
What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech - jmcohen
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/opinion/sunday/what-really-keeps-women-out-of-tech.html
======
natvod
Ok so I'm a girl who codes/programs and I'm my take on the issues she raised:

Stereotypes about STEM fields putting girls off

I can only talk about my own experience but I saw very few negative
stereotypes about STEM fields growing up. Definitely not enough to put off
girls.

However, while I did start coding at a young age, I didn't apply my skill to a
work/business purpose until my twenties.

Why? I think this issue affects both genders actually. I was simply never
exposed to people or situations that showed me you could built really cool
projects/businesses with code. I never encountered anyone/anything until ~20
that inspired me to take it seriously.

Maybe it has something to do with my gender but I think a lot of people these
days are being forced way too early to commit to an education/work track
without being given to chance to explore what their options are.

It's hard to discover you like a topic by learning it a classroom. I think co-
ed / internship programs at a much younger age will help a lot. It definitely
would have helped me discovered my true passions younger.

About being feminine

I don't feel un-feminine in any environment where there are more guys than
girls. Rather, I think the problem is, the professional/business world as a
whole rewards and values masculine traits (competitiveness, talking highly of
yourself and accomplishments, etc.) much more than feminine ones.

Even in dress, women are encouraged to dress like a man (power suits, solid
colors, etc.) in professional settings to be taken seriously.

Thus as a girl, you're forced to act more masculine to achieve business goals.
But it's hard to suppress your natural state of being. Additionally girls are
still expected to (and want to) act feminine in their personal relationships
so women "who want to have it all" have to toggle back and forth between being
masculine and feminine. It can be exhausting.

~~~
icanhackit
Great post though I'd like to add some thoughts to this bit: _the professional
/business world as a whole rewards and values masculine traits
(competitiveness, talking highly of yourself and accomplishments, etc.)_

I'd argue those are better classified as extroverted traits rather than
masculine traits. Believe me, there are more than a few males that suffer from
this being the dominant culture in business (or anywhere). Of course it makes
sense though - introverted culture is more introspective thus not as
dominating by nature. If there was ever going to be a winner, especially if
the business has a focus on sales, it was going to be the one that rewards
competitiveness and confidence.

I'd say the next big battle in workplace equality is going to focus on
treating introversion fairly. I've seen MBTI's, a kind of personality test,
used to define who a business hires and fires despite them claiming otherwise
(forgetting that MBTI tests are pseudoscience). You can guess which
personality types they prefer, regardless of gender. They want "rockstars".

~~~
xerophyte12932
This is a sort of culture (in geographic terms) thing to be honest. There was
a very nice article somewhere that compared the values of the East and the
West. Talking highly of yourself actually comes off as negative in the East.
In the East, humility is considered far more respectable, where as the same
comes off as weak in the west.

~~~
lagadu
That's not as much a "east vs west" thing as it is an "US vs rest of the
world" thing in my experience; as someone who lives on northern Europe.

~~~
collyw
Thats exactly what I was thinkng. I have read on here that Sweden is a very
humble country in term of bragging about achivements in job intervews. It
would be interesting to see some data on numbers of women in tech there.

------
kisstheblade
One question. Why is it important to make, quote: "computer science more
attractive to women..."?

I mean I get that the sex discrimination stuff and treatment of women we read
here on hacker news is bad and of course it would help if there were more
women in tech.

But other than that, if you think of the women in general and not some
"diversity would be good" (which it probably would be), why the worry?

Why aren't we as worried that not enough men show interest in being nurses or
kindergarten teachers or social workers? I know from experience that it would
be very important to get a more "balanced" look at things in those fields.

Are we still treating women as little girls who we need to be worried about
because they "only like superficial things and nail polish" and can't really
take care of themselves unless we make changes so that "important stuff" is
more attractive to them? I think this is a very patronizing attitude, and
dismissing the stuff some women may find more interesting than "hard sciences"

~~~
davmre
The greedy answer: because systematically discouraging 50% of the brainpower
of the human species from entering one of our most productive and
simultaneously short-staffed occupations is bad for technological progress and
the growth of global wealth.

The humanist/utilitarian answer: because computer science is intrinsically
awesome and rewarding, so global utility is maximized by ensuring that anyone
who might be interested has an unimpeded path towards experiencing that
awesomeness.

~~~
Bostonian
We don't know that 50% of the brainpower relevant to computer science is
female. Male and female brains differ, and it is quite possible that they
choose to specialize in different areas.

~~~
GhotiFish
You're right. It could be that women are in fact far more effective
programmers than men, and we're missing out on 70% of the brain power.

hard to say.

~~~
dennisgorelik
That is unlikely. Otherwise women would have already dominated programming
industry.

~~~
magicalist
That doesn't follow in the slightest. There's more to "dominating" an industry
than being effective at a job (I'd put that fairly low on the list as long as
you hit some threshold, actually).

~~~
dennisgorelik
What are more important reasons for dominating in the industry [other than
being effective at a job]?

~~~
magicalist
Are promotions handed out to only the worthy? Are technical decisions always
made by the expert that should have been there? Is every interview candidate
perfectly evaluated and ranked relative to their competitors? Are only
expertly programmed and well tested code bases valued at billions of dollars?

Of course not. Political skills, connections, self promotion, being in the
right place at the right time etc etc are all hugely important. Ask anyone
giving advice on everything from getting a job to advancing your career to
funding your startup. Within a huge ( _huge_ ) swath of ability, your
technical chops just aren't correlated with your eventual success.

------
duaneb
No matter who you are, applying broad strokes to the industry is going to
paint many incorrectly. The idea that there is one factor that "really" keeps
women out of tech implies that the other reasons are false. In reality, it is
very subjective. I would also have been put off by her experience with
pressure to "act like a man" and I'm a man. But, just as anecdotally, I only
encountered this once: the cs department of umass. Every job I've held has
been much more diverse in terms of interests than one would think reading this
article.

Perhaps not speaking for huge swathes of people based on anecdotal evidence
would lead to better insights. I see the hiring pipeline as a problem. A
college professor might see high school as the problem. The high school might
see the parents as the problem. The parents might see society as the problem.
Etc etc. In reality, there are so many opportunities to become persuaded or
dissuaded the idea that one dominates requires extraordinary evidence.

Personally, I'm a queer, anti-authoritarian, emotional, book worm nerd. I feel
repulsed by nerd/tech culture several times an hour. It's honestly
embarrassing to be associated with it. If ONLY that were the only problem.

~~~
muddyrivers
I am a software engineer, male, Asian. Somehow I can relate to the article.
Although I was always one of the top students in math and science and enrolled
the top university, I was both intimidated and kind of disgusted by the
culture stereotypes at the beginning of my career. I had self doubts if I
would ever become a good software engineer, since I was far from the
stereotypes. Sometimes, I was deeply disgusted by the childishness and
shallowness of the stereotypes.

I rarely play video games. (I played some in college, simply for finding bugs
and backdoors so that I could win easily, not for the fun of playing itself.
After one year, it became boring and I stopped.) I don't like Star Wars. I am
not in particular interested in Sci-fi. I think the time can be better spent
in other books. For example, the non-technical books I just finished are
Madame Bovary (translated by Lydia Davis. Highly recommend), On the Move
(autobiography by Oliver Sacks). I am re-reading The Rise and Fall of the
Great Powers. Also, I don't like beer. When I go out with colleagues, I drink
wine or strong liquors.

I can tell my colleagues what I like now, but it was different when I first
joined the industry. I cram-watched all the Star Wars, most Star Treks, etc. I
forced myself to finish some popular sci-fi novels. I drank beer when going
out. It was like you are trying to fit yourself into a model that is not you.
I still remember one scene during the first week of one job. All the engineers
were playing Guitar Hero, loudly, when waiting for a push. They invited me,
which I greatly appreciate. I said I didn't know how to play and I rarely
played video games. They were astounded. One engineer said, "It is not a game.
It is a life style."

~~~
duaneb
So—first, empathy, I don't _get_ video games at all.

Second—this strikes me as fairly standard cultural shock. It's one thing to
find yourself immersed in a culture, it's quite another to find that you
_have_ to immerse yourself in that culture to reach your teammates. This is an
experience I have not encountered before; people have surprised me with the
lengths they go to ensure a healthy diversity in company culture so that
everyone feels like they have an opening to communicate. Why would you NOT
want to get to know your teammate? If they have different interests, it's an
opportunity, not a problem.

That said.... sometimes you need to be the person to push for the cultural
diversity, and unfortunately, that's not going to be easy for most people
regardless of sex or industry. I would even imagine non-tech companies
actually have a much worse case of this where EVERYONE feels alienated from
their coworkers based on my personal experiences.

It's complicated. But monocultures are certainly terrible teamwork oriented
groups of people—I think we can all agree with that.

