

Learning how to attract women to web development - redsquirrel
http://devbootcamp.com/2013/02/06/learning-how-to-attract-women-to-web-development/

======
tjic
> One of our goals at Dev Bootcamp Chicago is to change the ratio of women in
> software development: we want a 1:1 ratio in our cohorts.

Why?

That's a serious question.

My hobbies include writing, blacksmithing, cooking, and ceramics.

In writing, around half the people are women.

In blacksmithing perhaps 3% are women.

In cooking probably 90% of the blogs I read and people who take classes are
women.

In ceramics it's again 90% female.

I have absolutely no desire to increase the percentage of women
blacksmiths...and I have absolutely no desire to decrease the percentage of
women pot throwers.

Why should I want to change these?

Why do you want to change the ratio in web development?

~~~
hagios
The question of 'why' is an important one, indeed. For example, I suspect that
the disparity in cooking and ceramics is not due to a [perceived] unwelcoming
culture, or a [perceived] pervasive attitude that men who are entering the
field are inferior by default. It might be that women are considered inferior
in blacksmithing; I'm not a blacksmith, though, so I don't know. I do know one
woman who is a blacksmith, however, and from what I've heard from her--women
involved in such a hobby tend to be well received.

People who work professionally in STEM fields in the US tend to be straight
white males. This is okay, so long as the reason for the disparity is not that
the culture in these fields tends to disparage members of the community who
don't fit this profile. If we agree that women and men are roughly equally
qualified when it comes to development, then the disparity in terms of
participation is worth being investigated. This sort of statement (1:1 ratio)
implies equality which will hopefully resonate with the community and
ultimately tend towards a zeitgeist wherein people--regardless of gender or
any other irrelevant criteria--are welcomed based on their merit.

~~~
refurb
An interesting question comes from the fact that not all STEM fields are
"straight white males".

Take a look biology. Back in the late 1990s, the majority of biology graduate
students were female. When I was in industry, the number of females working on
biology was also very close to 50%.

So why have women felt comfortable entering the field of biology when it used
to be dominated by males?

There are lessons to be learned here.

------
Jemaclus
I'm not sure this has anything to do with attracting women to web development.
These women were already attracted to web development -- or they wouldn't be
in Girl Develop It or any of those other groups, right? This is about
DevBootCamp patting themselves on the back for meeting their quota.

And regardless, this whole "invite women first" thing doesn't really address
the basic gender imbalance problems in the industry.

In my experience (and I'm aware that this is perfectly anecdotal), the problem
with getting women to be professional web developers has more to do with the
industry's attitude toward women and less to do with inviting them in. It does
no good to invite 60% women to a conference if they're all going to be treated
badly or like sexual objects the entire time.

I have two female friends that I am mentoring in web development, and they are
super ecstatic to have this extra skill, and they're actually pretty good at
it (better than some of my male coworkers, if I'm being honest). But most
often they go to conferences and get dismissed because they're women or get
harassed because they have boobs (even though some of these men have bigger
man-boobs).

 _I hear this over and over again: they don't feel comfortable at industry
events or even in the workplace_

TL;DR - I don't think it's about "attracting" women so much as making the
industry gender-agnostic. It shouldn't matter whether I'm male or female, so
long as I put out good code.

~~~
mnicole
Great response. At RailsGirls PDX they asked how everyone had found out about
the event. I'd found out through a female dev mailing list I'm a part of, but
I was really happy to learn that many - if not most - of them had been
encouraged by male co-workers, friends and significant others who knew the
girl had an interest in dev or just tech, but were intimidated (even by other
female developers) and thus didn't take part in existing communities.

------
SkyMarshal
One of the best comments on this topic I've seen was by a girl at Stuyvesant
on learning computer science:

 _"Before taking the mandated Intro class last year, when I heard 'computer
science,' I pictured nerdy boys, who turned into nerdy bearded men, slouched
over huge computers and click-clacking out codes that meant nothing to me.
There’s nothing wrong with nerdy boys, comp sci just didn’t seem like
something I would ever be interested in.

"This image was quickly shattered in that first intro class. Computer science
started to resonate with me when I worked on my first project, creating a
simple animation of a string quartet using Netlogo. It was while I was working
on this that I realized comp sci isn’t about nerdy boys sitting at computers
and coding out nonsense that turns into violent video games and complicated
math problem solvers. No, comp sci isn’t this at all. Comp sci, as I have
found in my classes at Stuy, is a medium for expression, a place for creation
and creativity."_

[http://betabeat.com/2012/06/real-tales-of-learning-
computer-...](http://betabeat.com/2012/06/real-tales-of-learning-computer-
science-as-a-high-school-girl-stuyvesant/#slide2)

This is both true, and probably effective for changing women's perception of
the field and attracting more to it.

