
Women rise through the ranks of IT more rapidly than men - hrgeek
http://www.i-cio.com/profession/cio-profiles/item/women-it-professionals-on-a-faster-track-than-men
======
calex
Reading the comments on articles like this on hacker news always make me
deeply uncomfortable to be a woman in tech.

I know it's hard to believe, but women don't usually get sent to coding summer
camp as teenagers. Our parents don't usually encourage us to take AP computer
science, and our best friends aren't in CS and don't refer us for sweet
internships at Microsoft and Google.

If you're a woman in this industry, it's GENERALLY because it is something
that you very much care about and want to do.

It's not some feminist conspiracy that women are being promoted, it's just
that the women who go into tech are usually already pretty gritty people.
You're comparing a very driven and passionate subset of women to a very
general subset of men.

Here's a really great article I read once -- "I need terrible female
engineers": [https://medium.com/@amyngyn/i-need-terrible-female-
engineers...](https://medium.com/@amyngyn/i-need-terrible-female-
engineers-1023a2e973dd#.l85nr149d)

~~~
this2shallpaas
"I know it's hard to believe, but women don't usually get sent to coding
summer camp as teenagers. Our parents don't usually encourage us to take AP
computer science, and our best friends aren't in CS and don't refer us for
sweet internships at Microsoft and Google."

Is it hard to believe most men don't do those things, too? Some do, sure. And
of people that do these things, historically more have probably been men than
women (don't have the stats, but it sounds reasonable). But how many men do
you think do those things, vs those that don't? Some anecdata: I didn't do any
of those. Of all the engineers I can think of, male and female, very very few
went to coding summer camps or took AP computer science. Few had best friends
in CS in university, but sure, more did this than AP computer science or
coding summer camp. And few had sweet internships at tech companies.

~~~
calex
Oh great, more anecdotes in this thread. There are the cold hard facts, you
know:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/techs-g...](http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/techs-
gender-and-race-gap-starts-in-high-school/282966/)

>"It's already too late," Paul Graham, founder of the tech entrepreneur boot
camp Y Combinator, said last month in a controversial interview. "What we
should be doing is somehow changing the middle school computer science
curriculum or something like that."

>Ericson's analysis of the data shows that in 2013, 18 percent of the students
who took the [AP computer science] exam were women.

Who makes high school students' schedules? Parents and teachers, at least in
the US.

So let's put aside anecdotes and reactionary attitudes and just look at the
facts.

~~~
this2shallpaas
Happy to look at the facts. That more men than women take coding summer camps,
AP CS, have friends who are CS major, or get referrals to top companies sound
believable. Presenting evidence in the form of cold hard believable statistics
would be nice. I don't see any, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the
doubt, because I believe those claims anyway (though the AP CS stats of recent
times might be different - what parent doesn't want their child to program?
And women tend to get better grades than men and perform better in school
settings, so more women might be in AP CS classes in recent years).

Again, men don't usually do the things you're claiming, either. You're
claiming it with the language "women don't usually" because usually means more
often than not - over half. But I'm open to changing my mind with stats. I'm
happy to look at any you provide.

Do you have stats on most men being sent to coding summer camp as teenagers?
Most men having parents that encourage them to take AP computer science? Most
men having best friends who are in CS? Most men who refer them for sweet
internships at Microsoft and Google?

Men usually don't do those things either. Just because more of the people that
do those things are men than women, does not mean men, in general, do those
things. That's my point.

~~~
ethanbond
No one claimed "most men _______." The claim is that your average woman who is
employed in this sector faced more adversity than your average man who is
employed in this sector. Therefore, you'd expect the average woman employed to
have more grit than the average man employed, since the women with less
determination were filtered by various filters that don't exist for men.

