
To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes - sye19
http://susieye.com/2014/01/20/to-the-girls-of-hackernews-i-am-a-female-founder-who-codes/
======
olefoo
There is nothing about programming computers that is gender specific; in fact
it seems kind of weird and awkward that we have to discuss this at all.

Given that so many of the foundational figures of the field ( Ada Lovelace,
Grace Hopper, etc. ) were female, the fact that programming and IT became an
almost entirely male-dominated profession is suspicious, and should make us
question the attitudes and social constructs that brought this about.

~~~
kamaal
Its not about programming. Or anything to do with the profession. Its has much
to do with the culture.

In my first project near impossible work conditions and deadlines were placed
on us. Most of us had to make extreme sacrifices(health wise, socially and in
many aspects)- The other option was being out of the job. The problem is you
need a supporting family. Here in India, its difficult for women at least
socially and even in your own family to justify working whole nights, weekends
and late hours consistently. You can try to fight that when you are single, it
gets near impossible to do that after marriage and kids. Plus women have to
take breaks in their 20's and 30's for maternity reasons.

At the other end, super success in software depends on all this start up
culture which is very hard on most women.

~~~
pjmlp
I would say it depends a lot on the country as well.

In many European countries those conditions would suffice for a class action
against the employer.

~~~
kamaal
>>those conditions would suffice for a class action against the employer.

What good would that do?

If you pass laws that make it difficult to start and sustain a competitive
company, next time around you will see such companies would be starting up in
some other country.

Now the whole ecosystem suffers.

~~~
shaan7
you mean to run a "competitive company" you have to abuse your employees? I
know a lot of companies that are the best in their business and never have to.

It is just unfortunate for India that our so-called IT Industry is just
marketing itself as cheap and easy-to-abuse labour.

~~~
kamaal
>>you mean to run a "competitive company" you have to abuse your employees?

Not at all, but to be a "competitive company" you have to be "competitive"
which is essentially doing better than your competition. The issue is someone
is always willing to put more effort than you/your company. This is where it
all breaks down.

This is exactly what makes our profession so much sought after. Because at
some point you can make money non linear to your effort, and if you compress
that effort into a small period of time you can make a fortune.

For every person that is happy to go back working 4 hours a day, there are
people to put in 16 hours a day.

>>It is just unfortunate for India that our so-called IT Industry is just
marketing itself as cheap and easy-to-abuse labour.

IT professionals in India are not cheap. Compare it with any other profession
in India, even engineers. We come out easily as better paid people here.

And even a cursory look at the start up industry across the world, not just in
India will tell you what kind of a fierce competition it is.

~~~
hibbelig
I don't agree that abusing employees helps. Software development is a creative
activity, and you've got to get enough rest to be creative.

Disclosure: European here.

------
primitivesuave
I run a private education organization that teaches kids how to code at a
physical facility, and we get a gender breakup of male and female students
that is similar to that of the industry (around 80 - 20). Because of the
overwhelming male presence, it is difficult to make a comfortable learning
environment for the female students, who may often feel uncomfortable, at odds
with, or ostracized by pseudo-masculine efforts undertaken by adolescent
males. It's at this level that computer education becomes challenging for
females, at that awkward stage where not all the boys have yet learned how to
shower daily.

Our solution was to simply make a small set of our classes for girls only.
This provides girls with the option of learning either in an all-girls or a
regular environment, so girls who feel uncomfortable are not discouraged to
the point that they drop out.

~~~
notastartup
This is extremely sexist and needlessly hostile. It's like being male and
interested in coding is somehow associated with all the stereotypical male
attributes which turns off women from coding. Ah, so we need to have boys
acting less like boys because it's clearly why we don't have more women in
tech. So we all need to teach teen boys to become meterosexual so it can be
more inviting and suitable for females?

I think if you want more women to be coding, you have failed definitely. Why
not show that women can be as strong as the boys, can rub shoulders and brain
and still come out on top? By segregating based on gender, you only support
that women have stereotypical attributes which prevent them from being as good
as men, and men are good because of their stereotypical attributes.

Your genitals do not make you a coder, it's really down to the culture and
societal expectations of both genders.