~~~
cousin_it
Wow. Now I wonder why it took me so long to see this answer, it's so obvious
in retrospect. _Of course_ women don't go into CS in large part because they
consider male nerds unattractive. Though male sexism is an important reason, I
always suspected that it's not the main reason.

This explanation sounds offensive, but to me it's quite uplifting. Instead of
giving women gifts to compensate for our "creepiness", we need to become non-
creepy, and women will come. It's a winning proposition for everyone, no?

~~~
WalterSear
You aren't creepy. This particular issue is reverse sexism. But heaven forbid
it should ever be seriously discussed while there are all those 'neckbeards'
out there to point fingers at.

~~~
cousin_it
Hmm, it doesn't seem to be prejudice against all men, but negative
stereotyping of male nerds in particular. Many men are guilty of it too,
unfortunately. Even many of those who try to get more women into CS.

~~~
SkyMarshal
I think you guys are missing the point. She's just a high school girl talking
about 'boys' the way high school girls do.

What I'd hope people key in on is that computer science is a medium of
expression, creation, and creativity. I don't think anyone here would disagree
with that, but it's apparently not so obvious to everyone, and worth driving
that point home when selling the field, particularly to women who may value
that aspect of a career as much or more than men.

~~~
cousin_it
> _I don't think anyone here would disagree with that_

Why, I disagree. In the majority of programming jobs that exist in the world,
any attempt at creative expression will be shot down.

In fact, if the feel-good stories are true and women are indeed better than
men at communication and creativity, that might be already sufficient to
explain why there are so few of them in programming jobs, writing Java beans
to automate payrolls and such. If you had such strengths, would you want such
a job?

------
gyardley
Pairing an activity with another highly-gendered activity will most definitely
change the gender ratio of your combined activities.

Here 'yoga' is playing the role 'pizza and beer' does at most hackathons - I
know there's tons of exceptions, but generally speaking, women like yoga more
than men, and men like eating pizza and drinking beer more than women.

I bet you could adjust the gender ratio even more if you mixed in more female-
leaning activities - for instance, you could bring in a pedicurist.

The social engineer in me wonders what our profession would look like if every
technical course over a couple of decades was followed by getting your nails
done and a wine tasting.

~~~
mnicole
I'm going to be the jerk that says using yoga and pedicures as a means to
bring women in might actually be more alienating than welcoming to many of us.
I have no interest in any of those activities intermingling, and I think it
sends a message that we need to "genderize" things to make them relevant or
appealing. Now, even though I'm theoretically being targeted, I feel even more
like the odd [wo]man out.

Sell me on the fact that I'll be leaving with a product I want to make -
something generic like a blog or a store or a social media site. Sell me on
the fact that I will be able to know how to design it, maintain it and expand
on it by graduation. Sell me on the fact that I'm also going to be around
total novices and where gender ratios are equaled out. Show me success stories
of men and women alike.

Everyone has ambitions and dreams. Not everyone wants to do poses and color
their nails.

~~~
gyardley
Not being a jerk at all. If it's alienating, it's alienating.

Although it's interesting, because I _like_ being targeted. If someone
organized a nearby tech event that was accompanied by a big rack of ribs and
an evening of firing off guns into the desert, I'd sign up for that sucker in
a heartbeat.

Perhaps that's because I would never think 'oh, the organizers of this event
are just putting these activities together to attract more people like me' -
the social engineering wouldn't be obvious to me, and if it was I just
wouldn't care.