You could argue that it's not a filter against women but a magnet towards men,
but that doesn't actually change the crux of the argument. There is clearly
_something_ that causes only 18% of AP CS exams being taken by women.

~~~
this2shallpaas
OP claimed most "most men _______." She made other claims as well, which I
didn't respond to. She claimed "most men ________" when she implied most men
experience code summer camps, parental encouragement to take AP CS classes,
etc. She said "women don't usually get sent to coding summer camp as
teenagers. Our parents don't usually encourage us to take AP computer science,
and our best friends aren't in CS and don't refer us for sweet internships at
Microsoft and Google."

Usually means "under normal conditions; generally." Generally means more often
than not, meaning over half / most.

[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/usually](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/usually)

~~~
ethanbond
And under what logical system does "women generally don't do ____" imply that
"men generally do ____?"

At most, it implies that "more men than women generally do ______," which is
totally true. Even that implication would be a bit of a leap were it not for
parent's later explicit clarifications on the point.

~~~
this2shallpaas
I want to talk to you about two groups - tall people and short people.
Usually, short people can't reach items that are on very high shelves.

Above, did I imply something about tall people's abilities to reach items on
very high shelves? I didn't claim anything about tall people specifically. But
I think I did make a claim about their abilities here, by implication, given
the context. It's natural to infer the claim - this is just part of how people
communicate. The claim is strongly implied - tall people can reach items on
very high shelves.

I believe OP's clarified claim (of people in AP CS classes, most are men; of
people at summer coding camps, most are men; etc), rather than OP's initial
claim (most men take AP CS classes; etc). The clarified claim seems accurate.
The initial claim is clearly inaccurate - and OP "stand[s] by it 100%".

~~~
dominotw
yea exactly. 'Usually people don't fly' is valid statement grammatically but
makes no sense.

------
fishtoaster
I suppose I could think of a number of explanations for this observed effect.

1\. Selection- because so much of IT is hostile to women, the only ones who
become senior in the field are the very good ones.

2\. Affirmative action- companies promoting women regardless of merit to seem
progressive.

3\. Some sort of inate or socialized advantage– the "women are better at
people stuff" philosophy. If this is the case, then you'd expect more women to
be in management.

4\. Methodological flaws in the survey. I can't find any detailed discussion
of their process, but phrases like "Of the senior developers who responded to
the survey" seem to imply there could easily be significant selection bias.

Feel free to take your pick based on what you already believe. Personally, I'm
going to wait for more data before forming any solid conclusions based on
this.

~~~
FT_intern
>Selection- because so much of IT is hostile to women

that's an unproven premise

~~~
fishtoaster
It's not a premise at all- I'm basing nothing on it. I'm not even claiming
it's true. I'm just saying that it is one of several possible explanations for
the available data.

------
tobyjsullivan
This immediately made me think of Paul Graham's article "A Way to Detect
Bias". He talks about how a hiring bias (against women in this case) results
in those who are hired being above average in skill.

Just one hypothesis on this data, but that would help explain why those women
who are hired then get promoted faster - because they are actually
outperforming their peers.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/bias.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/bias.html)

~~~
randyrand
I remember when this was first posted to HN the top comment was about a
serious flaw in this hypothesis. Need to find the comment thread again...

Edit: Found it,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10483751](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10483751)

e.g. the other explanation could be that women applicants are just better than
men, and that they aren't discriminated against.

~~~
WildUtah
Thank you for re-posting that.

------
colmvp
It's interesting that there is a huge emphasis on the gender disparity,
especially in tech, without also bringing race into the equation. When I first
read the article and headline, I first thought to myself: "Are we talking
about predominantly white women? Black women? Hispanic women? Asian women?"

