5 ms·

This seems to be one of those narrow stats that misses the meta around it. A lot of my female peers, while they like CS would consider family to be more import

by screye 6y ago

This seems to be one of those narrow stats that misses the meta around it. A lot of my female peers, while they like CS would consider family to be more important. (also common among men, but less so) Leaving a job to focus on children is very much a privilege in the 21st century. Generally speaking, rich people marry rich people and people in tech are generally speaking - rich. This makes quitting the job for 1 spouse easier than in other professions. Inclusivity is far smaller of an issue than parental leave, better working hours and the ability to show apathy towards your job. Tech gives you none. It is one of the few professions where you're expected to have it as your hobby. you're expected to keep learning in and out of the job. You are expected to attach your self worth to your work. None of these are exclusive to women. It's just that men have been conditioned to function in this ruthless framework without alternative, so they trudge on. Women bail when they can. Let's talk about how hard it is to re-enter tech. Doing leet code from scratch when you haven't coded in 2 years is 6 months of full time work of prep. Companies like Google and FB make people of all seniority and technical roles to go through this grind. Let alone the fact that staying up to date is its own problem that gets compounded once you have kids. This is not a he or a she problem. this is a problem(salient feature?) of tech. I am sure there are small diversity and I clusivity things that can improve too. But, they ate not the bulk of the problem.. The hard pill to swallow is if tech wants more women, it will need to decrease its unreasonable demands down to other similar careers for both men and women.

