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I agree with that. My comment here is about the idea that the disparity can be explained because "computer science is more thing-oriented and women are more in

by cauch 2y ago

I agree with that. My comment here is about the idea that the disparity can be explained because "computer science is more thing-oriented and women are more interested in people-oriented activities". If it was true, we would not see different numbers in different STEM fields. Personally, I think that the cultural image of the field, rather than it being intrinsically thing- or people-oriented, has a bigger impact. In practice, biology and computer science are both activities where you work on your algorithm. And in practice, I would argue that computer scientists need to have more people skills than biologists, as computer scientists need to interact more between each others and with non-dev people (managers, internal teams that need to have internal tools built, external users giving feedbacks, ...). But biology has an image of "nature and animals" that is associated with women and computer science has an image of "nerd coding alone in his mancave" that is associated with men. The thing is that these images are cultural, not intrinsic to the activity in itself.

jimbokun 2y ago
Biology is because it’s a prerequisite for medical fields increasingly dominated by women.
- cauch 2y ago
  We are talking about the STEM biology field. Biology students don't go to medical fields. There are more people going to medical fields from computer science, due to the need of medical software, or from physics due to radiology.
Manuel_D 2y ago
> My comment here is about the idea that the disparity can be explained because "computer science is more thing-oriented and women are more interested in people-oriented activities". > If it was true, we would not see different numbers in different STEM fields. No, this does not track. It could also be that some fields in STEM are more people oriented than others. Psychology is over 2/3rd female. If anything, that inconsistency in representation supports the link between things vs. people and women's representation.
- cauch 2y ago
  > No, this does not track. It could also be that some fields in STEM are more people oriented than others. And I'm saying that I have taken that into account and I cannot see, in practice, how mathematicians, statisticians or biologists, in their day-to-day job life, are interacting more with people. Some of them are only interacting with their like-minded same-field team member, while software developers need to interact with the company business team, the finance team, the user experience team, the research team, ... plenty of teams that are not talking the same language and have different and sometimes opposite interests.
  - Manuel_D 2y ago
    First of all, most women studying mathematics in undergrad are actually studying to become math teachers. This is a much more people-oriented job. This is why there's a big drop between the share of women undergraduate math majors, and women math PhDs. The latter is 25%, roughly on par with computer science. Lots of women exit academima and start teaching after a master's or a bachelor's degree, thus depressing the representation in later degrees. My sister majored in biology, and after graduation she worked on managing clinical research trials. She'd visit people testing new medications and interview them about their experience with improved symptoms and any side effects. I'm not sure how representative this is of biology as a whole, but personally I can easily see why biology would be more people oriented than software development.
    - cauch 2y ago
      Women don't study math to become teachers: if they want to become teachers, they can study literature, language, history, chemistry, ... If they study math is because they like math. I strongly suspect that the large majority starts in math with not specific plan. Then, yes, they move away from academia. But it is an error to jump on the conclusion that it is because they wanted to do teaching and not because they saw how academia is for women in math and realized it's not worth the effort. If indeed the fact that you can do teaching after math studies makes math a people-oriented job, then every studies are people-oriented, because you can always teach any field. But that's not even the point. I'm not saying math is not people-oriented, I'm saying math is AS people-oriented AS computer science: if you want a people-oriented job, you can have one by doing math or by doing computer science, if you want a non-people-oriented job, you can have one by doing math or by doing computer science. You are pretending that software developer is intrinsically not-people-oriented. This is incorrect: you need to work in team, both with other software engineers and other totally different teams, you need to build tools FOR other people, listen to them to know what they need and listen to them when they have complains or difficulties. The whole job is "how can I solve OTHER PEOPLE'S PROBLEMS by being the proxy between them and the computer machine instructions". How is that not people-oriented? Again, there is this very very strange conception that software developer is somehow an extra-terrestrial activity. It feels like software developers have no idea of what other people do. Do you really think that an accountant that spend their whole career working for a specific internal department will meet and interact with more people than what a software developer can potentially? Or the people working in policy? Or the people working in operation and just managing the logistic? What about the cleaners? Is that a people-oriented job? I'm sure they create a lot of interesting relationship when they clean the office when everyone has left. What about a lab technician? What about a restaurant cook? Or an Amazon warehouse worker? (please, don't react to one of these examples, if you don't like one of them, feel free to just swap it to one of the thousand other examples where the employee will have less opportunity to interact with other humans than a software developer) Sure, not every accountant job does not involve the same level of people interaction, and similarly, there are software development jobs where the dev can go away with not interacting much. And sure, some developers, who are not people-oriented, find ways to make it work with them avoiding the people-aspect of their work. They usually need a manager to do this aspect of their job for them, and then complain that their manager is useless. But again, it is not intrinsic to the work of software development. Software development is not a not-people-oriented job. Some people want it to be, they are somehow proud to be not-people-oriented (they are so not-people-oriented that it is very important for them to socially boast about how they are not-people-oriented), and they have big difficulties to admit that their job is not intrinsically not-people-oriented, and because of that, it is a fake image and a distorted reputation (with all the problem it causes: developers that keep moaning when they need to do people oriented tasks as if they are special and should not do it while it totally makes sense that it is part of their role).