For example, I know that Asians are generally 'over-represented' in tech yet
if you look stats which compare professionals by ethnicity
([https://d.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/inline...](https://d.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/inline/2015/05/3045954-inline-
i-fig-3-1ascendrptmanagement-pipeline-by-racegraph.jpg)), Asians (both male
and female) get promoted at a lower rate than white men and women
([https://c.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/inline...](https://c.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/inline/2015/05/3045954-inline-
i-fig4ascendrptaggregate-execparityindexbar.jpg)). And we could look at
specific company's like Intel, Yahoo, and LinkedIn to find similar patterns,
namely white people have a much higher likelihood to achieve higher executive
positions compared to Asians (even when controlling for difference in company
demographic composition).

~~~
JamesBarney
It would interesting to see that data broken up by age of immigration to the
country. I've worked with a large number of incredibly intelligent Asians who
immigrated here in theirs 20's-40's. And they are all too smart and hard
working for their positions, and it seems like the primary reason they've been
held back is because of things like visa issues, lack of fluency, lack of a
college/highschool/family network to draw upon, and less cultural
understanding which inhibits bonding. This has meant that many of them are 1-2
promotions behind where I think they would be if they had immigrated here in
middle school.

------
return0
Following the logic of most mental gymnasts here, the best IT companies should
be women-only companies by now. People seem automatically to turn off their
brains when discussing anything that might oppose the orthodoxy of affirmative
action. This is a case where a bias that first appeared in academia
([http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/04/women-
preferred-...](http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/04/women-
preferred-21-over-men-stem-faculty-positions)) and is now bleeding to
corporate life.

If men or any other subgroup are not rising through the ranks as fast, that is
a clear discrimination and it is a problem, not an 'achievement'. It's this
kind of ill-logic that brings pro-women policies in a bad light.

~~~
mcv
Because there are less women in tech, the best companies should be all women?
That logic makes no sense. If only the best women are hired, while average men
also get hired, that means there's discrimination against women, while the few
women that do stay in the industry will tend to be of above average ability,
and therefore rise faster.

As long as the vast majority of programmers are men, it's ludicrous to
complain that men are being discriminated against. There are dozens of studies
showing that men have it way easier in a multitude of ways. But it's good that
there are more visible women in tech, and hopefully that will lead to even out
the balance in the future.

~~~
return0
Surely it makes sense, like everything else in these comments! If societal
bias filters only high-performing women into tech, then the company that
managed to snatch all the females would surely have an advantage versus all
the rest. But let's not stop there with this rabbit hole: if indeed hiring
bias is the cause that women rise faster in tech, and we want women to reach
the highest echelons of tech industries, then logic dictates that we should
keep discriminating with equal vigor, or else women will stop rising the
ranks, leaving the goal unfinished. Oh, and by the way we could apply this
wise reasoning to any kind of group that is disadvantaged in tech, say, the
blind, the latinos, the blacks, those under 6 years old etc. They should all
be rising higher in the ranks, so that soon all senior positions are filled by
minority groups, leaving the "averages" in the lower ranks. simple logic.

~~~
mcv
If a company is more eager to hire women, they'd probably end up hiring more
average women, and the difference between men and women would go away. Also,
there are still plenty of above average men. The smartest company would hire
the best men and women, not hire just women, on the assumption that women are
better than men, because that assumption would end up defeating itself.

Though if a company only hire people who already established themselves at
other companies, and hire them blindly, only knowing their gender and nothing
about their performance, I suppose hiring women would be the better bet.

------
stcredzero
There's a common misconception, that technical excellence is a primary skill
for managing a team of programmers. It's not the primary skill but a secondary
one. The primary skill is managing people. One still needs to have technical
competence -- far beyond just being able to code. However, the focus shouldn't
be on dazzling displays of technical esoterica. The focus should be on
balancing a tangle of conflicting cost/benefits and communication with the
team -- logistics and tactics, not fisticuffs.

You can be a great manager with solidly average technical skills, so long as
you can find a resource to advise you. (Dunning-Krueger trap: You may not know
enough to understand if you truly understand the advice.) A team managed by
such will usually outperform an average manager with great technical skills.

Alexander the Great would probably have conquered more of the world, if he had
personally fought less.

~~~
choicewords
Didn't Alexander die of poisoning, not combat wound?

