6 ms·

Why we don't need more women in tech... yet

64 points by jolie 16y ago

chc 16y ago
I'm usually wary of this topic, since it's both overplayed and has a very poor signal-to-noise ratio, but Jolie's posts are what it should be like — high on facts, low on melodrama, and coming to an actual, pragmatic conclusion.
smokey_the_bear 16y ago
This clearly isn't the heart of the article, but are transgendered people really underrepresented in tech? It's anecdotal, but I'd estimate that 90% of the transgendered people I've met have been in tech.
- Qz 16y ago
  It's important to note that there are also transgendered people the other way (FTM, approximately half of all transgendered people), and they don't have the same 90% tech involvement thing (which is really only true for a certain age group of transwomen in the US, not so much for other countries).
- jlees 16y ago
  I was thinking the same, every single trans or genderqueer person I know is in tech; but then I found it difficult to think of people I knew of any description who weren't in some way in tech. I guess it's a matter of perspective. Still, I would imagine it is easier to experiment with presenting, gender identity, etc when you are anonymous behind a LiveJournal (for some reason all the trans people I know have one). Heck, I was accidentally presenting as male for 2+ years on usenet because nobody took the time to wonder what gender I was, instead just assuming.
- kscaldef 16y ago
  I was similarly curious about that whole sentence. My sense among people I know is that LBGTetc are not particularly underrepresented in tech; and are possibly overrepresented. (Once you correct for the overall underrepresentation of females, that is; lesbians are clearly underrepresented, but not clearly so once you limit only to women in tech.) Like you, my evidence is only based on my personal interactions with people, but I would certainly like to see some numbers supporting the claim.
- ams6110 16y ago
  All kinds of social outcasts seem to be over-represented in tech. It's like that one lunch table in school where everyone who wasn't popular sat.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
treeface 16y ago
There was a journal paper about a year ago by Sapna Cheryan called Ambient Belonging: How Stereotypical Cues Impact Gender Participation in Computer Science that you can read here: http://www.comp.dit.ie/dgordon/Courses/ILT/ILT0010/AmbientbelongingHowstereotypicalcuesimpactgenderparticipationincomputerscience.pdf http://www.comp.dit.ie/dgordon/Courses/ILT/ILT0010/Ambientbe... The dumbed-down version is here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/star-trek-keeps-women-computer-science/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/star-trek-keeps-wo... In short, it appears that CS has a serious grassroots marketing problem.
spitfire 16y ago
Why aren't there women in technology today? Probably because they're smart enough to stay away. Technology today, particularly startups, is an ego driven, fad chasing death-march. What sane person would want to spend their time with emotional children reinventing the wheel and following every fad that comes along? Instead you could work in pr, or management, or even cabinetmaking. So why don't we have women in tech? Because they have more foresight than us.
- TheSOB88 16y ago
  That's pretty sexist, isn't it?
  - aphexairlines 16y ago
    Trashing the field isn't sexist. Bitter, maybe.
    - brownleej 16y ago
      I think the implication was that it is sexist to imply that women have better judgment than men, and that this causes them to stay out of tech. It's the first part that's sexist, not the second.
- points 16y ago
  I'd say more that programming is dull work. You only get excited about it if you're a geek. To most sane normal people, it's factory work. Mindless monkeys churning out code, working on their own hunched over a computer until 3am. Women are social. That's the main reason IMHO that programming doesn't appeal to them.
- phr 16y ago
  See Phil Greenspun on women in science: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science
joshzayin 16y ago
I think that, apart from a slightly misleading title, this article is really well done, and gets to the core of the matter. By and large, I think, society starts conditioning for gender roles very early-girls get dolls, guys get erector sets. (in general) But it certainly doesn't have to be that way--there's no reason why people can't get more engineering-oriented toys for female children as well, and I'm sure most people who read HN would be more likely to get toys along those lines for their children, regardless of gender. The issue becomes, then, convincing society at large that this is an issue that needs attention, and that the typical gender roles and toys only reinforce inequality (like representation in tech). That, unfortunately, is difficult, when some (very vocal) people refuse to acknowledge that there is any discrimination in society, and many would think that changing culture around toys is "just being PC." Such a large change would take a massive effort. While the STEM initiatives going on today, especially those directed at minorities, are a step in the right direction, for them to be effective, I think they'd have to get a lot more mainstream awareness--right now, some people are aware of them, but the majority, in my experience, are not, and even among those that are aware of it, not many a) think it's a good idea and b) care. Perhaps if a bunch of celebrities got behind it, ads were taken out online and on primetime TV, and politicians started caring? Maybe calling politicians to support STEM initiatives, especially minorities, could help?
- jpark 16y ago
  I'm not entirely convinced that "society starts conditioning for gender roles very early". You'd have to show me hard data. On the other hand, there is fascinating evidence to prove the reverse: Case in point is David Reimer, who received the first ever sex re-assignment surgery conducted on a developmentally normal child at age 22 months. David became Brenda. "At age 2, Brenda angrily tore off her dresses. She refused to play with dolls and would beat up her brother and seize his toy cars and guns." http://www.slate.com/id/2101678/ http://www.slate.com/id/2101678/
  - joshzayin 16y ago
