
Stop complaining about the lack of women in tech - shandsaker
http://www.attendly.com/stop-complaining-about-the-lack-of-women-in-tech/
======
jscheel
After a blow-up in my town a few months ago, I tried to encourage a few
notable female tech proponents that negativity was not the way to win the
fight. I was publicly lambasted, called denigrating names, had false
information spread as far as cities 3000 miles away, and even had a meme made
about me (containing incorrect info, imagine that). Negativity breeds nothing
but negativity. I often fall into the trap myself, so it was pretty
disheartening to see others fall into it so hard when I tried to warn them
away. To be fair, I didn't handle the situation perfectly, but at least I know
that and am willing to change. Effective communication starts with
introspection. Tolstoy said it this way, "Everyone thinks of changing the
world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

~~~
shardling
Sorry, but I can't help but remember encountering people who told stories much
like yours, only to find on closer examination that they were incredibly,
deeply in the wrong.

Since you don't go into any actual details about what set the situation off,
it makes it really hard for me to take your anecdote too seriously.

~~~
toasterlovin
If you're lacking details, why not ask questions?

~~~
shardling
I'd like to think my comment was an invitation to provide details if possible.
Asking specific questions is hard when the situation described is so vague. :)

~~~
jscheel
Honestly, I'm not interested in providing details. The parties involved have
already kissed and made up (for the most part), and it serves nothing for me
to prove myself on HN. Suffice to say, I took, and still take, the position
that we each have a finite amount of political capital and goodwill that we
can spend, and that it is more advantageous for everyone to spend it on
building instead of destroying. There will always be differences of opinion on
what is building vs. destroying, though, and there will always be room for
poor communication to confuse the matter for all parties involved. Especially
in the tech community, as I'm sure you can imagine :)

------
qiqing
I would like to note that the STEM gender gap is much lower among new
immigrants students (particularly from Asia and Eastern Europe) than their US-
born counterparts, at least anecdotally. And I think this biases me towards
the non-negativity approach argued for in the article. Much of the data about
lower STEM performance from females in the U.S. comes from 1970's and 1980's
data, when females also took fewer courses advanced courses. By 2000, female
high school students were taking calculus at the same rate as males, though
still lagged behind in physics. [1]

Perceptions are generally not nuanced and often lag 10-15 years behind. If you
take the interaction of gender and ethnicity into account, you actually see an
interesting reversal at the 99th percentile for Asian Americans where there
are where there are 1.37 F for every 1.25 M. There is another study that shows
Asian females score higher on STEM subject exams when they had to write a
short essay about being Asian prior to the exam, but scored lower when they
had to write about being female. (I'll try to add the citation later when I
find it.)

Overall, I think the macro strategy of making female role models more visible
is an effective one, and may well pay off in the next decade or so. Another
reasonable strategy may well involve immigration reform with a special eye
towards people who have focused on STEM subjects. Perhaps extra H1B slots for
techie females? (I haven't thought this one through yet, but it may be worth
exploring.)

Side note: It is also interesting to note that there are a substantially
higher percentage of female Iranian mathematicians, and some of those
mathematicians have noted that some of this is due to the cultural perception
that highly theoretical pursuits (including theoretical computer science and
theoretical physics) are not "too masculine" and are less likely to be
dissuaded from pursuing the field.

1\. <http://dericbownds.net/uploaded_images/hyde.pdf>

------
wfunction
The goal of getting women into tech should be to equalize the gender ratio of
the people who actually _are_ in tech to that of the people who _want_ to be
in tech.

That's the real balance that we need to reach for -- and unlike what many
people seem to think, this ratio is not necessarily 50%.

~~~
jackowayed
Why do you think this ratio is currently around 25%? Do you think it's because
women are inherently much less interested in tech? Or do you think it's
because our society imposes stereotypes and values on women, and gives very
"macho" impressions (often based in reality) about what work in tech is like,
which leads women who would otherwise want to study and work in tech not want
to?

Fixing the culture of tech and the role of gender in our society more broadly
is a major part of what's needed to deal with these issues. And part of that
is helping some women--and mean--realize that they want to be in tech despite
false impressions they have about their abilities and what working in tech
means.

