
The (un)importance of gender in programming - lorettahe
http://www.lorettahe.org/1/post/2012/02/the-unimportance-of-gender-in-programming.html
======
hythloday
I've _never_ seen a discussion on Hacker News where the substantive point was
"ZOMG girls can program" or "we feel out of place because there are so many
men around". The discussions tend to be around experiences in the workplace
that men don't have and that (some) women do; different treatment during pay
negotiations, sexualized presentations at conferences, co-worker passivity
about sexual harassment. Please don't argue against the straw-man that women
can "blend in" (I'm not going to analyse the language there, but the whole
tone of the article was a bit of a red flag) as long as they don't encounter
any of this problematic behaviour, because no-one disputes that.

Equally it's probably not very helpful if the distillation of your point is
"women ('girls'): have you even _tried_ talking to your peers?". Of course
they have, it's the most obvious thing to try. To re-iterate, the problem is
not that geeky men and women have strong social cues not to interact at all
(like some sort of really weird Victorian tea-party), it's that there is a
minority of men are actively and aggressively misogynist and the majority of
men who aren't refuse to call them on it. Unfortunately there isn't much that
women can directly do to change this (hence the perpetuating problem), they
can only highlight this behaviour and expect to be treated with
professionalism and decency.

~~~
lorettahe
There does appear to be something new I learn every day. " it's that there is
a minority of men are actively and aggressively misogynist and the majority of
men who aren't refuse to call them on it" I really have seen none around, to
be honest. As other guys on this post have been saying, they really would
rather women bothering to talk to them. Speaking from a personal experience, I
have not found any misogynists in the IT industry, but I have however worked
with females who simply do not utter a word in the office, and these females
have generated comments from my males colleagues to me, including 'She just
does not like us'. I'm not trying to make a generalisation here. But I do
think, in the IT industry, just like any other industries (such as teaching or
even the finance industry), men and women can get along, because at the
basics, developer roles and what they do aren't really that different to the
other jobs.

~~~
hythloday
I'm really glad you haven't had those experiences (and I'm glad you wrote a
post about that, even though I didn't agree with your points). I do think it's
something that's getting less acceptable over time, certainly I've seen it
decrease over my decade or so at work, so I have high hopes that it's on the
way out. I'm really glad you haven't had those experiences (and I'm glad you
wrote a post about that, even though I didn't agree with your points). I do
think it's something that's getting less acceptable over time, certainly I've
seen it decrease over my decade or so at work, so I have high hopes that it's
on the way out.

Here's an example of what I mean by misogyny: a previous manager at a company
printed out an A3 picture of a woman in hotpants and a bra with the caption
"Please update your Jira tickets before you go home". When I came in the next
day to replace it with a picture of 4 (clothed but sexualized-I think it was a
picture of a male stripper troupe) men, I received a disciplinary action from
the company. The same manager, when he introduced me to the team, introduced
the male programmers as "he works on ToolName" and the female programmers as
"she makes things look pretty".

This is reasonable subtle stuff, but I am surprised (though happy) if you've
genuinely never encountered it rather than cultivating obliviousness or
growing a thick skin.

~~~
lorettahe
I am sorry you had such bad experience at work :( Let's both hope situations
improve as time moves on :)

------
aklemm
Having once worked in a female-dominated department of a large company and
currently spending 9-5 as a stay-at-home dad, I can say it's not ideal to be
surrounded almost completely by the opposite sex. Sure, we're adults and we
can make it work, but it would be a relief if there were more men around at
Li'l Tots French class on Wednesday morning, for example. And it would be more
fun parenting during the day and I would advocate it more to other men if more
men were already around during the day.

If women programmers are surrounded by men all day because 95+ percent of
programmers are men, it makes sense that it's not an ideal work environment
(not that it's unworkable, just not ideal). Until women reach a certain
representation in the field (maybe 20-30 percent?), why not cluster together
and make a point of working together? To say, "Being one in a hundred is just
fine" seems to leave the problem unsolved.

------
RyanMcGreal
It depends on whether you're considering the problem from the perspective of
an individual programmer or from an industry-wide perspective. There are
strategies that an individual female programmer can adopt that will mitigate
the issue of gender for _her_ , but those actions will not collectively add up
to a solution that adequately addresses the system-wide problem.

------
DanBC
> _in a job, it really doesn't matter whether you are a man or a woman, as
> long as you do good work, that is enough to get you blended in._

Try telling this to the women doing the same work as men but being paid less;
and not getting promotions; and not even getting the jobs in the first place -
all just because they are women.

> _To not feel like an outsider in a place, is to precisely NOT do what these
> articles seem to be suggesting - singling yourselves out._

Strongly agree with this.

