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Ask women and you'll find that most aren't interested in programming a computer all day. Which one could argue is a sane choice. If anything it's more sane. St

by Reedx 7y ago

Ask women and you'll find that most aren't interested in programming a computer all day. Which one could argue is a sane choice. If anything it's more sane. Stop trying to make them feel like something is wrong if they don't have this inclination. Males and females have different preferences on average, some as early as birth[1]. This is not a bad thing. For the ones that want to program all day, obviously they should be welcomed and any company that doesn't is doing themselves a huge disservice. In fact the best programmer I've ever worked with is a woman. 1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222673203_Sex_Differences_in_Human_Neonatal_Social_Perception https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222673203_Sex_Diffe...

rayiner 7y ago
> Males and females have different preferences on average, and do from birth[1]. This is not a bad thing. I feel like this is a “??? Profit!” argument. Accepting that girl infants prefer faces and boy infants prefer trucks—what does that have to do with programming? Even within the context of traditional stereotypes about male/female preferences, what makes programming a “male” thing? The analogy that programmers “build things” is just that—your typical programmer is certainly not cut out to be a construction worker.
- banads 7y ago
  >Accepting that girl infants prefer faces and boy infants prefer trucks—what does that have to do with programming? Programming jobs often involve extremely minimal face to face interactions
  - FeepingCreature 7y ago
    Ime this is completely untrue.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    I've spent the last 15 years of my life working with engineering teams, hundreds of them, and I've never met a single one that worked this way. The opposite thing is true, unless you're fixated on literal in-the-same-room face-to-face interactions, in which case, what's your point?
    - banads 7y ago
      You think programmers spend more time having face to face (as opposed to face to computer) interactions than people in health care, child care, social work, or education?
      - tptacek 7y ago
        I don't believe the distinction between face-to-face and screen-to-screen is at all relevant. But: the programmers I work with spend lots of time in meetings, too.
        banads 7y ago
        Why don't you believe there can be any relation between female infants preference towards faces and female adults preference towards occupations with more face to face, people oriented interactions?
        tptacek 7y ago
        I don't, but I also don't care to debate it, and don't need to, because, once again, face-to-face interactions are also extremely common in professional software development.
        tomp 7y ago
        You’ve a skewed perception of “extremely common”. There are many jobs where pretty much the entire job is dealing with people - doctor, lawyer, clerk, marketer, teacher, ... in contrast, programmers can get a lot of stuff done (except coordination) just with computers. And some of us like it that way.
        rayiner 7y ago
        This seems like shifting rationalization to me. They used to say women don’t want to be lawyers because it’s too much confrontation. Now women are well represented in law because it’s people oriented. Moreover, corporate law firms are 50% women, but that work is even more solitary than programming in a corporate environment. (Having done both myself.) You’re sitting in your office alone reviewing documents, writing briefs, or doing due diligence ten times as much as you’re in court or talking to clients. Also, if programming is solitary as you suggest, why do tech companies discourage remote work and insist on culture fit, team building, collaborative work spaces, etc.? Much more so than law firms.
- tathougies 7y ago
  > The analogy that programmers “build things” is just that—your typical programmer is certainly not cut out to be a construction worker. Building things is not just construction though. I mean, your average clock maker is not qualified to plumb a bathroom, but that doesn't mean he's not making things. I don't have an opinion on this, but the idea that programmers aren't building something is a bit silly.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    Programmers build things the same way garment-makers build things with sewing machines and needles. Construction worker may do even less engineering design work than garment-makers do.
    - tathougies 7y ago
      Right... garment workers do build things. That's the point.... building is not just making structures. It's production in general.
- showingdead 7y ago
  The purpose of the faces/trucks data point is just to illustrate that these differences start from birth. The larger argument is that the people-vs-things gap, and later, interest in computers specifically, basically remains stable throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagge... I don't even know if the data is ready for us to draw any conclusions, but at the very least it seems to me we should find this to be an extremely interesting pattern, and use it to motivate hypotheses.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
> Males and females have different preferences on average, and do from birth[1]. This is not a bad thing. Sure, but it seems more than a little convenient that the male-chosen professions seem to generally pay significantly more, on average, than the female-chosen ones. Haven't there been studies that showed that women moving into a profession was actually associated with pay dropping?
- jimbokun 7y ago
  Are we talking about programming, specifically? Programmers are paid relatively well because 1. Software is "eating the world", so a lot of software is being written leading to demand for programmers. 2. Programming scales really well. Software has zero reproduction cost and can reach a global audience almost instantaneously. So software companies can make a lot of money with relatively few employees. What would be the mechanism for pay dropping when women enter a profession? Some global masterminds reducing pay across multiple corporations across the board when they find out women are being hired in that industry? Maybe it's just a matter of a sudden increase of supply of workers as women enter a field to meet the existing demand, driving wages down? Is it because the women are being paid less, while the men are being paid the same as before?