~~~
meowface
Veering a bit off-topic: I used to get video games when I was younger, and
played them obsessively, but around the age of 18, I almost completely lost
interest. I occasionally will play online games with friends nowadays, but I
do that more for the "hanging out with friends" enjoyment. The game is just a
vehicle for that.

I can't play a single-player game for more than 5 minutes without losing
interest.

~~~
duaneb
Yea, it really stands out to me how much the narrative matters to me now as
opposed to when I was younger, when it was all about gameplay. I get bored
basically once I've figured out the controls and what the character does, etc.

However. I really like playing Mario Kart in a group. But then it is more of a
social thing, not a hobby.

------
pavornyoh
> What really keeps women out of Tech?

It is because they don't want to be there. The opportunity is there for
everyone to take thus men and women. I actually think women have an advantage
in this space and it is up to them to see it and advantage of it.

As a woman, I am tired this. If you want it, go and get it. There shouldn't be
any special treatment. Prove you deserve to be at the table, prove you deserve
to be there based merits etc.. Not because of gender, race etc.

People are going to wonder why this conclusion? Because when people see you as
a women trying to achieve something, a lot are willing to help and push you.
Don't moan about it, go ahead and just get into Tech if you want it that bad.

~~~
brc
I tend to agree with this. For whatever reason, girls just don't like the
work. When I stated studying, the ratio was 50:50 split. By graduation time,
it was down to 80:20 as he girls transferred into different courses or dropped
out. I was friends with many - as they changed or dropped out they all said
they don't like the subject matter or the type of work.

By the time we all started working, it was further down to 90:10. My office
recruited a lot of female grads, we had a female department head who
positively discriminated. One of my first mentors was female. In that respect
I think my early experience was atypical.

But they kept dropping out as time went on, transferring into different
streams/jobs.

There are some things that need to be done - particularly at helping parents
understand their school age girls like of STEM - but ultimately I don't think
it's worth trying to socially engineer and entire field to be 50:50 when
you'll struggle to find that many women who want to study it, learn it and
work in it for decades.

~~~
pavornyoh
@Brc, I agree with you a 100%. Obviously this has to be discussed and does
stir emotions. It is fine but people have to understand although you can raise
a kid a certain way, they won't always do what you want. We also have to
consider external factors that influence such decisions and why a person
decides to choose a specific field. It will be nice for the ratio to be 50:50
when it comes to these things but it does not work that way.

Not going to hijack the thread but I am going to use myself as a guinea pig. I
am a young black woman who likes hanging out here. I personally don't believe
things should be handed to me. I expect to be judge based on my merits and as
such. Did someone force me to come and be on hacker news? No. It a place I
really like and learn alot and has been welcoming. So if women want to be in
tech, they just need to make the effort and show the desire for it. They can
start by choosing courses in universities and seeking out help and asking
questions. They can also do research and see where like- minded individuals
hangout if they are really serious about learning.

------
yummyfajitas
Is it true that there is a "rise of pop-culture portrayals of scientists as
white or Asian male geeks"?

I've seen a little bit of TV this year - every hacker I saw was female, and
most were goths. Doing a google search of "top TV 2014" and looking up the
ones that are likely to have a hacker as a character, I discover "Arrow"
(female hacker), NCIS (female hacker), 24 (female hacker), Criminal Minds
(female hacker), Person of Interest (male and female hacker), Agents of Shield
(female hacker) and The Strain (female hacker).

Why do we believe that pop culture portrays scientists or computer people this
way at all?

~~~
jkyle
> Doing a google search of "top TV 2014"

Hollywood has a history of being a canary in the coal mine when it comes to
stereotypes...both good and bad. For example, when homosexuality started
becoming more accepted in American culture one of the first signs were
prominent gay sitcom characters.

~~~
wtbob
> For example, when homosexuality started becoming more accepted in American
> culture one of the first signs were prominent gay sitcom characters.

I suspect that was a cause, not an effect, of widening acceptance of
homosexuality.

~~~
fphhotchips
It's both - there's a feedback loop.

------
forgottenpass
Am I the only one here that finds more issue with the open secret embedded
throughout this article? The article is written from an assumption that we're
powerless to overcome the desire to brand ourselves by the outward facing
image of our chosen interests.

I should be careful not to state I'm not taking the position covered by the
well-worn pre-rebuttal in the article. I'm not scoffing at this phenomenon.
It's real and I'm wondering: why aren't we trying to make kids immune to it?

Instead all I see is people that want to exploit it and steer people into
selecting careers such that the superficial representation found on a
spreadsheet makes the commentariat happy.

e: It just comes across as working to makes your metrics look good, without
reaching the underlying goals the metrics are less-than-perfect at measuring.
If there really are societal issues keeping people that would have otherwise
entered a "tech field" out, shouldn't fixing it be about helping everyone
overcome the obstacles in achieving that step of self-actualization? Instead I
just see social engineering designed to balance the gender ratio.

~~~
majormajor
Well I'd say changing human behavior is harder than changing perceptions. And
most of the article (outside of the behavioral bit about the sexism she
experienced, which is unfortunately a harder problem) is therefore focused on
perceptions, which seems very justifiable given this bit:

"As Dr. Cheryan points out, stereotypes are only partly true, and _women who
actually take classes in computer science don’t hold the same prejudices as
women who get their ideas from pop culture_."

So the male nerd culture aspects inside the system _aren 't_ as offputting as
however the current popular stereotypes make them out to be. Sounds like there
are some lower hanging fruit than changing people's desires.

(As to why we'd want to fix it in the first place... I don't know many tech
companies right now that are satisfied with the size and depth of the talent
pool. Getting more education to more people to become potential candidates
could only help with that, and increased demand for a major tends to increase
department size, so I don't think it's a zero-sum game with males losing out
here. More people with at least a cursory or exploratory level of education in
science could eventually lead to better policy around it, etc, too.)

------
gaius
_if they are shown a classroom (whether virtual or real) decorated not with
“Star Wars” posters, science-fiction books, computer parts and tech magazines,
but with a more neutral décor — art and nature posters, coffee makers, plants
and general-interest magazines_

This would seem to be a bit of a bait-and-switch... If you aren't interested
in "computer parts and tech magazines" then what exactly is it about computing
that makes you want to do it?

"For the money" is a valid answer of course, a job's a job for most people,
but let's call a spade a spade.

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
I don't see how this is bait and switch. I am a programmer and I cant't stand
star wars or the vast majority of science fiction. Neither do I enjoy running
around with geeky tshirts. You do not have to be nerdy to enjoy working with
computers.

~~~
nmrm2
I think the parent was complaining that things which definitely have nothing
to do with STEM fields (sci-fi and star wars) were interspersed with things
that are germanely related (computer parts and tech magazines).

You wouldn't fault an anatomy course for having skeletons in the room or a
Physics classroom for having copies of Science laying around, so the parent
argues that it's also weird to tell technology educators not to display
computer hardware (for instance).

FWIW I ultimately agree with you. Computer hardware and pop sci/tech trade
rags have nothing at all to do with most of the Computer Science field.

~~~
dclowd9901
> things which definitely have nothing to do with STEM fields (sci-fi and star
> wars)

I respectfully disagree wholeheartedly. Many enter these industries because of
their love for sci-fi. You'd be hard-pressed to find a Space X or NASA
employee who wouldn't attribute at least some of their aspiration to the
creations of Carl Sagan or Gene Rodenberry.

~~~
jleyank
True but incomplete. Some of us got interested in scientific fields because we
were interested in science (not science fiction). For me, it was a good
teacher at a critical time in HS. Not a role model, as I did not and really do
not wish to be a teacher. But somebody who opened a door into something that
excited me.

~~~
dclowd9901
Could you square that circle for me where you are interested in science, but
not science fiction? I'm not talking about science fantasy, but fiction rooted
in science and the ramifications of scientific development.

