

Alpha male programmers aren't keeping women out - joao
http://loudthinking.com/posts/40-alpha-male-programmers-arent-keeping-women-out

======
dasil003
I'm not sure who is making this argument anyway. Women are naturally attracted
to alpha males.

I think the truth is quite the opposite. Programming and IT have historically
attracted a large number of social rejects, who, despite scoring high on self-
evaluated liberalness, have no idea how to talk to women. Whether the
individual problem is general awkwardness, sexist beliefs, bitterness towards
women, or inability to engage with women or fawning all over them, if half the
guys in an IT department have one of these problems then it's going to be a
very unwelcoming place to be for a woman.

I remember in my undergrad that the ratio of men to women in CS classes
created a problem in and of itself as any remotely attractive woman had to
fight off all kinds of unwanted attention from a steady stream of unattractive
guys. To me it's no surprise that by senior year they had dwindled to a
handful.

~~~
mechanical_fish
It doesn't even take half the IT department. It only takes one or two rude
colleagues to make your life miserable.

Part of the problem -- ironically -- is that programmers are in many ways a
very tolerant bunch. We have to be, because many of our colleagues, including
some of the most talented ones, have a lot of trouble reading social cues.
Call it autism. Call it Asperger's. Call it "quirkiness". Blame it on a
tendency to spend too much time mainlining Perl code. But you'd be lying if
you claimed this correlation wasn't real. I've manifested the phenomenon
myself at times.

Anyway, you won't last long in programming if you can't develop a tolerance
for socially awkward people. But that tolerance is much harder to develop when
those awkward people are constantly hitting on you. Especially if you are
female and they are male. [1]

As a woman, what can you do to dissuade the socially awkward? Subtle social
cues often don't work. Ridiculously obvious social cues, like sending a memo
or writing a blog post, might help, or not: They might not get the message
across to the recipient (trying to teach an autistic person to be socially
appropriate can be like teaching photography to the blind) and they tend to be
_public_ , which runs the risk that you'll be labeled a "troublemaker". You
could try appealing to the guy's colleagues, but they might just conclude that
you're too "thin-skinned" for programming. After all, _they_ are all highly
tolerant of socially-awkward men. They have to be.

Or you could resign and find a different field.

Other fields don't seem to have this problem to the same extent. I expect
that's because they're more efficient at screening out the people who aren't
good at reading social cues. Given that I'm rather fond of many of my
socially-awkward friends, that's not my favorite solution. I guess the only
alternative is education, mutual tolerance, and careful social engineering,
but nobody said that process would be easy.

\---

[1] It's uncomfortable for men when they are hit on by socially-awkward women.
But the potential consequences aren't the same. As a straight male engineer,
the idea that I could lose my job because I rejected a co-worker's advances is
kind of laughable, the thought of being groped in an elevator is absurd, and
the very _possibility_ that I could be raped without going to prison first is
almost unthinkable. And, as it happens, I wasn't sexually abused as a child --
unlike an estimated 5-15% of men and 15-25% of women -- so I certainly don't
have debilitating flashbacks when some guy shows me soft-core porn and invites
me to laugh along with it. Lucky me.

------
ryanwaggoner
_Now that doesn't mean the underlying problem isn't worth dealing with. It
absolutely is! I think that the world of programming could be much more
interesting if more women were part of it. I wish I knew how to make that
happen. If I find out, I'll be the first to champion it._

This may get me a ton of down-votes, but I'm genuinely curious: is the gender
gap in programming _actually_ a problem? If so, why? In what ways would the
world of programming be more interesting if it was more evenly split between
men and women?

I'm not trying to sound misogynistic or anything, just haven't thought much
about this topic and I'm not sure I understand why it's considered a big
problem. Would love to hear people's views.

~~~
branden
It's a problem because in lieu of evidence that women are innately worse
programmers, it suggests a systemic bias keeping women out. The problem isn't
that there isn't an even split, it's that an entire population of might-be
geniuses and innovators is being left out of the game.

~~~
tokenadult
_in lieu of evidence that women are innately worse programmers, it suggests a
systemic bias keeping women out_

It might simply mean that women enjoy a comparative advantage

[http://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/Details/comparativeadv...](http://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/Details/comparativeadvantage.html)

at doing something else, whatever the something else is, and they are happy to
live in a world in which they trade their ability to do what they do to enjoy
the benefits of modern computer technology developed mostly by males.

Philip Greenspun's comments on women in science

<http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science>

may not be completely apropos, because programming as a career isn't exactly
the same as research science as a career, but those comments illustrate that
simple guesses about what the problem is just might be mistaken.