  - freeone3000 7y ago
    It's because women are getting paid less, promoted later, and have lower bonuses.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    > Some global masterminds reducing pay across multiple corporations across the board when they find out women are being hired in that industry? No coordination is necessary. People will simply start to view the role as less valuable or skilled due to more women being in it.
- Thorentis 7y ago
  Men in general, are more aggressive and assertive when it comes to pay increases. If a male dominated industry has sustained pay increases year on year, this is probably why. Over time, female dominated professions have wages that do not increase at the same rate.
kaitai 7y ago
Most people, period, are not interested in programming a computer all day. My girl child likes trucks, not Frozen, and the pressure from other adults to get her to conform and play with Disney-branded dolls is non-trivial and unrelenting. Ugh.
- Reedx 7y ago
  > Most people, period, are not interested in programming a computer all day. That's true. But if you ask 1000 men and 1000 women if they want to program all day, you'll get a much higher % of men. > My girl child likes trucks, not Frozen, and the pressure from other adults to get her to conform and play with Disney-branded dolls is non-trivial and unrelenting. Ugh. I largely agree, Disney is overwhelming. Though no one has pressured or tried to make my daughter conform, other adults do mostly buy her girl typical things. Her cars, trains, dinosaurs, legos and the like mostly came from us (didn't buy any dolls, she got those from others). She likes trucks and Frozen. But mostly Paw Patrol. It's amazing, everything else is a distant 2nd to those pups!
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  > the pressure from other adults to get her to conform and play with Disney-branded dolls is non-trivial and unrelenting Throw them out, seriously. I did when they got to be too large a portion of the toys.
  - joelhoffman 7y ago
    I thought you meant the other adults at first, and I completely agreed!
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    Often you can just return them to the store and get something she likes.
  - kaitai 7y ago
    We practice constant pruning.
harryh 7y ago
Yes indeed. Women just don't want to work in one of the fastest growing and highest paying professions in America. They would much rather take lower paying jobs where you don't get free lunches and flexible dress codes at the office. I'm sure you're right.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  Well, you seem to be sarcastically implying the opposite: that there are hordes of women who want to move into a profession that’s in high demand with a low barrier for entry, but that… they’re not for some reason? Where are all these women? What are their reasons? I’m not even familiar with any anecdotal evidence that there are a lot of women who want to work as software developers but are unable to. Everywhere I’ve ever worked has fallen all over itself to hire women, even going so far as to lower the hiring bar to meet some diversity quotas, and has _still_ been unable to find these apocryphal women who are interested and capable of working as computer programmers but are unable to find the opportunity.
zmmmmm 7y ago
> Ask women and you'll find that most aren't interested in programming a computer all day I think this though itself is an artefact of a male dominated profession. The fact that working with software is "programming a computer all day" reflects a male preference and value system, and many people open acknowledge that it's quite harmful and often creates quite dysfunctional teams. We need better requirements, better communication, better documentation, more human approach to the whole process. I've talked to great women working in software development who say "I don't really care about the programming itself and I would never go home and do it for fun - but I love the other aspects of the job". Perhaps the nature of the job itself needs to change a bit for the preferences to adjust.
- jimbokun 7y ago
  If I understand you correctly, people who like working alone on challenging tasks are inherently deficient and we need to drive them out of the workplace to make others more comfortable? Isn't there a place for people good at thinking deeply about difficult problems on their own and coming up with effective solutions? Yes, everyone needs to be able to communicate well to be part of an effective team. But there is also a role for deep thinking and introspection. By the way, introverted women exist, too.
  - foldr 7y ago
    > If I understand you correctly, people who like working alone on challenging tasks are inherently deficient and we need to drive them out of the workplace to make others more comfortable? You can't possibly think that this is what the person you are replying to is saying. But anyway, the point is that the conception of programming as a task suited to people who like to work in isolation is incorrect and harmful. One of the most common pitfalls of software development is writing software that no-one wants or needs. The solution to that problem lies in better communication. Of course, there are some kinds of programming problems that are suited to intense work in isolation. But most programmers probably need to spend more time talking to their non-programmer colleagues.
    - 7y ago
UncleMeat 7y ago
A few years ago I was on a plane wearing a sweater with the logo of the major tech company I work at. The person sitting next to me was excited to talk to me about how he was trying to develop his son into an engineer. His son was like six. He was buying his son toys and games that tried to promote an interest in technology. He also had a daughter. Similar age. He was not doing the same for her. Perhaps these children had such a strong idea of what they wanted at a very very early age and the father was responding to that. But I find it more likely that the father held an implicit bias about what jobs his son and daughter should have and was providing support to push his son into tech. When these two people graduate college and the son becomes a software engineer and the daughter doesn't it will be their choice. But it is not clear to me that it wasn't sexism that produced the circumstances for that choice.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