~~~
wetmore
Yes explain to me how keeping things the way they are will fix the situation.

~~~
flebron
I will do that as soon as you explain how treating female coders as if they
were freaks, segregating them in their own class, decreases the problem of
integration of more female coders in tech.

Perhaps the issue of "feeling alien to the community" would be improved by,
you know, not alienating females from the community, with sexist behavior such
as this.

~~~
primitivesuave
I would _never_ consider a female coder to be any different from a male one. I
am merely giving anecdotal evidence that female students of the 11 - 17 age
group learn significantly better when they are amongst their peers. My
decision to make a _few of our classes_ into girls-only ones was to allow the
girls who felt uncomfortable in a male-dominated setting to still have an
opportunity to learn in a setting they found comfortable. My underlying
motivation was not to segregate them, but to give them another option - we
still have girls attending our regular classes, and this is hardly the issue
that some of the commenters here are making it out to be.

~~~
obstacle1
>I would never consider a female coder to be any different from a male one

You literally segregated males from females in your coding class. That is
considering them to be different.

>female students of the 11 - 17 age group learn significantly better when they
are amongst their peers.

So male students aren't _peers_ of female students? Really?

I'm pretty sure you're not being purposefully malicious, but jeeze... Your
philosophy is kinda broken, you don't really seem to realize the (incredibly
sexist) assumptions you're making, and that's going to lead to reinforcing a
gender divide, not solving any problems.

~~~
primitivesuave
I understand that from an idealistic perspective what I'm doing can be
regarded as malicious or sexist, but I'd like to point out two very important
things: 1\. there is no requirement for girls to only attend the all-girls
classes. 2\. this is not my philosophy, this is a data-driven decision that
has nothing to do with my perception of the abilities of males or females. The
all-girls classes were a result of us seeing a significant drop in the
percentage of girls enrolled in a programming class.

It was a management decision that many of the parents in our community
appreciated, and quite frankly I'm a bit shocked by how quickly people on HN
jump to the conclusion that I'm some kind of misogynist.

------
smtddr
To the author of this blog and all ladies reading this:

I'm sorry, but just like stories around racial diversity in tech you're about
to see a bunch of HN comments making __EVERY EXCUSE CONCEIVABLE__ , and then
some, to dismiss your concerns and/or say this blog is doing damage instead of
helping. I think they're all wrong, but I can't argue against all of them. All
I can do is upvote your supporters and downvote the detractors.

Please just keep on keeping on. I have a daughter here who will benefit from
the path you're creating. You won't see it in the comments of HackerNews, but
there are men in tech who can actually see the glass walls & ceilings women
run into in this field starting back to at least high-school and won't deny it
with pedantic arguments that go nowhere & prove/disprove nothing.

That is all.

~~~
hueving
Way to throw out the righteous indignation before anything actually happened.
That doesn't add to the conversation at all and, if anything, just invites
problems.

~~~
DanBC
It did have a horrible tone but we know it's true. There are some deeply
unpleasant people on HN who are happy to spew some really vile opinions.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Once upon a time, progressive modernist thinkers believed that the correct
response to vile speech was a well thought out logical rebuttal.

I miss those days. Nowadays it's dismiss, demonize and downvote.

~~~
DanBC
I miss the days when things that gratify my intelectual curiosity where the
things that got upvotes on HN and things that attract low value flaming didn't
get upvoted.

Have a look through this thead for the number of people making the "we don't
have programmes to get men in nursing" point. Then see that point being made,
and rebutted, in every single previous similar thread. There is no point
trying to hold logical conversation with people who are dishonest.

These people don't recognise their bias. Indeed, they have a weird pride in
that bias, as if they have The Truth and all those other sheep are being duped
by The Women.

~~~
yeukhon
We all carry some bias. It's like telling a strong animal rightist about
hunting. They are not going to agree with you whatsoever, even if it's just
philosophical discussion.

> Then see that point being made, and rebutted, in every single previous
> similar thread. There is no point trying to hold logical conversation with
> people who are dishonest.

People are just trying to bring out their own arguments. It's not all that
weird to argue that someone would want to have more male nurses because the
public image of nurse is feminine.

Some arguments are weak and some are strong. For example, in abortion, the two
most flammable are status of the fetus and the woman's right, but to be
honest, after reading Rosalind Hursthouse's Abortion paper, you will that
neither is relevant in the discussion of abortion. But we still bring them up
because that's just how people view the issue and I think that's fair and not
dishonest.

