women in tech? Those claiming to have the answer are at worst intellectually dishonest, at best ill-informed, and in all probability pushing a very narrow interpretation of feminism. My fellow feminists (in name only, sadly): disguising political ideology as science and abusing the connotations of the term "source" ultimately hurts your cause. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140
- scottmwinters 11y ago
  so many tech companies desperately try to hire women...those percentages of women at tech companies are higher than the percentage of women earning/pursuing technical degrees. They want that percentage to be higher. Subjectively saying that the industry is biased and tries to keep out females is very deliberately ignoring facts.
SHIT_TALKER 11y ago
The real answer, also an INFOGRAPHIC(!): http://i.imgur.com/SOurzsH.jpg http://i.imgur.com/SOurzsH.jpg
- omginternets 11y ago
  People won't take you seriously because of your handle, but if we take your image for what it is (a political cartoon), I think it brings up some very important (albeit contentious) points. In no particular order: - There's an overwhelming preference (across all academic and professional disciplines) for women to prefer working with people and for men to prefer working with things [1] - Gender theory is a sociological and political theory that's often touted as being scientific. To be sure, it's contributed to science (e.g.: the idea that gender roles are socially-influenced), but the idea that men and women are equivalent outside of socially-constructed differences is (a) unsubstantiated (b) unfalsifiable (we can never fully remove social influence) (c) in contradiction with what cognitive neuroscience tells us about anatomy and physiology shape cognition. Where gender theory has a role to play is in telling us how to structure our societies despite eventual differences between the sexes, but I really don't care for it's opinion on empirical questions. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140
  - SHIT_TALKER 11y ago
    I've found the admin to be hostile to discussion of biological determinism and have given up on discourse on this site. I'm surprised to find, given the general tenor of the commentary on this thread, that there has been a seeming absence of intervention. Perhaps on sex he is more tolerant of such views than on race.
    - omginternets 11y ago
      This doesn't surprise me in the least. SanFran is a hotbed of a particularly harsh branch of anti-essentialist feminism, and YC is a SF company. On the whole, though, I feel like these ideas can be discussed, provided you mince your words and ignore the trolls.
oconnor663 11y ago
The "So where are the women section?" section seems weak compared to how important it is. Here are their options: 1. gender stereotypes (from an early age) 2. lack of talent pool (STEM majors) 3. in-group favoritism (in hiring) The first thing that jumps out at me is that (1) and (3) could cause (2). If it turned out that most of the gender imbalance in tech was related to (2), we'd still need to answer why (2) was happening. It also seems like (2) and (3) should be fairly easy to study. If the number of women graduating with computer science degrees is about the same as the number of women going into tech jobs, then presumably (3) is not a big factor. (Though favoritism could factor into other aspects of the imbalance, like promotions.) Then the big question would be "Why are so few women graduating in computer science?" That could definitely be related to (1). But it's not obvious to me that a brogrammer/machismo culture in the profession would have a big effect on students in high school and college, before they've had much contact with the profession. (Though if there were more women in CS as freshmen, and that number dropped off as women did internships, that could point to professional culture problems after all.) So the main question: Is the percentage of women in CS in college on par with the percentage of women in the CS workforce? Can someone more familiar with all the different ways to measure this please chime in?
benten10 11y ago
There are days when I feel bad about myself. Most people here in HN are smarter, generally more successful then myself. And then when they start talking about women in tech, and I feel much better about myself. : ) If >90% of women in tech claim there are issues with women's involvement in tech, perhaps it's a good idea to consider the possibility that they may be right, instead of assuming they're all sour grapes artsy complainers who missed out on the money boat and are now complaining. Someone's posted an image of how all women sign up for gender studies courses, and no one signs up for CS etc. Yeah, you forgot something in that image. Add a bunch of dudes hanging around the CS stall, talking loudly about 'ts', making jokes about their bodies, etcetera etcetera etcetera. The portrayal is accurate, but