
How Stereotype Threat keeps women from working in SW — and how we can fight it - jvranish
http://spin.atomicobject.com/2012/08/01/women-and-the-software-industry-the-truth-about-stereotypes-retention-and-the-gender-gap/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=spin&utm_campaign=women-software-industry
======
droithomme
This is an ongoing made up fake crisis.

First, I've yet to see any women engineers who have demonstrated they are good
at their jobs make this argument. It's mostly bloggers and journalists writing
these things. Women engineers who are good don't describe having problems any
different from the rest of us.

As far as the actual incidents of harassment from asshole managers and
socially inept coworkers, I've got the same stories too. Management is
clueless in general and the profession, although respected by the public, is
not generally respected by managers, executives or journalists.

Most developers employed these days are not competent, regardless of gender,
man and woman alike. The few that are competent cluster in competent firms
where harassment and disrespect of employees, man and woman alike, is not
tolerated.

I'm a bit hyper-aware of this right now. I resigned my job last month after 6
months of abuse and harassment of engineers by non-engineering sales staff,
which they viewed as hilarious pranks on worthless geeks who think they are so
smart. Complaints to management were handled with suggestions to "man up",
"learn to deal" and "stop being a pussy". I received over 100% salary increase
in return for my willingness to quit and leave for a more sane firm.

If you are good and you are being harassed, there is high demand for people
who are good. The companies that permit harassment deserve to fail. Leave and
don't look back. I offer this advise because I would hate for someone to think
they can't find a place where there work is appreciated and they are valued
because of their gender or race. There are places out there that are sane and
professional, and they are generally more profitable so you make more as well.
The only thing is that you need to be competent, that is the most important
thing in this field because that's your ticket to success.

~~~
space_unicorn
The article has nothing to do with harassment. As a female in the software
industry, I have experienced harassment perhaps once, and it wasn't from my
colleagues.

Stereotype threat can occur even at 'sane firms'. It has to do with a person's
perception of herself and what people _might_ be thinking, not the way others
are acting.

~~~
waqf
The article appeared to be arguing: women underperform because they spend
mental effort worrying about stereotype threat. So let's educate them about
stereotype threat so they'll be more conscious of it.

That sounds obviously counterproductive. Did I misunderstand?

~~~
demewmew
Being able to label that thing that's been interfering with my ability to get
my work done is definitely a productive thing.

But I also think there's another, far more useful purpose for educating people
suffering from stereotype threat about stereotype threat: they can then put a
label to what is keeping them from getting their work done when asking their
peers, mentors, or managers for help. And then their peers, mentors, and
managers can pay attention to situations that might provoke stereotype threat,
try to lessen them, and otherwise show a bit of compassion for the person
suffering from it.

I say this personally: learning about stereotype threat cleared a huge
communication roadblock I'd been having for years with managers and peers, and
as soon as we were on the same page we were actually able to address some of
the issues contributing to it.

------
debacle
Why is it so important that we close the gender gap? Why is it so important
that we believe that there is no difference in intelligence between men and
women?

Statistically, men have a wider variance in IQ score than women do. This means
that there are likely to be more highly intelligent men than highly
intelligent women in a room, and that the most intelligent man in the room is
probably more intelligent than the most intelligent woman.

With that said, if you were to select the top 10 intelligent people in a room
of 1000, a statistically significant amount of the time a majority will be
men.

If you are hiring for a job that requires the top 1% of intelligence, it is no
surprise that you are going to have more men than women.

Disclaimer: I hope some day that my daughter chooses a position in STEM, I
realize that there are limitations and gaps in the IQ test, and that I might
sound like a complete troll but I'm asking this question legitimately.

~~~
jmduke
_Statistically, men have a wider variance in IQ score than women do. This
means that there are likely to be more highly intelligent men than highly
intelligent women in a room, and that the most intelligent man in the room is
probably more intelligent than the most intelligent woman._

No. This means that there are likely to be more men who scored highly on an IQ
test than women who scored highly on an IQ test in a room.

~~~
debacle
I still would call that relevant.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Job_perfo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Job_performance)

------
peterwwillis
First let me say that yet again, another blog post that contains little to no
science to back up claims; instead, personal feelings and an individual's
experience become the standard by which apparently all people experience
working in STEM. We should not immediately concede that one person's
experience defines an industry, or several. (The "stereotype threat" article
is not a compelling enough argument to me that there is some gender stereotype
conspiracy only found in STEM)

Second: all these things the author experienced can be said about _any
minority group_ , and women is just one of them in STEM. Therefore, can we
really say that there is a particular bias against women, when the bias
actually exists among many minorities? Therefore, can't we assume that really
it's the monopoly of the majority that we should combat, and not specifically
the gender gap?

Third, holy shit. If your self confidence is so low that any critique by a
peer could shatter your world and cause you to abandon your career, you need
therapy, or at least some kind of daily affirmation exercise. And being too
afraid to ask to join a group is no excuse, for any person. You have to be
able to work with other people.

Often times they will not be the same gender or ethnicity as you. Simply
saying it's difficult or scary is not some big revelation: many people find it
intimidating to work with groups of people they know nothing about. Luckily,
that's what college is good for: overcoming those fears and becoming
comfortable with what will eventually be a requirement of your job.

I agree with all her _Eliminating the Threat_ points (even though that's kind
of a harsh way of saying "Overcoming Obstacles")