Dismissive and dishonest responses are those just reject facts without proof.
For example, if someone says there are enough women in the tech sector that's
a lie because we know the number is not high and we shouldn't place any quota
at all. But if someone says that we have enough opportunity for women to enter
the tech sector that's not dismissive or dishonest. It's a fair argument
because the lack of resource vary from location to location, from age to age,
from school to school and vary from personal experience.

------
alan_cx
Tongue in cheek, but I think there might be a point here struggling to see the
light of day...

Why? I mean, why would women want to get into coding?

If one is not already working with computers, from the outside world, its a
crappy job, and the money isn't better than many other things. Not to mention
the insane hours culture. Women have a clean sheet choice. Why work in an
office, killing your brain on hugely complex things for not much extra money,
sat in front of what is essentially a complex toy?

Has it ever occurred to people that perhaps girls take an objective choice
based on purely the work and reward (money or psychological) and make a wise
choice to do something else?

Also, coders are seen widely was geeky, spotty, awkward, weirdos, who cant get
laid. And, um, they are often banging on about getting more women in the
workplace. From a girls POV, that's sounding a bit iffy at best.

My attitude is to just let women do what they want to do, and if I get a CV
from one, well, I dont want to know if its a woman or not. I just want the
skills. I dont care if its a man, woman, or what ever. Just don't get in
anyones way and let nature take its course.

But personally, I cant help thinking women are making a smart choice, and
going for better way to spend life earning a crust. I mean, really, look at
what we do. Its a terrible way to be. And we know this is true because even
the big tech companies go out of their way trying to make offices and
environments fun and exciting. And that is for men. Heh, even men hate it, and
need a bouincy toy to distract them!!! I don't see many of other companies
going this far. Why? Because the job is awful.

So, men, stop trying to shit up womens lives by making them feel bad for not
wanting to work down the mine.... sorry, code.

XXXXX love you all, obviously ;)

~~~
Cthulhu_
I'm a high-end coder working as a consultant for a major international bank
(etc etc etc), and your assertions / sweeping generalisations about coders are
wrong; first, not all of us are weirdos; most are married or dating, and we
work regular 9 - 5:30 days (with some flexibility). Definitely not a mine
(although I wouldn't mind a bit more natural light, but then, office
buildings).

If it was a 'terrible way to be', I wouldn't be working here; I like my job.
Also, if they try to lure me in with bouncy toys, I'll tell 'em to fuck right
off - that probably means the other working conditions, pay, etc are shit.

------
eXpl0it3r
It would be really nice to see more females in the industry, but I rally have
to ask myself if those artificial promotions will help much. I never learned
to program because of some courses or because the industry needed me, I
started programming because I wanted to create things. There was just a
natural interest in computers and how they work, that's what drove and often
still drives me today. If females have the same passion and/or will to create
things, then I don't see what is stopping them from doing so. Sure it might be
intimidating to work in a rather male-dominated profession, but personally I
have enough of all the generalization that is happening. Not every
company/community is unable to respect anyone just because of their gender.
Then again maybe it's quite a bit different here in Europe.

~~~
graeme
How did you develop this 'natural' interest in programming? I am male, but had
literally zero role models, and my school system never covered computers. I
made it to age 25 without knowing what a programming language is.

But when I found out I was bloody hooked on the idea!

~~~
eXpl0it3r
Fair point, I might have been "spoiled" with growing up in a rather techy
environment, my dad worked with PC ever since I can remember. I however think
that the schooling system needs to start including computer science subjects
and by that I don't just mean how to use Microsoft Word.

Then again the question is, why do females not get hooked on the idea, even
when they don't grow up in such a techy environment. Is it really "our" fault
or is even "our" job to trying to confince people how great programming is?
We've a lot of events especially made for females where we try to excite them
for computer science, but so far it didn't add much to the imbalance. So for
me it seems (at least here in Switzerland) that we're doing everything
possible to get women into programming, but if their interests are somewhere
else, what else is there to do? Do we really need to play a blame game?

That's what I meant with "natural" interest. We can't force women to get
"hooked" on the idea, they need to get there on their own.