~~~
nmrm2
This isn't strange at all. I interact with scientists fairly regularly and
very few are fans of science fiction in any sense of the phrase.

Most scientists are normal people with an aptitude for a certain discipline,
enjoy working on interesting problems, and had the luck of having encountered
a mentor or two who steered them toward research. None of the ideas that drive
the creation of sci fi are necessary to be a scientist. It really is just
another career.

In fact, I can't think of a single scientist I (personally) know who became a
scientist because of sci fi. (Which isn't to say that they don't exist.)

~~~
hugh4
I'm a scientist who doesn't like sci fi much. I don't hate it, I enjoy some of
it, but not the genre as a whole. I like Star Wars for the big pew pew
spaceships as much as anybody but I don't like Star Trek at all.

To me, a lot of it just comes across as unimaginative. Oh sure, we've
travelled half way across the galaxy to meet an alien race and it turns out
they're Space Russians, or Space Jews. Maybe Space Ancient Romans for a
change.

------
briholt
> female students are more interested...if they are shown a
> classroom...decorated not with “Star Wars” posters, science-fiction books,
> computer parts and tech magazines, but with a more neutral décor

> If the actor wore a T-shirt that said “I CODE THEREFORE I AM” and claimed to
> enjoy video games, the students expressed less interest in studying computer
> science than if the actor wore a solid shirt and claimed to enjoy hanging
> out with friends

So all we need to do is overhaul computer science's anti-women culture is
remove computer magazines, computer parts, computer games, futurism, and
coding.

~~~
wtbob
> So all we need to do is overhaul computer science's anti-women culture is
> remove computer magazines, computer parts, computer games, futurism, and
> coding.

Best comment on this submission IMHO.

Making a subject more welcoming to folks who aren't actually interested in it
just seems ridiculous. I wouldn't want a physician who doesn't actually care
about bodies and biology; I wouldn't want my care designed by someone who
isn't really into reliability, moments and materials; why would I want
software written by someone who doesn't hunger and thirst to manipulate
symbols and code?

------
JesperRavn
This was a very well written and balanced article. I want to contribute a
reason why I think that many men in tech hold back from fully endorsing this
viewpoint.

The reason is that there is a very fine line between saying that you don't
_have to_ be nerdy to be in tech, and failing to acknowledge that in general
being nerdy is a disadvantage in society, and many people found a refuge in
tech where they were mocked and often bullied outside[0]. To fail to
acknowledge this is to risk promoting the same negative attitudes towards
nerds within tech, as exist outside it.

So I would say that we should all encourage tech to be as open an welcoming as
possible, and to avoid any implication that you have to have a certain
personality, appearance or interests to succeed in tech. But we shouldn't
dismiss the traits of people who currently are overrepresented in tech as a
"stereotype", much less a "negative stereotype". I also don't think this is
what the author was suggesting. As the article says, "stereotypes are only
partly true, and women who actually take classes in computer science don’t
hold the same prejudices as women who get their ideas from pop culture."

[0] E.g. see
[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/08/programmin...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/08/programming-
saved-me-from-bullying)

~~~
tptacek
Speaking as a nerd who grew up in the early 1990s: persecuted nerds do not
have the right to (in any way) cordon off computer science as a refuge for
their culture. But a lot of male nerds think they do!

~~~
makomk
Do persecuted non-nerds have the right to (in any way) cordon off computer
science as a refuge free from nerdiness? Because that's what articles like
these seem to be suggesting we'd need to do, by saying that nerd social cues
like Star Wars and geeky T-shirts are excluding women.

~~~
tptacek
I think that's an overwrought reading of the article, for two reasons: first,
the article isn't prescriptive about Star Wars, and second, it's reporting
simple facts; whether you feel comfortable about it or not, nerd culture's
coupling with software development does alienate potential entrants to the
field.

But let's not bother deploying dueling readings from the article, and instead
see how much you and I actually disagree:

I do not in fact think it's reasonable to suggest that individual software
developers should avoid nerd signifiers to avoid alienating people. I feel
safe presuming we agree about that.

Do you feel like it's reasonable for _companies_ to avoid aggressive
identification with nerd culture? To not ask candidates what their favorite
Star Wars movie is, or to try to balance out outings and fringe benefits so
they only appeal to sci-fi fandom?

~~~
blackguardx
Do companies do that? I've never experienced any embrace of "nerd culture" at
any place I've worked.

~~~
tptacek
Sure! Here's an example I'll ruefully draw from the last company I helped
manage: all-hands offsites at local breweries.

~~~
blackguardx
I'm a hardware engineer. Most hardware companies are too tight fisted to have
offsites (making physical things is expensive). The few that I've been on have
been very tame because the last thing management wants is an offended
employee.

Having an offsite at a brewery is kinda shitty because not everyone likes to
drink. Did anyone try to suggest another venue?

~~~
tptacek
Yes, or at least, the concern was raised (among the small minority of people
who weren't excited about going to Three Floyds).

It's not, like, a management decision I'm super duper proud of.

------
Mithaldu
So the salient point to me seem to be:

Girls are put off by how computer culture styles itself in nerdy ways.

Ok, i can kind of get that. On the other hand, i don't like it much because
she seems to be saying "hiding positive expressions about things you like
could be helpful".

I'm all for increasing diversity, but that should happen by bringing in more
things and widening horizons. If that means "Sex and the City", then yes,
please.

The article does also kind of lose its red thread when she compares offputting
styling with outright attacks against her. Maybe she's trying to be less
contentious by not outright calling them out as bullshit that should get
people shitcanned by HR. But really, that's what should be said about that,
not comparisons with star wars posters.

All that said, i like the bit she mentions at the end, about introducing
computing earlier. If done emphatically it can have a real chance of leveling
the playing field.

~~~
gaius
_i don 't like it much because she seems to be saying "hiding positive
expressions about things you like could be helpful"_

Quite. The person who happens to like sci-fi isn't motivated by excluding
anyone; they like it because they like it and will share their enthusiasm with
anyone. Has that person intentionally done something _wrong?_ And if not why
should they be censured for it? That is the elephant in the corner of the room
here. There is no conspiracy to keep women out of tech, never has been, and
demonizing decent people for innocent things, doesn't ultimately help anyone.

~~~
mcguire
" _The person who happens to like sci-fi isn 't motivated by excluding anyone;
they like it because they like it and will share their enthusiasm with
anyone._"

You sure about that? I know quite a few people who are seemingly only
interested in science fiction and gaming it its various forms and
_aggressively_ disinterested in anything else. Maybe you know some, too:
people who use terms like "sports ball" and whatever the current incarnation
of "mundane" (as a noun) or "muggle" is. Believe me, it's no more appealing
than hanging with a group of, say, serious football fans (for the appropriate
value of "football").

I don't feel the need to demonize anyone, but decent people doing what they
feel are innocent things can successfully masquerade as a conspiracy for as
long as you care to watch.

~~~
meowface
I think you'll only find that in personality types that most of society
probably isn't too fond of. That's not a gender thing, that's just a
pretentious, insular, obnoxious personality.

And frankly, I don't think that's very common in professional settings. A
basic rule of polite conduct is respecting other people's interests and
beliefs.

That said, I myself do sometimes say "sports ball" because I think it's a
humorous way to address a topic I know absolutely nothing about.

------
omonra
I don't get something.

There seems to always has been a problem of diversity in tech. Yet US has done
just ok with males (white and asian) doing this stuff. Ie better than anybody
else in the world.

Why is this a problem (something the writer - who is a literature professor,
by the way) considers a given? Is there any proof that increased diversity has
any effect (except employment opportunities for the otherwise
underrepresented)?

~~~
hkmurakami
Our society has agreed that if any specific subset of the population is being
biased against its wishes to pursue a path, then this is an injustice that
shall be remedied. Distinctions include but are not limited to race, gender,
socioeconomic background or current status, geographic origin, sexual
orientation, and preexisting medical conditions.

It is an implied social contract that forms the foundation of our modern
American society, irrespective of functional necessities or efficiencies.
Efficiencies are not the point here.

~~~
rewqfdsa
> against its wishes

That's the bone of contention here. Nobody is keeping women out of computer
science; they're largely just preferring not to enter the field. The point of
the article, echoed by many commentators over the past few years, is that it's
a "problem" that women are largely staying out of computer science.