ghaff 6y ago
While I don't necessarily disagree with all of that, I would point out that there is a whole wide world of "tech" outside of stereotypical Silicon Valley startups and tech giants where many of those statements don't apply or at least apply to a significantly lesser degree.
zpeti 6y ago
Anything you do, the more time you put into it the better you will be. This is true of a workplace, or a hobby. If there is a competition somewhere, more hours with usually translate to higher performance, and moving up in the hierarchy. This is not a conditioning of the tech world, or even "companies" in the legal sense, this is true of almost an system in the world. I imagine someone working extra hours and hard in the chinese communist party also has a higher chance of moving up. In fact, not so long ago, it was finance and big banks where people famously slept on the office floor and worked 20 hour days as juniors, and that only got slightly better as you moved up. Men and women all have a personal choice about how much energy they put into what. That can be your job, your hobby, or your family. You have to choose what aligns with your goals. Are there differences in goals for men and women? I'll leave that as an open question, as I don't want to get into this controversial area. But to suggest this is some unique thing to 21st century tech, is not really true. How many hours do you think people spend farming or hunting thousands of years ago?
- woohoojoo 6y ago
  100% agree. There are major psychological And physiological differences Between men and women. (Reminder: difference is the opposite of equal. Also, genetically distinct individuals are not equal. “Equal” is only useful in quantitative analysis). Learn more here: “Gender Equality Paradox” - a Scandinavian comedian explores this topic by interviewing academics from various sides of the political spectrum. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE
branweb 6y ago
you raise some valid points but I disagree with your conclusion. Tech is a gravy train compared to most jobs. I say this as someone who transitioned into it from a more physical blue-collar job and just went through the interview process recently. It sucked but "ruthless framework", etc. is hyperbole.
- ghaff 6y ago
  There are aspects of tech at some companies (and teams within companies) that are perhaps uniquely problematic--like the idea that "real programmers" have personal projects with Github repos. But the idea that young big firm lawyers and investment bankers--or many people who do more physical work and work on a less regular schedule (at much lower pay)--have it comparatively easy is the SV bubble talking.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Blue collar work isn't any better or worse than tech if you're young enough for your body to take it. You've got all the same variation, good bosses, bad bosses, slow and steady workplaces vs crisis every day workplaces. One of the big differences is that being the guy who gets woken up at 3am is for the young people in tech but in the blue collar industries its for the guys who have stuck it out past 40 and are really experienced. Side projects are just as common in the blue collar world but they're used as less of a technical filter and more of a culture fit filter.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      >culture fit filter Absolutely, if you're the one person in a group who doesn't want to go hunting on the weekend or doesn't care about working on and accessorizing your pickup, you may not really fit in. (Just picking a couple of random stereotypical behaviors that have certainly existed with people I've worked with.)
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        I meant it more like they casually ask you what you do when you're not at work and you mention that you put big engines in small boats and if the existing employees have hobbies that also involve money pit projects with vehicles then you get a couple extra hire-ability points that might make the difference. Nobody cares what you don't do so long as you're not loud and obnoxious about being superior to people who do whatever that thing is.
wakawaka1 6y ago
(Beware the following “wrong think” which will cause you cognitive dissonance— it will challenge your popular culture world view. Yes, if you dislike the following, you are not counter culture. You are a subscriber to pop culture. If you are pained by these words, then you follow the same political view as the mainstream— the biggest banks, Hollywood, mainstream News, etc. Congratulations on your zombie-like conformity.) Diversity is a divide and conquer strategy for controlling populations. When groups fight each other (based on inborn qualities, in a tribalistic manner), they don’t fight socio económic elites as much. Have you noticed how much diversity is promoted by propaganda outlets across news & entertainment? That should give you a major hint of the intentions of socioeconomic elites: to push this idea on the population in a concealed, covert, subtle way. If interested in challenging your perspective: Research the topic of how diversity in neighborhoods reduces trust and cohesion. Additionally, for major corporations, Regulations to enforce diversity reduces their competition, because only the largest corporations can afford the most competitive salaries to attract the small pool of “diverse” candidates. Ultimately the concept of diversity is itself racist and sexist, as are those who espouse it.
- Dirlewanger 6y ago
  >Diversity is a divide and conquer strategy for controlling populations. Amazon/Whole Foods knows all about that.
- tfehring 6y ago
  I’m aware of the strategy you mention in the context of racial and ethnic diversity, but do you have a source suggesting that cohesion also decreases with more gender diversity, and that governments, corporations, etc. are somehow actively exploiting that? If anything I’d expect the opposite effect to occur.
  - AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
    Just a small empirical experience. No conclusions. When there are a couple of girls in the class, they all tend to hang out together. Once the ratio goes closer to 1:1, there's a "boys' club" and there's a "girls' club".
christiansakai 6y ago
Seconded that. It is a lot about choice in this socio-economic level. I bet if a lot of men can afford to also leave their tech jobs (or any jobs for that matter) for family or for pursuing something else, they would do it, and we'll see the same headline but for men, even with good working environment.
troughway 6y ago
>it will need to decrease its unreasonable demands down to other similar careers for both men and women. Which unreasonable demands and which other similar careers?
antoniuschan99 6y ago
My prof said to go into database systems if you wanted to do something in tech that changes the slowest
- jasonv 6y ago
  At the last three enterprise organizations that I work(ed), the DB leads have been women.
- aNoob7000 6y ago
  As someone working as a DBA for over 20 years, the statement is correct, but it not all rainbows and unicorns in the database world. Depending on the organization and applications, keeping things patched and running requires many nights and weekends, which I think most women with children would shy away from. Additionally, being a DBA is a thankless job. The only time you will hear about a database is when there's a performance issue, or it is down.
dfxm12 6y ago
This seems to be one of those narrow stats that misses the meta around it. There's more meta around it. People in this age group seem to switch jobs a lot. This roughly falls in line with what Gallop found with regards to your average Millennial: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231587/millennials-job-hopping-generation.aspx https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231587/millennials-job-hopp... Anecdotally, among the people I graduated with, I'm unique in that I'm with the same company and field since graduation. Almost everyone I know who is about 35 has switched jobs once or twice. A lot have moved from tech to other areas too. ... parental leave, better working hours and the ability to show apathy towards your job. Tech gives you none. I 100% disagree here - it depends on your employer, this isn't a "tech" thing. Again, this is anecdotal, but my employer offers parental leave above and beyond what is mandated by the state and federally and was allowing all kinds of work from arrangements and flexible scheduling even before COVID. Of my female colleagues, none left their job, let alone tech, because of work related issues after recently having a child.
plantain 6y ago
This theory would be relatively easy to verify by comparing against other 'rich' professions. I think the reason is much simpler though - a small but significant number of our colleagues continue to make it horrible for women to remain in the industry, and casting it as women wanting to leave for families sits pretty poorly with me.
tchaffee 6y ago
Except for the fact that thirty-seven percent of respondents who said they'd left the industry listed "Noninclusive company culture" as their reason for leaving. A huge and embarrassing number for our industry that has nothing to do with considering family more important.

