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If you development/technical roles are all male, then your supporting (manager/etc) roles must be mostly female if you end up with company-wide gender balance.

If you development/technical roles are all male, then your supporting (manager/etc) roles must be mostly female if you end up with company-wide gender balance. This form of semi-gender-balance is not uncommon; many supporting roles (HR,etc) tend to skew female. As a female developer, I find the technology differential between the genders to be at least as awkward as having a strong but more uniform gender skew across the company would be. Without any individual behaving incorrectly in any way, it feels awkward to be the only technical female in a company. Having a non-zero number of other women present is better than none, but it's completely different from having a non-zero number of equally technical women. When the information flow of technical information is always male-to-female, it just makes me feel uncomfortable, even though no one is doing anything wrong.

swombat 13y ago
How would you solve this problem if you were in charge? (assuming you're not already in charge) (genuinely curious, I have no idea how I'd try to solve it in a large company context)
- astrieanna 13y ago
  I'm definitely not in charge; I've only just graduated from college, so the sum total of my work experience is two internships. The companies I worked at did both ask for advice/feedback on how they could recruit more women; they both view their lack of gender diversity as a problem. (neither had any full-time female developers; only one had female dev interns other than me) I don't think I had anything useful to tell them at the time, and I'm still don't have especially clear ideas on how to solve the problem. Both companies are full of very nice, very smart people. They weren't doing anything wrong that I could see. It seems to me that the problem might be advertising. They might be (unintentionally) advertising in male-dominated spaces (online or otherwise). This might be somewhat counteracted by the fact that both companies support/advertise-at specifically for-tech-women events (sponsoring a Girl Geek dinner; attending the Grace Hopper conference job fair). Another possible factor is that both companies are known for having challenging interviews. (like a lot of well respected tech companies) It's possible that some potential female applicants talk themselves out of applying; I've seen (male) friends come pretty close to talking themselves out of applying because they felt they wouldn't get the job. This is also something of a circular problem. The lack of female developers makes them less appealing places to work for potential new female hires; the imbalance signals that there might be problems at the company and the situation is a problem in itself. The company might also be less likely to hear about female-focused events to advertise at. I don't claim to have a solution. I just wanted to back up that have enough women in general around does not really help with a lack of technical women.
claudius 13y ago
That’s what I meant with ‘even worse…’. Assuming a child would come along on bring-your-child-to-work day, would that child get the impression that women are equally capable of doing technical work as men or would it think that women ‘belong’ in HR?
- astrieanna 13y ago
  Yes, I was agreeing with you. Sorry if that was unclear.

swombat 13y ago

How would you solve this problem if you were in charge? (assuming you're not already in charge) (genuinely curious, I have no idea how I'd try to solve it in a large company context)

astrieanna 13y ago
I'm definitely not in charge; I've only just graduated from college, so the sum total of my work experience is two internships. The companies I worked at did both ask for advice/feedback on how they could recruit more women; they both view their lack of gender diversity as a problem. (neither had any full-time female developers; only one had female dev interns other than me) I don't think I had anything useful to tell them at the time, and I'm still don't have especially clear ideas on how to solve the problem. Both companies are full of very nice, very smart people. They weren't doing anything wrong that I could see. It seems to me that the problem might be advertising. They might be (unintentionally) advertising in male-dominated spaces (online or otherwise). This might be somewhat counteracted by the fact that both companies support/advertise-at specifically for-tech-women events (sponsoring a Girl Geek dinner; attending the Grace Hopper conference job fair). Another possible factor is that both companies are known for having challenging interviews. (like a lot of well respected tech companies) It's possible that some potential female applicants talk themselves out of applying; I've seen (male) friends come pretty close to talking themselves out of applying because they felt they wouldn't get the job. This is also something of a circular problem. The lack of female developers makes them less appealing places to work for potential new female hires; the imbalance signals that there might be problems at the company and the situation is a problem in itself. The company might also be less likely to hear about female-focused events to advertise at. I don't claim to have a solution. I just wanted to back up that have enough women in general around does not really help with a lack of technical women.

claudius 13y ago

That’s what I meant with ‘even worse…’. Assuming a child would come along on bring-your-child-to-work day, would that child get the impression that women are equally capable of doing technical work as men or would it think that women ‘belong’ in HR?

astrieanna 13y ago
Yes, I was agreeing with you. Sorry if that was unclear.