it shows the symptoms, not the cause. For those who claim to be objective Vulcans who won't agree with an issue 'just because it's politically correct to', look at it this way: assume for a moment, this issue is real. Compare it to a fever. Whereas others are saying the causes of the fever need to be looked at, you're arguing people get a lot of other diseases, and people get fever all the time, and looking at the causes is just going to waste your time from making cooler awesome apps. You cannot shut your eyes and ears to what women have to say, and argue they're just a bunch of complainers, which seems to be the general theme of comments in posts like these. Admins: Posts such as these WILL start flame wars. I feel quite strongly about this issue, and so do a lot of people from the other side. If you want to save the community from flame wars, I suggest heavily penalizing these.
- omginternets 11y ago
  >perhaps it's a good idea to consider the possibility that they may be right That's fine, but why can't the other side consider that they may be wrong? The reason is actually simple: on the whole, the brand of feminism we're exposed to on the internet (that is, the west-coast, SanFran variety), is a very specific branch that vehemently opposes notions of essentialism. That is, their a priori hypothesis is that men and women are exactly alike, but are shaped from birth by social conditioning. As such, any observed discrepancy between men and women must necessarily be the result of sexism and mysoginy. I don't deny the existence of social conditioning, nor it's problematic effects, but anti-essentialism is a political and sociological stance, not an empirical one. I know your position comes from an honest desire to be compassionate and progressive, but it's entirely missing the point of those who are tired of the relentless proselytizing. It's not about sour grapes; it's about the fact that this recent wave of political correctness is laden with highly political social theory, and is lowering the level of discourse. I'm sure you're a great person (really!), but your appeal to emotion is ultimately favoring a cause with which you (hopefully) don't agree.
devit 11y ago
It's because less women than men want to be in tech.
paulus_magnus 11y ago
The are only so many women in tech because 95% of jobs in tech suck balls. 1. entry level with zero career progression 2. agile-scrum micro management 3. task oriented, big picture is for business (grown ups) 4. pay is good, starts above other jobs but hits ceiling after 5y 5. introverts only (95% time is spent sitting inside your head) 6. working with code (inanimate matter) is less interesting than working with people, 7. most often you're surrounded by nerds who don't have a life Surely the above isn't the case if you're in a successful company, but 90% people maintain legacy internal app in a big corpo.
tzs 11y ago
A factor I've not seen analyzed is the difference in brain maturation rates between boys and girls. Girls mature faster than boys. I suspect that this results in boys spending more time in that awkward stage where they would rather spend their time on activities that are done alone or, if done with others, do not require much social interaction. Girls pass through that stage faster, and more of their time after gets devoted to dealing with their social groups and their positions in those groups. It is that awkward stage that is prime time for really seriously getting into programming and many other STEM activities. Boys spend longer stuck there, so boys get a head start in STEM.
- tptacek 11y ago
  I see a lot of attempts at analyzing why there are so many males in computer science (which is distinctively bad among STEM fields), and a lot of confusion between that question and the question of whether there should be more males in computer science. But those are different questions. It is not a safe assumption that the best practitioners in this field should be nerds who got started in their pre-teen years (that describes me, by the way). The overwhelming majority of pre-teen computer nerds don't do any software development work of significance. I was out of high school before I wrote my first significant program, which makes my head start not that much different from someone who starts programming in their CS courses at college.
  - tzs 11y ago
    > It is not a safe assumption that the best practitioners in this field should be nerds who got started in their pre-teen years (that describes me, by the way). Just to be clear, I did not intend to imply that spending more time in nerd mode might make boys better at programming (or any other STEM field) than girls. I was just looking at why boys might be more likely to go into such fields. A lot (most?) kids have decided what general area they are going to major in by the time they arrive at college, and those kids are going to be a big factor in the demographics of the fields they go into.