If you believe in the blank slate theory of human nature, of course it's a
problem, because under this worldview, women's default preferences are the
same as that of men, so some external factor must be pushing them away from
computer science. The teach for this factor has become increasingly desperate
the past few years: now we're down to Star Wars posters.

I believe it's more parsimonious to reject the blank slate theory and
understand the world through the lens of innate differences in life
preferences between genders, and that it's this innate difference that leads
to different gender balances in various fields.

~~~
j2kun
> Nobody is keeping women out of computer science; they're largely just
> preferring not to enter the field.

Ted is the new kid at school, and he wants to make friends. At recess he
approaches a group of smiling, laughing boys to introduce himself. But as he
nears the group they get quiet. Ted says hi and his name, and mentions he's
new and wants to know if they play "tag" here. The boys reply, "we don't play
tag, we play Weasel Escape." Ted asks how to play, and they say "How do you
not know how to play? You needlefish. Needlefish!" The other boys laugh, but
Ted doesn't get the joke. They walk away and Ted feels embarrassed. Over the
next few days he continues trying to befriend the group of boys but they have
so many inside jokes! There's one nice kid in the group that explains the
jokes to Ted, but most of the time one of the other boys loudly interrupts and
teases Ted for not knowing, and nobody really enjoys standing around
explaining things because standing around means not playing. Ted eventually
decides that the boys he's been trying to befriend aren't very nice, and that
even though he enjoys playing weasel escape now that he figured out the rules,
it's less degrading to spend his recess in the library playing Magic cards
with the weird kids. They actually seemed excited to explain their inside
jokes and how the game works.

Nobody is keeping Ted out of that group of friends. He just largely prefers
not to join them. But of course, why he prefers not to join them changes the
story.

~~~
rewqfdsa
If I understand your parable correctly, you're suggesting that men
deliberately mock and reject women trying to enter the field. In my
experience, nothing could be further from the truth. I have never, not once,
witnessed the behavior you describe. I've seen nothing but welcoming behavior
toward everyone who wants to learn software.

Even among proponents of the systemic discrimination theory, the consensus
these days seems to be that bias must be subconscious, since overt bias is
practically extinct in the wild.

~~~
ashworth
What???

My childhood best friend and college roommate shocked me by calling one of our
CS classmates a "huge bitch" for not going on a date with him after they had
lunch together our first week of college.

I've lost track of how many sexist lines I've heard, like:

"make me a sammich bitch, haha",

"don't be an emo bitch about it, haha",

"if we don't let people freely express themselves on the CS listserv, then
this is a tyrannical school that has been ruined by feminists (this one after
of course, a guy posted a several page rant about why women are bitches,
'haha')".

Also, let me tell you this story of two friends I knew who applied at a
certain internet start-up on Market Street in San Francisco in 2014:

A was male, 21 years old, a stoner and business school drop-out with a
portfolio consisting of a Java tower defense game.

B was female, 30 years old, with several years experience doing QA on computer
peripheral drivers who had re-trained herself as a web developer and had a
Rails StackOverflow clone and a Meteor KhanAcademy clone for her portfolio.

A got offered a six-figure full time position.

B got offered an internship.

Final point, I've seen so much elitist and arrogant behavior from MEN directed
towards OTHER MEN. Nothing could be further from the truth than software being
completely welcoming. Of course it's still a very good industry overall; it's
by no means the worst.

~~~
solofounder2
> "emo bitch"

"that guy was kind of a dick" is an offhand comment that just means "rude" or
"jerk" and you hear it all the time from college age women when referencing
the slightest deviations from their standards of behavior. It refers to the
male genitalia in a negative connotation and is terefor far more explicit than
the dog word.

~~~
ashworth
It sounds like you're trolling, but if you aren't:

1\. One wrong does not make another wrong right.

2\. "Dick" is used as an offhand comment usually because it is considered less
offensive than other words with the same meaning, like "asshole" or "piece of
shit".

3\. I agree that women treat men badly as well. People suck.

4\. Imagine your daughter or mother being called an "emo bitch" because they
reacted angrily to an insult. Would you tell her "well at least they didn't
explicitly insult your genitalia?"

~~~
solofounder2
> One wrong does not make another wrong right.

True but the two neutralize each other when thinking in terms of a running
tally of gender-specific offensive terminology.

> used as an offhand comment usually because it is considered less offensive
> than other words with the same meaning

the fact that it's considered less offensive simply illustrates a bias towards
the acceptance of gender-specific negative remarks or "putdowns" when they're
directed away from the feminine and towards the masculine. This goes to my
point that actually women do throw a lot of these remarks around but we've
just learned to tune them out. If a man makes a 'putdown' remark towards a
young lady in class which references the female reproductive anatomy then he's
on shaky ground and theoretically could have to worry about a lawsuit, but not
the other way around.

> 4\. Imagine your daughter or mother being called an "emo bitch" because they
> reacted angrily to an insult. Would you tell her "well at least they didn't
> explicitly insult your genitalia?"

I don't know a ton about the word "emo" but I assume it means "overly
emotional" and the word "bitch" is a gender-specific word which insinuates
that she's not attractive. While I'm sure we both agree that such a _rude_ and
_insulting_ phrase is a terrible thing to say to anyone it's still only aimed
at the individual.

On the other hand when you use a phallus reference as an implied negative
connotation then you've just made a _sexist_ remark because it denigrates an
entire gender.

If I had to choose one or the other I'd rather my mother or daughter be
exposed to rudeness or insult before obvious yet normalized sexist remarks.

------
bjornstjerne
> In fact, Dr. Cheryan’s research shows that young men tend not to major in
> English for the same reasons women don’t pick computer science: They compare
> their notions of who they are to their stereotypes of English majors and
> decide they won’t fit in.

I wonder how long it will take for humanities departments to adopt a more
inclusive culture? Why must our obsessive hand-wringing be be reserved
exclusively for computer science and engineering, which are mostly hidden and
do not set the wider cultural narrative (for the most part).

~~~
gaius
_Why must our obsessive hand-wringing be be reserved exclusively for computer
science and engineering, which are mostly hidden and do not set the wider
cultural narrative_

Because now there's money in it. No-one cared about this when the IT
department was at the bottom of the corporate pecking order. No-one cares that
refuse collection is almost exclusively male, but that's a job of real social
importance...

------
gdubs
One thing I noticed / learned about when we had our child is that we are all
social creatures. We yearn to be with others like ourselves and to fit in.

It's an incredibly strong pull, and the attitude of "if they really were
interested, they'd be interested" that is prominent here greatly
underestimates how strong our desire to fit in is.

In poor neighborhoods, few rise out of their situations to become scholars and
professionals. Do we believe it is because they don't want to? Or is it
because the social currents -- the pull to fit in, sell drugs, check out, be
cool -- are too strong? We have deeply evolved social genes, and our fear of
being alienated trumps a lot of things.

Unconscious bias is real. You can take a test and see for yourself. We think
we view the sexes, other races, other tribes as we view ourselves. But the
fact is we're deeply biased. It is ingrained.

So, we might not be best suited to say whether our tribe is inclusive -- we
probably couldn't give an objective answer if we tried. But what we can do is
make a better attempt to be more inclusive of ideas; especially the ones that
make us uncomfortable.

~~~
T2_t2
> We yearn to be with others like ourselves and to fit in.

The idea is that this is what "keeps people out". Surely, the flip side is
true, and people are defined / made happy by the same notions.

People in the west are so far up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that we've
stopped caring about the basics of life. Specifically, of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs#/media/File:MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds.svg)
we no longer choose a job that gives us food, shelter or safety (the first
two), and instead we choose jobs based on how well it provides us with
love/belonging, esteem and self-actualisation. That is why young people choose
jobs less and less with money as the sole or even primary determinant.

If this is the case, that people are choosing professions that help them feel
self-actualised or belonging, no matter what tech does, or what Public
Relations, Child-care workers or predominantly female dominated occupations
do, is less important that the people it attracts / already has attracted. And
these same sorts of people will dominate, as this belonging and fitting in
becomes increasingly entrenched, and snowballs on itself like runaway
recurssion.

