
Why aren't there more women in tech? - williswee
https://www.techinasia.com/talk/women-tech-infographic/
======
ogreveins
Every week someone talks about the same thing. I get it but at this point this
topic is passing the point of caring into annoyance and soon apathy. It
honestly has crossed my mind to just make a quick script to filter anything
that has to do with women/minorities/politics even though it's the equivalent
of covering my ears and closing my eyes. Articles based on these things have
nothing to do scientific progress and quirky/interesting technical concepts
which are the main draw for coming here.

Maybe I'll be enlightened? I don't know. Being completely honest I'm having a
hard time getting past fact that the article was written by a woman who could
instead get a tech job. My wife is a kernel programmer for goodness' sake.
Perhaps I'm failing to see something obvious so it would be nice if someone
could show me what's wrong with my line of thinking.

~~~
scottmwinters
nope. I completely agree

------
omginternets
As usual, when one looks at the sources, it's disappointing:
[http://www.nextgeneration.ie/sources-women-in-tech-
project](http://www.nextgeneration.ie/sources-women-in-tech-project)

Very few empirical sources, and lots of political soap-boxing.

Why are there few women in tech? The intellectually honest will begin by
pointing out that nobody really knows. From there, we can talk about what we
think _might_ be responsible, but if we're going to continue in the spirit of
intellectual honesty, we must acknowledge that the gender gap in technology is
part of a large and _very_ robust phenomenon by which women prefer to work
with people, and men prefer to work with things [1].

Granted, the people vs things dichotomy may well be the result of social
conditioning, but it might also be indicative of an intrinsic difference. (At
this point, intellectually-honest feminists who oppose essentialism must also
admit that the latter is a political and sociological theory, and therefore
has no bearing on whether or not there actually are fundamental differences
between the sexes from a cognitive and biological standpoint.) Indeed, just as
_de facto_ gender differences can be fueled by social conditioning, so too can
social asymmetries be fueled by biological factors.

While there certainly is evidence suggesting that the gender gap in technology
is the result of systematic bias (or even discrimination), we must take care
not to lose sight of effect sizes. I have not looked into this myself, but I
would be extremely surprised if, say, the use of gendered pronouns had an
effect size that even remotely resembled the people-vs-things effect. Social
conditioning effects tend to be small compared to their biological
counterparts (with notable exceptions).

So why are there fewer women in tech? Those claiming to have the answer are at
worst intellectually dishonest, at best ill-informed, and in all probability
pushing a very narrow interpretation of feminism.

My fellow feminists (in name only, sadly): disguising political ideology as
science and abusing the connotations of the term "source" ultimately hurts
your cause.

[1]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140)

~~~
scottmwinters
so many tech companies desperately try to hire women...those percentages of
women at tech companies are higher than the percentage of women
earning/pursuing technical degrees. They want that percentage to be higher.
Subjectively saying that the industry is biased and tries to keep out females
is very deliberately ignoring facts.

~~~
omginternets
That's my opinion as well, but I was trying to stay neutral.

------
littletimmy
Why aren't there more women plumbers? Is that also because of the "bro-
plumber" culture?

There aren't more women in tech because women didn't want to be in tech back
in the 80's and early 90's when it was not a sexy field. Someone else started
the party. Now they want in because it's cool.

~~~
andylei
actually the chart shows the opposite. there were a lot of women in tech in
the 80s and 90s. now there are fewer

~~~
scottmwinters
but the number of women in tech is growing slower than the number of men in
tech.

To be fair, its not that "its cool now, so they want in the party", its
actually that so many women just dont want in. I dont understand acting like
the whole world needs to change because their are trends in peoples personal
choices.

~~~
omginternets
>I dont understand acting like the whole world needs to change because their
are trends in peoples personal choices.

This is because feminism has become dominated by a very specific branch that
renounces essentialism vehemently. Their _a priori_ position is that there are
no differences between men and women, other than those which are socially-
constructed.

Of course, this is a sociological and political theory, whose followers often
mistake for a scientific one.

------
paulus_magnus
The are only so many women in tech because 95% of jobs in tech suck balls.

1\. entry level with zero career progression

2\. agile-scrum micro management

3\. task oriented, big picture is for business (grown ups)

4\. pay is good, starts above other jobs but hits ceiling after 5y

5\. introverts only (95% time is spent sitting inside your head)

6\. working with code (inanimate matter) is less interesting than working with
people,

7\. most often you're surrounded by nerds who don't have a life

Surely the above isn't the case if you're in a successful company, but 90%
people maintain legacy internal app in a big corpo.