~~~
michaelt

      First let me say that yet again, another blog post that 
      contains little to no science to back up claims; instead, 
      personal feelings and an individual's experience become 
      the standard by which apparently all people experience 
      working in STEM.
    

"Stereotype Threat and Women’s Math Performance" by Spencer, Steele and Quinn
[1] contains an interesting series of experiments.

In the first experiment, test subjects are given two math exams, an easier one
(from the GRE general exam) and a harder one (from the advanced GRE
mathematics exam). All test subjects had 1 semester to 1 year of calculus with
at least a B grade. They observed something that has been seen in the
literature before - that both genders perform equally on the easier exam, but
women underperform on the harder exam.

In the second experiment, a different set of test subjects were given the
harder exam. Half the subjects were told the test had been shown to produce
gender differences, half that it had been shown not to produce gender
differences.

Characterizing the test as insensitive to gender differences was enough to
totally eliminate women's underperformance. When the same test was
characterized as sensitive to gender differences, women significantly
underperformed in relation to equally qualified men. (results are fig. 2 on
page 13 of the PDF)

The third experiment repeats the second experiment under different conditions
and gets a similar result.

    
    
      The "stereotype threat" article is not a compelling 
      enough argument to me that there is some gender 
      stereotype conspiracy only found in STEM
    

No stereotype conspiracy is required - the threat is from the stereotype /held
by the test subject/ that they will/are expected to underperform.

[1]
[http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/carnegie/learning_resources/LAW_PG...](http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/carnegie/learning_resources/LAW_PGCHE/SteeleandQuinnStereotypeThreat.pdf)

~~~
peterwwillis
Yeah, I read the article, as I specified in my comment.

Not every study or set of experiments is foolproof, and the 'results' of ones
that are done specifically on a bias, and never replicated, should not be
considered some kind of universal truism.

Did you have some point, or argument, or opinion, you were trying to make?

~~~
michaelt
Never replicated? How about "Knowing Is Half the Battle Teaching Stereotype
Threat as a Means of Improving Women's Math Performance" by Johns, Schmader
and Martens [1] ?

Participants were divided into three groups; the first group were told they
were getting a problem solving test; the second group were told they were
getting a math test for a study of gender differences; the third group were
told the same as the second group and that anxiety could be the result of
negative stereotypes that are widely known in society and have nothing to do
with their actual ability to do well on the test.

As figure 1 on page 4 of the PDF shows, the first group had roughly equal
gender performance, in the second group women underperformed, and in the third
group performance was roughly equal.

Or why not "Solo status, stereotype threat, and performance expectancies:
Their effects on women's performance" by Sekaquaptewa and Thompson [2] - once
again, women performed worse in the stereotype threat condition that in the no
threat condition.

    
    
      Did you have some point, or argument, or opinion, 
      you were trying to make?
    

Only that your statement that there is little to no science to back up the
blog's claims ignores multiple peer-reviewed studies.

[1]
[http://www.mdecgateway.org/olms/data/resource/9098/Knowing%2...](http://www.mdecgateway.org/olms/data/resource/9098/Knowing%20is%20half%20the%20battle_Week%206.pdf)
[2]
[http://j.b.legal.free.fr/Blog/share/Expos%E9s%20M1/Stereotyp...](http://j.b.legal.free.fr/Blog/share/Expos%E9s%20M1/Stereotype%20threat.pdf)

------
timee
Likely the solution starts from parenting as author points out at the
beginning of the post. Programs that start at age 13-14 have those early years
to fight with in order to create an interest in software and instill self-
confidence. It reminds me of an old article on gender imbalances from 1970,
where it argues that while we say people have free will when they choose their
careers, they combat 20 years of social molding that's difficult to break. [1]

It'd be interesting to see the differences in upbringing that allowed for the
Soviet Union back in the 60s to have a stat where "one-third of the engineers
and 75 percent of the physicians are women." [1]

Having been in the role of a guy in a computer science class at a large public
university with roughly similar ratios, I wouldn't say that the motivation
that people don't work with women is mostly due to the stereotype. It's likely
due to the social ineptitude of engineering students. I definitely could
relate to Max Levchin talk about how PayPal had difficulty in hiring women
because they were nerds that didn't know how to relate to women. [2] Granted,
as the author points out, the stereotype threat exists due to the outcome
being perceived as social bias.