~~~
detcader
It's probably not the fault of the "programming world", but rather gender
roles in their entirety, where boys and girls are pushed toward certain
interests and away from others.

Programming is often seen as "geeky" (lesser so today than in the past) and
girls are encouraged to "not be geeky," to fit in with their peers. Boys are,
I think, much less socially penalized.

~~~
eXpl0it3r
It's something one can certainly think about and be aware of, but then again
it's just a theory. Personally I haven't experienced this. I grew up with my
sisters and they had the same exposure to computers as I and my brother did
and there was never any pressure from my parents or us that computers is just
a boy thing, but my sisters never had the same natural interest in
programming. I actually even tried to teach a few things to them, but it
seemed to be too complex for them and their own curiosity didn't drive them to
learn more on their own, as I did.

While I see and lived that parents have an influence on PC usage at a young
age, I wouldn't say they are push children towards or away from it, but I
guess there is always something going on. I agree that every boy and girl
should have the same chances on learning computer stuff, but I don't see it
necessary that one has to artificially push girls or boys towards a topic. If
they don't have the interest at the topic, there's no reason to teach them all
about it, just so we can "solve" an imbalance.

I know some believe that interest is purely influenced, I can't agree with
that. Interests can be hugely influenced, yes, but there are studies showing
that there exists natural interests for certain kind of toys of around one
year old children.

------
melindajb
What girls of hackernews? that's my question. 224 comments as of writing this,
and most of them ignorant straw man whiny responses by (surprise!) men. Hard
to imagine why some women wouldn't enjoy coming here and discussing things
with so many enlightened, educated folks.

If you're threatened by the thought of more women in coding, then you don't
really believe that we're a meritocracy. If you're one of those folks, then
somewhere, deep in your heart, you know that things aren't fair, and when kick
ass women programmers come in, you as a mediocre participant, will be pushed
down to the bottom.

Meritocracy wants the very best. Seeks out the very best. Welcomes the very
best.

To use an analogy, I can't imagine Olympic athletes being happy for the best
competitors from another country being sidelined due to their sexual
preference. No, that's not happening. because world class athletes know their
victories are hollow unless they're truly competing against the very best in
the world. Unlike Silicon Valley. We don't want competition. Nope, we want our
nice, cozy little in crowd, keep that money nice and close so we can control
it.

As Chris Rock said, there's a difference between rich and wealthy. Michael
Jordan is rich, the owner of the chicago bulls is wealthy.

Women want to be wealthy, not just rich. African Americans want to be wealthy,
not just rich. And right now, according to PG himself, the path to that wealth
is by learning to code.

So anyone trying to stop that from happening, can pretty much categorically be
described as a bigot.

~~~
xrctl
No. No one is threatened by women, just perhaps annoyed by their endless
complaining.

> To use an analogy, I can't imagine Olympic athletes being happy for the best
> competitors from another country being sidelined due to their sexual
> preference. No, that's not happening. because world class athletes know
> their victories are hollow unless they're truly competing against the very
> best in the world.

But you can probably see how male Olympians would be annoyed if they had to
put up with 24/7 accusations that their superior performance in comparison to
female Olympians was only because how much they hated them.

~~~
melindajb
You've completely miscategorized the nature of legitimate criticism. But why
let facts stand in the way of a good argument?

------
dzink
Kudos to Susie for putting herself out there to make a point! For everyone
else debating this issue: to look at the problem objectively, we have to break
down the different clusters of people that need encouragement and support to
get into tech/startups in order to see how we measure and fix each cluster:

1\. American children of any affiliation (race, sex, gender, location) need to
learn how to code, because it is the literacy of the future - without it you
are left behind in both earnings potential and career choices. To make that
happen everyone here can take a step to show a child something cool they can
do with code. Get them fired up about expressing their creativity with the
tools of tech! For every one child that reminds you of you when you were
young, pick three that don't, to make things even in the long run.

2\. Niche groups, previously underrepresented in tech need better
representation, because diverse perspectives raise the permutation of
potential problems noticed, problems tackled and solutions possible, period.
Representation also leads to better mentorship, resources, and an even start
for everyone with talent and grit, regardless of background. Once we get a
unicorn IPO from each underrepresented group, things will change. If we aren't
getting those, something is wrong with 1) or 3) or both.

3\. Existing representatives of underrepresented groups in tech who have the
experience and skills to lead and build successful businesses today need to be
able to receive the same support and the same proportion of support as
regularly represented groups. Nothing more, nothing less. We have yet to see
data from anyone about percentage of seed* funded startups out of 1000
applicants from their representative group. That data can easily close this
conversation for good or surface a problem that can be addressed next if need
be. If there is a real problem here however, teaching children how to code
won't be the way we need to solve it. This is the only data we have seen and
it is not encouraging: [http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/11/02/how-
female-en...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/11/02/how-female-
entrepreneurs-can-get-venture-capital-
game/Ahn0XfhG3WABm8Q4uoAq6O/story.html?event=event12) .

How would you detect or solve for a problem in this cluster?

* mentioning seed, since that sample would be most likely to be sufficient to gauge trust in underrepresented groups by investors. Later rounds could skew for industry trends in the short run. The goal is to run a regression that shows objective information.

