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IMO, a large part of underrepresentation of women in software is due to the following self-reinforcing stereotype. 1. For historical reasons, men got a head-st
by Arun2009 16y ago
IMO, a large part of underrepresentation of women in software is due to the following self-reinforcing stereotype.
1. For historical reasons, men got a head-start in the software sector.
2. Software sector came to be seen as a male-dominated field.
3. Both the recruiters and candidates adjust their behavior based on the "knowledge" that software-jobs are more suited for men than women.
I think such accidental clustering happens in many other fields. For e.g., here is a situation where men are the victims: http://www.nurseweek.com/news/features/01-05/men.html http://www.nurseweek.com/news/features/01-05/men.html
- scott_s 16y agoThe really curious thing is that the first programmers were women. This was back in the ENIAC days, before anyone appreciated how difficult it would be to "program" a general purpose computer, before the word "software" existed, or even before "program" was a verb. The ENIAC designers figured the programming part would be easy. See Section II, starting on page 8: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~nathanen/files/cbi-gender.pdf http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~nathanen/files/cbi-gender.pdf