14 points by williswee 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Every week someone talks about the same thing. I get it but at this point this topic is passing the point of caring into annoyance and soon apathy. It honestly has crossed my mind to just make a quick script to filter anything that has to do with women/minorities/politics even though it's the equivalent of covering my ears and closing my eyes. Articles based on these things have nothing to do scientific progress and quirky/interesting technical concepts which are the main draw for coming here. Maybe I'll be enlightened? I don't know. Being completely honest I'm having a hard time getting past fact that the article was written by a woman who could instead get a tech job. My wife is a kernel programmer for goodness' sake. Perhaps I'm failing to see something obvious so it would be nice if someone could show me what's wrong with my line of thinking.

scottmwinters 11y ago
nope. I completely agree

littletimmy 11y ago

Why aren't there more women plumbers? Is that also because of the "bro-plumber" culture? There aren't more women in tech because women didn't want to be in tech back in the 80's and early 90's when it was not a sexy field. Someone else started the party. Now they want in because it's cool.

andylei 11y ago
actually the chart shows the opposite. there were a lot of women in tech in the 80s and 90s. now there are fewer
- scottmwinters 11y ago
  but the number of women in tech is growing slower than the number of men in tech. To be fair, its not that "its cool now, so they want in the party", its actually that so many women just dont want in. I dont understand acting like the whole world needs to change because their are trends in peoples personal choices.
  - omginternets 11y ago
    >I dont understand acting like the whole world needs to change because their are trends in peoples personal choices. This is because feminism has become dominated by a very specific branch that renounces essentialism vehemently. Their a priori position is that there are no differences between men and women, other than those which are socially-constructed. Of course, this is a sociological and political theory, whose followers often mistake for a scientific one.

scottmwinters 11y ago

I can honestly say I have never heard the word "brogrammer" Anyway, I like how this article has a lot of facts. I dislike many other things. Diversity is great, it is an awesome thing to have, promote and embrace. But you can only do so much to force it. At some point, if females choose to stay out of tech, thats their choice. If they choose to get into tech thats great too. The fundamental idea of forcing society to change to have a higher proportion of women employed in "STEM" jobs is absurd. Personally, I know quite a few women (a much higher proportion than men) who went through STEM programs in highschool only to go into bio or environmental Engineering. Guess what? There aren't all that many jobs in those fields compared to more traditional tech/generic engineering roles. Some of them left their respective fields within a year for that reason alone

funkysquid 11y ago
Sure - stack everything against women working in tech - early education, hiring, work environment - and then if "they choose to stay out of tech, I guess that's their choice."
- scottmwinters 11y ago
  how is everything stacked against them? None of those 3 things are true. Early education is identical. Most tech companies try very hard to hire women to help their statistics and diversity work environment? Modern HR is pretty damn strict on things like sexual harassment so please, back up that point...I dont even know what you could be arguing
  - funkysquid 11y ago
    Girls are discouraged from studying STEM from an early age, as the infographic mentions. Some tech companies do try to hire women, but many don't care. And sexual harassment is not the only problem facing women in the workplace.
    - scottmwinters 11y ago

Domenic_S 11y ago

The "why we need women" section is interesting. What's the cause and effect? Companies with women on the exec team get higher valuations -- perhaps that's because women are better at choosing winning companies? Or, since there are fewer exec-team-level women than there are men, they can be more choosy with their opportunities?

omginternets 11y ago

As usual, when one looks at the sources, it's disappointing: http://www.nextgeneration.ie/sources-women-in-tech-project http://www.nextgeneration.ie/sources-women-in-tech-project Very few empirical sources, and lots of political soap-boxing. Why are there few women in tech? The intellectually honest will begin by pointing out that nobody really knows. From there, we can talk about what we think might be responsible, but if we're going to continue in the spirit of intellectual honesty, we must acknowledge that the gender gap in technology is part of a large and very robust phenomenon by which women prefer to work with people, and men prefer to work with things [1]. Granted, the people vs things dichotomy may well be the result of social conditioning, but it might also be indicative of an intrinsic difference. (At this point, intellectually-honest feminists who oppose essentialism must also admit that the latter is a political and sociological theory, and therefore has no bearing on whether or not there actually are fundamental differences between the sexes from a cognitive and biological standpoint.) Indeed, just as de facto gender differences can be fueled by social conditioning, so too can social asymmetries be fueled by biological factors. While there certainly is evidence suggesting that the gender gap in technology is the result of systematic bias (or even discrimination), we must take care not to lose sight of effect sizes. I have not looked into this myself, but I would be extremely surprised if, say, the use of gendered pronouns had an effect size that even remotely resembled the people-vs-things effect. Social conditioning effects tend to be small compared to their biological counterparts (with notable exceptions). So why are there fewer women in tech? Those claiming to have the answer are at worst intellectually dishonest, at best ill-informed, and in all probability pushing a very narrow interpretation of feminism. My fellow feminists (in name only, sadly): disguising political ideology as science and abusing the connotations of the term "source" ultimately hurts your cause. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140