~~~
philk10
I think the poster was implying that if Alexander hadn't used wars for all his
gains he might have made more

~~~
stcredzero
Also true, but I was saying that he probably could have performed even better
through war, if he hadn't been as injured as he was at the end of his
campaigns.

------
tajen
As a man, I've noticed the "women promotion difference" very importantly in
companies I've been employed in: Since 2006, it's mostly women who are
promoted, with configurations like my last job where both my team lead and the
manager were women.

On the other hand, I've left those companies because I could notice there was
no career path for me, and created my own. I identify to a generation of men
who've been sacrified for women equality. I'm all for equality, as long as
everyone has equal chances, which we currently don't have. I'm very happy that
we now start having studies supporting that men are less promoted than women
today in some context (a minima in Luxembourg, France and Australia for what
I'm concerned).

It's now time we study across all countries the mean-time-to-promotion, and
it's time we include talks in conferences about the difficulties of men.

And it's time we stop having differentiated education and career paths for
women. Today, women are equal in the mind if most men, and have a large
swathes of explicit advantages granted by laws.

~~~
csallen
As a man, I'm embarrassed that this is the top comment on HN. This talk about
"a generation of men being sacrificed" is absurd. Men still dominate the IT
industry at all levels. To say that we're being sacrificed en masse is
hyperbolic to say the least. It reminds me of the way that the Trump campaign
makes its points about the state of the world.

Furthermore, so many men in tech are quick to explain away statistics about
women/minorities being hired less by saying, "There's no bias! It's because
they're not as skilled!" But when stats show that women advance faster, the
story flips, and suddenly it's, "This proves bias! There's no way it's due to
skill!"

Come on, HN, we're better than this.

~~~
harlanlewis
Absolutely.

It's not a hard argument to make that women (and many other underrepresented
people) are subjected to a stricter filter in the tech world, playing with a
deck socially and structurally stacked against them. It's no surprise at all
that people who can find success despite playing on a harder difficulty level
will be among the most capable. An article like this is actually heartening,
as it indicates that achievement and ability are internally recognized.

And now I've broken one of my cardinal rules (don't engage with social
flamewar threads on HN), but you're exactly right - many of these comments are
too embarrasing to let pass.

edit: calex just made this point far better than I in another comment in this
thread.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687015](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687015)

~~~
tajen
The whole equality story was, at the beginning, "If there's more men passing
one stage (IQ tests, high school diploma or promotion), then it's biased
against women.

Then suddenly when women are promoted more often than men, your story becomes
"Women are just smarter than men, it's normal". Can't you just have a little
compassion for men who didn't have the skills and deserve to be pushed and
taught a little bit? And the prejudice about "men are stupid" is repeated in
many innocent settings:

\- [https://snag.gy/qDceHS.jpg](https://snag.gy/qDceHS.jpg)

\- [https://pics.onsizzle.com/i-wish-i-was-strong-like-him-i-
wis...](https://pics.onsizzle.com/i-wish-i-was-strong-like-him-i-
wish-i-3621297.png)

\- Everyone can cite 10 qualities of women, especially smartness [1].

\- You can't quote any quality attributed to men. There's none, no quality
attributed to men in any newspaper, in any document, in any culture. "What
about muscles?" The thing about muscles is, women reckon we have strength
because it would be hard to deny it and it helps construct the idea that we're
violent. But muscles also help build the image of men being stupid, and it
doesn't give us a skill.

This prejudice does have real-world effects:

\- Men are twice more likely to be homeless or to fail their studies,

\- Men are 30 times more likely to land in prison.

THIRTY times! But somehow, women succeed to capture all the work we do for
equality.

The fact you're unconscious about male difficulties shows how much work
there's left to do about male equality. The progress we've made for women
about equality of chances and freedom of pursuing good jobs, we now need to
make it for men too. Since you're talking about politics, the fact that the
only way to "vote for men equality" is to vote for Trump is a horrible
abomination: I want equality, I'm keen to vote for a woman, but if that means
that she'll do even more to accentuate the "privileged path" for women and
accentuate messages breeding hate between women and men, then you're asking a
voter to make... a dangerous choice.

