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Does software engineering have a gender problem, or a social validation problem? It is no secret that women in nations where software engineering is likely to

Does software engineering have a gender problem, or a social validation problem? It is no secret that women in nations where software engineering is likely to be a significant source of employment are far more socially attuned than men are; whether this is by nurture or nature is grist for another mill at another time. It is also no secret that software engineers rank lower on social validation than doctors. Empirically, look at a sampling of org charts, and statistically, pure software engineers (not counting Fellow-type positions, for example) rarely call the shots. Not that they should as a rule: I'm pointing out the reality. Regardless of the US reality for doctors, with the constraints imposed upon them by the dysfunctionally-broken US healthcare policies, the social perception of doctors is "doctors call the shots". The phrase "doctor's orders" carries enormous cultural weight behind it. To empirically test a weak form of this hypothesis, compare the number of women managers who were originally trained as programmers to women software engineers. If there is a statistically significant deviation, then some Maxwell's Demon-like mechanism at work performs a sorting function that emerges this deviation, gradually exerting an inexorable pull upon women programmers into management. A stronger experimental confirmation of this hypothesis would require someone with far more training in such psycho-social factors discrimination to devise an experiment to empirically test. I'm not discounting the very real challenges women software engineers face. Personally, I have not witnessed first-hand any of the workplace vibe-killers described, and I've been in a lot of different workplaces by dint of my wandering consulting career, but I can believe it happens because I've also seen some really bad behavior in the species, and generally I tend to attract clients with pretty solid corporate cultures. But women tend as a statistical aggregate to pay attention to the nuances of social rankings far more than most men realize, and especially men in software engineering realize.

Chris2048 10y ago
Putting "It is no secret" before a claim doesn't validate it, please provide some support/context for "[female devs] are far more socially attuned than men are". Also, a phrase like "doctor's orders" is common, because most members of the public will have occasion to see a doctor, the profession having existing for a long time. There's no saying "CTO's orders", yet this is obviously a position of power. Also, your observances wrt men and social ranking could easily be confounded if you don't have a complete knowledge of the filters on the men & women you see in IT.
- yourapostasy 10y ago
  Start here, and expand outwards in related searches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_emotional_intelligence#Social_cognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_emotional_i... Saying "C-level's orders" doesn't carry anywhere the same weight as "software engineer's orders". Given a technical decision, what weighting is the CFO's decision given over the software engineer tasked with understanding the problem domain? I deliberately chose CFO because it is a common refrain on HN and elsewhere that software engineers are summarily overridden by non-technical management on technical decisions. How frequently are doctors overridden on medical decisions by non-medicine-trained hospital administrators? I don't know the precise answer to that, but doctor/nursing friends don't complain about it. I'm pointing out a possible line of inquiry that doesn't seem to come up in these discussions. Given the relatively low status of IT in most non-tech companies I work with, compared to Sales and Finance for example (where women are better represented than in coding and technical IT, yet sales and finance cultures can be notoriously misogynist in many orgs), it isn't an unreasonable question to pose whether or not that relative low status of programming turns off women in the general non-tech business world, which vastly outweighs our small echo chamber of strongly-tech-focused companies. An observation I've been chewing upon. The US pharmaceutical /medical sales environment is heavily represented with women, with a blatantly cynical unspoken industry practice of hiring easy on the eyes women. This is an openly misogynist atmosphere, with getting hit on just a part of their daily sales calls, but women are not driven away by it to the point where beautiful medical sales women no longer is a cliche. Incentives matter. Might there also be the possibility the programming world's negatives outweigh the compensation, and at some point, the compensation can outweigh the negatives? A related question is why, with so much money on the line, and as direct revenue generators, are so many women programmers in tech-focused companies relating consistently depressing stories of exclusion? In other words, are there no financial consequences for managers mishandling such valuable revenue generators in general, or is it only when the revenue generator are women?
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    > Start here, and expand outwards in related searches No thank you, I'd sooner someone qualified do that. > it is a common refrain on HN > I don't know the precise answer ... doctor/nursing friends don't complain about it. My point is, that this is weak subjective evidence. I do not see the same trends you do. > it isn't an unreasonable question to pose whether or not that relative low status of programming turns off women Isn't it? Lets establish that it is true first. > are there no financial consequences for managers mishandling such valuable revenue generators in general Does "so many women programmers in tech-focused companies relating consistently depressing stories of exclusion" mean that most women in tech are excluded, or that these stories bubble to the top?
neurotech1 10y ago
Quite a few hospitals have women in executive roles, some who are trained nurses, and basically "call the shots" in that role. At San Francisco General Hospital, At least 50% of the Administrator(s)-On-Duty are women. It's a mixture of MDs, and nurses. In fact, I've only personally met one AOD who is male (nurse). The AOD calls the shots on a daily basis. BTW one recent CEO, Susan Currin is a nurse & the current CEO Susan Ehrlich, MD are both women. IMO It's not a validation issue. Companies (Tech or otherwise) have the culture they reinforce, dysfunctional or not.
- nickstefan12 10y ago
  Respectfully, I think you missed the point of the parent comment. Parent comment says: if `(former programmer) turned manager` is more equal in gender than `programmer`, that might mean there is a sorting function that is pulling women out of engineering and into management. His/her hypothesis is that being a "regular dev" is not very socially respected, and thus, pushes women to want out at a higher rate than other professions, like say, Doctor. The fact that Doctor gender ratio is similar to Manager Doctor gender ratio, actually fits his hypothesis. Not saying I disagree with either of you, just re stating.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Does software engineering have a gender problem, or a social validation problem? The two are not mutually exclusive (and, indeed, can be mutually reinforcing.)
emodendroket 10y ago
It's my observation that there are a lot more women in roles like project manager or scrum master or business analyst than software engineer.