That seems, to me, the logical conclusion of slight biological gender
differences combined with a rise up the pyramid of needs, which lessens the
pressure of the former two to create cultures that trump biology.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE)
is a documentary about Scandinavia's attitude to gender relations, and the
whole series is brilliant, and shows that gender separation is, if not
inevitable, certainly understandable.

~~~
gdubs
Not buying the argument, since according to Maslov, very few people become
self-actualized. His own research was sparked by a very limited set of
individuals that exhibited the qualities of being what he later described as
'self-actualized'. So it's hard to believe that enough people in tech are
self-actualized for that to be a big differentiator. In other words, it just
doesn't seem realistic that the current gender balance snowballed out of males
being drawn to technology out of self-actualization.

------
sfRattan
> Over and over, Dr. Cheryan and her colleagues have found that female
> students are more interested in enrolling in a computer class if they are
> shown a classroom (whether virtual or real) decorated not with “Star Wars”
> posters, science-fiction books, computer parts and tech magazines, but with
> a more neutral décor — art and nature posters, coffee makers, plants and
> general-interest magazines.

That last part sounds so banally corporate. And later in the article the
author suggests we redecorate many/most programming spaces, academic and
professional, into banal corporate farms like every other soul-crushing
workplace.

The best high school teachers I remember were the ones to fill their
classrooms with zany stuff related to their subject/field. Creatures from
Disney's Hercules in a Latin classroom. Ancient Roman coins, sorted on a
timeline by metallurgic debasement and inflation, in an economics classroom. A
wall of student painted musical posters in a theater/dance classroom.

Is telling those teachers, "no, you can't decorate your classroom the way you
want; it must look like the front office of ACME business park tenant," really
the answer?

Or is it reforming our education system, especially high school, into an
institution that discourages conformity? Or at least doesn't punish
nonconformity?

~~~
pgeorgi
I guess Star Wars and (much of SciFi) has no strong tie to a computer class
except for a certain subcultural influence not shared universally (and so they
don't _need_ to be part of the class room).

But if the computer class isn't just a editor/spreadsheet/media class (which
is okay, and maybe even important, but not "computer"), having computer parts
and tech magazines around (within reason) provide a relatively realistic
representation of what the field is about.

To me that paragraph read as "computer class is okay when it has nothing to do
with computers" \- which I think is sad.

But then the description is so non-descript, that it's hard to tell what kind
of images they provided. If the "computer parts and magazines" version looked
like [http://moo.acadiau.ca:7000/865](http://moo.acadiau.ca:7000/865), that
may indeed not be very attractive.

(Also: coffee makers in class rooms? yuck. I wouldn't want to be in a class
that smells like coffee all the time)

~~~
sfRattan
The "Star Wars" reference is really just an insinuation that geek culture
signals social suicide to conformist high schoolers. But geek culture also
signals _passion_.

My objection is really that mandating bland décor in the name of some "ambient
sense of belonging" discourages passionate teachers, however their offbeat
classroom decorating may or may not relate absolutely to the field. And the
system already discourages passionate teachers in countless ways. We don't
need one more nail in the coffin for love of learning and those who encourage
it.

------
zamalek
We've known this for a while, it boils down to: barbies.

Fixing this problem is _really, really_ hard. Assuming I gave my daughters
equal access to both barbies and chemistry kits, which would they choose? Kids
want to fit in with their friends. Boy nerds get beaten up, girl nerds get
ostracised. What does that lead to? The child choosing their gender stereotype
(applies both ways) so that they can fit in. It's what the herd is doing and
results in girls avoiding engineering and boys avoiding, say, nursing.

It's a systemic disease and is highly contagious. One possible solution is an
elementary school where the entrance requirement is determined by the parents:
girls get barbies AND chemistry kits. Boys get toy cars AND sewing kits. Their
social group shouldn't be determined by gender, rather interest.

~~~
mpweiher
> Boy nerds get beaten up, girl nerds get ostracised.

Exactly: both boys and girls get strong negative feedback for being nerdy.
Yet, somehow more boys are sufficiently interested that they find their
interest more important than the negative feedback.

~~~
jkyle
> Yet, somehow more boys are sufficiently interested that they find their
> interest more important than the negative feedback.

In these scenarios, boys find groups that are supportive. In their case the
video game playing, computer oriented, math/physics/etc. "nerds" are one such
social group.

The entire point of the article is that those _same groups_ are not supportive
for women and girls.

It has nothing to do with them being so strong and manly that they can stand
up to the bullies and pursue computer science anyway! It's that they find a
safe haven in those social groups where they are not bullied and are
inclusive.

~~~
jonesb6
Being a software engineer I've been involved in this discussion for several
years now. And I don't think it ever clicked with me so much as with this
comment. Guys do find groups that are supportive, be it something like an MMO
community, card game community, robotics clubs etc. While girls also exist in
these domains they are pretty consistently outsiders. At older ages they will
receive a ton of attention, much of which I would describe as predatory, and
it is constantly brought up that they are attention-seeking if they actually
embrace the space (stream on Twitch or what have you). I believe at younger
ages they are just simply viewed as odd-balls who are tolerated rather then
truly accepted.

Previously when viewing a thread like this I would take a perspective of "It's
not discrimination, they just don't want to do it". Now I want to think about
it some more in the context of what I just said.

As a corollary however, is it really a good thing to push a gender towards a
particular field? Anecdotally in the case of SE there seems to be a huge
amount of anxiety, depression, and various social issues, that comes with the
work load. I often wonder if my life would be better had I never taken to
computers. Interesting food for thought, do any of us really know what's "best
for us" on a societal level?

~~~
mpweiher
> Previously when viewing a thread like this I would take

> a perspective of "It's not discrimination, they just

> don't want to do it".

Well, maybe that wasn't exactly wrong. Or rather, there are different
motivations for entering the profession. For males "love of technology" is a
much stronger motivating factor, whereas for females it is "job security",
"ease of entry" and "flexible working hours" [1]. All other factors surveyed
were not different.

When it comes to experience in the job, the only difference found was that
women received _greater_ support and mentoring from their superiors.[2].

This is from a study published in the Communications of the ACM as "Women and
men in the IT profession"[3]. Although not as interesting an anecdote as the
NY Times article, and not fitting the current narrative, the study does have
actual _data_. It concludes that women and men in tech are more alike than
different, that the primary difference coming in is "love of tech" vs "good
benefits" and that the biggest difference when in the field is that women get
slightly better support from their bosses.

Come on in, the water is fine!

[1]
[http://deliveryimages.acm.org/10.1145/1320000/1314229/figs/t...](http://deliveryimages.acm.org/10.1145/1320000/1314229/figs/t1.jpg)

[2]
[http://deliveryimages.acm.org/10.1145/1320000/1314229/figs/t...](http://deliveryimages.acm.org/10.1145/1320000/1314229/figs/t2.jpg)

[3] [http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2008/2/5453-women-and-men-
in-t...](http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2008/2/5453-women-and-men-in-the-it-
profession/fulltext)

------
dclowd9901
> Over and over, Dr. Cheryan and her colleagues have found that female
> students are more interested in enrolling in a computer class if they are
> shown a classroom (whether virtual or real) decorated not with “Star Wars”
> posters, science-fiction books, computer parts and tech magazines, but with
> a more neutral décor — art and nature posters, coffee makers, plants and
> general-interest magazines.

Sans the "general interest magazines" (so vanilla, it makes me want to barf),
this sounds like a rather pleasant work environment. I'm so used to working in
a dark cave with Boba Fett stand-ups everywhere, it'd be nice to work in a
place with more greenery, natural tones and airiness. Nest's offices were a
lot like this, and were one of the factors I liked about working there.

~~~
rewqfdsa
Let's suppose I worked at a desk next to yours, and one day, I brought in an
elaborate lego Millennium Falcon to put next to my monitor. Would you support
a policy that required me to remove this icon of geekdom in the name of making
the workspace more welcoming for women?

~~~
hugh4
In a more traditional workplace, such as a law firm, your boss would tell you
to take your Milennium Falcon home because it's unprofessional.
Professionalism is a virtue which is deeply underrated by the computational
professions.

Part of "professionalism" is the recognition that you can be whoever you want
to be on your own time, but while you're at work your personal identity is
partially subsumed into your identity as a member of a profession. That means
you dress, decorate, talk and behave in a way that's a bit more neutral and
respectable than you might in your college dorm room.

This is a bit dull, sure, but it also enables all sorts of people to work
together effectively by papering over their individual differences with a
shared professional identity. The fact that your coworkers are of a different
sex or generation to you and like different things is pretty immaterial when
you're all wearing suits, sitting at undecorated desks and talking about work.
Nobody will be alienated by your dick jokes, because nobody makes dick jokes.

Greater professionalism is the solution to many of the tech industry's
problems.