[1] Qualities that are generally attributed to women: "Women are better at
multitasking" – where scientific studies are much more gray-area than that;
"Women are better at communication" – where in fact it's males who are
handicapped about communication and who deserve some equality budget for
"education to communication" and "education to feelings"; "Women are better at
tastes and decoration" which harms the participation of many interested men in
decoration topics; "Women are more mature, earlier" when in fact this maturity
is judged on a biased set of responsabilities; "Women are better at raising
children" which creates unprecedented disadvantages for men who want the
custody of their child, _and finally, "Women are better at school"_ when in
fact it's teacher bias which gives them better marks (
[http://www.bbc.com/news/education-32302022](http://www.bbc.com/news/education-32302022)
) – As you can see I'm very well documented on every quality which is
theoretically attributed to women and where, in fact, it's just that many
papers are unfairly condescending towards men.

~~~
harlanlewis
Edit: your comment has been edited extensively, so I'm responding to whatever
it was at the point in time I started typing.

\---

To put this very dispassionately, filtering more aggressively reduces both
total count and false positives (if the filter shares any correlation with
success). The population subjected to the stricter filter will have a higher
percentage of people who are deserving of promotion.

This would be true even if we limited our entire workforce to ivy league white
men and then applied an additional filter to a random subset of them. If the
filter correlates, the subset will outperform. I don't mean to say this is the
_only_ thing impacting who works where and how successful they are, but it is
certainly present.

You're responding to an argument that I didn't make. The global population
statements about which gender is "smarter" are your own.

Regarding Trump (I'm pretty sure I didn't bring this up, either), his recent
exhibit of repeatedly mentioning that he was being shortchanged on time during
the debate while actually having (negligibly) more time to speak (~40min vs
~39min) is a perfect illustration of the “prejudice” you're describing. When
used to a privileged position, equality feels like bias.

(Debate time to speak, pick your source:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+clinton+time+to+speak](https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+clinton+time+to+speak))

~~~
tajen
> You're responding to an argument that I didn't make.

You're correct, I answered to both parents in one comment, and found it useful
to put my comment under yours because you had a very common objection,
although I forgot to address it.

Concerning the "filter" story, how do you know girls just aren't just less
interested in programming? Example that may be the norm: I've tried many times
to get my god-daughter interested in computers, but the
computer/tablet/phone/electricity/mechanics/woodworks/Mythbusters thingy
really doesn't raise any interest or even bare curiosity. She just does it
because she loves spending time with me, but remembers nothing.

If there were a genetic or social construct that made that fewer girls
identify with programming, then it would kill the argument that "due to
filtering, women are better" and reinforce the argument that "Women are
promoted, not because they're better, but because companies are required to
promote women".

And in fact, studies have demonstrated that fewer girls are interested in
programming because of society.

~~~
harlanlewis
> And in fact, studies have demonstrated that fewer girls are interested in
> programming because of society.

I agree! But why? And when? And is it just girls? The filter I'm talking about
extends far beyond and is applied far earlier than the job interview, or the
application to college, or which classes someone takes in high school. The
paths laid out for all of us have varying degrees of difficulty, and shape how
we grow.

Speaking as a white male from California who grew up with a computer in the
house, in many ways my own career in tech is the path of least resistance.
Sure, I've worked hard and chose to invest myself in these skills and this
career, but the impediments to doing so were much, _much_ less significant
than the social and structural biases that people with other backgrounds run
into at every. single. step.

Simply recognizing that I got to shoot for the hoop from a few feet closer
than the rest of the population has given me a great respect for those who
made the same shot from farther out. It's not that an individual like myself
(like you?) with an advantaged position _couldn 't_ overcome the same
challenges, we simply have not been tested in the same ways. I don't mean to
speak for you as an individual, only that over a large enough group you're
going to see a lot more people make it who got to take the easier shot.

I think our fundamental disagreement is that you're saying people like me
(perhaps us?) don't actually get that easier shot. And that I simply do not
believe, because of my experience in and observation of this industry, and
because of the near-endless supply of evidence to the same. [citation needed:
plenty in this thread, and every thread like it]

~~~
tajen
No, that's not our disagreement. Our disagreement is that if fewer women want
to get into programming, then they're not being discriminated against. They
are free and just didn't choose programming.

