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The Benefits of Being a Female Software Engineer
- tastybites 16y agoThey generally remember to shower every so often Oh, come on.
- josegonzalez 16y agoActually, this is both true and false. I have a friend who I know for a fact showers every day, and yet I wouldn't want to sit next to him while working. So while one might remember to shower, that does not guarantee that the impression will last. On the flip side of the coin, this also reminds me that I should probably shower.
- 1337p337 16y agoMost of them do tend to be cleaner. But anyone remember the report a couple of decades back about water usage after the US Navy started letting women on ships? Having ladies around made the guys shower more often. Empirically, I can verify that, since getting married, I do tend to shave more often.
- Groxx 16y agoJust to be a contrary example, both my wife and I shave less now that we're married (ie, never). Our skin is much happier, shorter showers, far fewer razors going dull, and no more cactus in bed. She's also discovering she prefers it in other women - as a massage therapist, regardless of how recently they've shaved she'll encounter it all, and it's pretty amazingly irritating stuff.
- georgieporgie 16y agoas a massage therapist, regardless of how recently they've shaved she'll encounter it all As a guy who enjoys massages and has hairy extremities: no matter how much oil is used, the hair gets pulled. One of the primary reasons cyclists shave their legs is for better massages.
- Groxx 16y agoThat's true, and I have heard that about cyclists (in particular). I wonder if it depends on the amount of hair. I'm not very hairy, and I've never had much of a problem (a couple tugs, but after a few massages you don't notice it any more). Also, if you ever get the chance, different kinds of oil act differently, you might have better luck if you experiment a bit.
- bluesnowmonkey 16y agoI'd like stereotypes like that not to be true, but at my last two jobs I had coworkers who obviously did not shower regularly. It seems like something about programming gives people the idea that they can let their hygiene go in a way that no other white-collar workplace would tolerate. Or maybe I've just been unlucky.
- bryanlarsen 16y agoAlso, even if they shower less often, they still don't stink as badly. Women start sweating at a higher temperature than men, so tend to sweat considerably less.
- VladRussian 16y agoonly women can promote and oppose the same gender stereotypes simultaneously.
- mikeklaas 16y agoAre you promoting or opposing that stereotype?
- VladRussian 16y agoi just admire them [women].
- fedd 16y ago'a woman can make three things out of nothing: a tragedy, a hairstyle, and a salad' a russian sexist proverb (maybe internatnl dont know 4 sure)
- dominostars 16y agoIt's almost as if there are billions of them, with differing opinions.
- rtaycher 16y agoThats sexist men can do it too.
- ajays 16y agoShe doesn't mention it, but another great thing about being an engineer is that engineers are quite egalitarian and the evaluation criteria is often very objective (speed of the code, complexity of the algorithm, etc.). As a result, women just have to be good at what they do, and there's hardly any discrimination. In other fields, often, for a woman to just be good is not enough; there is overt (or covert) discrimination, "old boys" networks, etc. // male here, but with several female engineer friends
- andrewvc 16y agoMaybe. I've met a damn large number of openly sexist engineers though, so I'm not sure how true it is.
- jeanhsu 16y agoGood point--that's pretty much the experience I've had, but I've only worked in software, so I didn't have much to compare it to!
- wisty 16y agoThat's a nice thought, but the real promotions often happen on the grounds of "leadership", "management" and "communication skills", which women are often perceived to lack. Or maybe you work in a more egalitarian place than me.
- ajays 16y agoIf anything, I think women generally have _better_ communication skills than men. You do realize that we're talking in vast generalizations here. Engineers run the gamut; there will be sexist, racist and bigoted engineers too. But my experience in nearly 20 years of being in the field has been that engineers, _in general_, are more egalitarian. If someone comes up with cool shit, no one cares whether that person is a woman, or a man, or what color his/her skin is; if it's cool, everyone goes "oooh!" and s/he gets instant respect.
- jacques_chester 16y ago
- alinajaf 16y ago> Less Drama A male developer saying that would _so_ not get away with it :P
- VladRussian 16y agoA male developer even thinking in terms of "More\Less Drama" ?
- cookiecaper 16y agoUsually men use the term "politics".
- ghurlman 16y agoGenerally only when I'm watching TNT.