~~~
ibsulon
So, women have a comparative advantage at being teachers, nurses, and
paralegals whereas men have a comparative advantage at being principals,
doctors, and lawyers? This argument could very well be made in the 60s and
70s, but we would see it as the sexism it is today.

There's a woman I work with who was a programmer for years, but now works as a
technical writer because she was tired of dealing with the cultural problems
she had at multiple companies. I've worked with other women programmers who
had to deal with bullshit that I'd never accept due to my white male
privilege.

------
mdasen
I don't think that the lack of women programmers has much to do with male
programmers or computer science programs. Male programmers and computer
science programs always seem to love women who express an interest in it.
Let's face it, none of us want this to be a male-only profession.

However, society does socialize people into gender roles. Women are taught not
to go for math (which computer science, at least at an academic level, depends
on) and the sciences just as men are taught to forgo sociology. Remember,
there are departments that are mostly women at colleges and it's equally
telling to ask why there aren't men in those departments - not as a matter of
discrimination, but a matter of socialization. Anyway, women tend to be pushed
away from certain paths just as men are pushed away from certain paths (while
I find nursing to be an admirable profession, what percentage of nurses do you
think are male? And I think it's decently clear that from a young age, many of
us have the image of doctors being male and nurses being female).

It's a big problem in our society, but I don't think that programers and
computer science departments are to blame. We train children from very young
ages to go into certain roles. Once you're along a path (any path at any point
in life) there is a high cost of switching. If you've been pushed away from
math and science through high-school, the chance that you can switch that in
college is very low. You have to make up a lot of work that the other students
already did - and you're throwing away the work you've done on an alternate
path. Having not had biology and chemistry in high-school, medicine was simply
out of the question for me in college unless I intended to work much, much
harder than my fellow students - and the premeds were an over-achieving bunch.

And, really, this is more of a problem if you're going toward the science than
if you're going toward the social sciences or humanities. Why? At my school,
computer science was an 18 course major; nuroscience 21 courses; biochem was
up there too. What did you need for history? 8 courses. Sociology? 10.
Anthropology? 9. And you could usually take those courses at the same time
while the sciences tend to build on each other in a linear fashion to a
greater extent.

It's harsh. Even if you want to change into a science, sometimes the barrier
is too high. We need to do a better job teaching children that it's
unacceptable for both genders to forgo science and math. Otherwise, you end up
(like me) in a freshmen bio class realizing that you have to learn everything
that everyone else knew from high-school without falling behind on this
course. And I'd say that the majority would take the path of least resistance
and go for something they weren't missing knowledge in.

~~~
jibiki
> Women are taught not to go for math

> men are taught to forgo sociology

> We train children from very young ages to go into certain roles

I don't want to argue about this, because it will just end up being an
anecdote battle. But, for the record, my anecdotes are the opposite of yours.
I've never observed a teacher discouraging a female student from going into
mathematics. I've never seen anyone discourage a male student from going into
sociology. And as far as I can tell, in the US, there is very little
specialization before ~11th grade. Obviously your anecdotes are different. Is
there any reliable data on the subject? (What would even constitute reliable
data...?)

~~~
juanpablo
Not directly, but through role models in movies, TV, etc.

------
Jem
(Insert big anecdotal evidence disclaimer here...)

It's not programmers that keep women out of programming (or IT in general).
It's not the tools, the bad hours, the awkward guys, or the 'girls are bad at
math'/'girls can't program' stereotypes. Right from the beginning I was pushed
away from computers (before I'd even decided what field I wanted to apply
myself to) by teachers, career advisers, college lecturers, friends,
strangers, employers and sexist colleagues.

I remember being 13/14 and sitting down to an 'interview' with a career
adviser. We had to answer a series of questions on screen which were supposed
to tell us our ideal career. Every time I answered I could see that various
computer related careers were climbing up the list, and yet I was told by the
chap doing the interview that I should be a vet or a police officer. Neither
made much sense to me.

My computing teacher in school used to prioritise computer access to the boys
for after school 'computer club', and although I did ICT at college (A levels
in the UK), lecturers informed me that I would only be able to use the
qualifications to get into admin/secretary jobs (boys were told otherwise). I
was one of only two girls on my course at college, and the other girl dropped
out by the end of the second year due to family pressure. My last boss used to
make derogatory remarks about the fact that I was female, and colleagues
supported my male colleague over me.

