7 ms·

When people go and talk to women who started out in the tech pipeline but left, many say that the reasons they left are that they felt unwelcome in some way: th

When people go and talk to women who started out in the tech pipeline but left, many say that the reasons they left are that they felt unwelcome in some way: they were harassed, under-valued, talked over, stalked, underpaid, etc. Too many women choose to leave not because they didn't like the work, but because they didn't like all the bullshit they were implicitly asked to put up with, in order to do the work. If very few women expressed these sentiments; if the tech workforce pipeline was a safe and fulfilling place for everyone, then at that point, I think it's fair to question whether 50/50 should be the goal. But we're not nearly at that point, and IMO it is counterproductive to talk like we are. For now, the numbers imbalance is a simple and obvious way to measure and talk about the cultural factors that exclude women (or certain ethnicities, or backgrounds) from equal participation in this industry. One reason 50/50 makes a fine straw goal is that there is no obvious reason that men should be more successful than women in the tech industry. It's not like the NFL, where well-understood human sexual dimorphism is relevant. Women were heavily involved in the early days of computing and built some of the early foundations of the field, like the first compiler.

andreimuntean 7y ago
And what happens when people go and talk to men who started out in the tech pipeline but left? Don’t they say similarly negative things?
- busterarm 7y ago
  Yeah. I'm pretty sure being harassed, under-valued, talked over, stalked, underpaid, etc. are universally true. I've encountered at least two at every single one of the 15 or so jobs I've had prior to this one. Most of them weren't in tech and I'm a man. Having a shitty job isn't exclusive to being a female in tech.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  What? Why would we listen to the men? They have it easy!
- journalctl 7y ago
  Perhaps men and women in tech face different challenges, and the challenges that women face are unique to women and related to their sex/gender expression.
Nimitz14 7y ago
> When people go and talk to women who started out in the tech pipeline but left, many say that the reasons they left are that they felt unwelcome in some way: they were harassed, under-valued, talked over, stalked, underpaid, etc. That "many" sounds anecdotal. Since we're doing that: In my experience woman don't go into tech because they enjoy other, more social, jobs more. > One reason 50/50 makes a fine straw goal is that there is no obvious reason that men should be more successful than women in the tech industry. It's not like the NFL, where well-understood human sexual dimorphism is relevant. Women were heavily involved in the early days of computing and built some of the early foundations of the field, like the first compiler. There is an obvious reason. Autism-like traits are more prevalent in men.
mikedilger 7y ago
Your hypothesis regarding harassment or being made to feel unwelcome is reasonable and always needs to be explored. But it is not the only hypothesis, and other factors are probably also in play. I disagree that there "is no obvious reason that men should be more successful than women in the tech industry" and I suppose the argument would then hang on the word "obvious".. are the other hypotheses obvious? Perhaps not to people who don't study evolutionary psychology. There is evidence that more freedom and equality for everyone to be in any job they want leads to even less women choosing STEM careers (https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...) That might be because of social issues you mention (harassment, under valued, talked over, underpaid, stalked, etc). It might also be a result of natural selection causing women and men to differentiate in useful ways wherein women were more attracted to nurturing roles, and men more attracted to technical challenges. I don't think it's useful to pick one reasonable hypothesis and ignore other reasonable hypotheses. Let's explore all the useful ideas and recognize how little we actually know for sure.
- RangerScience 7y ago
  I would want any analysis theorizing a difference rooted in biological dimorphism to work with sex as a multidimensional distribution, as that's what it is. If you want to do one on gender, you would go in for self-reported gender, and have 3+ selection options (m/f/o). If you're going to talk about natural selection resulting in career preference, you should talk sex, not gender.
  - mikedilger 7y ago
    I agree gender is irrelevant here. I'd even go so far as to agree that there may be more than two sex states on individual bases (multiple X or Y chromosomes, different levels of testosterone, hermaphordism, chimerism etc). But these are neither particularly common nor genetically transmissible and thus do not exert pressure on the nature of sexual dimorphism. Sex can be modelled quite accurately with a single binary bit even in individual cases, and entirely accurately for species in evolutionary terms. Distributions and multiple dimensions have not shown themselves to be useful. If you disagree I'd like to see references to the relevant research papers. I don't mind recognizing any individuals uniqueness or their socially less-privileged situation for social or political purposes, but it shouldn't have any affect on the science of sexuality which should just reflect nature as it is. Sexual dimorphism in animals can be dramatic. The male angler fish is a tiny parasite, the dramatically larger female does all the angling work. And we aren't seeing non-binary angler fishes. If none of the other species are coming up with non-binary specimens, why should we assume humans are any different?
flippinburgers 7y ago
Aside from harassed or stalked, the others apply just as much to men. Hate to break it to you. We have been trained by society to put up with it.
- zer0tonin 7y ago