    Hm, that's an interesting story. (Somewhat weird and immoral that they would change someone's biological gender before they have the ability to understand what's going on, much less consent, but we can look at the case.) I don't think that Reimer's case disproves what I say--I was dealing more with the roles which the genders often play, and the fields to which men vs. women are more likely to enter, while this case deals with gender identity. Gender identity is likely not something which is affected significantly by environmental changes, but it is far more likely (I unfortunately don't have numbers and don't know where to look--does anyone know of a relevant study?) that gender roles could be significantly affected by upbringing. There's no natural reason why women shouldn't go into tech, other than that it's a male-dominated field and that women are, in modern society, often encouraged to avoid such fields.
jerf 16y ago
I'm not sure this argument stands up to the facts. Women have been pouring into every discipline over the past twenty+ years. That's a significant number because we're now talking people born in the 1990s, which can not be said to be a decade untouched by feminism. Women are graduating with more degrees then men now, women are the majority on campus, and the proportions are rising. Every discipline, engineering and computer science no exception, has been soliciting for women and minorities for decades now. And yet, as pointed out in the article, the percentage of computer science degrees awarded to women is going down, which I think is an acceptable proxy for the presence of women in tech. Yet numerous other "male" fields have been entered and in some cases dominated by women. The very same women who were raised on Barbies and ponies. Is the only theory that fits the facts that somehow, virtually uniquely across all the fields into which the women have come streaming in, despite equal if not at times greater solicitation for women to come in to the discipline, computer science has somehow escaped the incredible dominance of political correctness on campuses and managed to create this fantastically and uniquely hostile environment for women, and therefore has some sort of major responsibility for changing itself? The only hypothesis? What about this one: In an environment where a thousand voices are shouting for the women to come study $X, it doesn't take very much of a natural disinclination towards a certain discipline for it to very, very rarely be the top choice for a woman. It's not as if there aren't disciplines unbalanced every bit as much in favor of women, and for the same reason; it doesn't take much natural disinclination, for whatever the reason, for a field to very, very rarely be the top choice for the man. Every year that goes by like this, every year that the STEM initiatives get even more strident and better funded, every year that women continue streaming from our very-politically-correct lower schooling systems into our very-politically-correct higher schooling systems and choose not to study computer science, I find the hypothesis that computer science is somehow deficient that much less compelling. If computer science were any more solicitous of women we'd have to draft them. (Note: For once I do not necessarily mean "politically correct" as a slur. For the purposes of this message, I merely mean that the idea that primary or higher education has been systematically structured against woman for the past twenty years is absurd. The suspicion of sexism in this environment, in this timeframe, is enough to end your career advancement, if not your career itself. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to consider a hypothesis other than the "deck is stacked" hypothesis that we've been using for something like fifty years now and consider just for a moment some other hypotheses, in the interests of science. I am also confining myself to the question of the education time; even if the workplace is somehow hostile to women today, the ultimate solution to that problem is graduating more women into it; between that and the copious and rather strong laws on this front it'll work itself out after that.)
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
jfager 16y ago
I largely agree with the conclusion, but where are all these people who claim that women working non-tech jobs in tech companies magically count as tech jobs? This is the first time I've ever heard the issue framed this way. I've always heard it framed as a problem with the number of women choosing CS and math degrees and making it out to industry.
kellishaver 16y ago
As one of those elusive women in tech... I don't know. I have mixed feelings on the whole issue and usually try to avoid it, mostly because I just don't see it as a big deal. I've never felt like an outcast or that I didn't belong in this field because of my gender, nor have I ever been made to feel like the center of attention because of it (thank goodness). It just is. Of all the women I know personally, only one other works as a programmer. The others seem to have no interest, and not because of some social pressure or stereotype, or the long hours, or some perceived gender bias, but because the work itself just doesn't interest to them. So I don't see why it should be a big deal that they're not doing something they don't want to do. I guess the question then becomes could/should the industry be made more appealing to women? Maybe. I have no idea how that could be accomplished, though. Maybe it's not the industry that's the problem, but the lack of exposure to it. Mothers are big role models for little girls, and with less women in tech to begin with, there aren't as many of them to spark that interest in their daughters. Maybe more encouragement from female teachers and geek dads would do the trick. I was a perpetual tinkerer as a kid, always building, creating, experimenting, and what have you. My father encouraged it. He kept me in a steady supply of lumber and nails, bought me chemistry sets, erector sets, a telescope, radio kits, helped me build my first computer and bought me programming books. By high school, I was a licensed HAM radio operator who was writing programs, designing circuits, wiring houses, and training search dogs. I guess I never did fall into the stereotypical gender role I was supposed to, but it was never pushed upon me, either, nor was it discouraged. I simply followed my interests and was encouraged and allowed to do so. I try to do the same with my own daughter and, yeah, she's a bit of a geek in the making. Anyway, this is getting kind of long and rambling. I'm not sure where the problem lies, but I'm still not convinced it's as big a problem as it's made out to be. It's kind of like asking why there aren't more 20yr olds in the folk music industry. Answer: because they don't want to.