by screye 6y ago

ghaff 6y ago

While I don't necessarily disagree with all of that, I would point out that there is a whole wide world of "tech" outside of stereotypical Silicon Valley startups and tech giants where many of those statements don't apply or at least apply to a significantly lesser degree.

zpeti 6y ago

Anything you do, the more time you put into it the better you will be. This is true of a workplace, or a hobby. If there is a competition somewhere, more hours with usually translate to higher performance, and moving up in the hierarchy. This is not a conditioning of the tech world, or even "companies" in the legal sense, this is true of almost an system in the world. I imagine someone working extra hours and hard in the chinese communist party also has a higher chance of moving up. In fact, not so long ago, it was finance and big banks where people famously slept on the office floor and worked 20 hour days as juniors, and that only got slightly better as you moved up. Men and women all have a personal choice about how much energy they put into what. That can be your job, your hobby, or your family. You have to choose what aligns with your goals. Are there differences in goals for men and women? I'll leave that as an open question, as I don't want to get into this controversial area. But to suggest this is some unique thing to 21st century tech, is not really true. How many hours do you think people spend farming or hunting thousands of years ago?

woohoojoo 6y ago
100% agree. There are major psychological And physiological differences Between men and women. (Reminder: difference is the opposite of equal. Also, genetically distinct individuals are not equal. “Equal” is only useful in quantitative analysis). Learn more here: “Gender Equality Paradox” - a Scandinavian comedian explores this topic by interviewing academics from various sides of the political spectrum. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE

branweb 6y ago

you raise some valid points but I disagree with your conclusion. Tech is a gravy train compared to most jobs. I say this as someone who transitioned into it from a more physical blue-collar job and just went through the interview process recently. It sucked but "ruthless framework", etc. is hyperbole.

ghaff 6y ago
There are aspects of tech at some companies (and teams within companies) that are perhaps uniquely problematic--like the idea that "real programmers" have personal projects with Github repos. But the idea that young big firm lawyers and investment bankers--or many people who do more physical work and work on a less regular schedule (at much lower pay)--have it comparatively easy is the SV bubble talking.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Blue collar work isn't any better or worse than tech if you're young enough for your body to take it. You've got all the same variation, good bosses, bad bosses, slow and steady workplaces vs crisis every day workplaces. One of the big differences is that being the guy who gets woken up at 3am is for the young people in tech but in the blue collar industries its for the guys who have stuck it out past 40 and are really experienced. Side projects are just as common in the blue collar world but they're used as less of a technical filter and more of a culture fit filter.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    >culture fit filter Absolutely, if you're the one person in a group who doesn't want to go hunting on the weekend or doesn't care about working on and accessorizing your pickup, you may not really fit in. (Just picking a couple of random stereotypical behaviors that have certainly existed with people I've worked with.)
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      I meant it more like they casually ask you what you do when you're not at work and you mention that you put big engines in small boats and if the existing employees have hobbies that also involve money pit projects with vehicles then you get a couple extra hire-ability points that might make the difference. Nobody cares what you don't do so long as you're not loud and obnoxious about being superior to people who do whatever that thing is.