  You can make anything true if you start your sentence with "aside".
overgard 7y ago
I've heard this hypothesis a lot, but there's something that bothers me about it. If you've ever been passionate about something, something that's hard and takes a lot of effort and practice to become good at, would you really let microaggressions stop you from doing that thing? I mean, being a programmer is not exactly a high status thing for white males either. If I tell people I'm a programmer, I generally am competing with the perception that I am socially awkward. People assume I'm like some Big Bang Theory character until I prove otherwise. I don't like that stereotype, but it never stopped me from learning to code, or even was a thought that crossed my mind. Also, how many other industries are or have been actively hostile towards women and still have plenty of females in it? Show business is an obvious example. I'm not saying that things can't or shouldn't be improved, but I feel like the argument that goes "well the nerds are making women uncomfortable" is just a cartoon with very little evidence other than anecdotes.
- blintz 7y ago
  I think “microagressions” is a bit of an understatement. Also not sure that being stereotyped as “socially awkward” is comparable to experiencing or even just witnessing sexual harassment. Women in tech report more mistreatment than in many other male-dominated industries. See: https://www.axios.com/tech-sexual-harassment-women-silicon-valley-1fa55b9c-2997-49cc-a869-d3cb7334a543.html https://www.axios.com/tech-sexual-harassment-women-silicon-v...
  - haberman 7y ago
    In this survey the finding is exactly the opposite: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/04/17/ssc-survey-results-sexual-harassment-levels-by-field/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/04/17/ssc-survey-results-sex...
  - overgard 7y ago
    All I see in that link is a VERY vague assertion that some women have received “unwanted physical contact”, which doesnt really mean anything without specifics. That could mean something creepy, or it could mean someone tapping them on the shoulder, or a saleswomans obnoxious insistence on high fiving all the time. And then some persons quoted opinion.
dcolkitt 7y ago
> I think it's fair to question whether 50/50 should be the goal. There's a very strong inverse correlation between a country's gender equality and female representation in STEM. I.e. countries like Algeria and the UAE have much higher female participation in tech than countries like Sweden and the Netherlands. That doesn't necessarily mean that women in tech don't face discrimination or harassment. But it strongly suggests that discrimination isn't the primary driver of female under-representation in the industry. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
- JamisonM 7y ago
  I think that in Algeria and the UAE if you have spent the amount of money it takes to get a STEM education you don't divert into a different field even if the conditions are difficult, in the developed world the calculations are quite different. This is something I can attest to personally to a certain extent.
- pgcj_poster 7y ago
  > But it strongly suggests that discrimination isn't the primary driver of female under-representation in the industry. I don't see that it does. It's entirely possible that in less egalitarian countries, women are just less likely to leave tech on account of discrimination or harassment. I can think of several reasons why this might be the case: - Women in poorer countries might be more likely to endure mistreatment for financial reasons. - Women there might just be more accustomed to mistreatment. - Tech might be less hostile to women relative to other fields in those countries. Eg. in Western countries, it's "normal" for women to become teachers, but somewhat less normal for women to become programmers. In more misogynistic countries, it's considered abnormal for women to be teachers or programmers, so there would be less to differentiate the options.
  - dcolkitt 7y ago
    Maybe. It's possible. But it's not a finding in isolation. Another recent finding is that gender equal societies tend to have larger personality differences between men and women. I.e. women in Sweden tend to have much more different personalities and preferences than men in Sweden. Whereas in Saudi Arabia the two genders tend to be more similar. Overall the general theme of these findings is that gender parity is not a good proxy for gender equality. Equality is a very important goal that we should strive for. But the reality is that increasing equality may paradoxically result in larger divergences among the genders in terms of behavior, life trajectories and modes of expression. In my opinion if there is a tension between equality and parity, than gender equality is a much more important goal. And that's what we should be measuring, not parity metrics like representation percentages. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/08/gender-personality-big-five-psychology/568087/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/08/gender-pe...
arkh 7y ago
> Women were heavily involved in the early days of computing and built some of the early foundations of the field, like the first compiler. Maybe because it was considered mostly a secretarial job and they did not have a lot of other opportunities. Once given the choice to get into more fulfilling careers they took it. It's only because there's money in what is thought as "easy white collar job" that some women try to do it. And it is only because coders cost a lot that there is a push to get more women doing it as a way to lower wages. Even if they don't want to.
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  > It's only because there's money in what is thought as "easy white collar job" that some women try to do it. And it is only because coders cost a lot that there is a push to get more women doing it as a way to lower wages. Even if they don't want to. This is the kind of unsupported claim that makes these discussions unwelcome on hn.

