
What women in technology really think (150 of them at least) - p4bl0
http://jvns.ca/blog/2014/11/11/the-best-thing-ive-ever-read-about-women-in-technology/
======
alukima
Women in Tech aren't a hive mind. Like the author states out everyone is
different. Heck, there even differences in companies, regions, industries,
ect. The reason I point this out is because these threads sometimes devolve
into users taking one comment and using it to derail conversations. Like
claiming that X is invalid because it can also affect men, therefore Y and Z
are also invalid.

I am a woman and recently moved from San Francisco to Portland. The tech
community feels totally different here. I've gone to a few meetups and haven't
dealt with any of the small (but annoying, insulting and constant) issues I'd
learned to try to ignore in San Francisco. It's really re-energized my love
for the industry and what I do. If I had taken this survey before and after my
move my answers would have been drastically different.

~~~
marquis
San Francisco in particular has really visible "bro" culture it feels to me.
It's probably just a reflection of the kinds of perks the industry provides,
and of the "gold rush" itself. Smaller cities have a far more inclusive
experience, for sure. Watch a Bay area bus drop all its people on an evening,
it's a bunch of young men pouring back into the city. Friends of mine who
commute say no-one speaks to anyone, ever. I find that really sad and can
certainly say if there were at least 30% women on those buses nearly everyone
would know each other a little.

~~~
Dewie
> I find that really sad and can certainly say if there were at least 30%
> women on those buses nearly everyone would know each other a little.

Why?

~~~
alukima
Women are socialized to be more social.

[https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=women%20are%20more%20social)

~~~
Dewie
If you say so. In my experience women aren't any more social than men in a
setting full of mutual strangers, which I guess these busses full of strangers
are.

~~~
untog
I mean, the OP isn't saying so, they're point to a ton of evidence
(admittedly, a Google link isn't the best, but). Countering with "in my
experience" is just an anecdote.

~~~
Dewie
Bullshit. When I replied to Akumi, there was no google-link; that was edited
in later.

Not that I would consider a google-link evidence of anything; the only thing
that it is evidence of is what is "common wisdom". Secondly, a google search
is different for everyone: mine showed a lot of links about how women are
bigger users of _social media_ , which hardly helps answer any questions in
this context. Thirdly, the question is not whether they are more social in
general, but whether they are more social in a context of mostly mutual
strangers. Even though women might be more social in general, that doesn't
necessarily imply that they are more social _with strangers_.

I don't view the google-link as evidence; more like a way of saying let-me-
google-that-for-you-(that wasn't so hard, was it?). You know... kind of like
so many other "women are different from men" are "obvious".

------
chuckcode
Can we learn from other industries that are facing similar challenges? I'm
certainly impressed with the medical and legal professions for dramatically
improving the gender balance in the past 30 years[1]. Can we adopt some of the
strategies learned there? Google's changes in maternity leave [2] dramatically
increased their retention of new mothers but retention is different than
attraction and promotion. The "sexual harassment" training at my old fortune
500 job certainly didn't have any helpful information about encouraging
diversity aside from don't do anything that could you sued...

[1] [http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/more-
women-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/more-women-are-
doctors-and-lawyers-than-ever-but-progress-is-stalling/266115/) [2]
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/08/28/google_mater...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/08/28/google_maternity_leave_key_to_keeping_women_.html)

~~~
rayiner
The cold reality is that the way to increase the gender ratio is to hire more
women. That's what happened in the legal profession: law schools made it a
point to get gender-balanced classes, and law firms supported that by hiring
gender-balanced classes of new associates.

I think one of the hardest things for people in tech to admit is that an
uneven gender ratio is by itself a deterrent to talented women considering the
profession. You can say that people shouldn't care about same-gender mentors
and co-workers, etc, but at the end of the day, people care about fitting in
and they don't want to have to ride against the current their whole career. A
bright young woman considering law school, where she'll be in a 50-50
environment, or engineering school, where she'll be in a 20-80 environment,
has a natural disinclination to choose the latter.