scottmwinters 11y ago
so many tech companies desperately try to hire women...those percentages of women at tech companies are higher than the percentage of women earning/pursuing technical degrees. They want that percentage to be higher. Subjectively saying that the industry is biased and tries to keep out females is very deliberately ignoring facts.

SHIT_TALKER 11y ago

The real answer, also an INFOGRAPHIC(!): http://i.imgur.com/SOurzsH.jpg http://i.imgur.com/SOurzsH.jpg

omginternets 11y ago
People won't take you seriously because of your handle, but if we take your image for what it is (a political cartoon), I think it brings up some very important (albeit contentious) points. In no particular order: - There's an overwhelming preference (across all academic and professional disciplines) for women to prefer working with people and for men to prefer working with things [1] - Gender theory is a sociological and political theory that's often touted as being scientific. To be sure, it's contributed to science (e.g.: the idea that gender roles are socially-influenced), but the idea that men and women are equivalent outside of socially-constructed differences is (a) unsubstantiated (b) unfalsifiable (we can never fully remove social influence) (c) in contradiction with what cognitive neuroscience tells us about anatomy and physiology shape cognition. Where gender theory has a role to play is in telling us how to structure our societies despite eventual differences between the sexes, but I really don't care for it's opinion on empirical questions. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140
- SHIT_TALKER 11y ago
  I've found the admin to be hostile to discussion of biological determinism and have given up on discourse on this site. I'm surprised to find, given the general tenor of the commentary on this thread, that there has been a seeming absence of intervention. Perhaps on sex he is more tolerant of such views than on race.
  - omginternets 11y ago
    This doesn't surprise me in the least. SanFran is a hotbed of a particularly harsh branch of anti-essentialist feminism, and YC is a SF company. On the whole, though, I feel like these ideas can be discussed, provided you mince your words and ignore the trolls.

oconnor663 11y ago

The "So where are the women section?" section seems weak compared to how important it is. Here are their options: 1. gender stereotypes (from an early age) 2. lack of talent pool (STEM majors) 3. in-group favoritism (in hiring) The first thing that jumps out at me is that (1) and (3) could cause (2). If it turned out that most of the gender imbalance in tech was related to (2), we'd still need to answer why (2) was happening. It also seems like (2) and (3) should be fairly easy to study. If the number of women graduating with computer science degrees is about the same as the number of women going into tech jobs, then presumably (3) is not a big factor. (Though favoritism could factor into other aspects of the imbalance, like promotions.) Then the big question would be "Why are so few women graduating in computer science?" That could definitely be related to (1). But it's not obvious to me that a brogrammer/machismo culture in the profession would have a big effect on students in high school and college, before they've had much contact with the profession. (Though if there were more women in CS as freshmen, and that number dropped off as women did internships, that could point to professional culture problems after all.) So the main question: Is the percentage of women in CS in college on par with the percentage of women in the CS workforce? Can someone more familiar with all the different ways to measure this please chime in?