andreimuntean 7y ago

And what happens when people go and talk to men who started out in the tech pipeline but left? Don’t they say similarly negative things?

busterarm 7y ago
Yeah. I'm pretty sure being harassed, under-valued, talked over, stalked, underpaid, etc. are universally true. I've encountered at least two at every single one of the 15 or so jobs I've had prior to this one. Most of them weren't in tech and I'm a man. Having a shitty job isn't exclusive to being a female in tech.
Aeolun 7y ago
What? Why would we listen to the men? They have it easy!
journalctl 7y ago
Perhaps men and women in tech face different challenges, and the challenges that women face are unique to women and related to their sex/gender expression.

Nimitz14 7y ago

> When people go and talk to women who started out in the tech pipeline but left, many say that the reasons they left are that they felt unwelcome in some way: they were harassed, under-valued, talked over, stalked, underpaid, etc. That "many" sounds anecdotal. Since we're doing that: In my experience woman don't go into tech because they enjoy other, more social, jobs more. > One reason 50/50 makes a fine straw goal is that there is no obvious reason that men should be more successful than women in the tech industry. It's not like the NFL, where well-understood human sexual dimorphism is relevant. Women were heavily involved in the early days of computing and built some of the early foundations of the field, like the first compiler. There is an obvious reason. Autism-like traits are more prevalent in men.

mikedilger 7y ago

Your hypothesis regarding harassment or being made to feel unwelcome is reasonable and always needs to be explored. But it is not the only hypothesis, and other factors are probably also in play. I disagree that there "is no obvious reason that men should be more successful than women in the tech industry" and I suppose the argument would then hang on the word "obvious".. are the other hypotheses obvious? Perhaps not to people who don't study evolutionary psychology. There is evidence that more freedom and equality for everyone to be in any job they want leads to even less women choosing STEM careers (https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...) That might be because of social issues you mention (harassment, under valued, talked over, underpaid, stalked, etc). It might also be a result of natural selection causing women and men to differentiate in useful ways wherein women were more attracted to nurturing roles, and men more attracted to technical challenges. I don't think it's useful to pick one reasonable hypothesis and ignore other reasonable hypotheses. Let's explore all the useful ideas and recognize how little we actually know for sure.

RangerScience 7y ago
I would want any analysis theorizing a difference rooted in biological dimorphism to work with sex as a multidimensional distribution, as that's what it is. If you want to do one on gender, you would go in for self-reported gender, and have 3+ selection options (m/f/o). If you're going to talk about natural selection resulting in career preference, you should talk sex, not gender.
- mikedilger 7y ago
  I agree gender is irrelevant here. I'd even go so far as to agree that there may be more than two sex states on individual bases (multiple X or Y chromosomes, different levels of testosterone, hermaphordism, chimerism etc). But these are neither particularly common nor genetically transmissible and thus do not exert pressure on the nature of sexual dimorphism. Sex can be modelled quite accurately with a single binary bit even in individual cases, and entirely accurately for species in evolutionary terms. Distributions and multiple dimensions have not shown themselves to be useful. If you disagree I'd like to see references to the relevant research papers. I don't mind recognizing any individuals uniqueness or their socially less-privileged situation for social or political purposes, but it shouldn't have any affect on the science of sexuality which should just reflect nature as it is. Sexual dimorphism in animals can be dramatic. The male angler fish is a tiny parasite, the dramatically larger female does all the angling work. And we aren't seeing non-binary angler fishes. If none of the other species are coming up with non-binary specimens, why should we assume humans are any different?

flippinburgers 7y ago

Aside from harassed or stalked, the others apply just as much to men. Hate to break it to you. We have been trained by society to put up with it.

zer0tonin 7y ago
You can make anything true if you start your sentence with "aside".