It could be a social construct of genders where male babies are exposed to
other things than female babies, it wouldn't matter. The girl (e.g. my god-
daughter) who likes chemistry goes into chemistry and is not being
"discriminated against because she didn't go into programming". And your
argument is in the same family that says there should be 50% women in
programming because there's 50% females at birth.

You're also focussed on demonstrating that men get an easier shot. But if
women _who want to do programming_ can do it with no more barriers than men,
then no-one is being discriminated against. And in fact, today, if a girl
takes programming, she'll have a better career than men, because we promote
women. There are countless stories that "women are harassed in IT", but they
are all anecdotal and match with the global story told to girls since birth:
"You're a victim, and you should spend your whole life finding occurrences
where you can prove that you're a victim". It's not a tin-hat stuff I've
invented, it's what, for example, the brand Always teaches to little girls
with the #LikeAGirl video.

To come back to stories about girls being harassed: Is there a scientific
experiement that we could do to prove that women really have a harder time
than men, when we include sexual harassment of course, but also include when a
weak male like me have been victims of some alpha manager, and include stories
of men being fired because a woman doesn't like them (And I have live examples
such as: Douglas Crockford, the PyCon conference story, the GitHub ceos, the
GitHub's white males who've been fired, and two colleagues from my Australian
company)?

All in all, I see women promoted all the time, I see women receiving a warm
welcome in every team, I see many males being extra carful about including
women, I see many downvotes and condemnation when someone posts a sexist
remark on HN, I see corporate help to ensure women are untouchable and
promoted: Not to paint the real world with rainbows, but I won't just buy into
a story of a few women saying "You can't learn programming when you're a
girl".

I also receive 20-50 upvotes when I remind people that women need to work
_too_ , so the feeling that women are too unfairly advantaged before they're
really competent seems to be a common resentment across the community. Just
try to think about what we'd do if we wanted peace. We certainly wouldn't try
to accentuate victimization so much, and wouldn't try to have different paths
for men and women (hard lonely work with no help for men who'll stay
programmers, little programming but a lots of socializing and girls-in-web
groups for women who'll become managers). And we certainly wouldn't have the
following video, which is both dishonest towards men and an incitation to hate
for female viewers:

[https://youtu.be/VhB3l1gCz2E](https://youtu.be/VhB3l1gCz2E)

Unity, peace and solidarity is something we build together, unless it's not
unity, peace or solidarity that we want. And women certainly aren't currently
working for that.

------
danharaj
> The study of more than 4,000 UK IT professionals, published to mark
> International Women’s Day, reveals women typically reach management level
> three years faster than men (in nine rather than 12 years) and they are
> appointed CTO/CIO two and a half years faster (in 13 versus 15.5 years for
> men).

> However, the survey also reveals a colossal gap between the numbers of men
> and women working in top IT roles. Of the senior developers who responded to
> the survey, only 6% were women; with IT managers the figure was 8%, and of
> those heading up IT only 7% were female.

These statistics are weird together. How can this be?

Speculation: There is a bias against average/underperforming women relative to
men entering and staying in tech. This means that the women who do stay in are
from the upper end of the distribution. It's as if you took a normal
distribution (as skill often is distributed) and truncated some segment of the
lower half. This would explain why there are much fewer women reaching
managerial positions but why the ones that do reach it do so very quickly.