- zeteo 16y ago
  A close friend of mine recently graduated from college. She was quickly offered a couple of programming jobs, but turned them down. After a while, she altogether stopped applying for any programming jobs. Finally, after one year of searching, she found a (non-programming) consulting job that she jumped onto. When I asked her why she avoided programming so much, she said that spending 8+ hours a day interacting with just a computer was close to her personal idea of hell. She likes to interact with people, meet new people etc. Now granted this is just one data point. But, for me at least, it opens the door to a different hypothesis: 1. Women have a significantly different nature of the work / salary trade-off from men. 2. Reduced interaction with people is a put-off for women. 3. Thus, only half of society is really willing to do the geekiest tech-sector jobs, which puts a premium on the salaries for those jobs.
nhashem 16y ago
I blame John Romero. John Romero, for those who don't know (or used to know, before his name faded into obscurity over a decade ago), was at one point best known for his work on idSoftware and his creation of several milestone games such as Doom. He then split off to release his own game, Daikatana, a move that garnered a particular amount of hype. The message at the time in 1997 seemed to be, "Video games are cool. So maybe making video games is cool?" As a young high schooler in 1997, reading about John Romero in the late 1990s basically made me want to be a programmer. He was the proverbial "rock star," right down to the ridiculous hair and outfits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Romero_3designers.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Romero_3designers.jpg). By now I've probably jogged your memory and you know the end. Daikatana flopped and Romero ended up with so much egg on his face he pretty much faded into obscurity. The rock star programmer died as a concept (only to be resurrected 8-10 years later in job descriptions for companies wanting brilliant 25 year olds willing to solve all their problems and work for peanuts). I believe an alternate reality exists, where John Romero succeeded, Daikatana was a smash hit, and the art of programming truly entered pop culture celebrity. Romero's dizzying fame and fortune soon found him in dizzying benders in Vegas. His successors continue on the trail he's blazed, bedding supermodels and entering rehab in six month intervals. Smash hit video game after smash hit video game is released, their programming teams rising in notoriety, and a Hollywood exec glances over a spec script and thinks, "hmm, maybe we should make that show about programmers." The working title is changed to "Turing's Anatomy" and then it's released, featuring Dr. Meredith Turing, who works as the principal engineer for the Seattle Grace Gaming Company, where she heads a team of programmers in solving software problems with unorthodox diagnostic approaches, while struggling to prevent the expectations of her genius grandfather from overwhelming her. Is that reality better than what we're dealing with now? I have no idea. I do know though, that in that reality, women make up 50% of computer science students.
- hvs 16y ago
  I highly doubt that the failure of one company caused all women to give up on software development because it wasn't cool any more (Carmack was equally or more of rock star). Especially since working for a game company is one of the most grueling experiences in the software industry. On top of that, as "famous" as he may have seemed, I challenge you to find someone who didn't play computer games that even remotely knows who he is.
xmmm 16y ago
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1883 http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1883
Tichy 16y ago
I've heard many stories about people who tried to raise their girls like boys, only to find that eventually they would still crave for pink stuff. Edit: pink == girly, I didn't mean explicitly pink
- nagrom 16y ago
  Those stories may be correct, but they are inevitably misguided. The blue-for-boys and pink-for-girls convention seems to be a 20thC invention: http://histclo.com/gender/color.html http://histclo.com/gender/color.html
  - Tichy 16y ago
    I am sure it is somehow culturally induced, but it might not be in the control of the parents to prevent it? There is other environment besides the parent's home.
    - nagrom 16y ago
      I absolutely agree with you that it is cultural influence - that's my point! There is no specific relation between gender and colour, it is entirely culturally-induced. Parents may say that they have raised their child gender-neutral, but that is to some extent impossible since gender-norms are all around us, often unconsciously so. When they see their child craving gender-specific toys, it's more likely an indicator that they have not been as successful as they would wish to be.
      - Tichy 16y ago
        It's not so easy to change culture, though. Also I think at least some parts of culture have evolved because of biological differences between the genders. I don't think women will ever be exactly the same as men - unless we all converge on some new androgynous type.
- Avshalom 16y ago
  yeah and how many of those people completely cut their children off from all external culture?
Tichy 16y ago
I have been a professional software developer for 10 years now. Today on my way to work I have realized once again that in all those years, I have not held a single job that was any fun at all. (Not for want of switching - the longest I ever lasted at one company was one year). Programming is fun, but programming jobs suck. At least the vast majority of them. Save for starting my own business, my hopes are close to zero to find a fun programming job in the future.* Maybe women are just better than men at figuring such things out and going for jobs that are more fun. This would also explain the decline of women in tech since the eighties. I suppose cubicles and all that only appeared around that time. * I would like jobs like Data Mining for Backtype or TheSixtyOne, but jobs like that are rare. I also don't have the required portfolio yet.

