
Sometimes I wish people would just shut up about the whole women in technology thing. - jlees
http://www.trendpreneur.com/startups/women-in-tech-stop-making-us-into-three-headed-monkeys/
======
swolchok
Men "won't concede that I could beat them at Halo or CS any day" either.
(EDIT: I meant that men won't concede that MEN could beat them either. I think
this was clear, but I also think that the post is incorrect as written.)

I remember hearing of, but can't cite, a study or article that noted that
women felt they were being discriminated against in the workplace, when in
fact the men were just being as competitive with them as they were with other
men.

~~~
jlees
Mm, that's true enough, and it's also partially a cultural thing (I think it's
less extreme here in the UK, for example).

But I do think there's a minor difference in the way you're treated in either
case. People might not assume you're any good at the games, they just don't
assume I play them at all. I wish I could capture some of the facial
expressions I get.

------
stavrianos
I've never really understood why people get so worked up about this. I mean,
if there were few women in tech because of flagrant discrimination, that's one
thing. As near as I can tell, though, there are few women in tech because few
women _want_ to be there. Am I wrong about this? Is it in any way a bad thing?
I'm not in a great hurry to convince a certain type of person to pursue career
X just because the demographics are unbalanced.

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biohacker42
Lets forget about technology.

Technology is by no means the only work area that's very out of kilter in
terms of gender distribution. Technology is just a very well paying and fairly
prominent industry, so it's talked about a lot more then say truck driving.

Lets concentrate purely on gender imbalanced groups. Any gathering of humans
where the sexes are not proximately 50/50 or 60/40 but 90/10 or even more
extreme.

I think we can all agree that this is neither natural nor healthy.

But, once a population goes out of what like that, the imbalance can work to
maintain intself. It's an interesting group dynamic, but I've heard male
nurses complain much like I've heard female programmers complain.

That's why I think that a 90/10 or worse split is obviously not a good thing,
for almost any human endeavor. Some exceptions certainly apply, like
monasteries.

And I think a 90/10 or worse split can become self maintaining.

But I'm not sure there's a practical solution for this. No amount of
encouragement or gentle prodding will fix this.

~~~
jacoblyles
>"Lets concentrate purely on gender imbalanced groups. Any gathering of humans
where the sexes are not proximately 50/50 or 60/40 but 90/10 or even more
extreme.

>I think we can all agree that this is neither natural nor healthy."

I agree with your main point, but not this one. There are clear differences in
personality distribution between the sexes, either due to biology or culture,
that can effect their relative desire to participate in various activities. A
few activities will have gender ratio imbalances, and that's not necessarily
unnatural or unhealthy. Men have been doing the lion's share of hunting and
war since time immemorial.

The problem is that CS doesn't obviously have to be one of those activities.
It seems to maintain its gender imbalance more through inertia than necessity,
as you said. While other sciences also have gender imbalances, they tend to be
much less extreme, and I think it possible that CS can move in that direction.

~~~
biohacker42
_Some exceptions certainly apply, like monasteries._

That's to say, yes I agree with man have and will almost certainly continue to
make up the vast majority of soldiers.

But as you said, the gender imbalance in IT, or for that matter nursing, seems
to have a lot to do with inertia. Which is just kind of sad.

------
jacoblyles
I don't doubt that the percentage of women who choose technology as a career
is less than the number who would make competent technologists. However, I
would love to see some actual data on the effectiveness of the proposed
methods of addressing this. You could measure the results by increasing the
number of females at a college who choose CS as a major, or take a career in
software, or a number of other ways.

The nascent computational pedagogy field (itself a fringe, underappreciated
movement in CS academia) is doing some good work on this.

Without numbers, we're all just throwing opinions out there.

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sethg
Is _talking about_ women in technology the problem, or is talking about women
in technology _without following through and doing something useful_ the
problem?

~~~
diN0bot
I don't know why you're voted down. It seems to me that the title once again
misses the reasonable point hidden in the article.

Communication is always important. How one communicates, or in this case talks
about minorities, is important, as are addressing a complex problem in
multiple ways (eg, with actions as well as communication).

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edw519
In order to be competitive in technology, you must be good at distinguishing
issues from details.

In this case, gender is a detail, not an issue. Anyone overly concerned with
it is missing what really matters.

~~~
diN0bot
Unless, as swolchek says above (or possibly below), there are cultural
differences to be aware of. Women and men can respond differently to the same
stimuli, just as different cultures do (consider, for example, what seniority
means in a Japanese workplace versus Silicon Valley).

You're right that gender is not so much the point as people with different
perspectives being able to collaborate efficiently and effectively.

I just wanted to emphasize that the goal is a broader open mindedness of
people interaction.

------
codeodor
Sometimes, I wish I could pull wool over the eyes of people who have their
heads buried in the sand.

------
ahoyhere
Hooray, my favorite least-favorite topic.

I've written about this several times[1], and my final conclusion is: Maybe
the lack of women in IT just goes to show: they've got sense!

Unless you're in the top 10% -- or higher -- then the tech field sucks. Most
programming jobs are deep inside massive companies where they treat
programmers like slightly more skilled typists. There's a reason Office Space
was about developers.

I'm gonna commit a major sin and quote myself here: 'It's like we're all busy
eating the same shit sandwich and—ill-content to eat it alone—we are holding a
slice out to these putative women blocked by sexism, and saying "Hey, this
goes GREAT with Wonderbread. Want a taste?"'

I will definitely use the OP's "don't treat me like a three-headed" monkey
line in the future, however.

[1]
[http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/womenintech/2007/09/12/i-don...](http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/womenintech/2007/09/12/i-dont-
like-articles-about-women-in-technology.html) (where women in technology bash
me for saying it's a non-issue!) and
[http://www.slash7.com/articles/2008/10/19/can-we-can-it-
with...](http://www.slash7.com/articles/2008/10/19/can-we-can-it-with-the-
damn-where-are-the-women-crap-already) (where above quote comes from)