Is there any data on how qualified and performant female engineers are
relative to male engineers who occupy the same position? A result that would
support this hypothesis would be something like women in the same position as
men in tech have beefier academic credentials or more awards.

~~~
gnarbarian
That's one explanation that fits a narrative. (and ignores the fact there are
far fewer women who even attempt to enter the tech industry).

The gender gap in tech starts with children, is seen in STEM enrollment rates
and continues in the job market where a multitude of diversity initiatives
exist to promote underrepresented groups in tech.

So, an alternative speculation for the abnormally high promotion rate for
women is there are fewer women interested in IT in the first place and
companies are scrambling to compete for women because it makes them look
better (via diversity initiatives).

There is a great documentary examining actual science on the subject and
interviewing both scientific researchers and social scientists on opposite
sides of the issue:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70)

Should we attempt to combat the gender gap in the nursing industry with the
same vigor that we are focused on tech? How about the gender gap we see with
garbage workers or psychology?

edit: clarity.

~~~
Programmatic
>> This means that the women who do stay in are from the upper end of the
distribution.

> Another explanation is there are fewer women interested in IT in the first
> place and companies are scrambling to compete for women because it makes
> them look better.

Those aren't even mutually exclusive explanations. It seems likely that both
are true as the people that go into it despite the lack of interest from the
rest of their cadre will be better candidates vs. borderline candidates.

~~~
gnarbarian
I am mostly playing the devil's advocate. Both explanations may be true to a
degree.

I believe it is misguided to shoehorn discrimination as the goto explanation
for every statistical difference between groups of people. In this scenario
the data literally implies the opposite conclusion yet danharaj was able to
contrive an explanation that leaves women as the victim despite lliterally
being promoted twice as fast. You can bet danharaj would still be arguing the
same conclusion if the data had born out the opposite results.

~~~
Programmatic
To be fair there it's likely that there's a bit of victimization there as well
if it's harder to go into one field vs. another due to social norms. You get
it from both sides, too! "You're a man, why do you want to be a _nurse_??".
Going back to tech, if you were a borderline woman candidate that wanted to
get in it seems that you would statistically be less likely to follow that
dream.

I like to step back and just say that it's not something that has to be fixed
if a cadre of people appear to "collectively decide" based on individual
decisions. It sucks that if you are in the cadre and have to fight the
perception that you should(n't) be doing something. But I think (as I suspect
you do as well) that saying that your individual decision should be different
simply because you share an identifying trait with others is broken.

Ideas that men or women are some collective that needs to be pushed one way or
another are difficult. You can generalize based on the apparent preferences of
the group, but then judging an individual based on those preferences is where
it starts to get troublesome.

~~~
dismantlethesun
Try being a male who wants to go into education for young children. I have a
friend who went through the process as the only male member of his entire
graduating class, and he says the level of suspicion he had to face from his
professors and fellow students was overwhelming at times.

It was consistently implied that a young male would only want to teach young
children for puerile reasons.

Even when he was given the benefit of the doubt, it'd only be to say "oh, so
you'll take your education degree and enter administration?"

------
utternerd
Please don't take this as flippant, it's a legitimate query. I keep seeing the
call for "more women in technology", however I don't see a similar rally for
say, "more men in early education". Most teachers in early to middle school
tend to be females by a wide margin[0], men comprise less than 20%, yet I
don't see people screaming there should be more men teaching in those roles?
Why is that?

[0]
[http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers](http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers)

------
mblack1968
I've been reading HN for a few years now. The tone of the response to women in
IT hasn't changed much. I kept believing that if I were good enough, smart
enough, and if people liked me enough, I would get ahead.

Turns out, there's a real ceiling on where I can go. Not because I lack
talent. I am very good with people. My last manager believed I would be a VP
at the company someday. I maxed out at that fake "architect" role made for
people that require more money but can't be promoted to management. This was a
large F-50 type organization.

We found that the HR departments at very large companies definitely improve
diversity up and down the ranks. But there is a blockade that eventually
presents itself.

This blockade can probably be summed up mathematically: The first females to
go up stream will always be white. As the number of females up the ranks
increases, the less obligation white males feel to grant other minorities the
same privilege. Eventually, it works out to where there will be a multitude of
white women paving the way at VP level, and until they die off or retire, the
blockade prevents advancement for anyone else.

I call it the "wall of white women" with a sub-wall of "white male architects"
waiting for their chance. If the minority applicant is not blindingly
obviously superior to the wall of white males just beneath the wall of white
women, there's no chance.

Unfortunate. I find it kind of hilarious and enjoy watching it form at every
single major corporation.