- Deestan 16y agoWhen people ask me how it is to work in a male-dominated workplace, I always point out "no drama". I've gotten away with it so far. To contrast, my wife works in a female-dominated kindergarden. There's so much "did you see the way X Looked at me", "Y ran crying from the meeting", "Z said Good Morning to W, but did you hear the tone of her voice?" going on it's making my head spin. I also used to work in a logistic firm that was staffed pretty 50/50. Some days, there was enough drama to put a soap opera writer to shame. Though I suspect constant layoffs and competitive promotion jostling did its bit to fuel that. I'm sorry if this makes me come out as sexist, but to the best of my empirical knowledge, women are more drama-prone than men. http://www.boctaoe.com/ http://www.boctaoe.com/
- jellicle 16y agoMan and women both have dominance politics. Men do things like shake hands too firmly, stare at each other's eyes, stand while the other person is sitting, play basketball aggressively after work, wear elevator shoes, etc. Women do it in different ways: drama. It's really the same thing.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- sthatipamala 16y agoRe: "Being Liked" If I were to say "I like having women at work, especially when they make brownies and are not bitches," I'd have an angry horde at my door. But Jean Hsu thinks it is okay to say it because she is a woman?
- Confusion 16y agoI'm going to assume both you and Jean Hsu wouldn't be serious when they said that. In that case, if you were to say that, the angry horde would consist of women that didn't know you and were taking your words at face value, because guys have been known to actually feel that way. Those women would give Jean Hsu the benefit of the doubt, because there are few women known to have actually ever felt that way. However, with people you know, who understood the broader context of what you were saying, it wouldn't (shouldn't) be a problem. "I like some female colleagues among my male colleagues for a number of reasons, but the fact that they tend to bring brownies definitely stands out for me, because I love brownies." There, defused the entire problem?
- sthatipamala 16y agoI agree. I'll gladly mince my words to avoid being called a sexist. The issue here is that either Jean is being serious, in which case she's undermining workplace equality, or she's abusing the fact that she can facetiously say such things because she can get away with it. What is she trying to accomplish?
- Confusion 16y agoWell, clarifying what you mean to people that don't know you is not really mincing words: a lot of implicit things can remain unsaid with people that do know you, but that doesn't mean it should be possible to leave them unsaid at all. I don't think she's trying to accomplish anything; she's just being blatantly honest and care-free, without taking into consideration how Joe Random may (reasonably) interpret what she's saying.
- hackinthebochs 16y ago
- yuvadam 16y agoSorry, I can't hear about gender in engineering jobs anymore. The likelihood that you will see a blog post about the "benefits of being a male software engineer" is exactly the same as the likelihood to see a blog post about the "benefits of being a male social worker". We do not need to artificially try to bring in more engineers of a certain gender just because the numbers don't make sense. And we do not need more blog posts calling out our oddities as engineers. We all dress like dorks. We all have our quirks. Get over it.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- FeministHacker 16y agoAnd this is precisely why we need still more posts. You know why we don't need a "benefits of being a male software engineer" post? Because every day is a "benefits of being a male software engineer" day for male software engineers. You should probably have a read of http://amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ http://amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ . As a rule when it comes to this sort of material, if it makes you feel uncomfortable and defensive, please think about why this is before commenting. I'd love to see a post about "benefits of being a male social worker", or any other female-dominated field! As a feminist (3rd wave), I don't think equality is possible without addressing the problems faced by men, as well as women. Men in such jobs are routinely mocked by other men and subjected to ridicule by our masculine culture society. And that sucks.
- thenomad 16y agoOh, no, please not Derailing For Dummies. It'll certainly reduce the number of replies you get, but not in a good way...
- FeministHacker 16y agoAs a sign of good faith in the community here, I've removed the link for now :)
- 16y ago
- edanm 16y ago"You also get the added bonus of seeing people's confused reactions when they ask you if you're in marketing, and you tell them that you are a developer." This sentence really surprised me. How often does this happen? Female engineers are a minority, but I wouldn't have imagined it would be that big a deal to run into a female engineer.
- kingkilr 16y agoI recently wrote an autobiographical paper from the perspective of women in technology for class. I found that women represent under 9% of the developers/designers at the company I work for, under 5% of the core developers on open source projects I contribute to, and under 3% of the contributors to those projects. So while I personally wouldn't make that assumption, it's probably not a bad one, statically speaking, for many software engineers.
- squasher 16y agoNot sure that is the word choice you intended: It might not be a "bad" one it terms of your chances of being right, but it's "bad" in the sense that it's insulting, frustrating, and marginalizing for the underestimated woman.