It's the attitude from everyone else that women can't and shouldn't get
involved with computers that pushes women into other fields. I was lucky to
have a very supportive family and a partner that wholeheartedly supports women
in IT to push me through - oh, and being a stubborn bugger helped too :)

------
mcslee
Interesting, but I think this argument is flawed. The author notes that
different professions tend to have different distributions of male personality
types. Programmers tend towards meek and introverted, lawyers and businessmen
more alpha, yet women don't shy away from those fields.

This seems to assume that women must magically all have the same personality
type and/or no personality selection bias in their career choices. Since women
are comfortable going head-to-head with alpha-male lawyers, they therefore
should be totally comfortable with geeky programmers. I don't buy it -- all
women are not the same, just like all men are not the same.

It seems to me that women who become lawyers or businesspeople likely have
A-type personalities themselves. Accordingly, they are probably more likely to
view competition or confrontation with males in the workplace as a motivating
challenge. Women who become programmers are probably, just like male
programmers, a bit more introverted and geeky. Accordingly,
confrontation/competition with males in the workplace is probably less likely
to be motivating, and more likely to be intimidating -- especially when you
consider that many "meek" male programmer types tend to drastically
overcompensate for insecurity in physical situations with hyper-competitive
and vitriolic behavior in virtual environments (I wonder what the gender and
programmer/non-programmer ratios are like on 4chan).

In other words, just because male programmers don't rank as alpha-males
relative to the general male population doesn't mean they don't behave like
alpha-males in their own environment, especially relative to the female
personality types interested in becoming programmers.

My 2 cents.

------
jleyank
This bloody topic keeps reappearing, and the results look the same. As I (and
others) have written previously, if you're capable of being successful in many
fields (medicine, law, ...), why on $GOD's green earth would you pick this
one??

The working conditions aren't the best, the weeks tend to run long and the
tanning possibilities under fluorescent lights just isn't great. Throw in a
couple examples of, umm, undersocialized folks and I know how I'd vote if I
get a do-over.

~~~
lunchbox
We'll have to disagree on this one.

For instance: medicine? If you have a hard time tolerating the undersocialized
folks in software, you probably won't enjoy being vomited on either. Or any of
the other hundreds of perils of being in the medical field. Being a doctor
might be fulfilling, but it is NOT a pleasant profession.

We in the tech industry have it really good. It's very tough to find an
industry with this combination of pay, flexibility, interesting work, and
work/life balance.

------
lsb
"This article explores this fourth possible explanation for the dearth of
women in science: They found better jobs."

<http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science>

~~~
basugasubaku
That article is about a career in academia as a scientist specifically. It is
irrelevant to programming as a career.

------
jaxn
I don't think DHH really understands what an "Alpha Male" is.

~~~
chromatic
Alternately, he's trying to shift the argument away from a very legitimate
discussion of "How can a community be more pleasant and welcoming?" to a tepid
and difficult-to-counter "Don't censor the awesome, edgy, boundary-pushing
behavior that's made us rock stars!"

I make the assumption that you can invent and refine interesting things
without offending people gratuitously. Perhaps DHH does not.

------
swolchok
Article doesn't mention whether sitting down with the groups is in mixed
company. Perhaps men in the other occupations are more "inappropriate" _with
other men_ , but know how to hold their tongues when women are around. (In
other words, maybe they're sexist in a way that helps them avoid repelling
women.)

~~~
dasil003
Hell, maybe they're just better looking. That would go a long way by itself.

------
alphazero
Its the tools, stupid.

We're an arts and crafts "industry". Only a fraction of our time is spent
thinking about the problem in the abstract. A great deal of it is spent
wrestling with our primitive tool kit to realize the concept.

When programming becomes entirely an intellectual field, you will see the same
gender ratios as you see in other mature sciences.

------
prospero
There's not a single scale for outrageous behavior; context changes
everything. Musicians, lawyers, and doctors generally understand and adapt to
the social norms of whatever situation they're in. This is only sometimes true
of computer programmers.

------
jacoblyles
In my uninformed opinion, I don't think we do a very good job marketing what
our field is about. If the uninitiated understood the creativity and
artisanship involved in software, I think there would be more women
programmers. Instead, they get a feeling that programming is something vaguely
geeky and uncool, and the intro Java class doesn't do a whole lot to dispel
the feeling.