I wonder why the organizers didn't just say 'okay, this event has 50% tickets
for men and 50% tickets for women'? That'd certainly be the simplest way of
getting to the ratio they wanted, and it wouldn't involve mixing in other
gendery activities.

~~~
mnicole
Totally with you on that last point. I think what set off my alarm with yoga
in particular is that while it is a fantastic meditative and healthy activity,
it's often very sexualized.

In reading more about it on their site and an AMA someone did about their
experience five months ago, it's a mandatory morning activity they've been
doing for awhile now and there don't seem to be any complaints (though a blog,
<http://newbietoruby.wordpress.com/>, says that while he enjoys it, it took
two hours out of his day and sometimes stressed him out).

------
zeidrich
If I wanted to take up a hobby or skill that I felt was sort of "woman's only"
thing, like knitting, I would be uncomfortable joining a stitch 'n bitch group
initially, and I'm sure a lot of women would have reservations about a guy
popping in to their knit nights. I'm sure some would be thrilled that a guy
would take an interest, but it would be a novelty. I would happily learn on my
own through Internet tutorials, but I wouldn't have a support community to
learn from and bounce ideas off.

I think the same sort of feeling would surround women trying to break into a
male-dominated activity.

I try to think about what might convince me to take steps into a knitting
program (assuming I actually wanted to learn). If I expected that it would be
completely women I would be more uncomfortable, but if it was more
'professional' and less casual, I would probably be less anxious. I think a
professional environment with a sort of "we're here to learn, not chat, not
network" would make things easier because there's less social pressure, it's
more focus on the task.

Likewise, I think a "Beer and Pizza knitting workshop" would be as much a
turn-off. I think it's just the idea that it's an emphasis on the social side
of it. I know what I am doing is socially different, and the more social and
friendly the atmosphere is the more awkward it is to picture.

For instance, if I'm going to a class, and the image I conjure is a row of
desks or something, someone teaching a technique, maybe coming by
individually, helping with a difficult process, answering questions. That's
pretty neutral, I can picture myself there. If the image I conjure is a bunch
of guys standing around the tailgate of a pick-up truck drinking beer, eating
pizza, belching, and talking about their colorwork and cast-on techniques, I'm
going to feel uncomfortable. Not only that, I'm going to feel patronized by
the class.

Now, obviously regardless of the circumstances, the class is not going to be
at all like either of those images in my head. But what would cause me to
choose to sign up or not has far more basis on that picture.

I think if you want to encourage women to join your class, advertise it in a
way that makes it look like it's not judgmental, like it's not patronizing.
Something that's not some apparantly watered down "web design for women"
class. Keep it professional, respectful, and above board. Include women in
your advertising material.

If I wanted to learn to knit, and I came across a class that wasn't billed as
a sort of chatty woman's group but instead just a class on techniques; if it
made it apparent in their description that men were welcome; and it wasn't
directed at specifically ignorant men who wanted to learn so they could say
they can do it too; then I would be comfortable going. Past that, I would have
to know it exists, so if there was some sort of men's knitting mailing list
that I was on, it would be a good place to send it.

------
eliza1wright
I was also expecting something different, but I like the overall tone of
"Women are welcome here, and they're welcome to _speak_." I think a lot of
tech companies get the first one right, but they don't know how to communicate
the second point. With study after study showing that women speak less when
surrounded by men, promoting the event woman-to-woman sends a powerful
message.

------
shanelja
I thought the title was 'Learning how to attract women with web development',
so the article wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but still a great (if
short) read.

Could you elaborate further on what you did exactly to get the male attendants
percentage to decrease and the effect you think it had?

I'm assuming that you expected the female name to draw attention to the fact
that a woman was in charge, or something similar, but I will however note than
on the second Tweet posted, there were more comments from Males than Females.

~~~
theorique
_I thought the title was 'Learning how to attract women with web development'_

Makes me think: "Hey baby, why don't we go back to my place and I'll
demonstrate my database schema"

lol. silly.

------
nmcfarl
Looks like the set out to do this, and succeed with just a few simple changes
to the marketing plan and adding Yoga to the days line up. The last seems like
a nice technique to me as it sends the message that "women are welcome here"
while not saying that in the materials (As such explicit marketing to a
particular demo tends to change the feel of the event for everyone else).

On the whole quite simple - and in their case effective.

------
unreal37
I would agree that technology (development) is a field that is not always
friendly towards women. Being a male dominated field (like construction, auto
mechanics, airline pilots, doctors, lawyers, politics are all male-dominated
as well) means that ideas from women are sometimes dismissed simply because
they are from women, or unnecessary sexual or sexist comments are made that
make women not feel welcome. I think that's an area this industry needs to
improve upon, being more welcome.

But that's not to say it needs to be 1:1. (There's no high-paid profession
that is 1:1, is there?) I think it's valid to question that we need to have an
equal ratio, although I agree we have to improve a lot.

------
bobzimuta
I'm exhausted by this ironic and sexist, never-ending debate of the why and
how to get more women into tech. If we* want to treat women equally, why is it
our duty to provide support structures and incentives?

*we as in the general HN audience, which is safely assumed to be largely male

------
sixbrx
I misread this as "How to attract women to web developers". Boy was I
disappointed...

------
sidcool
I read the first 5 words and got excited!!!

~~~
calgaryeng
To be fair, he could have just been joking....

~~~
youngerdryas
The problem with telling a joke is that if it isn't funny you look like an
asshole.

~~~
sidcool
Yep, it was a joke. I didn't know HN had no sense of humor. My bad.