- sh4na 16y agoIn 14 years, this has never happened to me. Never in a corporate environment nor in a geek conference. Frankly, everywhere I worked, be it a startup or a huge corporation, I never felt discrimination or disbelief at what I do. In the corporate world, particularly in finance and insurance, there are a lot of female developers. They're around 60% of the IT staff, from what I've personally seen in the places where I've consulted at. In the startup and more "geeky" environments, female devs are very rare. Currently I'm going on the theory that the type of person that seeks an IT job in the corporate world is different from the one that goes to startups. The degrees they have are subtly different (Business CS vs CS), their professional needs are different (stable long term employment with low risk, low % of innovation, high % of project/code maintenance in the corporate world). To me it seems obvious that there are many more women leaning towards the corporate profile than there are for the startup profile. Why this is, I'm still working on that. Regardless of how many women there are, I have never witnessed the sort of disbelief that that phrase shows. I don't know why she says this happens, maybe it's a cultural thing where she's from.
- city41 16y agoI'm very glad my girlfriend is not a developer (and she is very glad I'm not a geologist). I quite enjoy the escape from coding that she provides for me.
- benatkin 16y agoThe part about her husband being glad he got married before moving to California reminds me of this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2272748 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2272748 (It's by the author of an article that made the front page earlier today.)
- Bvalmont 16y agoPretty much the same benefits when you're a guy working in a company filled with women. I just take the extra drama with the infinite supply of brownies every day.
- nimrody 16y agoAdd to the list another 'benefit': Getting immediate attention from any male dominated forum (case in point: HN). Having worked with female colleagues (EEs), I have found much more diversity than common behavior. These sort of articles certainly do not reflect my experience (as a male).
- georgieporgie 16y agoMy (sexist?) experience: The few women I've worked alongside as a software engineer have been fantastic. Easy to get along with, able to focus on work tasks and still have a great lunchtime conversation, with no alpha-nerd pedantic B.S. The women I've worked for (three) have been universally terrible. Each in slightly different ways, but all had a strange, overcompensating quality to them. I'll just have to say it: bitchiness. Strange, control-freak tendencies and subsequent drama. I've worked for two great male bosses, two idiots, and one brilliant guy who was an asshole (but at least he could be reasoned with). I would take all but one of the male bosses over any of the female bosses. My conclusion isn't that women are bad managers, or anything like that. Rather, I believe it shows that people with lousy people skills are distributed across both sexes, and promoting worker bees to management positions is not an ideal plan.
- JanezStupar 16y agoI confirm this experience and the anecdotal evidence I gathered is quite similar. Edit: Almost forgot - I also had a female boss I would work for in a beat. I must mention that she was more of a tomboy - but still what a woman: pragmatic, ambitious, decisive, tough but fair. All the general qualities one would expect from a man, but with added softness of female persuasion and communication skills.
- jarin 16y agoIt's funny how good female bosses are often described as "tomboyish". I'm starting to think "tomboy" is just a synonym for "assertive but likeable woman"
- khafra 16y agoI always thought "tomboyish" meant "willing to climb a tree," with possible overtones of "hair shorter than shoulder length."
- jarin 16y agoI've had similar experiences. I think it's possible that the deck is stacked enough against women getting into positions of power that in general the women who get promoted past a certain level are the ones who overcompensate and act more like the stereotypical "ruthless businessman". Then again, that's kind of true for guys too (although to a lesser extent).
- fedd 16y agoit's nice that jean wrote > if you are a single female you can have first pick of a lot of really nice available guys just nice and life-asserting. for me.
- pamelafox 16y agoI actually wrote a post with similar sentiments a while back - "Being a Girl in CS Doesn't Suck": http://blog.pamelafox.org/2009/10/being-girl-in-cs-doesnt-suck.html http://blog.pamelafox.org/2009/10/being-girl-in-cs-doesnt-su... As for the casual attire, I think it goes both ways. I'm totally into casual most of the times (to the point of wearing my head-to-toe footed pajamas to work), but then the days when I want to dress up or wear a mini-skirt or whatever, I feel like I'm standing out a bit too much and wish I was in the pop music industry instead. But alas, I have no singing talent and no autotune device, so back to coding I go.
- bryanlarsen 16y agoSometimes the men want to dress up too. If I wore a tie every day I'm sure I'd hate the bloody thing, but it is nice to occasionally get the boost one gets from dressing up. But a tie at work is definitely taboo, much more than a mini-skirt, since it sends really strong signals. The only time I've worn a tie at work is when I've had a funeral in the afternoon, and when I drove straight to work after a party in Montreal. A suit with that slept-in look sends signals, but it doesn't imply to your co-workers that you have political ambitions.
