5 ms·

Why women are leaving the tech industry in droves

21 points by sparkzilla 12y ago

sparkzilla 12y ago
Irony Alert: Ms Gardner was the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, a site which has 90% male contributors and has had ongoing problems with the harassment of women contributors.
- Retra 12y ago
  How is that ironic?
- jameshart 12y ago
  Because she failed to single-handedly reverse the trend in the context of wikipedia, she loses the right to express an opinion about how bad it is?
  - sparkzilla 12y ago
    She wasn't single handed. She had the huge resources and budget of Wikipedia available to her. She had the power to guide a team in the inner organization, and many thousands of people beyond. She had access to a huge PR platform. She did nothing substantive when she had the chance to take action, so why should we take anything she says now seriously?
    - erikpukinskis 12y ago
      Because speaking the truth and being capable of changing it are different things?
benjamincburns 12y ago
I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I'm pushing 30, and I'm only just starting to realize how insanely weird this is. The tech industry is, pretty much by definition, at the forefront of modern. It's an industry that thrives over the entire world. In pretty much every other measure of diversity and equality most mature tech companies do quite well. For so many people technology skills are a great equalizing force. Why is it then that over the entire industry, over the entire world, women are underrepresented? It's a little embarrassing. More importantly - how do we fix it?
- RickS 12y ago
  Disclaimer: This is a personal theory, and while there's some research that says similar things, I'm not a cultural anthropologist. Grain of salt. I think it has to do with the youth of tech as an industry. I'm 25, and I still very well remember the days when if you wanted to work on a computer, a screwdriver was required. They were heavy, too! Heavy enough that a ~3rd grader would have serious trouble carting them around, especially up the stairs. You can fit all the computing power you need into a messenger bag today, but that wasn't always the case. The women entering/leaving the tech industry today are still almost unanimously of the age where they were deterred not by the constraints of programming and computer knowledge, but of the more traditionally male-oriented tasks like screwing pieces of metal together and lifting heavy stuff. 2 decades ago, it was less cool for girls to get dirty with that kind of thing. Of course there are the same kind of systemic problems that plague the culture as a whole, but I think the problem was exacerbated by the fact that hardware free, strictly knowledge based computer work is only now becoming the norm. Hardware is becoming less stigmatized for women (albeit slower than programming), and it's also becoming less necessary, so my hope is that things only improve from here.
- Umn55 12y ago
  >Why is it then that over the entire industry, over the entire world, women are under-represented? Because women are smart and weak, and I don't mean that in a negative way. Women's evolutionary history over time was to find a strong man who has resources, hence women's evolutionary programming isn't geared for technological trenches of insane work hours and dedication of 20 something youths. Women have an ovulatory cycle, and the enlightenment was wrong about human reasoning and human functioning. Most of our surface behaviour is controlled by unconscious processes. See here about reasoning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
wsxedcr 12y ago
I assume harassment would not happen in the open source world since you can use an alias to hide yourself, however, why is the portion of female contributors so low? Tech blog writers, people don't read blogs because it is written by a man, why is there so much less programming blogger that are female? I felt the discrimination that is happening is the result, but not the cause of female leaving the industry
- Retra 12y ago
  You don't have many female programming bloggers because you don't have many female programmers.
TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
Dear god are these comments awful. Wonder why there aren't women in tech? The stuff in this comments section probably has something to do with it,

21 points by sparkzilla 12y ago

Irony Alert: Ms Gardner was the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, a site which has 90% male contributors and has had ongoing problems with the harassment of women contributors.

Retra 12y ago
How is that ironic?
jameshart 12y ago
Because she failed to single-handedly reverse the trend in the context of wikipedia, she loses the right to express an opinion about how bad it is?
- sparkzilla 12y ago
  She wasn't single handed. She had the huge resources and budget of Wikipedia available to her. She had the power to guide a team in the inner organization, and many thousands of people beyond. She had access to a huge PR platform. She did nothing substantive when she had the chance to take action, so why should we take anything she says now seriously?
  - erikpukinskis 12y ago
    Because speaking the truth and being capable of changing it are different things?

benjamincburns 12y ago

I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I'm pushing 30, and I'm only just starting to realize how insanely weird this is. The tech industry is, pretty much by definition, at the forefront of modern. It's an industry that thrives over the entire world. In pretty much every other measure of diversity and equality most mature tech companies do quite well. For so many people technology skills are a great equalizing force. Why is it then that over the entire industry, over the entire world, women are underrepresented? It's a little embarrassing. More importantly - how do we fix it?

RickS 12y ago
Disclaimer: This is a personal theory, and while there's some research that says similar things, I'm not a cultural anthropologist. Grain of salt. I think it has to do with the youth of tech as an industry. I'm 25, and I still very well remember the days when if you wanted to work on a computer, a screwdriver was required. They were heavy, too! Heavy enough that a ~3rd grader would have serious trouble carting them around, especially up the stairs. You can fit all the computing power you need into a messenger bag today, but that wasn't always the case. The women entering/leaving the tech industry today are still almost unanimously of the age where they were deterred not by the constraints of programming and computer knowledge, but of the more traditionally male-oriented tasks like screwing pieces of metal together and lifting heavy stuff. 2 decades ago, it was less cool for girls to get dirty with that kind of thing. Of course there are the same kind of systemic problems that plague the culture as a whole, but I think the problem was exacerbated by the fact that hardware free, strictly knowledge based computer work is only now becoming the norm. Hardware is becoming less stigmatized for women (albeit slower than programming), and it's also becoming less necessary, so my hope is that things only improve from here.
Umn55 12y ago
>Why is it then that over the entire industry, over the entire world, women are under-represented? Because women are smart and weak, and I don't mean that in a negative way. Women's evolutionary history over time was to find a strong man who has resources, hence women's evolutionary programming isn't geared for technological trenches of insane work hours and dedication of 20 something youths. Women have an ovulatory cycle, and the enlightenment was wrong about human reasoning and human functioning. Most of our surface behaviour is controlled by unconscious processes. See here about reasoning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

wsxedcr 12y ago

I assume harassment would not happen in the open source world since you can use an alias to hide yourself, however, why is the portion of female contributors so low? Tech blog writers, people don't read blogs because it is written by a man, why is there so much less programming blogger that are female? I felt the discrimination that is happening is the result, but not the cause of female leaving the industry

Retra 12y ago
You don't have many female programming bloggers because you don't have many female programmers.

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago

Dear god are these comments awful. Wonder why there aren't women in tech? The stuff in this comments section probably has something to do with it,