64 points by jolie 16y ago

chc 16y ago

I'm usually wary of this topic, since it's both overplayed and has a very poor signal-to-noise ratio, but Jolie's posts are what it should be like — high on facts, low on melodrama, and coming to an actual, pragmatic conclusion.

smokey_the_bear 16y ago

This clearly isn't the heart of the article, but are transgendered people really underrepresented in tech? It's anecdotal, but I'd estimate that 90% of the transgendered people I've met have been in tech.

Qz 16y ago
It's important to note that there are also transgendered people the other way (FTM, approximately half of all transgendered people), and they don't have the same 90% tech involvement thing (which is really only true for a certain age group of transwomen in the US, not so much for other countries).
jlees 16y ago
I was thinking the same, every single trans or genderqueer person I know is in tech; but then I found it difficult to think of people I knew of any description who weren't in some way in tech. I guess it's a matter of perspective. Still, I would imagine it is easier to experiment with presenting, gender identity, etc when you are anonymous behind a LiveJournal (for some reason all the trans people I know have one). Heck, I was accidentally presenting as male for 2+ years on usenet because nobody took the time to wonder what gender I was, instead just assuming.
kscaldef 16y ago
I was similarly curious about that whole sentence. My sense among people I know is that LBGTetc are not particularly underrepresented in tech; and are possibly overrepresented. (Once you correct for the overall underrepresentation of females, that is; lesbians are clearly underrepresented, but not clearly so once you limit only to women in tech.) Like you, my evidence is only based on my personal interactions with people, but I would certainly like to see some numbers supporting the claim.
ams6110 16y ago
All kinds of social outcasts seem to be over-represented in tech. It's like that one lunch table in school where everyone who wasn't popular sat.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

treeface 16y ago

There was a journal paper about a year ago by Sapna Cheryan called Ambient Belonging: How Stereotypical Cues Impact Gender Participation in Computer Science that you can read here: http://www.comp.dit.ie/dgordon/Courses/ILT/ILT0010/AmbientbelongingHowstereotypicalcuesimpactgenderparticipationincomputerscience.pdf http://www.comp.dit.ie/dgordon/Courses/ILT/ILT0010/Ambientbe... The dumbed-down version is here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/star-trek-keeps-women-computer-science/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/star-trek-keeps-wo... In short, it appears that CS has a serious grassroots marketing problem.

spitfire 16y ago

Why aren't there women in technology today? Probably because they're smart enough to stay away. Technology today, particularly startups, is an ego driven, fad chasing death-march. What sane person would want to spend their time with emotional children reinventing the wheel and following every fad that comes along? Instead you could work in pr, or management, or even cabinetmaking. So why don't we have women in tech? Because they have more foresight than us.