------
scottmwinters
I can honestly say I have never heard the word "brogrammer"

Anyway, I like how this article has a lot of facts. I dislike many other
things.

Diversity is great, it is an awesome thing to have, promote and embrace. But
you can only do so much to force it. At some point, if females choose to stay
out of tech, thats their choice. If they choose to get into tech thats great
too. The fundamental idea of forcing society to change to have a higher
proportion of women employed in "STEM" jobs is absurd.

Personally, I know quite a few women (a much higher proportion than men) who
went through STEM programs in highschool only to go into bio or environmental
Engineering. Guess what? There aren't all that many jobs in those fields
compared to more traditional tech/generic engineering roles. Some of them left
their respective fields within a year for that reason alone

~~~
omginternets
>I like how this article has a lot of facts.

I humbly encourage you to look at the sources they provide:
[http://www.nextgeneration.ie/sources-women-in-tech-
project](http://www.nextgeneration.ie/sources-women-in-tech-project)

I find an overwhelming proportion of secondary & tertiary sources, very few
empirical sources whatsoever, and a large majority of political opinion pieces
and mainstream media coverage of feminist politics.

I don't think this infographic is the fruit of intellectually-honest research.

~~~
scottmwinters
Without looking at sources, I assumed that the percentages were accurate..and
there are quite a few of those. I dont think they come close to making the
point that the author is making, but they seemed factual.

------
tzs
A factor I've not seen analyzed is the difference in brain maturation rates
between boys and girls. Girls mature faster than boys.

I suspect that this results in boys spending more time in that awkward stage
where they would rather spend their time on activities that are done alone or,
if done with others, do not require much social interaction.

Girls pass through that stage faster, and more of their time after gets
devoted to dealing with their social groups and their positions in those
groups.

It is that awkward stage that is prime time for really seriously getting into
programming and many other STEM activities. Boys spend longer stuck there, so
boys get a head start in STEM.

~~~
tptacek
I see a lot of attempts at analyzing why there are so many males in computer
science (which is distinctively bad among STEM fields), _and_ a lot of
confusion between that question and the question of whether there _should_ be
more males in computer science.

But those are different questions. It is _not_ a safe assumption that the best
practitioners in this field should be nerds who got started in their pre-teen
years (that describes me, by the way). The overwhelming majority of pre-teen
computer nerds don't do any software development work of significance. I was
out of high school before I wrote my first significant program, which makes my
head start not that much different from someone who starts programming in
their CS courses at college.

~~~
tzs
> It is not a safe assumption that the best practitioners in this field should
> be nerds who got started in their pre-teen years (that describes me, by the
> way).

Just to be clear, I did not intend to imply that spending more time in nerd
mode might make boys _better_ at programming (or any other STEM field) than
girls. I was just looking at why boys might be more likely to go into such
fields.

A lot (most?) kids have decided what general area they are going to major in
by the time they arrive at college, and those kids are going to be a big
factor in the demographics of the fields they go into.

------
devit
It's because less women than men want to be in tech.

------
oconnor663
The "So where are the women section?" section seems weak compared to how
important it is. Here are their options:

1\. gender stereotypes (from an early age) 2\. lack of talent pool (STEM
majors) 3\. in-group favoritism (in hiring)

The first thing that jumps out at me is that (1) and (3) could _cause_ (2). If
it turned out that most of the gender imbalance in tech was related to (2),
we'd still need to answer why (2) was happening.

It also seems like (2) and (3) should be fairly easy to study. If the number
of women graduating with computer science degrees is about the same as the
number of women going into tech jobs, then presumably (3) is not a big factor.
(Though favoritism could factor into other aspects of the imbalance, like
promotions.) Then the big question would be "Why are so few women graduating
in computer science?" That could definitely be related to (1). But it's not
obvious to me that a brogrammer/machismo culture in the profession would have
a big effect on students in high school and college, before they've had much
contact with the profession. (Though if there were more women in CS as
freshmen, and that number dropped off as women did internships, that could
point to professional culture problems after all.)

So the main question: Is the percentage of women in CS in college on par with
the percentage of women in the CS workforce? Can someone more familiar with
all the different ways to measure this please chime in?