wakawaka1 6y ago

(Beware the following “wrong think” which will cause you cognitive dissonance— it will challenge your popular culture world view. Yes, if you dislike the following, you are not counter culture. You are a subscriber to pop culture. If you are pained by these words, then you follow the same political view as the mainstream— the biggest banks, Hollywood, mainstream News, etc. Congratulations on your zombie-like conformity.) Diversity is a divide and conquer strategy for controlling populations. When groups fight each other (based on inborn qualities, in a tribalistic manner), they don’t fight socio económic elites as much. Have you noticed how much diversity is promoted by propaganda outlets across news & entertainment? That should give you a major hint of the intentions of socioeconomic elites: to push this idea on the population in a concealed, covert, subtle way. If interested in challenging your perspective: Research the topic of how diversity in neighborhoods reduces trust and cohesion. Additionally, for major corporations, Regulations to enforce diversity reduces their competition, because only the largest corporations can afford the most competitive salaries to attract the small pool of “diverse” candidates. Ultimately the concept of diversity is itself racist and sexist, as are those who espouse it.

Dirlewanger 6y ago
>Diversity is a divide and conquer strategy for controlling populations. Amazon/Whole Foods knows all about that.
tfehring 6y ago
I’m aware of the strategy you mention in the context of racial and ethnic diversity, but do you have a source suggesting that cohesion also decreases with more gender diversity, and that governments, corporations, etc. are somehow actively exploiting that? If anything I’d expect the opposite effect to occur.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
  Just a small empirical experience. No conclusions. When there are a couple of girls in the class, they all tend to hang out together. Once the ratio goes closer to 1:1, there's a "boys' club" and there's a "girls' club".

christiansakai 6y ago

Seconded that. It is a lot about choice in this socio-economic level. I bet if a lot of men can afford to also leave their tech jobs (or any jobs for that matter) for family or for pursuing something else, they would do it, and we'll see the same headline but for men, even with good working environment.

troughway 6y ago

>it will need to decrease its unreasonable demands down to other similar careers for both men and women. Which unreasonable demands and which other similar careers?

antoniuschan99 6y ago

My prof said to go into database systems if you wanted to do something in tech that changes the slowest

jasonv 6y ago
At the last three enterprise organizations that I work(ed), the DB leads have been women.
aNoob7000 6y ago
As someone working as a DBA for over 20 years, the statement is correct, but it not all rainbows and unicorns in the database world. Depending on the organization and applications, keeping things patched and running requires many nights and weekends, which I think most women with children would shy away from. Additionally, being a DBA is a thankless job. The only time you will hear about a database is when there's a performance issue, or it is down.

dfxm12 6y ago

This seems to be one of those narrow stats that misses the meta around it. There's more meta around it. People in this age group seem to switch jobs a lot. This roughly falls in line with what Gallop found with regards to your average Millennial: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231587/millennials-job-hopping-generation.aspx https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231587/millennials-job-hopp... Anecdotally, among the people I graduated with, I'm unique in that I'm with the same company and field since graduation. Almost everyone I know who is about 35 has switched jobs once or twice. A lot have moved from tech to other areas too. ... parental leave, better working hours and the ability to show apathy towards your job. Tech gives you none. I 100% disagree here - it depends on your employer, this isn't a "tech" thing. Again, this is anecdotal, but my employer offers parental leave above and beyond what is mandated by the state and federally and was allowing all kinds of work from arrangements and flexible scheduling even before COVID. Of my female colleagues, none left their job, let alone tech, because of work related issues after recently having a child.

plantain 6y ago

This theory would be relatively easy to verify by comparing against other 'rich' professions. I think the reason is much simpler though - a small but significant number of our colleagues continue to make it horrible for women to remain in the industry, and casting it as women wanting to leave for families sits pretty poorly with me.

tchaffee 6y ago

Except for the fact that thirty-seven percent of respondents who said they'd left the industry listed "Noninclusive company culture" as their reason for leaving. A huge and embarrassing number for our industry that has nothing to do with considering family more important.