benten10 11y ago

There are days when I feel bad about myself. Most people here in HN are smarter, generally more successful then myself. And then when they start talking about women in tech, and I feel much better about myself. : ) If >90% of women in tech claim there are issues with women's involvement in tech, perhaps it's a good idea to consider the possibility that they may be right, instead of assuming they're all sour grapes artsy complainers who missed out on the money boat and are now complaining. Someone's posted an image of how all women sign up for gender studies courses, and no one signs up for CS etc. Yeah, you forgot something in that image. Add a bunch of dudes hanging around the CS stall, talking loudly about 'ts', making jokes about their bodies, etcetera etcetera etcetera. The portrayal is accurate, but it shows the symptoms, not the cause. For those who claim to be objective Vulcans who won't agree with an issue 'just because it's politically correct to', look at it this way: assume for a moment, this issue is real. Compare it to a fever. Whereas others are saying the causes of the fever need to be looked at, you're arguing people get a lot of other diseases, and people get fever all the time, and looking at the causes is just going to waste your time from making cooler awesome apps. You cannot shut your eyes and ears to what women have to say, and argue they're just a bunch of complainers, which seems to be the general theme of comments in posts like these. Admins: Posts such as these WILL start flame wars. I feel quite strongly about this issue, and so do a lot of people from the other side. If you want to save the community from flame wars, I suggest heavily penalizing these.

omginternets 11y ago
>perhaps it's a good idea to consider the possibility that they may be right That's fine, but why can't the other side consider that they may be wrong? The reason is actually simple: on the whole, the brand of feminism we're exposed to on the internet (that is, the west-coast, SanFran variety), is a very specific branch that vehemently opposes notions of essentialism. That is, their a priori hypothesis is that men and women are exactly alike, but are shaped from birth by social conditioning. As such, any observed discrepancy between men and women must necessarily be the result of sexism and mysoginy. I don't deny the existence of social conditioning, nor it's problematic effects, but anti-essentialism is a political and sociological stance, not an empirical one. I know your position comes from an honest desire to be compassionate and progressive, but it's entirely missing the point of those who are tired of the relentless proselytizing. It's not about sour grapes; it's about the fact that this recent wave of political correctness is laden with highly political social theory, and is lowering the level of discourse. I'm sure you're a great person (really!), but your appeal to emotion is ultimately favoring a cause with which you (hopefully) don't agree.

devit 11y ago

It's because less women than men want to be in tech.

paulus_magnus 11y ago

The are only so many women in tech because 95% of jobs in tech suck balls. 1. entry level with zero career progression 2. agile-scrum micro management 3. task oriented, big picture is for business (grown ups) 4. pay is good, starts above other jobs but hits ceiling after 5y 5. introverts only (95% time is spent sitting inside your head) 6. working with code (inanimate matter) is less interesting than working with people, 7. most often you're surrounded by nerds who don't have a life Surely the above isn't the case if you're in a successful company, but 90% people maintain legacy internal app in a big corpo.

tzs 11y ago

A factor I've not seen analyzed is the difference in brain maturation rates between boys and girls. Girls mature faster than boys. I suspect that this results in boys spending more time in that awkward stage where they would rather spend their time on activities that are done alone or, if done with others, do not require much social interaction. Girls pass through that stage faster, and more of their time after gets devoted to dealing with their social groups and their positions in those groups. It is that awkward stage that is prime time for really seriously getting into programming and many other STEM activities. Boys spend longer stuck there, so boys get a head start in STEM.

tptacek 11y ago
I see a lot of attempts at analyzing why there are so many males in computer science (which is distinctively bad among STEM fields), and a lot of confusion between that question and the question of whether there should be more males in computer science. But those are different questions. It is not a safe assumption that the best practitioners in this field should be nerds who got started in their pre-teen years (that describes me, by the way). The overwhelming majority of pre-teen computer nerds don't do any software development work of significance. I was out of high school before I wrote my first significant program, which makes my head start not that much different from someone who starts programming in their CS courses at college.
- tzs 11y ago
  > It is not a safe assumption that the best practitioners in this field should be nerds who got started in their pre-teen years (that describes me, by the way). Just to be clear, I did not intend to imply that spending more time in nerd mode might make boys better at programming (or any other STEM field) than girls. I was just looking at why boys might be more likely to go into such fields. A lot (most?) kids have decided what general area they are going to major in by the time they arrive at college, and those kids are going to be a big factor in the demographics of the fields they go into.