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> Currently, 80 per cent of software programmers in America are male [...] Liukas believes that the profession only became dominated by men after people realise
by dozzie 11y ago
> Currently, 80 per cent of software programmers in America are male [...] Liukas believes that the profession only became dominated by men after people realised that it was well paid and highly creative.
Well, no. It became male-dominated when it became a subject of tinkering, so
one could do that at home. Now that it's established that it pays good, it
started to gain attention from women.
- mauricemir 11y agoprobably because home computers became much more gendered and i suspect the change to IT being an engineering graduate entry might have something to do with it
- dozzie 11y agoPossibly. But still, it's women who are interested in IT now that it's an eligible occupation, not men back in '70s and '80s; programming was not sexy back then. So, Liukas is simply wrong here.
- icebraining 11y agoIn 1984, women earned 37% of the CS bachelor degrees and were 38% of the CS workforce. How does the "sexyness" theory explain this? I agree with you that home computers where the turning point, but it has nothing to do with being "sexy", but with the gender roles prejudices in families, which heavily biased who got computers for birthday and Christmas, while before it was purely an academic activity, therefore more accessible to women (by that time).
- dozzie 11y agoYou got it totally wrong. Programming wasn't sexy until late '90s, when internet bubble happened. Earlier it was just another occupation that was boring, like electronics or mechanical engineering (to non-tinkering people, of course). By now it should be clear that by "sexy" I mean "desired to profess". All combined, "the 'sexyness' theory" doesn't need to explain why at the peak 38% of the CS workforce were women. It's not meant to explain anything, it's meant as merely an observation that it's untrue that men only got to IT when it paid well. It was the opposite: IT was already a male-dominated field when it started to pay well.
- icebraining 11y agoFair enough; I understood you meant women went into it now because it's "sexy". That said, back in '84 when women still composed a good chunk of the workforce, programmers and system analysts earned $60-$100k/year (2015 dollars), which is close to the current average ($80k in 2013). So it seems to me that it already paid well when it became male-dominated - even if that wasn't the reason it did so.
- apetresc 11y agoWhat does it mean for a home computer to become "gendered"?
- mauricemir 11y agoSorry I meant that some toys / gadgets have a perceived gender. Home computers became seen as boys toys.
- icebraining 11y agoThe concept of a home computer and for whom it was for was biased towards a certain gender.
- jerven 11y agoIt used to be ladies job. Then after ww2 they where fired to become house wives and make place for men coming back from war. Until the 80's women in the few programming jobs and courses in the US used to be in the 40% only when home pcs and gaming became common did the gender disparity start to become more extreme. Short rely because on phone did not read article her
- Jem 11y agoYes, you're right. All male progammers are in it for the tinkering and the women are just in it for the money.
- jbob2000 11y agoWell they weren't complaining about it when we were just nerds in our parent's garages and basements.
- dvdcxn 11y agoIt seems your sarcasm has gone over some heads.
- Jem 11y agoMy poor misunderstood British sense of humour :)
- kamaal 11y agoActually if you are in for the money, feeding your family and if your life depended on it you will more likely succeed at doing it. Because the sheer focus, seriousness and commitment you will throw towards it will make it happen. If you in for tinkering, you will move on to something else once the clots of curiosity are gone.
- Jem 11y agoI'm not really sure what your point is?
- meric 11y agoLiukas believes that the profession only became dominated by men after people realised that it was well paid and highly creative. Might be projection on her part - there are professions she could see herself wanting to do, because they paid well - Assumes all the men are the same. My parents wanted me to be in Finance, Accounting or in Medicine because those jobs paid well and had prestige. I went in Software Engineering because I tinkered with programming since I was 13. I'm sure she'd be similarly offended by reading same sexist remarks from the article, switching genders: "Why men make gifted coders" "Liukas believes that the profession only became dominated by women after people realised that it was well paid and highly creative."
- mauricemir 11y agoRemember that Liukas is not a native English speaker and she might not have understood how that will be understood. Secondly when you talk to any journalist you have to be ultra careful they don't twist what you say into some thing that fits their agenda or their own biases.
- jacquesm 11y agoIt doesn't matter how careful you are they will twist it anyway.
- mauricemir 11y agoIt always was a relatively well paid job.
- zzalpha 11y agoIt became male-dominated when it became a subject of tinkering, so one could do that at home Ugh, you were so close to making the right point. 1. It became a subject of tinkering. 2. Boys are socialized to be tinkerers. 3. Girls are not socialized to be tinkerers. 4. It became male dominated. The fundamental, underlying problem is with the way girls are socialized in the home to be pretty caregivers instead of intelligent problem solvers.
- hoopd 11y agoDo boys tinker because they're socialized to tinker, or is the socialization process built around natural tendencies of boys to tinker? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/
- zzalpha 11y agoSure, as the article states: "We offer the hypothesis that toy preferences reflect hormonally influenced behavioral and cognitive biases which are sculpted by social processes into the sex differences seen in monkeys and humans." So yes, there may be some biological/neurological biases, but that they are then socially reinforced, which is exactly my point. And last I checked, one of the things that makes humans humans is our ability to grow beyond our basic wired-in instincts. So I fail to see how that article can be seen as a pass for what is clearly a cultured gender bias.
- hoopd 11y agoYour point couldn't be that biological underpinnings are being socially reinforced because you didn't mention the biological underpinnings at all. Your 4-point history is also off because it implies there was a gender neutral computer science that was then taken out of balance by socialization. The only thing you seem intersted in addressing is that girls aren't encouraged to tinker with things - that in and of itself is a fair point. You don't need to create a false history and a false biology to address it. Focusing purely on socialization, while it will make you friends, will also prevent you from seeing the other reasons STEM fields are predominantly male.