~~~
Cthulhu_
I dunno about 1; in a similar line, you'd have to teach them electronics,
farming, carpentry, household, and how to get unemployment benefits. But I'm
in favor of teaching kids all of the above though.

------
tempodox
I hope this article goes viral. I can't believe we're still not over these
stupid preconceptions that intellect has anything to do with our reproductive
organs. It shouldn't have anything to do with luck, but still: Best of luck to
all you girls out there!

~~~
Cthulhu_
Judging by some of my colleagues / the people I've worked with, intellect
isn't a prerequisite for getting into the tech industry either :p.

~~~
tempodox
That's a different discussion entirely :-)

------
cupofjoakim
We know that we've reached gender equality when both men and women have the
same possibilities, but for that to happen, each individual has to realise
that just because you're a man doesn't mean that you can't work with girly
products and vice versa.

Good article, I think you're right on target with the issue.

------
caiob
Since when did this become an issue? Tired of hearing that company X or
company Y should hire more females.

We have way more serious problems to solve, really.

~~~
vacri
_We have way more serious problems to solve, really._

I wasn't aware that we had to attack the list strictly in order.

------
Cthulhu_
Probably offtopic and inane, but, using the term 'girl' implies
children/teenagers or other immature women; can people just use 'women'
instead? Will help with getting taken serious and such.

------
kateho
Well, that's cool. While I totally get the point of what the OP was trying to
do (and it's awesome trying to be make female coders/founders more visible), I
have to confess that as a fellow 'girl of HackerNews', I think the title could
be less leading and a bit more constructive.

There are other female founders out there that code. I'm sorry to say that
you're not the first, nor the last. It's about how we get MORE female founders
and female coders to increase the diversity of the startup world.

(Incidentally, I'm female, a startup founder and I code. )

------
knackernews
ITT: men arguing with men who say "If I were a woman"

------
kolev
Not every brain is wired well for programming (can we please stop calling it
"coding") - male or female, but there's some advantage men get due to being
generally better at abstract thinking. Some believe this is due to cultural
differences ([http://phys.org/news/2011-08-disputes-notion-men-spatial-
wom...](http://phys.org/news/2011-08-disputes-notion-men-spatial-women.html)),
but I personally believe it's all due to hormonal differences. For example,
estrogen affects cognitive function, testosterone definitely boosts
competitiveness, and so on. I know some will rush to downvote me as a sexist,
but this will be far from the truth. On the contrary - this is a good defense
on the discrepancies in the statistics and suggests this to be a software
rather a hardware problem. I personally don't need third-party statistics - I
have nearly 30 years of programming experience and less than 10% of my
colleagues have been female and this ratio hasn't improved over time.

------
scdoshi
"Assigning a label to myself like “hacker” or “developer” gives me the heebie-
jeebies."

This in particular is not limited to women. As a guy from a non-CS background,
I felt the same way for a long time. I'd say it's a function of experience
rather than gender.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Any kind of label is imho somehting to be avoided. Hacker / developer /
programmer, but also things like nerd/geek for that matter. Few of my
colleagues here would be put into the latter categories if you met them on the
street.

------
fjhqjv
This seems like it should be addressed more towards non-technical founders who
should learn to code, not specifically women.

Otherwise, it's built on the assumption that most females on Hacker News don't
already know how to code, which may or may not be the case.

------
yeukhon
Here is my abridged comment:

1\. It is important to like who you are and what you do. I am glad you are
proud of being who you are,

2\. But at the same time I don't like when people are calling out initiatives
like "more women in tech". Look, getting a job is tough. It can be luck or
qualification. I know someone is going to cite some research studies but at
this point, let's just say yes we get it, a lot of assholes out there are