- kaylarose 16y ago>..when I want to dress up or wear a mini-skirt or whatever, I feel like I'm standing out a bit too much.. This is my experience too. Whenever I think about wearing something a bit fancy (that would be totally acceptable in another field) I feel a bit self conscious.
- waynecolvin 16y agoBeggars can't be choosers perhaps but couldn't both halves of a relationship being similar get ubalanced? Maybe just a little bit more understanding, or opportunitiy, makes up for that...
- charlesju 16y agoLets be honest here. A lot of people are not going to like this type of post (as witnessed by the response here), but like any news outlet, sensationalist news sells. Jean Hsu is just following Gary V's advice and building up brand equity. There is no better way than to use your various circumstances in life to build a considerable amount of valley buzz. Well played. I would do it too if I were in your shoes. PS. Out of the last 10 hires I made for my previous startup, 3 of them were woman. I believe that's higher than industry standards.
- yuvadam 16y agoIMO, this type of buzz is no more than flamebait. But maybe my view of things is skewed. PS. 30% women hires is pretty much the industry average.
- bane 16y agoUntil recently, I've found that claims of sexism in software were strange (I'll share a story below to explain). If anything, I've generally found that men tend to be thrilled at having women working with them, and not for the seedy sort of ways that might be expected. Most of the male software engineers I've known honestly wonder why their field has so few women in it -- known that women are full and well as smart and capable as they. I've heard of no (until recently) cases of misconduct, or uncomfortable work environments -- on the contrary, I've usually heard that when a woman engineer claims that she'd like something to make her environment better, her management will bend over backwards to try and accommodate. I have heard of the usual pay issues and promotion problems. But in most cases it seems to just be a matter of not asking for them. At any rate, the lack of representation of women in software is a huge problem in the field since it cuts off effectively half of the possible work force. More importantly, software that might better reach the female audience doesn't get written, services don't get created, etc. Now the story. My wife is a software engineer, her last job was a technical department head at a company with about 40% female software engineers. It wasn't super high-end work, but it provided services and data worth about $30-40million/yr to some very major institutions, so it had to be rock solid. Her immediate boss was a woman, and 3 out of 4 department heads were women. Her boss's boss was a man. Before that she worked for a $2billion dollar large company. In her department, there were about 30% female engineers (though in another technical department there were none, go fig). (her immediate super was a woman, but later changed to a man). Before that she worked at an e-commerce company, of the engineering staff were women, her boss was a man, but his boss was a woman. In every case they produced great, solid work, the companies were wildly profitable, her career progressed fantastically -- and she never complained about problems with sexism. Maybe she's been lucky, she never sought out these places, but that's where she ended up. (it could be that having so many women in the first placed altered the hiring dynamics so that they would tend to hire more women later) Late last year, at the company she worked for, they brought in a new COO and within 4 months everything changed. Women managers were promoted up and over or moved laterally into diminished positions. Men with no engineering experience were brought in as department supervisors. My wife had her department entirely eliminated and her staff placed under all new male supervisors. One woman engineer was fired because she botched a minor product management job while a male engineer was promoted to department head right after complaints of rampant racism and sexism were formally filed against him. My wife was devastated, she tried to stick it out, but the writing was on the wall and after a few miserable, tortuous months, I convinced her to resign. It was the first time she (or I for that matter) had seen or experienced such rampant and overt sexism. Three months after she leaves we find out from her former colleagues that the COO was fired, and that 3 out of 4 major development projects have to be scrapped (at a total loss of $7-9 million) and the company is running in the red (in a recession proof industry). If she had stayed her problems would now be over and she might have been able to work the problem to her advantage. But, the good side is that she's now trying to startup her own company, brushing the dust off of long dormant engineering talents, and is happier than I've ever known her to be since she's doing her own thing and writing her own rules. Her job satisfaction appears to be off the charts and I don't think I've ever seen her work so hard.
- danac 16y agoAnother relatively male-dominated field is banking (although probably less so than programming), yet one can argue that there's plenty of drama operating within those concrete towers. What differentiates the level of "drama" between the banking industry from the software programming industry? Is it because engineering is inherently more meritocratic and less egotistical? Or is there just too much money and power at stake when it comes to banking that one can't help but get involved in more politicking? Does the (presence or absence of any one)gender come into play at all?