~~~
belorn
We can see the same problems in the psychology profession, with a 80-20
distribution in the work environment, and classrooms that often has over 90%
female students.

To quote nytimes: Some college psychology programs cannot even attract male
applicants, much less students. And at many therapists’ conferences, attendees
with salt-and-pepper beards wander the hallways as lonely as peaceniks at a
gun fair.

It seems eerily familiar, and the reports from male student feeling excluded
seems to echo the exact same statement we can find in the tech profession from
female students.

What is not similar in the article is how the tech profession look at the
result from gender distribution. The nytime article states that: the impact on
the value of therapy is negligible. A good therapist is a good therapist, male
or female, and a mediocre one is a mediocre one.

~~~
njr123
This attitude makes me crazy.

Women dominate PR, Nursing, Child care and Therapy? No problem, women are
better at these jobs anyway

Men dominate engineering? Patriarchy!

~~~
vacri
This is a canard frequently thrown out by MRAs. It's not true. Nursing and
childcare specifically seek more men, as does teaching in general and primary
school teaching in particular. It's an utter myth that the gender imbalance in
those fields are ignored.

~~~
ObviousScience
I dropped out of a teaching track to switch to hard math and CS because of the
cliquish behavior and their constant negative comments about men creating a
hostile environment - much the same complaints women make about the tech
sector.

Saying that the fields are recruiting men is no more to the point than saying
CS departments are recruiting women: it doesn't matter if you don't address
the toxic social environment as well.

~~~
vacri
It does, however, counter the parent, who said "No problem, women are better
at these jobs anyway". People _do_ think it's a problem, and there are efforts
trying to counter that problem, same as with women in technical fields.

~~~
belorn
I can't say I have ever heard of a male conference or affirmative action ever
being suggested to solve the gender distribution in the therapists profession.
No one is creating male-only therapists schools. No feminist politician is
dedicating budgets in order to fix it.

Yes, people do think its a problem, but the efforts to counter that problem is
not even close as with women in technical fields. It easier to just put the
blame on men, claiming that they do not want to do those jobs.

~~~
vacri
Well, therapy is an absolute minnow compared to 'tech', 'teaching', or
'nursing'. It's not a very visible profession, and most people outside that
profession can't relate to it (and are even a little scared by it)

Speaking of minnows, I can't say I have ever heard of a female conference or
affirmative action ever being suggested to solve the gender distribution in
the commercial fishing industry. No-one is creating female-only commercial
fishing licences. No politician is dedicating budgets in order to fix it.
Commercial fishing is a bigger and more lucrative profession than therapy, yet
there's no work towards affirmative action there.

So what does it mean that we can find specific, small industries here and
there that don't have explicit action in these areas? Shall we continue to
base arguments on the minnows, avoiding the larger stories about the bigger
fish?

------
BadCookie
The notion that ageism might hurt women more than men hadn't occurred to me.
Those comments were by far the most worrying to me as a woman in tech. Perhaps
some part of me hoped that, after a woman's childbearing years were over,
she'd be seen as more desirable to an employer, not less. (Not that it would
be fair either way.)

~~~
exelius
I've definitely seen this. It's probably a consequence of how women are
depicted in our society: women in movies/TV are either young and beautiful or
matronly old crones. The period between 40 and 60 just doesn't exist
(presumably women are busy raising children then?) Any actresses whose careers
are fortunate enough to survive turning 40 are usually because they either
naturally look younger or have a good plastic surgeon. Men, on the other hand,
don't shed their "boyish good looks" until their late 30s and can be
considered sex symbols well into their 60s. Thus how you get stupid romantic
comedies with a 25 year old woman falling in love with a 50 year old man.

But you're right, it's not fair. But I don't think this particular problem is
isolated to tech.

~~~
pcthrowaway
There are several movies centering around couples in which the female is much
older, the most recent one that comes to mind that does the trope justice is
The Rebound.