discriminating women. But in reality, you can't stop them by hiring more
women. You wish you could just get more women in manager level so that more
women can be hired. That's not going to happen magically and hoping women
managers hire more women is also acting discrimination. I am not comfortable
with that kind of initiatives. It is as if I was a broker setting a goal for
myself. That's just number game, there is nothing we gain from it other than
growing the numbers.

3\. All-girls class is just bad. For one it's like containing them, like
putting them in a zoo and wait for them to do something amazing and then we
pay a visit and cheer them for their accomplishment. Events meant for helping
girls to find self-esteem is great but then again, too many is going to do
damage because they soon will get attached to these "all-girls" environment.
To actually work in the real world, one must accept the flaws and be ready to
work with unfriendly people. What is even more frustrating is that we are
dogfooding people with the crazy things CS and programming are doing. The
ability to code is great, awesome. But coding is just a tool. Like every other
tool out there, you can either make something awesome and powerful or
something ugly and useless. Knowing how to code doesn't make you smarter or
special. It's like knowing quantum physics suddenly makes you a wantable guy
among your girlfriends? That's just bullshit (for some it's true but then
that's just bullshit). And that's pretty much stereotyping.

What we need is to stop telling girls or any group of people to do XYZ because
they are the minority or is having disadvantage. Making exceptions to them
isn't going to help them. I am Asian (Chinese to be exact) and if 20 years
later Asian MD dominates like 80%, do we start another initiative to bring up
other ethnicity? If all the ice cream truck drivers are Asians, do we want
more diversity? If we think (or because studies have shown...) that girls
don't end up in tech because they are afraid or because they were told they
weren't good enough, having all-girl class won't solve the problem when they
enter the real world either.

Teach people about computer and web literacy, about science and engineering,
about what people do in their daily jobs. Teach regardless of gender or race.
We all deserve to know them and we don't need to have special non-profit
organizations going after XYZ groups of people. Bring those things into core
education.

~~~
daleharvey
I dont think the gender split is the issue that needs to be fixed, if the
ratio was uneven for some particularly boring reason then I dont think its an
issue that people would care about as much.

The problem I care about is that this industry is hostile to a very large
group of people, women arent around not only because they arent encouraged
early on, but because they are being driven out when they do get here, ask any
women in the industry what their experiences have been and it will likely be
surprising and upsetting, it has been to me at least every time.

~~~
belorn
Its hand-waving comments like this that really annoys me when reading HN. As
with anecdotal evidence, it tries to masquerade as scientific while being the
exact opposite. My reply to such comment is like always: Bring in the real
science (i.e. Sociology).

If women are being driven out as you describe, it should be possible to
measure. For example, if they are being actively driven out, women in
technology should then be naturally gravitating towards those companies,
conferences and similar spaces which has an lower hostility than the average.

While some people do perform some studies like that, it still very much in a
early stage.

From statistics and Wikipedia and HN have done, one shared answer that have
provided is a cultural phenomenon, in which anonymous non-social interacting
work is a male dominated area. I would very much like to see a study how true
that is, if its located to the IT industry, and if it is true globally.

~~~
daleharvey
What is hand-wavey, that women are being driven out of stem or that any women
I have talked about the subject has repeated how hostile it is?

The fact that women are leaving stem fields is very easy to measure and has
lots of reports and studies, the fact that everyone I talk to about it has
hostile experiences to describe is very much an anecdote, one that I think its
easy for a lot of people to share.