~~~
lorettahe
Perhaps I have been really fortunate, as I haven't really seen/noticed women
not getting promoted/paid less just because they are women. Maybe it's because
I'm in the UK where we don't have much of those issues. I do apologise if I
have been rather ignorant and appearing cold-blooded when it comes to the
unfortunate female workers who do come across gender inequalities caused by
bad management and company culture.

~~~
hythloday
We do indeed have these issues in the UK; men were paid more than women in
almost every sector, and around 20% more in technology in 2011. [0]

[0]
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/08/internat...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/08/international-
womens-day-pay-gap)

~~~
feral
I apologise if I missed something here, but the GP said: "I haven't really
seen/noticed women not getting promoted/paid less just because they are women"

You have provided statistics that show women get paid less than men in
technology. But this does not show that women are not getting promoted, or are
getting paid less, _just because they are women_.

Is it not also another plausible hypothesis that they are getting paid less,
because, (for example) they make work/life balance choices that focus less on
career advancement?

This of course, might indicate that there are other issues to be addressed,
with how society structures work/life balance, gender roles etc and this is
well trodden ground; but statistics that show women get a lower average (or
median) pay do not necessarily show they are getting paid less, "just because
they are women".

~~~
hythloday
_Is it not also another plausible hypothesis that they are getting paid less,
because, (for example) they make work/life balance choices that focus less on
career advancement?_

If "work/life balance choices" is code for "making babies", then yes, but you
made have noticed that it's mainly women who have babies. :)

Pay rates until primigravidity are lower for women than men in most industries
and (less) low for men than women in a few. After that the "male bonus"
increases more than the fertility rates would suggest they ought to. There are
lots of conclusions that can be drawn from that, but I think the most obvious
one is that employers haggle down women returning to work from childcare, and
that from that age women pay a penalty "because they might go and make
babies". There's some evidence (comparison with other countries with different
patterns of childcare) that this is the case.

~~~
coroxout
I definitely feel like many employers look for young men. There seems to be a
particular mindset associated with being young and male that employers look
for: the earnest young coder who'd rather spend his evening in front of a
screen than go out (I can relate to that part!) and is happy to stay late in
the office doing unpaid overtime in exchange for feeling like part of a gang.

I believe women and older candidates get less of a chance at interview because
they are seen as less likely to be interested in putting up with that and may
disrupt the clubhouse feel of all lads together.

Obviously it's not absolute proof but I know plenty of fellow programmers
who've been expected to work 60+ hour weeks on 37.5-hour contracts, where
anyone who's reluctant gets shunned by coworkers for not getting into the
company spirit and is let go quickly. And those places have been almost all
male and mostly under 35.

This is of course not just to the detriment of women, older men and anyone
with a family, but also the young men who get manipulated into working hours
they're not being paid for.

------
apricot13
finally an article about female developers that doesn't make me want to
strangle my own kind!!

Definitely agree

~~~
lorettahe
It's precisely because I got so wound up with these 'female developer'
articles I had to rant in that blog.

~~~
mbesto
Thank you girls! If we are to uphold our so-called meritocracy then gender
shouldn't be considered.

'Know your shit' - yes this goes for everyone!

------
Volscio
I'm a student at NYU-ITP and our coding classes have a good mix of males and
females learning Open Frameworks, Ruby, Python, etc. We barely ever refer to
gender. A future generation of female coders is coming, and they'll be
building awesome, important stuff.

These blog articles seem pointless in comparison.

------
mcantor
Experiences differ. The same solution won't work for everyone.

------
kahawe
> _They are mostly very nice guys, as far as I've observed._

This right here. An overwhelming majority of hackers, geeks and guys working
in IT are so absolutely alright and wonderful to deal and hang out with and I
cannot reconcile the average hacker with discriminating against women, this
simply doesn't fit. On top of that most hackers will be so happy to have a
chance to have girls around in an industry that seems to draw more than 90%
men... look, it's not like we try to keep you gals out or anything, it's just
that so many girls aren't even remotely interested in the strange things we do
and of the ones who are interested still quite many don't make it through the
programming courses in university then - or at least this has been my
experience. The image of the hacker and our profession is definitely changing
to the better nowadays, so there is something to look forward to. In my
experience the average office full of true hackers is a wonderful place to
work, no back-stabbing, friendly positive atmosphere and lots of fun to be
had.