~~~
briandear
That's implying that law firms are more professional just because of a veneer
of 'professionalism' (whatever that means.) Law firms are notorious for sexism
and classism. If anything that fake 'professionalism' simply masks the true
deviousness of the male-dominated law firm. 'Professionalism' has nothing to
do with clothes or Star Wars; it has everything to do with attitude. A graphic
design firm has a far different version of professionalism than does a law
firm, but that doesn't make design any less professional. Professionalism
doesn't mean 'generic.' Also, what's sexist about Star Wars? That implication
that girls don't like Star Wars is itself sexist. By removing Star Wars from
your desk, you're actually being more sexist by suggesting that girls might
find it offensive. A suit and tie have nothing to do with professionalism in
general; it's contextual. Software engineers aren't going to the courtroom,
just like lawyers aren't playing in the NFL. That doesn't make any of those
professionals less professional. The IBM white shirt black tie uniform back in
the day didn't encourage more women to enter tech and it could be argued that
those guys oozed professionalism. Is Mark Zuckerberg less professional because
of his attire? Professionalism is an attitude, not a uniform or style of
decoration. Professionalism is about maturity, fair mindedness and respect,
not whether or not Chewbacca is in your desk.

------
0x49
if i wanted to become a hair stylist (an occupation primarily done by women),
i would need to accept a culture that was different than my own...so why cant
the same happen with geek culture?

The article also goes into many stereotypes and many women arent going into
computer science based on these perceived sterotypes. If we were talking about
any other group, the words "racist", "sexist", Or "bigot" would be thrown
around and used to describe the group not accepting the culture.

This is a tell-tale sign that it is a power-play move to gain control over
another group of people.

I also thought that we were supposed to be accepting of everyones culture.
Does this only apply to the privileged few???

~~~
tptacek
Because two wrongs don't make a right.

~~~
oldmanjay
I want to be clear, is the original wrong here geek culture? The context is a
bit tricky and I'm having trouble unpacking this.

~~~
tptacek
No: the comment was dramatically edited after I responded to it. You're not
missing anything.

~~~
oldmanjay
thanks! I assumed since you generally make clear sense something must have
gone wrong.

------
lexcorvus
_Over and over, Dr. Cheryan and her colleagues have found that female students
are more interested in enrolling in a computer class if they are shown a
classroom (whether virtual or real) decorated not with “Star Wars” posters,
science-fiction books, computer parts and tech magazines, but with a more
neutral décor — art and nature posters, coffee makers, plants and general-
interest magazines._

"Tech" isn't a single thing. If you want to make non-geeky spaces for tech, go
ahead and do it. But lots of geeks do like tech, and they understandably make
geeky environments. Why can't everyone, as the bumper sticker helpfully puts
it, coexist?

I think they can. But I also think that the association of geekiness with tech
isn't a random quirk of history, but rather indicates a common origin. The
kind of personality and psychological profile that predisposes one to an
interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics also predisposes
one to geekiness. Moreover, geekiness isn't gender-blind: men are simply more
likely than women to be geeks. Indeed, people on the autistic spectrum are
especially likely to be geeks, and the overrepresentation of males among
autistics is incontrovertible. [1]

There's nothing wrong with creating non-geeky tech spaces that cater to non-
geeks (male and female alike)—indeed, I think it's an excellent idea, and not
only because it's generally more welcoming to women—but let's also let geeks
be geeks.

[1]: [http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/introduction/gender-
an...](http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/introduction/gender-and-
autism.aspx)

------
rayiner
I had a hard time with this when I was in software, because I didn't enjoy
video games or sci-fi or a lot of the things my coworkers did. I have nothing
against those things, but I feel like in the industry it's pretty common to
adopt these things into the work culture instead of trying to keep the
workplace more neutral.

I would liken it to working at an office where everyone is really into sports.
I'll watch the occasional college football game, but I'd be pretty alienated
working at an office with sports stuff hanging on the walls where people
expected you to watch the game every weekend in order to fit in.

~~~
greggman
I 100% want more women in tech so this is only a comment on the star wars
posters side of the thing

making video games is/requires programming so there's bound to a be a large
overlap in programmers who are interested in video games.

Sci-fi inspires lots of people to get into programming. From wanting to create
R2-D2 and C3PO to wanting to create projected holograms, wanting to create
tricorders, computers that can take voice commands, touch surfaces, fancy new
interfaces, virtual reality, AI, and many other topics touched on in sci-fi
that are all directly related to programming.

Sports are not directly related and do not directly inspire most jobs but sci-
fi does directly inspire many programmers to program and probably many other
STEM careers. video games also inspire many programmers to program since video
games are programming.

------
maus42
>Over and over, Dr. Cheryan and her colleagues have found that female students
are more interested in enrolling in a computer class if they are shown a
classroom (whether virtual or real) decorated not with “Star Wars” posters,
science-fiction books, computer parts and tech magazines, but with a more
neutral décor — art and nature posters, coffee makers, plants and general-
interest magazines.

Art and nature posters, plants and general-interest magazines do not sound
neutral to me.

------
pervycreeper
Here is a page linking the writeups of the studies that were referenced in the
article.
[https://faculty.washington.edu/scheryan/research.htm](https://faculty.washington.edu/scheryan/research.htm)

One question which perhaps should be made explicit: Who ought to be
responsible for remedying the negative stereotypes that young women hold about
computer programmers and STEM workers? And who is affected most negatively by
attitudes such as they hold?

Maybe creative writing profs can play a role by writing some stories that make
STEM sound more enticing.

~~~
pkinsky
I don't see any indication that these studies have been successfully
reproduced. Do you know if these results have been independently verified?

~~~
pervycreeper
There are a few hundred citations to sort through, but it looks like they are
just building on these conclusions. Keep in mind that they were published very
recently, and psychology has less of an emphasis on reproducing studies than,
say physics, for instance. IOW, I have no clue. Haven't read the papers
either. Looks like a bunch of copy + paste from SPSS/SAS, plus a little
polemical rhetoric, like most social science papers. I find such to be tiring
to read closely as a consequence (so I don't).

------
cLeEOGPw
The first sentence of the article is a claim without any substance and the
rest on the article builds on it.

Regarding "gender diversity", I know for sure that construction, road works,
automechanic, welding, mining and many other fields have "overrepresented men
problem", while teacher, nurse have "overrepresented women" problem, so why
focus on technology sector which is pretty good compared to those?

The answer is simple - personal monetary gain. Women see technology sector
rise in terms of wages during recent years, and feminism, a.k.a "women labor
union", are using their influence to gain unfair advantages for women in that
particular profitable spot.

They have already reached quite good results in divorce and alimony laws, so
we can't underestimate them now. This trend that puts women (and in some cases
minorities) in front of others have to be killed once and for all.

Can someone from US write their senators to create a law that forbids any kind
of discrimination or PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT based on gender and race? That law
would be enough to basically kill feminism in terms of legal rights at least.

~~~
varjag
> Regarding "gender diversity", I know for sure that construction, road works,
> automechanic, welding, mining and many other fields have "overrepresented
> men problem", while teacher, nurse have "overrepresented women" problem, so
> why focus on technology sector which is pretty good compared to those?

I am in Norway, and men are hardly underrepresented in teaching and nursery
here. I also visit tunnels under construction due to my work sometimes, and
can't say a girl in reflex and hard hat is that uncommon sight. They are still
under-represented in STEM overall, however. Not sure what the conclusion is
here, but it is probably not the one you are trying to make.

------
seansmccullough
The real issue is that our society tells girls it's more important to be
attractive and have lots of friends, instead of being smart and intelligent.