The reference to sociology seems like some xkcd joke, are you annoyed that I
commented on an issue without doing a pdh on the subject or that you dont
think it is an issue?

~~~
belorn
You claim that women are getting into STEM, and then forced out through (the
cause) a hostile environment.

But you have nothing to support your claim beyond "any women I have talked
about the subject" says so. If you have "lots of reports and studies" to show
that the cause is from a hostile environment, bring them on! Im calling on
your bluff there.

There is "lots of" reports that show that the number of women in STEM subject
are decreasing. However, they rarely if ever venture into _the cause_ of the
statistic decline. Since statistics are cold facts without much worthy of
discussion, its the cause that people discuss.

And its such causes that study of human social behavior is useful to figure
out. It using Science rather than grunting.

~~~
daleharvey
Most of the recent things I have read have been a summation of this study -
[http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/08/21/sf.sot...](http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/08/21/sf.sot092.abstract)
In particular I think I noticed
[http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/gender-
societ...](http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/gender-
society/women-stem-occupations-retention-rates) Which mainly discusses how
many women leave STEM compared to over fields and to do what.

However if I didnt find any emperical studies to backup my anecdote I wouldnt
really care, unless I have some reason to believe everyone I talk to is a
habitual liar I will carry on considering it a real and upsetting problem.
Problems are still problems and can even be worked towards without having an
scientifically rigorous process applied to their definition.

~~~
belorn
Neither of those studies shows that women leaves STEM because of an "hostile
environment".

Study1:

    
    
      What does emerge is that investments and job rewards that generally stimulate field
      commitment, such as advanced training and high job satisfaction, fail to build
      commitment among women in STEM.
    

The second study is more interesting, but is only speculative (i.e. Not
scientific).

    
    
      “We suspect that the retention deficit in STEM may be due to the team organization
      of scientific work combined with the attitudes and expectations of co-workers and
      supervisors who hold more traditional beliefs about the competencies of women in
      these rapidly changing fields,”
    

When a researcher says that they "suspect", it really does mean what the word
says. Its a opinion without study. A study can produce _findings_ , and
findings are what the last linked research article (in the research) show.

    
    
      A related 2012 study published in Sociology, “The Dimensions of Occupational Gender
      Segregation in Industrial Countries,” examines why some jobs may be filled more by
      men or women, be it by choice, obligation or exclusion. Among the findings are that
      women tend to outperform men in the general desirability of occupations
    

So neither is a empirical studies to backup your anecdote. The findings
however where an interesting read, and I hope similar studies are made on the
"suspected" and "suggested" theories.

------
jaimebuelta
It's just me or describing in the tech world things that are rare but clearly
do exist like 'unicorns' seems a little weird?

(I know is quite common way of talk, but still...)

------
shurcooL
I would love to see more girls creating cool stuff using golang; that'd be so
cool. I haven't seen any so far.

------
altero
Hallelujah!

------
notastartup
To the Boys of HackerNews: I am a Male Founder who Codes but no one cares
because there's too many of us and that makes us not at all interesting.

Have women have ever been robbed of being able to code like voting? Why does
it receive so much attention? What adversity did they need to overcome to be
where they are? Is it physical like someone who suffers from carpal tunnel
syndrome or glaucoma overcoming their disability? Is it mental like someone
who suffers from dyslexia mastering programming? Or was it political like a
North Korean who discovered coding while facing imminent persecution for the
forbidden knowledge?

I know women who can code just like men and they are great at it but their
gender has nothing to do with it, it's just their ability and strengths as
developers. Does a person's gender really merit so much of our attention when
the basis for the argument is as superficial as a binary label society have
placed on people, never mind the the other categories of people that fall in
between and who are shunned.

~~~
jmnicolas
Yes exactly.

I'm a bit fed up with people advocating more women in <insert male dominated
industry here>.

As far as I can tell these same people don't complain that teachers and nurses
jobs are mainly occupied by women.

Everybody seem to agree that a nursing job is not attractive for most men.
Maybe the reason that women are few in tech is because these professions are
not attractive to them.

~~~
romanovcode
Never in my life I've seen an article named _I 'm teacher and I'm a male!_;
_Life as a male nurse_ ; _etc_..

I think these articles are mainly link-bait for pageviews, nothing more.

~~~
DanBC
Do you hang out on teaching or nursing forums?

~~~
melindajb
do you really not know how to use google?

------
poorelise
"It’s not because I can’t speak as well or I don’t know the material — it’s
because he fits the mold so much better."

Did you ever test that assumption?