~~~
adventured
It's like asking why do women dominate nursing and teaching jobs? Is it
sexism? Is it because men are incapable of doing the jobs?

How come there's no big outcry to equalize nursing so that men are 50% of the
field? How about teaching, women also dominate that field.

Women outnumber men 2 to 1 in high school teaching. They account for 85% of
all primary school teachers.

No outcries to equalize those numbers?

Must be sexism in high school teacher hiring.

Must be sexism in nursing hiring.

Must be sexism in primary school hiring.

Oh wait, there could be other explanations.

~~~
vacri
Teaching and nursing are both fields where you need a degree to start
participating. And if you look at the discussions in those fields, there's
certainly strong concern about lack of males in teaching and mild concern
about lack of males in nursing.

Tech doesn't require a degree - it's a field anyone with a free evening can
pick up. It also bears a significantly broader scope than nursing or teaching.

~~~
adamnemecek
> Teaching and nursing are both fields where you need a degree to start
> participating.

How is that relevant?

~~~
vacri
The pool of participants is much narrower in scope - people that have
specifically spent years training to be that profession. Not people who
started out doing it as a hobby or a quiet thing on the side.

~~~
toasterlovin
I think the OP was asking how requiring a degree is relevant to the number of
men in those professions. When compared to women, men generally have equal or
better access to higher education, so it would seem that the dearth of men in
nursing and teaching wouldn't be related to those professions requiring a
degree.

------
danso
A little off-topic...but I was just reading "Coders at Work" and of the 15
coders interviewed, only one was female (Fran Allen):

<http://www.codersatwork.com/fran-allen.html>

Despite this, the author (Peter Seibel) begins his introduction by mentioning
Ada Lovelace in the very first sentence. In the next sentence, he talks about
the six women - Kay Antonelli, Jean Bartik, Betty Holberton, Marlyn Meltzer,
Frances Spence, and Ruth Teitelbaum - who were called to be the first
programmers of ENIAC.

I don't know if this was explicitly intentional on Seibel's part, a sort of
gender-balancing of the book given its one female interviewee, but it was a
nice reminder of how, at one point in time, it wasn't strange at all that
women were among the forefront of computer pioneers. Today, the numbers have
receded to the point that some people just think that women are inherently not
"built" for programming. Well, some clearly were...this isn't like arguing
whether the Navy SEALs should let in a real life "G.I. Jane"...given the
history of women in programming, it's still a strong possibility that the
gender disparity is heavily influenced by social trends and stigma and is
something that we can mitigate.

(note: I'm not accusing Seibel of not having enough diversity in his
book...it's very likely Fran Allen was the only woman available for his book
and who played as interesting a part in history as Robert Knuth, Peter Norvig,
and the other big names that Seibel interviews)

Edit: Also, the Fran Allen interview is really interesting. I jumped to it to
see her thoughts on the gender disparity, but most of the interview is on her
thoughts about early programming, teaching scientists to code, and how C
ruined the art of compilers

~~~
mjn
Some of the depictions in the 1960s, interestingly, played up programming as a
stereotypically "women's" occupation, complete with pop-psychology
explanations of why women were particularly suited for it:
<http://blog.fogcreek.com/girls-go-geek-again/>

~~~
snogglethorpe
The mother of a friend of my sister's was a programmer in the '60s (for some
large company, IBM or the like), and to hear her tell it, the stereotypical
programmer back then was more like traditional stereotypes of newspaper
reporters than anything else: hard-drinking, chain-smoking, wise-cracking,
cynical, etc.

It was pretty funny imagining her—a petite artsy (actually she was a full-time
artist at that point) grandmother type when I talked to her—knocking back
shots of whisky with the boys but apparently that's what they all did...

------
elptacek
I think two things after reading this. First, I wonder, do men generally
experience more positive reinforcement for the acquisition of skills,
particularly ones requiring high intelligence, all their lives?

Second, I have never been asked to participate on a panel. Taken further, I've
never felt welcome at any conference in this industry. For the most part, I
assumed this was unique to me, especially since I wouldn't really enjoy this
activity.

Oh, and another thing: I am lesser than no one. I've always believed that. It
galls me to be treated this way, but I haven't the slightest idea what I'm
supposed to do when it happens.