TheSOB88 16y ago
That's pretty sexist, isn't it?
- aphexairlines 16y ago
  Trashing the field isn't sexist. Bitter, maybe.
  - brownleej 16y ago
    I think the implication was that it is sexist to imply that women have better judgment than men, and that this causes them to stay out of tech. It's the first part that's sexist, not the second.
points 16y ago
I'd say more that programming is dull work. You only get excited about it if you're a geek. To most sane normal people, it's factory work. Mindless monkeys churning out code, working on their own hunched over a computer until 3am. Women are social. That's the main reason IMHO that programming doesn't appeal to them.
phr 16y ago
See Phil Greenspun on women in science: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science

joshzayin 16y ago

I think that, apart from a slightly misleading title, this article is really well done, and gets to the core of the matter. By and large, I think, society starts conditioning for gender roles very early-girls get dolls, guys get erector sets. (in general) But it certainly doesn't have to be that way--there's no reason why people can't get more engineering-oriented toys for female children as well, and I'm sure most people who read HN would be more likely to get toys along those lines for their children, regardless of gender. The issue becomes, then, convincing society at large that this is an issue that needs attention, and that the typical gender roles and toys only reinforce inequality (like representation in tech). That, unfortunately, is difficult, when some (very vocal) people refuse to acknowledge that there is any discrimination in society, and many would think that changing culture around toys is "just being PC." Such a large change would take a massive effort. While the STEM initiatives going on today, especially those directed at minorities, are a step in the right direction, for them to be effective, I think they'd have to get a lot more mainstream awareness--right now, some people are aware of them, but the majority, in my experience, are not, and even among those that are aware of it, not many a) think it's a good idea and b) care. Perhaps if a bunch of celebrities got behind it, ads were taken out online and on primetime TV, and politicians started caring? Maybe calling politicians to support STEM initiatives, especially minorities, could help?

jpark 16y ago
I'm not entirely convinced that "society starts conditioning for gender roles very early". You'd have to show me hard data. On the other hand, there is fascinating evidence to prove the reverse: Case in point is David Reimer, who received the first ever sex re-assignment surgery conducted on a developmentally normal child at age 22 months. David became Brenda. "At age 2, Brenda angrily tore off her dresses. She refused to play with dolls and would beat up her brother and seize his toy cars and guns." http://www.slate.com/id/2101678/ http://www.slate.com/id/2101678/
- joshzayin 16y ago
  Hm, that's an interesting story. (Somewhat weird and immoral that they would change someone's biological gender before they have the ability to understand what's going on, much less consent, but we can look at the case.) I don't think that Reimer's case disproves what I say--I was dealing more with the roles which the genders often play, and the fields to which men vs. women are more likely to enter, while this case deals with gender identity. Gender identity is likely not something which is affected significantly by environmental changes, but it is far more likely (I unfortunately don't have numbers and don't know where to look--does anyone know of a relevant study?) that gender roles could be significantly affected by upbringing. There's no natural reason why women shouldn't go into tech, other than that it's a male-dominated field and that women are, in modern society, often encouraged to avoid such fields.