Perhaps a solution as well is to help nerdy guys interact with girls in high
school while the gender balance is fairly balanced. Perhaps projects with
"random" (assigned) partners. Looking back at some of the things I did, I
can't believe I was that socially awkward.

[1]
[http://books.google.com/books?id=dwTvE44DOgQC&lpg=PA145&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=dwTvE44DOgQC&lpg=PA145&ots=sQrKj_1REh&&pg=PA183#v=onepage&q&f=false)
pg 188

[2] [http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/21437840885/peter-
thiels...](http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-
cs183-startup-class-5-notes-essay)

~~~
pwny
While I agree with your point, I believe "projects with 'random' (assigned)
partners" to be a bad idea as far as encouraging social interactions. From my
experience, no one enjoys being randomly assigned a partner (at least in high
school) and starting your social contact with an unpleasant experience might
ruin the chances of proper interaction.

I think you make an excellent point that a lot is at play during high school
though. It seems like most kids are fine and don't notice gender differences
before their teens and that the social issues manifest and strengthen from the
start to the end of puberty. Teenagers are mean and that period of life is
when people judge the most based on looks and social aptitude. Solving this
situation (which probably can't be solved readily) would most likely raise
everyone's social interaction skills, smooth the social differences across the
board and solve a lot of gender stereotypes (and even other problems).

------
jaems33
I've said this before, but whenever I see these conversations on my Twitter
and HN streams, huge segments of people are left out of the conversation.

In the U.S. at least, tech dialogue is about 'men' and 'women', despite the
fact that a significant number of certain men are rarely represented in the
tech industry. Asian/Asian America men might overrepresent their demographic
in the tech industry relative to their % in the country, but they are rarely
on leadership boards (especially compared to women). But more importantly,
having worked in Silicon Valley and New York, I rarely saw African-American
and Hispanic devs/engineers.

I just take exception to the idea that as a tech collective, we are supposed
to 'fight' for one segment yet ignore other under-represented demographics.

~~~
bethly
Your attitude is derailing: this isn't a zero-sum game. I do talk about other
under-represented segments, including the intersections. We aren't talking
about them _right now_ , and we don't need to stop talking about this in order
to talk about that. In fact, much of the research done here has proven useful
when considering racial stereotype threat, so talking about this furthers the
research in the area of your concern.

I recommend finding or writing some articles about the problem and posting
them. I look forward to discussing them.

------
demewmew
The lack of compassion here demonstrated by people who clearly have not even
tried to empathize with the experiences of those with stereotype threat is
disheartening. It's a phenomenon backed by increasing amounts of research and
as someone who has dealt with it for years I am excited to see that it is
finally getting so much attention.

For those of you who are actually able to empathize a bit here, I found the
APA paper "Stereotype Threat at Work"
<http://www.apa.org/education/ce/stereotype-threat.pdf> to be especially
useful in communicating with managers, mentors and peers about what I was
experiencing in the workplace. I don't think there are easy solutions to this
issue, but bringing a little awareness and kindness to situations where a
member of your team might have their stereotype threat activated can really go
a long way.

As hackers we typically care about efficiency, and stereotype threat is making
some of our peers less efficient. If you think it's just a matter of "getting
over it," your empathy skills could use a little work. A lot of this stuff is
unconscious and impossible to unwire after a lifetime of being fed cultural
stereotypes.

------
geebee
I'm more interested in the answer to question 3

"Is it even something we ought to be concerned about?(I won’t dignify that
last one with an answer.)"

I'm guessing that the reason the author won't dignify the last one with an
answer is that she feels the question is rooted in deep sexism, or dismissal
of a serious problem. And I'd agree, discrimination and/or stereotyping that
leads to women giving up on CS is a serious problem.

However, a slightly less extreme version of this question is important: "is it
possible women are finding better professions than software development". As
an exercise, consider the case of a young woman who has entered your office to
talk about whether she should pursue a career as a programmer or apply to
medical school with the ultimate goal of becoming a cardiologist. Make sure
you address longevity of careers, pay, stability, social standing, attrition
rates from graduate programs, and so forth.

I do think it's very important to ask why women aren't going into CS. To the
extent that stereotyping is responsible, yes, we should fight it. It clearly
is a factor.