Chris2048 10y ago

Putting "It is no secret" before a claim doesn't validate it, please provide some support/context for "[female devs] are far more socially attuned than men are". Also, a phrase like "doctor's orders" is common, because most members of the public will have occasion to see a doctor, the profession having existing for a long time. There's no saying "CTO's orders", yet this is obviously a position of power. Also, your observances wrt men and social ranking could easily be confounded if you don't have a complete knowledge of the filters on the men & women you see in IT.

yourapostasy 10y ago
Start here, and expand outwards in related searches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_emotional_intelligence#Social_cognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_emotional_i... Saying "C-level's orders" doesn't carry anywhere the same weight as "software engineer's orders". Given a technical decision, what weighting is the CFO's decision given over the software engineer tasked with understanding the problem domain? I deliberately chose CFO because it is a common refrain on HN and elsewhere that software engineers are summarily overridden by non-technical management on technical decisions. How frequently are doctors overridden on medical decisions by non-medicine-trained hospital administrators? I don't know the precise answer to that, but doctor/nursing friends don't complain about it. I'm pointing out a possible line of inquiry that doesn't seem to come up in these discussions. Given the relatively low status of IT in most non-tech companies I work with, compared to Sales and Finance for example (where women are better represented than in coding and technical IT, yet sales and finance cultures can be notoriously misogynist in many orgs), it isn't an unreasonable question to pose whether or not that relative low status of programming turns off women in the general non-tech business world, which vastly outweighs our small echo chamber of strongly-tech-focused companies. An observation I've been chewing upon. The US pharmaceutical /medical sales environment is heavily represented with women, with a blatantly cynical unspoken industry practice of hiring easy on the eyes women. This is an openly misogynist atmosphere, with getting hit on just a part of their daily sales calls, but women are not driven away by it to the point where beautiful medical sales women no longer is a cliche. Incentives matter. Might there also be the possibility the programming world's negatives outweigh the compensation, and at some point, the compensation can outweigh the negatives? A related question is why, with so much money on the line, and as direct revenue generators, are so many women programmers in tech-focused companies relating consistently depressing stories of exclusion? In other words, are there no financial consequences for managers mishandling such valuable revenue generators in general, or is it only when the revenue generator are women?
- Chris2048 10y ago
  > Start here, and expand outwards in related searches No thank you, I'd sooner someone qualified do that. > it is a common refrain on HN > I don't know the precise answer ... doctor/nursing friends don't complain about it. My point is, that this is weak subjective evidence. I do not see the same trends you do. > it isn't an unreasonable question to pose whether or not that relative low status of programming turns off women Isn't it? Lets establish that it is true first. > are there no financial consequences for managers mishandling such valuable revenue generators in general Does "so many women programmers in tech-focused companies relating consistently depressing stories of exclusion" mean that most women in tech are excluded, or that these stories bubble to the top?

neurotech1 10y ago

Quite a few hospitals have women in executive roles, some who are trained nurses, and basically "call the shots" in that role. At San Francisco General Hospital, At least 50% of the Administrator(s)-On-Duty are women. It's a mixture of MDs, and nurses. In fact, I've only personally met one AOD who is male (nurse). The AOD calls the shots on a daily basis. BTW one recent CEO, Susan Currin is a nurse & the current CEO Susan Ehrlich, MD are both women. IMO It's not a validation issue. Companies (Tech or otherwise) have the culture they reinforce, dysfunctional or not.

nickstefan12 10y ago
Respectfully, I think you missed the point of the parent comment. Parent comment says: if `(former programmer) turned manager` is more equal in gender than `programmer`, that might mean there is a sorting function that is pulling women out of engineering and into management. His/her hypothesis is that being a "regular dev" is not very socially respected, and thus, pushes women to want out at a higher rate than other professions, like say, Doctor. The fact that Doctor gender ratio is similar to Manager Doctor gender ratio, actually fits his hypothesis. Not saying I disagree with either of you, just re stating.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> Does software engineering have a gender problem, or a social validation problem? The two are not mutually exclusive (and, indeed, can be mutually reinforcing.)

emodendroket 10y ago

It's my observation that there are a lot more women in roles like project manager or scrum master or business analyst than software engineer.