jerf 16y ago

I'm not sure this argument stands up to the facts. Women have been pouring into every discipline over the past twenty+ years. That's a significant number because we're now talking people born in the 1990s, which can not be said to be a decade untouched by feminism. Women are graduating with more degrees then men now, women are the majority on campus, and the proportions are rising. Every discipline, engineering and computer science no exception, has been soliciting for women and minorities for decades now. And yet, as pointed out in the article, the percentage of computer science degrees awarded to women is going down, which I think is an acceptable proxy for the presence of women in tech. Yet numerous other "male" fields have been entered and in some cases dominated by women. The very same women who were raised on Barbies and ponies. Is the only theory that fits the facts that somehow, virtually uniquely across all the fields into which the women have come streaming in, despite equal if not at times greater solicitation for women to come in to the discipline, computer science has somehow escaped the incredible dominance of political correctness on campuses and managed to create this fantastically and uniquely hostile environment for women, and therefore has some sort of major responsibility for changing itself? The only hypothesis? What about this one: In an environment where a thousand voices are shouting for the women to come study $X, it doesn't take very much of a natural disinclination towards a certain discipline for it to very, very rarely be the top choice for a woman. It's not as if there aren't disciplines unbalanced every bit as much in favor of women, and for the same reason; it doesn't take much natural disinclination, for whatever the reason, for a field to very, very rarely be the top choice for the man. Every year that goes by like this, every year that the STEM initiatives get even more strident and better funded, every year that women continue streaming from our very-politically-correct lower schooling systems into our very-politically-correct higher schooling systems and choose not to study computer science, I find the hypothesis that computer science is somehow deficient that much less compelling. If computer science were any more solicitous of women we'd have to draft them. (Note: For once I do not necessarily mean "politically correct" as a slur. For the purposes of this message, I merely mean that the idea that primary or higher education has been systematically structured against woman for the past twenty years is absurd. The suspicion of sexism in this environment, in this timeframe, is enough to end your career advancement, if not your career itself. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to consider a hypothesis other than the "deck is stacked" hypothesis that we've been using for something like fifty years now and consider just for a moment some other hypotheses, in the interests of science. I am also confining myself to the question of the education time; even if the workplace is somehow hostile to women today, the ultimate solution to that problem is graduating more women into it; between that and the copious and rather strong laws on this front it'll work itself out after that.)

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

jfager 16y ago

I largely agree with the conclusion, but where are all these people who claim that women working non-tech jobs in tech companies magically count as tech jobs? This is the first time I've ever heard the issue framed this way. I've always heard it framed as a problem with the number of women choosing CS and math degrees and making it out to industry.

kellishaver 16y ago

As one of those elusive women in tech... I don't know. I have mixed feelings on the whole issue and usually try to avoid it, mostly because I just don't see it as a big deal. I've never felt like an outcast or that I didn't belong in this field because of my gender, nor have I ever been made to feel like the center of attention because of it (thank goodness). It just is. Of all the women I know personally, only one other works as a programmer. The others seem to have no interest, and not because of some social pressure or stereotype, or the long hours, or some perceived gender bias, but because the work itself just doesn't interest to them. So I don't see why it should be a big deal that they're not doing something they don't want to do. I guess the question then becomes could/should the industry be made more appealing to women? Maybe. I have no idea how that could be accomplished, though. Maybe it's not the industry that's the problem, but the lack of exposure to it. Mothers are big role models for little girls, and with less women in tech to begin with, there aren't as many of them to spark that interest in their daughters. Maybe more encouragement from female teachers and geek dads would do the trick. I was a perpetual tinkerer as a kid, always building, creating, experimenting, and what have you. My father encouraged it. He kept me in a steady supply of lumber and nails, bought me chemistry sets, erector sets, a telescope, radio kits, helped me build my first computer and bought me programming books. By high school, I was a licensed HAM radio operator who was writing programs, designing circuits, wiring houses, and training search dogs. I guess I never did fall into the stereotypical gender role I was supposed to, but it was never pushed upon me, either, nor was it discouraged. I simply followed my interests and was encouraged and allowed to do so. I try to do the same with my own daughter and, yeah, she's a bit of a geek in the making. Anyway, this is getting kind of long and rambling. I'm not sure where the problem lies, but I'm still not convinced it's as big a problem as it's made out to be. It's kind of like asking why there aren't more 20yr olds in the folk music industry. Answer: because they don't want to.

zeteo 16y ago
A close friend of mine recently graduated from college. She was quickly offered a couple of programming jobs, but turned them down. After a while, she altogether stopped applying for any programming jobs. Finally, after one year of searching, she found a (non-programming) consulting job that she jumped onto. When I asked her why she avoided programming so much, she said that spending 8+ hours a day interacting with just a computer was close to her personal idea of hell. She likes to interact with people, meet new people etc. Now granted this is just one data point. But, for me at least, it opens the door to a different hypothesis: 1. Women have a significantly different nature of the work / salary trade-off from men. 2. Reduced interaction with people is a put-off for women. 3. Thus, only half of society is really willing to do the geekiest tech-sector jobs, which puts a premium on the salaries for those jobs.