by Reedx 7y ago

rayiner 7y ago

> Males and females have different preferences on average, and do from birth[1]. This is not a bad thing. I feel like this is a “??? Profit!” argument. Accepting that girl infants prefer faces and boy infants prefer trucks—what does that have to do with programming? Even within the context of traditional stereotypes about male/female preferences, what makes programming a “male” thing? The analogy that programmers “build things” is just that—your typical programmer is certainly not cut out to be a construction worker.

banads 7y ago
>Accepting that girl infants prefer faces and boy infants prefer trucks—what does that have to do with programming? Programming jobs often involve extremely minimal face to face interactions
- FeepingCreature 7y ago
  Ime this is completely untrue.
- tptacek 7y ago
  I've spent the last 15 years of my life working with engineering teams, hundreds of them, and I've never met a single one that worked this way. The opposite thing is true, unless you're fixated on literal in-the-same-room face-to-face interactions, in which case, what's your point?
  - banads 7y ago
    You think programmers spend more time having face to face (as opposed to face to computer) interactions than people in health care, child care, social work, or education?
    - tptacek 7y ago
      I don't believe the distinction between face-to-face and screen-to-screen is at all relevant. But: the programmers I work with spend lots of time in meetings, too.
      - banads 7y ago
        Why don't you believe there can be any relation between female infants preference towards faces and female adults preference towards occupations with more face to face, people oriented interactions?
        tptacek 7y ago
        I don't, but I also don't care to debate it, and don't need to, because, once again, face-to-face interactions are also extremely common in professional software development.
        tomp 7y ago
        You’ve a skewed perception of “extremely common”. There are many jobs where pretty much the entire job is dealing with people - doctor, lawyer, clerk, marketer, teacher, ... in contrast, programmers can get a lot of stuff done (except coordination) just with computers. And some of us like it that way.
        rayiner 7y ago
        This seems like shifting rationalization to me. They used to say women don’t want to be lawyers because it’s too much confrontation. Now women are well represented in law because it’s people oriented. Moreover, corporate law firms are 50% women, but that work is even more solitary than programming in a corporate environment. (Having done both myself.) You’re sitting in your office alone reviewing documents, writing briefs, or doing due diligence ten times as much as you’re in court or talking to clients. Also, if programming is solitary as you suggest, why do tech companies discourage remote work and insist on culture fit, team building, collaborative work spaces, etc.? Much more so than law firms.
tathougies 7y ago
> The analogy that programmers “build things” is just that—your typical programmer is certainly not cut out to be a construction worker. Building things is not just construction though. I mean, your average clock maker is not qualified to plumb a bathroom, but that doesn't mean he's not making things. I don't have an opinion on this, but the idea that programmers aren't building something is a bit silly.
- tptacek 7y ago
  Programmers build things the same way garment-makers build things with sewing machines and needles. Construction worker may do even less engineering design work than garment-makers do.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Right... garment workers do build things. That's the point.... building is not just making structures. It's production in general.
showingdead 7y ago
The purpose of the faces/trucks data point is just to illustrate that these differences start from birth. The larger argument is that the people-vs-things gap, and later, interest in computers specifically, basically remains stable throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagge... I don't even know if the data is ready for us to draw any conclusions, but at the very least it seems to me we should find this to be an extremely interesting pattern, and use it to motivate hypotheses.

TulliusCicero 7y ago

> Males and females have different preferences on average, and do from birth[1]. This is not a bad thing. Sure, but it seems more than a little convenient that the male-chosen professions seem to generally pay significantly more, on average, than the female-chosen ones. Haven't there been studies that showed that women moving into a profession was actually associated with pay dropping?

jimbokun 7y ago
Are we talking about programming, specifically? Programmers are paid relatively well because 1. Software is "eating the world", so a lot of software is being written leading to demand for programmers. 2. Programming scales really well. Software has zero reproduction cost and can reach a global audience almost instantaneously. So software companies can make a lot of money with relatively few employees. What would be the mechanism for pay dropping when women enter a profession? Some global masterminds reducing pay across multiple corporations across the board when they find out women are being hired in that industry? Maybe it's just a matter of a sudden increase of supply of workers as women enter a field to meet the existing demand, driving wages down? Is it because the women are being paid less, while the men are being paid the same as before?
- freeone3000 7y ago
  It's because women are getting paid less, promoted later, and have lower bonuses.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  > Some global masterminds reducing pay across multiple corporations across the board when they find out women are being hired in that industry? No coordination is necessary. People will simply start to view the role as less valuable or skilled due to more women being in it.
Thorentis 7y ago
Men in general, are more aggressive and assertive when it comes to pay increases. If a male dominated industry has sustained pay increases year on year, this is probably why. Over time, female dominated professions have wages that do not increase at the same rate.

kaitai 7y ago

Most people, period, are not interested in programming a computer all day. My girl child likes trucks, not Frozen, and the pressure from other adults to get her to conform and play with Disney-branded dolls is non-trivial and unrelenting. Ugh.