------
codemac
The goals of this post are noble, and I almost agree with the conclusion. How
the post gets there seems to be based out of a _very_ negative conflation.

How is the lack of women in the tech industry, and the offensive notion that
women fair poorly in STEM subjects for no other reason than they're women
uttered in the same breath? They shouldn't be for the very same reasons as
this post extolls.

> Being told that female students fair poorly in STEM subjects, or that the
> tech industry is lacking in female programmers, for instance, can reinforce
> those beliefs within women’s minds, leading them to confirm those
> stereotypes themselves.

Anyone who believes that women inherently do worse in STEM subjects needs to
be called out, in the most negative of terms. No one should say it, period.

However, the lack of women in tech is not a stereotype or a belief. It's a
fact. I'm not reinforcing a stereotype by mentioning it, I'm pointing out
something that needs to be called out at every step, to root out anyone
continuing the above mentioned offensive discrimination against women.

Gender-based discrimination being called out and gender based discrimination
being committed must be considered different things.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Anyone who believes that women inherently do worse in STEM subjects needs to
be called out, in the most negative of terms. No one should say it, period.

I don't think the point is that they _inherently_ do worse, but rather that,
currently and on average, they do worse.

~~~
wfunction
Exactly. I don't get why whenever someone talks about correlation, people
suddenly assume he is claiming causation and start beating him to death.

Correlation is correlation: whether or not there is a causal relationship
doesn't change the correlation.

------
vitaminc
Instead of supporting feminist policies that help privileged women at the
expense of underprivileged men, why not push for _underprivileged people_ to
join the tech field?

~~~
breadbox
Why "instead"? Why not both?

~~~
vitaminc
Why not add "underprivileged men" to make it a three-pronged approach?

------
btilly
Here is the challenge. If you don't make men aware of the ways that we as an
industry fail to be fair, there is no hope of changing it. But if we rub the
unfairness of the industry in women's faces, we are creating barriers to fix
the problems.

The solution, put in positive terms, is that if you want things to be better,
you need to encourage women to look on the positive side.

In that light, I think that if [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/26/software-
for-underserved...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/26/software-for-
underserved-markets/) gets taken to heart by people in the startup community,
that will do more to address this issue than any 10 heartfelt rants about the
inequity of the present situation. (For those who don't follow the link, it is
patio11 pointing out that if you want to create a successful consumer
business, the odds are very good that your primary customers will be women.)

------
king_jester
> Recent posts on the problems of gender inequality in the tech and science
> fields have continued to reinforce the idea that women are subordinate to
> men.

This seems to be one of the main points of this post, but I do not agree. By
and large women are subordinate to men in the business world and women do
encounter personal and institutionally oriented sexism in tech. Acknowledging
and talking about living and dealing with that reality do not reinforce that
sexism, that sexism already exists and is a prevalent force and women already
know this because they live the experience. On that:

> The sad thing is the effect of repeating these issues on those people who
> are already affected by the issues themselves, i.e. women who are struggling
> for equality in the tech and science industries. Hearing that this is a
> problem, that their field isn’t fair, that men are not including them in the
> industry the way they should… these negative sentiments are being drilled
> into the minds of people who could actually change this for the better.

Isn't part of the problem that women are undermined in their attempts to make
their working industry and business lives better? What efforts are taken and
how they are hampered is directly linked to the current state of how people
are treated in business and tech. Sharing that experience is one of the few
ways that women can begin form the basis of action that changes communities
for the better or creates communities for themselves.

I totally agree with the OP's points of action. However, there are limitations
that are externally imposed by women who entered in tech and they have a right
to know that. Others have a right to criticize and call out others for sexist
rhetoric. On this the OP says:

> No more ‘calling people out’ for making mistakes unless we’re offering to
> help them fix it.

Someone who is receiving unfair treatment has absolutely no obligation to the
person treating them unfairly to be nice to them, so I do not believe this can
every be helpful advice where there is a power imbalance. For folks who are
peers or part of the same peer group, calling out sexism is an important part
of not letting that sexism perpetuate.

------
patrickgzill
What sane woman would get into tech, when being a lawyer or MBA is so much
more lucrative?

~~~
lsc
>What sane woman would get into tech, when being a lawyer or MBA is so much
more lucrative?