The posters aren't the problem, the pipeline is, and the pipeline starts with
parents.

~~~
astrange
Are you sure being attractive and having lots of friends isn't a better life
strategy than being really intelligent? It gets you laid way more often.

(Not that either of those are strategies really.)

------
hueving
This article is discursive. It talks about modern issues we need to deal with
(current image of computer scientists), but then goes into an outdated story
of direct harassment she received at Oak Ridge. The latter is irrelevant to
discussion at hand.

------
rewqfdsa
This gem is in the comments:

> The average programmer spends only about 30 percent of his/her time working
> alone.

That's nowhere close to my figure. In fact, I can pretty much _only_ program
alone. Individual investigation and discovery is most of the fun in the field.

~~~
jonesb6
Not trying to create a positive feedback loop here, but I concur. My personal
experience could point to as much as 95% of "programming" time being entirely
independent once taken into account: reading articles/guides/tutorials,
debugging, "playing around with" new tools/languages/frameworks.

~~~
rileymat1
I suspect that it varies by environment. I have worked in environments where
it is 95% alone and other environments where it is 95% collaboration. Some
places actually do "pair programming".

------
dang
This is a solid article that deserves a reasonable discussion, so we've turned
off flags on it. Please keep the thread substantive and respectful.

~~~
belovedeagle
I didn't get a reply last time I asked this in the same circumstances, but...

Will you also be flag-protecting articles which take different viewpoints? I
ask because I've never seen a thread on any other topic or expressing any
substantially different view on this topic have flags turned off, but perhaps
that's just observation bias on my part.

------
Myrmornis
> Yet I wonder how many young men would choose to major in computer science if
> they suspected they might need to carry out their coding while sitting in a
> pink cubicle decorated with posters of “Sex and the City,” with copies of
> Vogue and Cosmo scattered around the lunchroom. In fact, Dr. Cheryan’s
> research shows that young men tend not to major in English for the same
> reasons women don’t pick computer science: They compare their notions of who
> they are to their stereotypes of English majors and decide they won’t fit
> in.

The thing is that computer science and english lit are not exchangeable. In
fact, if computer science were done in pink cubicles adorned with the above-
mentioned purportedly feminine accoutrements, men and women would still do
computer science, because it would still be critical to technological advance
and modern economies in a direct, and remunerated, way which English Lit is
not.

~~~
kmicklas
How is this relevant at all?

~~~
Myrmornis
It is a response to a passage quoted from the article under discussion in this
thread on hacker news, an internet site that is structured around discussion
of articles.

------
Nickersf
"To make computer science more attractive to women, we might help young women
change how they think about themselves and what’s expected of them. But we
might also diversify the images of scientists they see in the media, along
with the décor in the classrooms and offices in which they might want to study
or work."

No. I don't expect liberal arts and women's studies departments, and the home
decorating industry to adapt a more masculine culture. I don't see CS and the
tech industry as this uber masculine frat bro jock culture anyways. This is
ridiculous. Let people make their own choices instead of dictating how people
should act constantly.

------
ken47
Does anyone else feel that targeted statistical studies would advance this
discussion far more than yet another anecdote? The state of understanding of
this situation could be much improved. And yet, despite how strongly people
feel about this issue, the studies are still sparse to non-existent.

~~~
finance-geek
I'm only half-joking here -- I wonder if the n value is too small for
statistical significance?

------
bsder
Unfortunately for the author, the numbers simply don't support the narrative
she wishes to paint:

> The percentage of women studying computer science actually has fallen since
> the 1980s. Dr. Cheryan theorizes that this decline might be partly
> attributable to the rise of pop-culture portrayals of scientists as white or
> Asian male geeks in movies and TV shows like “Revenge of the Nerds” and “The
> Big Bang Theory.”

CS degrees took a _huge_ jump from 5,000 per year in 1975 with 18% being women
to 39,000 per year in 1985 with 37% being women. Perhaps she should ask what
caused _that_.

I'll tell you what--Punchcards, COBOL and the PDP/Vax. Suddenly everybody put
their accounting systems on computers, and you needed people who could program
them or feed them data. And that required keyboard skills--which were taught
to _women_ because every high school had secretarial classes
(typing/shorthand/dictation). And, right around when the decline started
happening (1984/1985), those secretarial programs _all got wiped out_.

Perhaps if we start training women to be secretaries again, we'll fix the CS
enrollment problem (CAUTION: I'm being sarcastic here about drawing stupid
conclusions that fit your desired narrative).

In addition, if you look at Master's degrees awarded, you find that the
percentage of women earning Master's in CS is about 28% and has bounced around
that number since 1985 and been around 30% since 2001. The percentage of PhD's
going to women in CS has been gradually increasing every year since 1977 or so
and stands at 21% in 2010.

These aren't the statistics for a field women are having difficulty entering
(take a look at electrical engineering for that ...). The fact that female CS
undergraduate percentages crashed in 2005 is a bit concerning (similar
downblip in EE--wonder what the issue is), but that should be a local cause
that should be discoverable rather than systemic.

References:
[http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/content.cfm?pub_id=42...](http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/content.cfm?pub_id=4266&id=2)
[http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/pdf/tab33.pdf](http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/pdf/tab33.pdf)

------
jkyle
Computer Science is now the top major fro women at Stanford.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10366681](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10366681)

------
tete
Stereotypes are putting me off too - I am a male. Not sure if this can really
explain why there is fewer women in tech.

At the local university where I was a bit involved into the whys of fewer
women it seems to be that interestingly enough it seems to be related to
friends and family of someone entering IT. If friends and family come up with
questions like "But aren't there mostly men" and "Aren't to all video game
nerds" or similar, then those stereotypes affect people and especially women,
cause they are usually the target of such statements way more when deciding
whether to study at a certain university.

So it's social expectations of others. I think if one wants to study computer
science then it's not that much of a deal. After all students in general have
a lot of room for stereotypes. Women in communication, men in medicine and
students in general have stereotypes applying to them that many people simply
don't identify with at all. I think if that would be having such a huge effect
then there would be way fewer students overall.

------
jkyle
Upon hearing de Blasio's announcement, my initial reaction was mandatory
programming classes for high school is as unnecessary as mandatory calculus.

After reading the article, I'd update that opinion. I still don't feel it
should be mandatory for a basic High School degree, but perhaps forming a
track for college bound students that includes programming (and calculus, AP
english, etc.) and requiring that track to graduate with honors would be a
good positive incentive.

Programming & algorithms is a pretty advanced academic topic. Requiring it for
graduation would set up a lot of students to fail or become disillusioned with
what education has to offer them. Much like if Calculus were required.

~~~
jonesb6
My high school had an abhorrently bad AP CS program. The teacher was a
hobbyist who had no business teaching the subject and in fact turned off the
majority of the students to CS, especially the girls. I fear anytime we make
something mandatory in American education it will only exasperate the terrible
education system that we have and ultimately do more harm then good.

------
sonabinu
I know I am in a great work place when I don't know all the characters in Star
Wars but still feel included.

~~~
lechuga
greedo shot first

------
natmaster
Female students are more interested in enrolling in CS if they think it
doesn't involve computers or science... maybe instead of trying to trick them
encourage them to like computers and science? If you think solving problems by
looking pretty rather than thinking is 'being female' then you don't think
being a Computer Scientist is very 'female'.

(Obviously I think being female is orthogonal to such concerns.)

------
sakopov
To sum this up, men in software engineering are like a bunch of children and
expect everyone around them to be exactly the same. I couldn't agree more. I'd
wager that most software companies (all i've worked for) have no sense of work
etiquette because a lot of engineers are in some sort of la-la land where you
don't have to grow up and the smarter you are the more you get to act as an
odd, grown child. Is anybody really surprised that this is driving women away?
It would be interesting to know how this compares to professional engineers
(mechanical, electrical etc) and the environments they work in. I'd be shocked
if the same level of immaturity passes there.

------
drakonka
"female students are more interested in enrolling in a computer class if they
are shown a classroom (whether virtual or real) decorated not with “Star Wars”
posters, science-fiction books, computer parts and tech magazines, but with a
more neutral décor — art and nature posters, coffee makers, plants and
general-interest magazines."

The "neutral decor" sounds awfully boring for a computer classroom. I love
art, nature posters, coffee, and plants; but when I imagine a computer
classroom in both of these styles the former is infinitely more appealing.

~~~
MollyR
I don't really understand why they think all females hate star wars. I love
it, I even had a Darth Vader 3d puzzle. I also know a lot of women who like
star wars, anime, and "geeky" stuff. It really sounds like they want to remove
nerd culture from the tech industry.