And I never had the impression that hacker gals actually get paid less for the
same position, at least not in the IT industry? Or is it just as common a
problem as in other industries?

~~~
calibraxis
Sexists/racists/homophobes are typically perfectly nice people; they just
don't notice they're doing anything wrong.

Like the guy who calls everything "gay" when he finds something insufficiently
male or good. And the last time I invited a female into my workplace, my male
coworkers thought it was perfectly normal and funny to put down women's
achievements. (And by mainstream standards, I guess it was.) She was fuming
afterwards.

To be not-quite-so-sexist takes active work, because we are embedded in a
sexist society. Being sexist is the neutral default. I think I'm sexist. Maybe
every man I've met is.

~~~
kahawe
Never seen this around any of the true hackers I've met or worked with...

------
georgieporgie
Can we please stop referring to adult women (in a professional context, no
less) as girls?

~~~
deathwarmedover
Could you elaborate on why you are against this? I use boy/girl
interchangeably with man/woman and don't attach any meaning beyond stating
gender. Do you feel strongly that it belittles adults to refer to them as boys
or girls?

~~~
chalst
It depends on context, but when we are talking about the competence of people
to do a professional's job, then yes, girl might suggest that any competence
they have is precocity, they are not mature and well-rounded, and they are not
generally what you want the pay grade above where they are.

And girl/boy are not quite analogous. "Boy" can be used in a belittling way,
but it more often used in phrases like "one of the boys" to mean easy-going
and fun: a positive statement about someone's ability to work in groups.

It's not an easy point: there's a few women I know who think that not using
"girl" means that you think they are too old to be attractive. I think that
often holds in both the US and the UK; it used to be true here in Germany, but
I think calling a woman "Maedchen" in her workplace today is positively
offensive.

I advise you not to call female colleagues girls in the office, and be
sensitive outside the office. It's a good topic to raise in conversation.

~~~
deathwarmedover
To be clearer, I was more taking issue with original comment's blanket rule
that adult women can never be called girls. As you said, "It depends on
context", and I think the original comment neglects this.

I'm totally aware it's not always appropriate to use such terms.

------
thekungfuman
I like the content well enough but grey text on black? Rather difficult to
read.

~~~
lorettahe
Did notice that. Will get sorted when I have time over the weekend. Sorry :/

------
gorgoroth666
"Why do men dominate the fields of science, engineering and mathematics?"

"Are intrinsic differences between the sexes responsible for the
underrepresentation of women in mathematical and scientific disciplines ?"

I think so.

~~~
lorettahe
There are many good female scientists/engineers/mathematicians. Back in
Cambridge University, to start off with, there are many female mathematics
students. Considering achievement by people such as Grace Hopper, I don't
think we can blame the domination of men down to sex differences. I would
rather girls stand up and bravely join the science community regardless
whether these communities are male dominated or not.

~~~
gorgoroth666
Let's count the heads and the achievements and see how Grace Hopper is
irrelevant.

But you should have thinked about that by yourself; another example of woman
logic I guess.

~~~
hythloday
FWIW, lorettahe, this is exactly the kind of ad-hominem idiocy/misogyny that
women encounter[0] and men _never do_ [1]. There's no one big issue keeping
women out of programming, it's just the drip-drip-drip of "you're different
from us and we don't want you here" that 50% (then 65%, then 80%, then 95%...)
of the candidate pool simply never hear or see unless they make an effort to.

[0] This moron got downvoted because downvoting is not socially awkward; how
many times do you see a social smack-on-the-wrist in a face-to-face
conversation?

[1] I'll donate £5 to a charity of your choice for every time someone comes up
with an attributed accusation of using "man logic" in a discussion related to
programming.

~~~
nnythm
it's man logic to promote denigrating terms against men in an effort to better
the plight of women.

~~~
hythloday
I'm afraid I'm not sure what your point is (is it objecting to the word
"misogyny"?)--could you elaborate?

~~~
nnythm
The idea of encouraging the term of "man logic" is man logic. Misogyny is
clearly a problem, but saying, "oh but men are dumb too" is not the right way
to go about fixing it.

~~~
hythloday
I definitely wasn't encouraging the invention of the term "man logic"--I was
pointing out that _no-one even thinks about calling things "man logic"_.
That's the dichotomy at play here.

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noodly
Great article. Thats the hackers spirit in there :)

------
klaut
Completely agree what the author says.

~~~
klaut
seriously? down-vote because I agree with the article? .. oh, well.

~~~
icebraining
I'm pretty sure the downvotes are because your post added nothing to the
discussion. If you find the article interesting, you should just upvote it.