I would assume that a rational woman would go into tech for the same reason a
man would; because those jobs depend on social skills in a way the tech jobs
do not.

I mean, this is changing, some; there are a lot of unemployed lawyers right
now, but yeah; the set of people who could be both a good programmer and a
good MBA? yeah... uh, that's a small (and very well-paid) set of people. (I
mean, sure, most good businesspeople can and probably should learn a little
bit of programming... just like most programmers should learn a little
business. But for most of us? we can only be really good at one or the other.)

Most of us? we're lopsided. We were born with traits that make it easier to
succeed in one are than the other and/or we've been putting effort into one
area rather than the other for most of our lives.

This is true of most of the nerds I know, male and female. If you are good at
everything? yeah, you get to write your own very expensive ticket. But most of
us? well, we chose to focus on one or the other, or we don't and we end up
being well-rounded but mediocre.

The thing about this? we make this decision before we are old enough to
understand the implications. If you are in college before you decide you want
to work with computers, well, I've already spent half my life up to that time
practicing. I mean, if you are that much better than me (and really hard
working) you can catch up, but I've got a hell of a lead.

This is my personal pet theory to explain the difference in interest; from an
early age, boys are taught that they will be valued, mostly, based on what
they can do; what they can make happen. I knew that if I could make myself
useful, there would be a place for me, society would value me, even if nobody
really liked me very much on a personal level, even if I was ugly or
unpleasant to be around. Now, I wasn't a girl, so I don't know, but my
impression is that this isn't what little girls are taught.

(Now, obviously, I have limited perspective here. This is just what I observe
in myself, and what I observe in my peers of both genders. Most nerds seem
socially... a little bit broken. It seems to get better with age, but man, the
socially optimized have a hell of a head start. I'm sure there are many other
factors, but this is how I personally rationalized the decision to become a
nerd.)

------
alexanderh
I work in an IT office that I would guess is over 65% women, with 80% women in
senior and managerial roles.

Depends on where you are I guess. I've definitely had my view changed on this
working at my current job.

------
orangethirty
I offer a learning program called Protocademy (<http://protocademy.com>). The
focus is to learn by building things from the start. Rather than endless
reading about syntax, or simple hello world programs. In the current group,
there are two young ladies who are doing very well. Their feedback has been
very encouraging. But the best thing they told me was the following:

"What we like is that there is no one here judging us for our gender. There is
no pressure from men. Some of them feel very threatened when a woman is more
skilled or even better at computers."

That is quite the statement, and sadly, true. During all of my years as a
programmer, I have come to suffer from such attitude. If you can't code a
binary tree with your eyes closed while singing the Start Spangled Banner,
then you suck. There is too much ego. Too much macho "I am better than you"
stuff going on. Even in interviews, where you get technical leads showing off
their knowledge, rather than allowing you to show off yours (isn't that the
point?).

I met one of the women in Protocademy while buying a MacBook. She saw my nerdy
glases, saw the computer, and asked me about OSX. From there, we started
talking about computers and then to video games. Turns out, she is a college
student doing a major in IT. Her dream had always been to program, but could
never come up with enough guts to do so at college. She is doing quite well
these days. Python is like second nature. A good programmer. All she needed
was some space to grow.

------
drakaal
The lack on women in tech is much like the lack of women in gaming. Guys have
pissing matches and are crude to each other. When they do that with women to
it is not acceptable workplace behvior. It isn't acceptable when it is just
men either, but legal gets involved when you treat a woman with the same level
of disrespect.

This is not mirrored in female dominated professions. There is a shortage of
male teachers and nurses, but it isn't because the women are so disrespectful
of the men.

------
enraged_camel
_Being told that female students fair poorly in STEM subjects, or that the
tech industry is lacking in female programmers, for instance, can reinforce
those beliefs within women’s minds, leading them to confirm those stereotypes
themselves._

Beliefs? Stereotypes? Those are facts, dude. As things currently stand, women
do perform more poorly than men in STEM, and their numbers are lacking in
tech. And what are we supposed to do? Not tell women that, once they join the
tech field, they will be viewed as anomalies, treated as sex objects and feel
very lonely? Are we supposed to _con_ women into joining tech?