------
EdSharkey
I had a run-in with a woman on my team. We disagreed on the design for a
module she had just implemented. It wasn't going to meet the requirements, I
argued. She disagreed - it'd be fine. Many times we sat in front of her code,
I took her through exactly how her design was failing. You know that extra
250msec mental processing time where you see it click in their heads when they
realize they were wrong or had a faulty assumption? There were like 3 of those
times sitting with her, and she always changed the subject or insulted me for
not understanding what she was trying to do - end of discussion. Other team
members backed me up from time to time when the issues I was raising were
serious enough, I wasn't completely alone. There were other communications
breakdowns, she NEVER requested anyone to pair with her, never did any design
work nor discussed with the team what she was going to develop that sprint,
was frustrated and defensive when her PR's were full of criticisms (primarily
from me.)

I was vocal, I was dissatisfied with her performance and did not keep it a
secret, and I was demanding the same level of excellence from her as from
anyone else on the team. This went on for about two weeks ... and then she
cried to the boss. Told him she thought she might have to quit the company
over the altercations with me. So, they gave me the official sit down
reprimand. There was no interest hearing in my side of the story, not that it
would matter the way HR is structured. And, I got the distinct feeling they
started keeping a file on me to try and get me canned.

My reaction to this, so as to keep my sweet job and food on the table, was to
be just one more go-with-the-flow, smiley-faced, that-all-sounds-good kind of
guy. No more confrontation trying to get the best out of people. Life is
really nice now, I don't have to care. My work is still good, but I'm just
doing as I was told and cashing my paycheck now. Any actual love and passion
for the work now goes into my hobby projects, and I don't work late anymore.
Soon after all this blew over, the bosses remarked cynically that I was
working so well with this woman, like it was surprising that I could turn off
combat mode so easily/at all! I just smile and laugh meekly, "yeah, we're
working well together. It's all so great" as I choke back the bile.

God help that woman if she ever needs help and I'm the only one to give it.
I've had to endure team dynamics 10x worse in my career than what she
experienced with me and I didn't rat out the other guy. I cannot countenance
such disloyalty. The team must resolve its differences internally and not go
informing on each other at the drop of a hat!

Anyhow, we are still on the same team, (thanks management!), and I casually
try to avoid pairing with her most of the time and smile with gritted teeth
when we do have to work together. When I see her make a mistake, I don't point
it out and just laugh to myself about it.

I will outlast her but she has definitely put a damper on my moving into a
lead role unless I switch departments.

------
sjukfan
Mmm, yeah... could you guys try to not be so nerdy? That would be great. And
no jokes about PC load letter.

------
vacri
> _Yet I wonder how many young men would choose to major in computer science
> if they suspected they might need to carry out their coding while sitting in
> a pink cubicle decorated with posters of “Sex and the City,” with copies of
> Vogue and Cosmo scattered around the lunchroom._

 _Vogue_ and _Cosmo_!? As a 'feminine' counterpoint to the supposedly
masculine 'computer parts' and 'tech magazines'!?

This is "Science. It's a Girl Thing"[1] all over again: "To get women into
STEM, you have to show makeup and fashion". Fuck this view of fashion being a
fundamental part of the female psyche. The article has some good points in it,
but I think it overplays "women like fashion" and underplays "my computer time
was gatekept by sexist arseholes".

[1][https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Science+it%27s+...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Science+it%27s+a+girl+thing)

------
dennisgorelik
This article raises an interesting question, but then give no good answer to
it.

The actual answer is that women generally like modern programming noticeably
less than men do.

Women are better at nurturing and maintenance. Men are better with handling
abstract concepts and solving deep problems by having narrow focus.

Before computers became mainstream (prior to ~1980) typical programming job
was more about nurturing and maintenance. Typical women skills were a good
match for programming back then.

However what programmers did back then in 1960es-1970es is now covered by
~electronic spreadsheets.

Modern programming is much deeper and more focused than it was 35+ years ago,
so most women prefer moving to other professions. In spite of affirmative
action that tries to attract women to tech.

------
nn3
It started off well, until she started talking about mainframes. So her
experience is from the 80ies? Sounds like bleeding edge commentary.

------
ElComradio
I see this as an echo of the makers and takers debate.

"Give me a job." "MAKE me feel comfortable." "I am at your mercy." ... This
the subtext I read. Other people want to create their own world; when someone
tells them no or gets in their way, the attitude is "fuck you" not "change to
accommodate me."

This reaction may be biologically ingrained as a difference in the sexes; I am
not sure- But I rarely, if ever, come across articles about women who have
been fed up with some job and formed their own companies with other fed up
women and strove to put their former coworkers/employers out of business,
whereas for hackers "I'll show you!" seems a very common motivator.

We should be trying to give women (and men) more confidence, integrity and
fortitude, and quit with the shaming and guilt tactics.

~~~
pgeorgi
> But I rarely, if ever, come across articles about women who have been fed up
> with some job and formed their own companies with other fed up women and
> strove to put their former coworkers/employers out of business

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1168182/Catfights-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1168182/Catfights-
handbags-tears-toilets-When-producer-launched-women-TV-company-thought-shed-
kissed-goodbye-conflict-.html)

It wasn't in IT, but it happened for many of the same reasons as stated here.

The outcome is just one of several possibilities, and the media field may be
more prone to have divas (although IT has too many divas of all sexes, IMHO),
so I'm curious how the tableflip subculture will fare (hopefully much better).

~~~
ElComradio
This is the thing, though. We are being told that it's just crappy for women
in tech; we should be seeing female web devs, mobile devs, devops, product
people, etc. banding together and doing things Their Way, and reading a bunch
of glowing articles about how much better things are now, and how that creepy
old boss who stared at their boobs a lot wishes he was nicer, and that kind of
thing. I am unaware of an example of this actually happening, so it makes me
very skeptical this is as big of a problem as we are being told.

------
mwhuang2
I'm a hardcore fan of My Little Pony. Gender stereotypes mean nothing to me.

~~~
Mz
Yet, it appears that you will assume that we will assume that you are male.
Why? Because you are on HN? Is this not buying into gender stereotypes?

(I am a woman. I am sometimes referred to as "he" on HN. I am quite open about
my gender and it is specified in my profile. But the default assumption here
is that anyone talking must be male -- because tech. This is accepting a
stereotype.)

~~~
mwhuang2
I assumed people would infer my gender from the wording of my post.

~~~
douche
At this point, it might be weirder for a grown woman to be a hardcore fan of
my little pony.

------
briandear
There's a "gender problem" in public relations as well as in mental health
counseling professions. The vast majority of professionals in those fields are
women. I'm not sure I understand why that "problem" isn't warranting a New
York Times story. In a great many PR and Marcom departments there's a very
real bias against men. So much ink is being used on the STEM and women issue
but oddly such "diversity" isn't quite important when the straight male is
consistently marginalized in certain fields. How many straight male
hairdressers do you know? How about makeup artists? Male kindergarten
teachers? How about straight male fashion buyers or merchandisers or
designers? How many men work at the cosmetics counter at Saks Fifth Avenue?

Is there any concept that men and women might actually be different and thus
drawn to different interests? Obviously there's crossover and not everyone
fits the mold but should we be trying to shoehorn the video game introvert
into public relations and the outgoing fashionable social butterfly into
particle physics? I don't doubt that there is a gender disparity in many
professions, but my honest question is whether it's actually a 'problem.'

If girls (or boys) are being denied their passion because of discrimination,
then yes, absolutely, but if we're just sitting around complaining because
more boys like computers and more girls like public relations, then it seems
like a silly thing to worry about. More girls like to play with dolls and more
boys like to play with sticks and pretend they're laser guns. That's a fact.
If a girl wants to play with a laser gun stick (or a boy with dolkls,) then
I'm all for it, but just achieving diversity just to please some statistian or
some gender studies professor is to deny that biology does, in fact have an
influence on behavior and choices. I know that in some feminist circles, that
idea is blasphemous, but reality doesn't really care about what some adjunct
professor thinks.

Trying to "feminize" computers or make it less "nerdy" (i.e. Changing the Code
Therefore I am shirt) is ridiculous and actually insulting. There are plenty
of girls that like Star Wars, "nerdy" things and math and science. Just
because that type of girl is a minority doesn't mean there's some kind of
conspiracy.