But young women are starting to outperform young men academically. A recent
RAND study concluded that young Americans are rationally avoiding PhDs in STEM
fields because they are not competitive with the professions (where women are
closing the gap rapidly, and in some cases creating a gap that favors women).
In this case, avoidance of these fields may simply be one more way that women
are making better decisions than men. Programming careers can be very
rewarding, but they're hardly the only game in town, so it makes no sense to
analyze it in isolation.

If women aren't going into CS, what are they doing instead? Should we be
telling young women who choose nursing, law, accounting, and medicine that
they would be better off studying CS and becoming programmers? If anything, we
might want to encourage young men to look at what young women are doing and
learn something from them!

------
sp332
I would like to see some more research done with this study:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1943412> basically a writing exercise
that seems to remove most of the effects of stereotype threat.

------
cantastoria
_When women look at tech companies and math departments, they see few women.
This activates the stereotype that women aren’t good at math. The stereotype…_

Is there any evidence that this is what actually happens? Are all women
carrying around these stereotypes with them? It just seems like a "just so"
explanation.

Most of the examples in this article aren't of stereotype threat, they're
examples of the authors' insecurity and social anxiety about being in tech. I
can understand how a women would feel uncomfortable working in large groups
of, what are generally socially inept, geeks but that seems like a different
problem. This was the money-quote for me:

 _I remember one instance in particular when I was feeling particularly
isolated at our company. “I feel like an outsider! Like the guys don’t want me
here because I’m a woman!” I whined to one of my male colleagues. He looked at
me and replied, “Well that’s dumb. Of course they want you here. You’re great
to work with.”_

So essentially this woman has a self-confidence issue. I see little evidence
from this article (and the NPR one) that these problems, to the extent that
they exist, are just run-of-the-mill social anxiety and nothing more.

~~~
bct
The article links the wikipedia page on stereotype threat
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat> , which has plenty of
references to studies demonstrating how this differs from other types of
anxiety.

~~~
cantastoria
That it does, but my argument is that that what the author experienced isn't
stereotype threat. The effects of stereotype threat are (supposedly)
manifested in a decrease in performance. Feeling excluded or thinking (in this
case unjustifiably) that you're not wanted isn't due to stereotype threat. If
the author was failing her courses or was under performing at work that would
(potentially) be a result of stereotype threat. I see no evidence either
occurred, she was getting As in her classes and from what I gather was able to
get and keep jobs in the software industry. She's just seems unable to cope
with being the only woman in the room .

~~~
demewmew
In my experience the decrease in performance can be felt both short-term (the
classic example of students taking a standardized test) and long-term. It also
doesn't necessarily mean that someone is doing poorly - they may just be aware
that they're not performing at their potential.

~~~
cantastoria
If someone is consciously aware they are not performing at their potential and
continue to do so, I find it hard to lay the blame at the feet of stereotype
threat. No? It sounds like they're either misjudging their potential or just
being lazy.

------
borplk
What bugs me is the fact that no one is complaining about low presence of men
in female-dominated industries. But god forbid if there are 10 male
programmers and 9 female ones, DISASTER!

~~~
pwny
While there's still a lot of stigma about men in some women related fields
(ask male nurses), the issue in software is of larger scale than you imply.

Try 1 female for 40 male programmers (That's about the ratio in both my
internships, as well as my Software Engineering bachelor's degree group) and
add to that the wannabe cool guys making sexist jokes in their public
announcements and you might be closer to the current situation.

------
andyl
Why are women such an entitled demographic? Where is the love for programmers
who are old? Or black? Or hispanic?

~~~
jvanenk
A paraphrasing of "other people have it off worse, so stop complaining" isn't
an argument.

------
ucee054
Maybe we don't need more women in software.

Maybe people shouldn't be persuaded to pick careers based on what "society
wants" or what demographic ratios "should" be.

Maybe we need more women, no, more _people_ to pick the most advantageous
careers for them personally.

~~~
bct
The entire article is about personal experiences that have prevented people
from doing the things that they're interested in. It doesn't say anything
about what society wants, or ideal demographic ratios, or whatever.

This isn't about philosophy or ideology, and it's interesting that so many
people here are framing it that way.

~~~
ucee054
By the way, I am a bit dubious about the "personal experience" involved here,
because - the way I understand it - it's about a dearth of societal role
models.

I was never even aware of that as a factor. If I had been, I should have
thought "Of course I can't engineer software because according to our
society's stereotypes of middle eastern people, I should become a terrorist
instead".

I don't get why anyone should even _care_ about stereotypes in the first place
(let alone have to de-program themselves) because they should decide for
themselves as individuals.

Grumble grumble, Identity Politics, grumble grumble.