But you're right, the disparity in most of these movies tends to be more
central to the plot than when it's an older man dating a younger woman.

~~~
jonny_eh
I thought Don Jon was pretty good too.

~~~
marvin
In case someone hasn't seen this but is interested, it can be warmly
recommended. It's labeled a romantic comedy, but it's really a great social
commentary on stereotypical gender expectations and the part of dating culture
that's often "just there" and makes it hard to see the forest for the trees.

------
qeorge
Here's something easy you can do at your company, that will help everyone, but
especially women: let everyone choose any username they want, and make it easy
to change if needed.

Personal example: I'm recently married, and you wouldn't believe the time my
wife has had getting her username changed to reflect her new last name (an
issue because her employer bases usernames/emails on their first + last
names). This means she gets to explain every single time she gives out her
email (internally) why its not the expected pattern, but rather a seemingly
arbitrary string.

Its not the end of the world of course, or even that big of a deal when you
consider it individually. But its _one more thing_ that's not accessibly
designed, and its hard to get a male dominated culture to care.

FWIW, I changed my last name too, but I own my company, and we use first names
for our emails anyway, so I was lucky.

If you own your company, make sure you're getting this right. If you let
people choose their usernames, and change them easily, you can cover this case
and many others. [1]

[1] [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-
programmers-b...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-
believe-about-names/)

~~~
e40
Allowing _anything_ is a non-starter, since people will most certainly choose
inappropriate names. And, once you make it a subset of anything, that means
there's someone who arbitrates, and that will cause friction ( _why did so and
so get their choice but I didn 't get mine?_).

~~~
jackweirdy
> since people will most certainly choose inappropriate names

Really? I can't imagine that being the case in a workplace. Particularly
considering that name is the one that'd be set on their email account.

~~~
vacri
I was tired of seeing job title inflation at my last job, so as a joke I
changed my position title on my email sig from 'System Administrator' to
'Grand Duke of Information Infrastructure'. I didn't have customer contact -
most of my emails were internal, with a couple of vendor contacts.
Nevertheless, people liked it, to the point that they changed my job title on
the website.

I reverted it a few months later when I felt the joke was tired, but people
can do pretty whimsical things with their company channels if you let them.

------
specialk
There are responses in here that say they are in a healthy environment where
they "feel great, valued, treated equally, competent and successful". What's
the magic ingredient to a healthy working environment for everyone? Or is it
just an environment where implicit/explicit bias towards minority groups in
tech just doesn't exist? How do you make someone who is a minority on the team
feel like a valued and vital member of the team?

~~~
alukima
There are so many little things you can do to make everyone feel welcome and
comfortable, a lot of companies do these things for women and minorities but
everyone benefits.

-regular checkins -coaches/mentors -make sure that everyone participates in meetings/dev huddles. Often toxic environments stem from just a few individuals who are louder than everyone else. No one else is ever heard and doesn't feel like part of the team. -make sure people feel empowered to do their job and more. get rid of micromanagers. -management should be open to feedback and act on it.

Feedback is the key ingredient. Make sure employees have a channel to voice
their opinions and that it is acted on.

~~~
dguaraglia
You know what the funny thing is? Those are characteristics of great
management, independently of who is being managed. Some companies do it right
and foster the right culture, some don't. I've myself been lucky, but I know
enough people to realize there's plenty of bad management in the Silicon
Valley.

------
trhway
>Probably because that’s how it was in my family, I had no sisters, but 3
brothers

early socialization is key, be it puppies or children. The fact of life is
that tech is statistically male populated environment and by the college
graduation time it is just too late (after 20 years of separate pink cuteness
for girls and blue coolness for boys one can only wonder what synergy would
get unleashed once a pink cutie venture into the blue pack territory). Girls
should be exposed to sciences/tech and working together with their male peers
on complex projects very early in the K-12 system. That would also naturally
adjust males behavior too. And thus just 20 years down the road ...