overgard 7y ago

I've heard this hypothesis a lot, but there's something that bothers me about it. If you've ever been passionate about something, something that's hard and takes a lot of effort and practice to become good at, would you really let microaggressions stop you from doing that thing? I mean, being a programmer is not exactly a high status thing for white males either. If I tell people I'm a programmer, I generally am competing with the perception that I am socially awkward. People assume I'm like some Big Bang Theory character until I prove otherwise. I don't like that stereotype, but it never stopped me from learning to code, or even was a thought that crossed my mind. Also, how many other industries are or have been actively hostile towards women and still have plenty of females in it? Show business is an obvious example. I'm not saying that things can't or shouldn't be improved, but I feel like the argument that goes "well the nerds are making women uncomfortable" is just a cartoon with very little evidence other than anecdotes.

blintz 7y ago
I think “microagressions” is a bit of an understatement. Also not sure that being stereotyped as “socially awkward” is comparable to experiencing or even just witnessing sexual harassment. Women in tech report more mistreatment than in many other male-dominated industries. See: https://www.axios.com/tech-sexual-harassment-women-silicon-valley-1fa55b9c-2997-49cc-a869-d3cb7334a543.html https://www.axios.com/tech-sexual-harassment-women-silicon-v...
- haberman 7y ago
  In this survey the finding is exactly the opposite: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/04/17/ssc-survey-results-sexual-harassment-levels-by-field/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/04/17/ssc-survey-results-sex...
- overgard 7y ago
  All I see in that link is a VERY vague assertion that some women have received “unwanted physical contact”, which doesnt really mean anything without specifics. That could mean something creepy, or it could mean someone tapping them on the shoulder, or a saleswomans obnoxious insistence on high fiving all the time. And then some persons quoted opinion.

dcolkitt 7y ago

> I think it's fair to question whether 50/50 should be the goal. There's a very strong inverse correlation between a country's gender equality and female representation in STEM. I.e. countries like Algeria and the UAE have much higher female participation in tech than countries like Sweden and the Netherlands. That doesn't necessarily mean that women in tech don't face discrimination or harassment. But it strongly suggests that discrimination isn't the primary driver of female under-representation in the industry. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...

JamisonM 7y ago
I think that in Algeria and the UAE if you have spent the amount of money it takes to get a STEM education you don't divert into a different field even if the conditions are difficult, in the developed world the calculations are quite different. This is something I can attest to personally to a certain extent.
pgcj_poster 7y ago
> But it strongly suggests that discrimination isn't the primary driver of female under-representation in the industry. I don't see that it does. It's entirely possible that in less egalitarian countries, women are just less likely to leave tech on account of discrimination or harassment. I can think of several reasons why this might be the case: - Women in poorer countries might be more likely to endure mistreatment for financial reasons. - Women there might just be more accustomed to mistreatment. - Tech might be less hostile to women relative to other fields in those countries. Eg. in Western countries, it's "normal" for women to become teachers, but somewhat less normal for women to become programmers. In more misogynistic countries, it's considered abnormal for women to be teachers or programmers, so there would be less to differentiate the options.
- dcolkitt 7y ago
  Maybe. It's possible. But it's not a finding in isolation. Another recent finding is that gender equal societies tend to have larger personality differences between men and women. I.e. women in Sweden tend to have much more different personalities and preferences than men in Sweden. Whereas in Saudi Arabia the two genders tend to be more similar. Overall the general theme of these findings is that gender parity is not a good proxy for gender equality. Equality is a very important goal that we should strive for. But the reality is that increasing equality may paradoxically result in larger divergences among the genders in terms of behavior, life trajectories and modes of expression. In my opinion if there is a tension between equality and parity, than gender equality is a much more important goal. And that's what we should be measuring, not parity metrics like representation percentages. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/08/gender-personality-big-five-psychology/568087/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/08/gender-pe...

arkh 7y ago

> Women were heavily involved in the early days of computing and built some of the early foundations of the field, like the first compiler. Maybe because it was considered mostly a secretarial job and they did not have a lot of other opportunities. Once given the choice to get into more fulfilling careers they took it. It's only because there's money in what is thought as "easy white collar job" that some women try to do it. And it is only because coders cost a lot that there is a push to get more women doing it as a way to lower wages. Even if they don't want to.

lazyasciiart 7y ago
> It's only because there's money in what is thought as "easy white collar job" that some women try to do it. And it is only because coders cost a lot that there is a push to get more women doing it as a way to lower wages. Even if they don't want to. This is the kind of unsupported claim that makes these discussions unwelcome on hn.