nhashem 16y ago

I blame John Romero. John Romero, for those who don't know (or used to know, before his name faded into obscurity over a decade ago), was at one point best known for his work on idSoftware and his creation of several milestone games such as Doom. He then split off to release his own game, Daikatana, a move that garnered a particular amount of hype. The message at the time in 1997 seemed to be, "Video games are cool. So maybe making video games is cool?" As a young high schooler in 1997, reading about John Romero in the late 1990s basically made me want to be a programmer. He was the proverbial "rock star," right down to the ridiculous hair and outfits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Romero_3designers.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Romero_3designers.jpg). By now I've probably jogged your memory and you know the end. Daikatana flopped and Romero ended up with so much egg on his face he pretty much faded into obscurity. The rock star programmer died as a concept (only to be resurrected 8-10 years later in job descriptions for companies wanting brilliant 25 year olds willing to solve all their problems and work for peanuts). I believe an alternate reality exists, where John Romero succeeded, Daikatana was a smash hit, and the art of programming truly entered pop culture celebrity. Romero's dizzying fame and fortune soon found him in dizzying benders in Vegas. His successors continue on the trail he's blazed, bedding supermodels and entering rehab in six month intervals. Smash hit video game after smash hit video game is released, their programming teams rising in notoriety, and a Hollywood exec glances over a spec script and thinks, "hmm, maybe we should make that show about programmers." The working title is changed to "Turing's Anatomy" and then it's released, featuring Dr. Meredith Turing, who works as the principal engineer for the Seattle Grace Gaming Company, where she heads a team of programmers in solving software problems with unorthodox diagnostic approaches, while struggling to prevent the expectations of her genius grandfather from overwhelming her. Is that reality better than what we're dealing with now? I have no idea. I do know though, that in that reality, women make up 50% of computer science students.

hvs 16y ago
I highly doubt that the failure of one company caused all women to give up on software development because it wasn't cool any more (Carmack was equally or more of rock star). Especially since working for a game company is one of the most grueling experiences in the software industry. On top of that, as "famous" as he may have seemed, I challenge you to find someone who didn't play computer games that even remotely knows who he is.

xmmm 16y ago

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1883 http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1883

Tichy 16y ago

I've heard many stories about people who tried to raise their girls like boys, only to find that eventually they would still crave for pink stuff. Edit: pink == girly, I didn't mean explicitly pink

nagrom 16y ago
Those stories may be correct, but they are inevitably misguided. The blue-for-boys and pink-for-girls convention seems to be a 20thC invention: http://histclo.com/gender/color.html http://histclo.com/gender/color.html
- Tichy 16y ago
  I am sure it is somehow culturally induced, but it might not be in the control of the parents to prevent it? There is other environment besides the parent's home.
  - nagrom 16y ago
    I absolutely agree with you that it is cultural influence - that's my point! There is no specific relation between gender and colour, it is entirely culturally-induced. Parents may say that they have raised their child gender-neutral, but that is to some extent impossible since gender-norms are all around us, often unconsciously so. When they see their child craving gender-specific toys, it's more likely an indicator that they have not been as successful as they would wish to be.
    - Tichy 16y ago
      It's not so easy to change culture, though. Also I think at least some parts of culture have evolved because of biological differences between the genders. I don't think women will ever be exactly the same as men - unless we all converge on some new androgynous type.
Avshalom 16y ago
yeah and how many of those people completely cut their children off from all external culture?

Tichy 16y ago

I have been a professional software developer for 10 years now. Today on my way to work I have realized once again that in all those years, I have not held a single job that was any fun at all. (Not for want of switching - the longest I ever lasted at one company was one year). Programming is fun, but programming jobs suck. At least the vast majority of them. Save for starting my own business, my hopes are close to zero to find a fun programming job in the future.* Maybe women are just better than men at figuring such things out and going for jobs that are more fun. This would also explain the decline of women in tech since the eighties. I suppose cubicles and all that only appeared around that time. * I would like jobs like Data Mining for Backtype or TheSixtyOne, but jobs like that are rare. I also don't have the required portfolio yet.