Reedx 7y ago
> Most people, period, are not interested in programming a computer all day. That's true. But if you ask 1000 men and 1000 women if they want to program all day, you'll get a much higher % of men. > My girl child likes trucks, not Frozen, and the pressure from other adults to get her to conform and play with Disney-branded dolls is non-trivial and unrelenting. Ugh. I largely agree, Disney is overwhelming. Though no one has pressured or tried to make my daughter conform, other adults do mostly buy her girl typical things. Her cars, trains, dinosaurs, legos and the like mostly came from us (didn't buy any dolls, she got those from others). She likes trucks and Frozen. But mostly Paw Patrol. It's amazing, everything else is a distant 2nd to those pups!
mixmastamyk 7y ago
> the pressure from other adults to get her to conform and play with Disney-branded dolls is non-trivial and unrelenting Throw them out, seriously. I did when they got to be too large a portion of the toys.
- joelhoffman 7y ago
  I thought you meant the other adults at first, and I completely agreed!
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  Often you can just return them to the store and get something she likes.
- kaitai 7y ago
  We practice constant pruning.

harryh 7y ago

Yes indeed. Women just don't want to work in one of the fastest growing and highest paying professions in America. They would much rather take lower paying jobs where you don't get free lunches and flexible dress codes at the office. I'm sure you're right.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
commandlinefan 7y ago
Well, you seem to be sarcastically implying the opposite: that there are hordes of women who want to move into a profession that’s in high demand with a low barrier for entry, but that… they’re not for some reason? Where are all these women? What are their reasons? I’m not even familiar with any anecdotal evidence that there are a lot of women who want to work as software developers but are unable to. Everywhere I’ve ever worked has fallen all over itself to hire women, even going so far as to lower the hiring bar to meet some diversity quotas, and has _still_ been unable to find these apocryphal women who are interested and capable of working as computer programmers but are unable to find the opportunity.

zmmmmm 7y ago

> Ask women and you'll find that most aren't interested in programming a computer all day I think this though itself is an artefact of a male dominated profession. The fact that working with software is "programming a computer all day" reflects a male preference and value system, and many people open acknowledge that it's quite harmful and often creates quite dysfunctional teams. We need better requirements, better communication, better documentation, more human approach to the whole process. I've talked to great women working in software development who say "I don't really care about the programming itself and I would never go home and do it for fun - but I love the other aspects of the job". Perhaps the nature of the job itself needs to change a bit for the preferences to adjust.

jimbokun 7y ago
If I understand you correctly, people who like working alone on challenging tasks are inherently deficient and we need to drive them out of the workplace to make others more comfortable? Isn't there a place for people good at thinking deeply about difficult problems on their own and coming up with effective solutions? Yes, everyone needs to be able to communicate well to be part of an effective team. But there is also a role for deep thinking and introspection. By the way, introverted women exist, too.
- foldr 7y ago
  > If I understand you correctly, people who like working alone on challenging tasks are inherently deficient and we need to drive them out of the workplace to make others more comfortable? You can't possibly think that this is what the person you are replying to is saying. But anyway, the point is that the conception of programming as a task suited to people who like to work in isolation is incorrect and harmful. One of the most common pitfalls of software development is writing software that no-one wants or needs. The solution to that problem lies in better communication. Of course, there are some kinds of programming problems that are suited to intense work in isolation. But most programmers probably need to spend more time talking to their non-programmer colleagues.
  - 7y ago

UncleMeat 7y ago

A few years ago I was on a plane wearing a sweater with the logo of the major tech company I work at. The person sitting next to me was excited to talk to me about how he was trying to develop his son into an engineer. His son was like six. He was buying his son toys and games that tried to promote an interest in technology. He also had a daughter. Similar age. He was not doing the same for her. Perhaps these children had such a strong idea of what they wanted at a very very early age and the father was responding to that. But I find it more likely that the father held an implicit bias about what jobs his son and daughter should have and was providing support to push his son into tech. When these two people graduate college and the son becomes a software engineer and the daughter doesn't it will be their choice. But it is not clear to me that it wasn't sexism that produced the circumstances for that choice.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]