~~~
MollyR
I'm a first gen korean-american woman (I guess after 30 its weird to call
yourself a girl). I've definitely seen this situation too, it was a little
depressing.

So I've been bouncing around startups,and even started contracting under my
own c-corp to make connections and money. The respect difference has been
unreal. I've had to toughen up significantly, you have to really learn to read
bs and move on without emotion.

That's another option you can take, I'm personally enjoying it right now.

~~~
mblack1968
Thank you for responding! I like hearing solutions. Listening to my own
whining is tiresome.

To your point, I left my large F-50 employer this summer and started at a
smaller company. I am strongly considering contracting. Your response is
encouraging.

------
fishtoaster
This seems to be based this survey data:
[http://www.emolument.com/career_advice/women_in_it_career_ev...](http://www.emolument.com/career_advice/women_in_it_career_evolution_best_paying_jobs)

------
NumberCruncher
Only because women and men are equal as human beings and should be treated
accordingly it does not mean they are identical. Not so long ago everybody
said that we need more women in [paste a well paid white collar job]. You
wanted positive discrimination. Now you have it.

Ironically nobody wanted to have more women on construction sites, in the
military service or as a surgeon...

------
LordHumungous
This shouldn't be surprising to anyone given the stated goal by large
companies of hiring more women, and the relatively small pool on which they
are drawing from

------
Shanea93
As a sidenote, the USD to GBP currency figures shown in this article really
show how much the pound has slumped over the last 6 months.

Article: "£52,000 ($74,000)"

Current day: "£52,000 ($63,020)"

------
Dzugaru
> despite still being heavily outnumbered

Despite?

~~~
kazinator
Yes, that's a word;
[http://www.dictionary.com/browse/despite](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/despite)

Its use here means something like " _contrary to the expectation that_ women
face barriers in IT (as evidenced by lower numbers of women in the top
positions in IT and in general), they rise through the ranks faster than men."

~~~
tomp
> contrary to the expectation that women face barriers in IT

Hasn't this been debunked already? AFAIK the percentage of women in IT is
about the same as the percentage of women graduating from CS.

~~~
kazinator
It could be; in any case, that is neither here nor there since the article
seems to be taking that for granted as the basis of its "despite".

------
bluetwo
I'm totally OK with this.

Am I the only person who dated a senior analyst and is now married to an IT
Director?

------
known
It this specific to UK?

------
fatdog
One explanation would be that women could be said to have a better instinct
for power, and they recognize quickly that as a corporate survival strategy,
power over people is more rewarding and sustainable than power over things.
Feminism isn't about women becoming IT guys, it's about becoming bosses.

Sort of breaks with the victim narrative, but provides a more plausible story.

------
guard-of-terra
As if getting into management was an universal desire.

~~~
romanovcode
Yep. Every woman developer I've talked to wants to be a manager someday.

Some even go for junior manager (a lot lower pay) even thought they have the
degree and skills to be mid developers without any problems.

~~~
nostrebored
This is ridiculous. Not every woman I know wants to be a manager, and despite
their proficiencies, they are seen as "more personable" and implicitly, less
technical. Women being pushed into management and out of technical lead roles
is a very well known phenomenon in the field, and people here pretending like
this is "success" seem to be very happy to ignore that this fits very nicely
with the status quo of sexism.

~~~
bluecalm
Aren't management positions better paid than technical ones almost anywhere
though? I realize some progressive companies try to establish engineering path
and managerial path but it's still not standard. I think thinking in terms:
more likely to be a manager = more successful in corporate environment is not
that far fetched.

------
turc1656
I'm not too worried. I'm sure the feminists are going to condemn these
companies and call for the resignations of the executives and stage protests
over this blatant inequity. And the media will plaster this all over the news
to spread awareness. And these companies will take heat from clients, end
users, and advertisers, _right_?