------
benten10
There are days when I feel bad about myself. Most people here in HN are
smarter, generally more successful then myself. And then when they start
talking about women in tech, and I feel much better about myself. : )

If >90% of women in tech claim there are issues with women's involvement in
tech, perhaps it's a good idea to consider the possibility that they may be
right, instead of assuming they're all sour grapes artsy complainers who
missed out on the money boat and are now complaining. Someone's posted an
image of how all women sign up for gender studies courses, and no one signs up
for CS etc. Yeah, you forgot something in that image. Add a bunch of dudes
hanging around the CS stall, talking loudly about 't __s ', making jokes about
their bodies, etcetera etcetera etcetera. The portrayal is accurate, but it
shows the symptoms, not the cause.

For those who claim to be objective Vulcans who won't agree with an issue
'just because it's politically correct to', look at it this way: assume for a
moment, this issue is real. Compare it to a fever. Whereas others are saying
the causes of the fever need to be looked at, you're arguing people get a lot
of other diseases, and people get fever all the time, and looking at the
causes is just going to waste your time from making cooler awesome apps. You
cannot shut your eyes and ears to what women have to say, and argue they're
just a bunch of complainers, which seems to be the general theme of comments
in posts like these.

Admins: Posts such as these WILL start flame wars. I feel quite strongly about
this issue, and so do a lot of people from the other side. If you want to save
the community from flame wars, I suggest heavily penalizing these.

~~~
omginternets
>perhaps it's a good idea to consider the possibility that they may be right

That's fine, but why can't the other side consider that they may be wrong?

The reason is actually simple: on the whole, the brand of feminism we're
exposed to on the internet (that is, the west-coast, SanFran variety), is a
very specific branch that vehemently opposes notions of essentialism. That is,
their _a priori_ hypothesis is that men and women are exactly alike, but are
shaped from birth by social conditioning. As such, any _observed_ discrepancy
between men and women must _necessarily_ be the result of sexism and mysoginy.

I don't deny the existence of social conditioning, nor it's problematic
effects, but anti-essentialism is a political and sociological stance, not an
empirical one.

I know your position comes from an honest desire to be compassionate and
progressive, but it's entirely missing the point of those who are tired of the
relentless proselytizing.

It's not about sour grapes; it's about the fact that this recent wave of
political correctness is laden with highly political social theory, and is
lowering the level of discourse. I'm sure you're a great person (really!), but
your appeal to emotion is ultimately favoring a cause with which you
(hopefully) don't agree.

------
Domenic_S
The "why we need women" section is interesting. What's the cause and effect?

Companies with women on the exec team get higher valuations -- perhaps that's
because women are better at choosing winning companies? Or, since there are
fewer exec-team-level women than there are men, they can be more choosy with
their opportunities?

------
SHIT_TALKER
The real answer, also an INFOGRAPHIC(!):

[http://i.imgur.com/SOurzsH.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/SOurzsH.jpg)

~~~
omginternets
People won't take you seriously because of your handle, but if we take your
image for what it is (a political cartoon), I think it brings up some very
important (albeit contentious) points.

In no particular order:

\- There's an overwhelming preference (across all academic and professional
disciplines) for women to prefer working with people and for men to prefer
working with things [1]

\- Gender theory is a sociological and political theory that's often touted as
being scientific. To be sure, it's contributed to science (e.g.: the idea that
gender roles are socially-influenced), but the idea that men and women are
equivalent outside of socially-constructed differences is (a) unsubstantiated
(b) unfalsifiable (we can never fully remove social influence) (c) in
contradiction with what cognitive neuroscience tells us about anatomy and
physiology shape cognition.

Where gender theory has a role to play is in telling us how to structure our
societies _despite_ eventual differences between the sexes, but I really don't
care for it's opinion on empirical questions.

[1]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883140)

~~~
SHIT_TALKER
I've found the admin to be hostile to discussion of biological determinism and
have given up on discourse on this site. I'm surprised to find, given the
general tenor of the commentary on this thread, that there has been a seeming
absence of intervention. Perhaps on sex he is more tolerant of such views than
on race.

~~~
omginternets
This doesn't surprise me in the least. SanFran is a hotbed of a particularly
harsh branch of anti-essentialist feminism, and YC is a SF company.

On the whole, though, I feel like these ideas can be discussed, provided you
mince your words and ignore the trolls.