In order to improve the status quo, we first need to acknowledge it, openly
and fearlessly. There's no way around that. Facts won't go anywhere just by
refraining from stating them.

 _For instance, this quote from Upstart:

“Stereotypes remain a huge limiting factor for women, who are often seen as
”too aggressive“ when they succeed, Sandberg said. ”As men get powerful and
successful, everyone likes them better.”

But when women achieve success, “everyone likes them worse,”_

Huh, I thought we were trying to avoid generalizations and stereotypes here...

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
This comment is almost shockingly horrible.

~~~
enraged_camel
Thank you for your valuable contribution to the discussion.

edit: Yes, keep downvoting me for pointing out how useless his post is. I love
HN!

~~~
toasterlovin
The best way to fight fire is with water...

------
minamea
Assuming the industry is 80% men and 20% women, and that the kind of genitalia
you have doesn't affect your intelligence or proficiency in CS, and that the
best, most proficient people should be speakers on panels... doesn't that mean
that panels should be, on average, about 80% men and 20% women?

Anything more than that is over representation of women. This is just misandry
I'm reading here.

------
cocoflunchy
Wow, the average exam score is 60% lower for females than for males? What's
this subject!?

I hate bar graphs with a y-axis starting anywhere but at zero.

------
mattchamb
As someone who studied psychology before coming to tech, this phenomenon is
fairly well documented. If you want, you can have a look here:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat>

I think it matches up well with what was discussed in this blog post.

------
Tichy
There are only two ways the percentage of women in tech can get higher: 1)
more women could enter tech. Safe for getting a sex change, men can't do much
about that. 2) less men could enter tech, men already in tech could leave
tech.

~~~
roguecoder
3) Men can make it a more pleasant place for women who are already here, so
exit rates fall.

------
rayiner
Negativity doesn't motivate, but litigation does, and so does bad press and
public shaming. The carrot and the stick are both valid tools.

------
StavrosK
I only skimmed the article, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the
article mistake correlation for causation _big time_? Students were _asked_ to
choose a topic, what if students who choose to write about values just don't
care about other people's opinion, and thus perform better at it?

What evidence is there to point to a causal relationship?

~~~
astrieanna
The students were assigned to one of two groups. Each group was given the same
list of values. One group was asked to write about the one most important to
them. The other group (the control group) was asked to write about the least
important one to them and why someone else might find it important.

They were asked to choose a value, not a topic.

~~~
StavrosK
Ah, thanks for the clarification. The wording makes it sound like they got to
choose both.

------
nobodysfool
What a poorly researched article. The author takes one study on test scores
and extrapolates it out to the whole career field. And her whole solution is
"be positive, don't be negative". Well, isn't that common sense?

------
benologist
Can we start complaining about all the startups blogging for HN instead?

------
samfisher83
I thought tech mas about metocricity. Plus all the girls I know just want to
be PMs.

~~~
Blahah
Prime Ministers? Parlour Maids? Post Modernists?

~~~
iamdave
I'm going to take a huge leap here and assume _P_ roject _M_ anager.

A pretty common abbreviation in tech, the context should have tipped you off.

\---

edit: One startup I worked for that focused on improving federal regulation
compliance in the banking sector had a team of 5 project managers, 1 was male.
Our product management team was entirely female.

~~~
Blahah
I'm in academia - we don't have project managers (but post-modernists abound).

------
SPSteinbeck
_Rebecca J. Rosen’s suggestion that men take a pledge to appear only on panels
that include at least one female speaker again reinforced the idea that women
are underrepresented in this area. In fact, in pointing out that it’s unlikely
no women are qualified for these panels, and yet there are still no women
appearing on them, Rebecca is reinforcing the idea that this is an unfair and
unexplainable issue for women to fight against_

The idea that no women on a conference panel implies the conference organizers
believe no women are even "qualified" (whatever that means) to be on the panel
and, ipso facto, sexism must be at play is on its face so stupid and devoid of
meaning that it reads like a paragraph from a contrived newspaper used as a
prop in a bad movie.

------
Kudzu_Bob
The only practical, field-tested way to get more women into tech is to lower
tech's prestige. Once that happens, men will flee to other careers, thereby
creating vacancies that can be filled by women. Problem solved.