------
calambrac
This isn't something you have to have an uninformed opinion about. The issue
has been noticed before, people have thought it was important to understand,
and actual studies have been done. Here's the authoritative one:

[http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Computing-Jane-
Mar...](http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Computing-Jane-
Margolis/dp/0262133989)

It's not an alpha male thing, though that's some of it. It's a socialization
thing. Guys had more exposure before college, are more likely to learn the
material on their own rather than in a group (how women usually prefer to
learn), and so appear to be far more competent earlier. Girls who make it over
that initial hump do as well or better, but not many do, because there's not a
lot of interest in helping them through it.

------
ericb
A fine example of what-aboutery!

Reference: [http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-
har...](http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-
hari-how-to-spot-a-lame-lame-argument-1667373.html)

~~~
Alex3917
Actually, I think it's closer to arguing in the negative:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=190553>

------
hannahevefon
When I was in college, quite a few girls left CS for Business cause it's so
hard to get good grades. If I was getting a few C's in classes, I'd switch
majors too. If I wasn't so comfortable without a social life and spending a
lot of time in front of the computer by myself, I probably wouldn't have made
it. It doesn't have to be this way, but that's what happened for me. As the
whole experience improves there'll probably be more girls. I think creations
like Ruby on Rails makes the experience that much better and that much more
appealing and productive. I guess whatever that makes programmers in general
happier, will have women programmers happier too. Ruby on Rails rocks.

------
srn
I get tired of technical environments online which assume there are no women
present; or worse, that outright insult them. Slashdot and digg are particular
bad about this, but you see some of that here as well. What message is that
going to send to people who are considering joining the field? Who would want
to deal with these jerks?

Assume that there are women present, even if you don't hear from them, and act
civilly. That will make room for more women to come in. Thanks.

------
srn
I'm interested in a study which looked for correlations between having a
tangible role model in science/engineering during childhood and later joining
the field.

------
thras
Women aren't as mathematically inclined as men. They're also shorter. Anyone
who tells you that we're all equal is trying to win votes.

~~~
zackattack
This is such a poignantly obnoxious post, because your sarcasm comes
dangerously close to seriousness.

The reason women aren't, on the average, as measurably good at math as men is
strictly due to cultural differences. Women are more prone to experiencing
stereotype threat in mathematics ("girls aren't as good at math as boys"),
which makes them suffer in early mathematics performance, which makes them
less likely to take increasingly more advanced math classes.

I have yet to see a study that conclusively proves (or even _suggests_ ) that
women have inferior innate capacity for doing mathematics.

Women indeed may employ different strategies to solve certain classes of
mathematical problems (e.g., those involving mental rotation) but that does
not mean that they "aren't as mathematically inclined."

I hope you are never put in a position of power over a female engineer in the
workplace. Christ.

~~~
natrius
_"The reason women aren't, on the average, as measurably good at math as men
is strictly due to cultural differences."_

Citation? Testosterone has been proven to enhance spatial ability[1]. Why
wouldn't there be other differences in cognition between the sexes? You
haven't seen a study that proves such a difference with math, but where's the
study that disproves such a difference? Until there is one, you're more wrong
than he is, and your condemnation is ridiculous.

[1] <http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/brcg.1995.1269>

~~~
frossie
Citations are legion.

The most obvious and direct proof is the huge variation in math scores by
country. If there was no social bias against women in mathematics, you would
expect girls to be equally worse than boys in every country (they way girls
are shorter than boys in every country, for example).

eg see:
[http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1...](http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11449804)

and note the significant difference in the gender gap in math between, say,
Turkey and Sweden.

Arguing about mathematical skills is irrelevant to the debate anyway. I can
tell you for certain that at least half the male programmers I deal with seem
to possess no particular mathematical insight.

The real question is not whether more women _should_ be in computing. The
question is whether there are women who would be enthusiastically in the field
if they had been encouraged to be, and whether their absence is impoverishing
the field. I have no data to answer to this question and I doubt you do
either.

PS. I am female, if that matters.

~~~
natrius
Good article. I agree with pretty much everything you said.

What I was really trying to address is how anyone who suggests that there may
be innate factors that affect outcomes for groups of people is immediately
tarred and feathered. There's nothing wrong with such hypotheses. What's wrong
is when people use characterizations of groups to prejudge individuals.