by cauch 2y ago

jimbokun 2y ago

Biology is because it’s a prerequisite for medical fields increasingly dominated by women.

cauch 2y ago
We are talking about the STEM biology field. Biology students don't go to medical fields. There are more people going to medical fields from computer science, due to the need of medical software, or from physics due to radiology.

Manuel_D 2y ago

> My comment here is about the idea that the disparity can be explained because "computer science is more thing-oriented and women are more interested in people-oriented activities". > If it was true, we would not see different numbers in different STEM fields. No, this does not track. It could also be that some fields in STEM are more people oriented than others. Psychology is over 2/3rd female. If anything, that inconsistency in representation supports the link between things vs. people and women's representation.

cauch 2y ago
> No, this does not track. It could also be that some fields in STEM are more people oriented than others. And I'm saying that I have taken that into account and I cannot see, in practice, how mathematicians, statisticians or biologists, in their day-to-day job life, are interacting more with people. Some of them are only interacting with their like-minded same-field team member, while software developers need to interact with the company business team, the finance team, the user experience team, the research team, ... plenty of teams that are not talking the same language and have different and sometimes opposite interests.
- Manuel_D 2y ago
  First of all, most women studying mathematics in undergrad are actually studying to become math teachers. This is a much more people-oriented job. This is why there's a big drop between the share of women undergraduate math majors, and women math PhDs. The latter is 25%, roughly on par with computer science. Lots of women exit academima and start teaching after a master's or a bachelor's degree, thus depressing the representation in later degrees. My sister majored in biology, and after graduation she worked on managing clinical research trials. She'd visit people testing new medications and interview them about their experience with improved symptoms and any side effects. I'm not sure how representative this is of biology as a whole, but personally I can easily see why biology would be more people oriented than software development.
  - cauch 2y ago
    Women don't study math to become teachers: if they want to become teachers, they can study literature, language, history, chemistry, ... If they study math is because they like math. I strongly suspect that the large majority starts in math with not specific plan. Then, yes, they move away from academia. But it is an error to jump on the conclusion that it is because they wanted to do teaching and not because they saw how academia is for women in math and realized it's not worth the effort. If indeed the fact that you can do teaching after math studies makes math a people-oriented job, then every studies are people-oriented, because you can always teach any field. But that's not even the point. I'm not saying math is not people-oriented, I'm saying math is AS people-oriented AS computer science: if you want a people-oriented job, you can have one by doing math or by doing computer science, if you want a non-people-oriented job, you can have one by doing math or by doing computer science. You are pretending that software developer is intrinsically not-people-oriented. This is incorrect: you need to work in team, both with other software engineers and other totally different teams, you need to build tools FOR other people, listen to them to know what they need and listen to them when they have complains or difficulties. The whole job is "how can I solve OTHER PEOPLE'S PROBLEMS by being the proxy between them and the computer machine instructions". How is that not people-oriented? Again, there is this very very strange conception that software developer is somehow an extra-terrestrial activity. It feels like software developers have no idea of what other people do. Do you really think that an accountant that spend their whole career working for a specific internal department will meet and interact with more people than what a software developer can potentially? Or the people working in policy? Or the people working in operation and just managing the logistic? What about the cleaners? Is that a people-oriented job? I'm sure they create a lot of interesting relationship when they clean the office when everyone has left. What about a lab technician? What about a restaurant cook? Or an Amazon warehouse worker? (please, don't react to one of these examples, if you don't like one of them, feel free to just swap it to one of the thousand other examples where the employee will have less opportunity to interact with other humans than a software developer) Sure, not every accountant job does not involve the same level of people interaction, and similarly, there are software development jobs where the dev can go away with not interacting much. And sure, some developers, who are not people-oriented, find ways to make it work with them avoiding the people-aspect of their work. They usually need a manager to do this aspect of their job for them, and then complain that their manager is useless. But again, it is not intrinsic to the work of software development. Software development is not a not-people-oriented job. Some people want it to be, they are somehow proud to be not-people-oriented (they are so not-people-oriented that it is very important for them to socially boast about how they are not-people-oriented), and they have big difficulties to admit that their job is not intrinsically not-people-oriented, and because of that, it is a fake image and a distorted reputation (with all the problem it causes: developers that keep moaning when they need to do people oriented tasks as if they are special and should not do it while it totally makes sense that it is part of their role).