~~~
jolux
>Girls should be exposed to sciences/tech and working together with their male
peers on complex projects very early in the K-12 system.

I think most people here agree with that statement. The problem is realizing
how difficult that is to accomplish when the field is almost in a paradox of
male control. The key will always be early exposure to STEM and people that
aren't like yourself, but currently this is difficult for women because they
are forced into lower self esteem on average than men.

Once women feel like they have the same amount of power in society as men,
that's when we start to focus on social adjustment at an early age. Until
then, it remains very hard for female-identified persons to "adjust
themselves" when they lack adequate role models.

~~~
imanaccount247
>The problem is realizing how difficult that is to accomplish when the field
is almost in a paradox of male control

It isn't though. Being mostly male does not make it male controlled. There is
no evil cabal of men trying to keep us out. The vast majority of men in the CS
world are falling all over themselves trying to cater to women.

>but currently this is difficult for women because they are forced into lower
self esteem on average than men.

What are you basing that on?

>Once women feel like they have the same amount of power in society as men

As long as we refuse to acknowledge reality, that will never happen. We have
more power in society than men. We elect the government, we set the agenda,
the laws are catered to us. Men still haven't even escaped from basic gender
norms.

~~~
tptacek
Fallacy of the excluded middle, in admitting only to two possibilities: that
there's either an "evil cabal of men trying to keep women out" of the
industry, or no systemic problem with gender bias in the industry.

In fact, the most logical explanation for systemic gender bias in the industry
involves virtually no intentionality on the part of men, and is still deeply
damaging to women.

~~~
yarou
Well, you could say that proving the existence of this evil cabal is a lot
like the devil's proof. Is it so far fetched to believe that a group of old,
white males has an incentive to maintain the status quo?

~~~
tptacek
Yes, that's pretty far-fetched.

------
lsiebert
Just remember, there is survivor bias. An interesting and complementary survey
would be women who have left tech.

------
kaeluka
"I’m tired of people asking when I’m going to leave the field as if it’s a
given. I’m afraid that it is a given." :-(

------
guard-of-terra
It would be nice if the results got some UX love (at least sort answers by
popularity).

Correlation between the answers to "If you were to leave tech" question also
wn't hurt.

Finds: \- The most frustrating thing is not seeing the career path. I guess
it's for men too. \- Around half of respondents need help in fighting imposter
syndrome. This is weird. I mean, we all sometimes doubt ourself, but there's
nobody better than us there.

",hbmnbvh" provided as an employer - any luck in decoding that? I thought this
is cyrillic in the wrong keyboard layout but it resolves to garbage too.

~~~
marquis
Imposter syndrome is totally expected when you have no public role models
doing what you do, and all of your teachers are "not like you" as are all the
books and education materials. Speaking for myself, it gets easier as I grow
older and in fact I find myself ticking the "I want my own company" box. But
that took years, while my male colleagues founded companies of their own in
their 20s.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Maybe I'm too anti-social but my role model were letters on the screen all
along. Books and education materials belong to a "bit-gender", it's a piece of
info and gender doesn't go in the play. I. e. in book written by Evi Nemeth
and others I could not tell whether the respective part is written by she or
he.

Maybe I'm too geeky and other people actually need physical humans like
themself to cling to? :) That's a weird idea.

~~~
marquis
It was the same for me while I was "just a programmer" but I've moved into
executive positions and have to deal with people on a human level. I am really
enjoying the change in challenges and often miss that I could spend days on
end with the "bits". I consider myself extremely lucky to have a role model
who is an incredible person. Without her I would feel lost, and hope I can
repay the favour some day to some young women.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Surprisingly enough, executive positions usually have much more level gender
ratio around me. It should be easier to find a role model there.

------
imanaccount247
>EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT AND PEOPLE THINK LOTS OF DIFFERENT THINGS

That's always the first thing to go out the window unfortunately. Everyone
wants their opinion to be more than just their opinion, so they pretend it is
_the_ opinion.

