
Ask HN: How many females do you work with? - lewisj489
Hi All,<p>I work in the UK as a developer in an office with just over 100 employees. This covers Development, QA, Support, Product and Office Staff.<p>There are a total of 2 female employees, both of them have non-technical roles. And I really feel like this is a shame. I went to university with people of all genders and I feel like gender diversity is great for a team&#x2F;office.<p>It&#x27;s just a stark difference from my previous workplace which was very much evenly split.<p>I just wanted to get a little insight, how many females do you work with?
======
blaser-waffle
Fortune 500 multinational, based in the South.

Call it maybe 30-35% XX vs ~70% XY, with most of the XX concentrated mostly in
QA, Finance, and Project Mgmt roles. Actual Infrastructure, Ops, and Dev roles
are mostly men, and are mostly offshore'd at this point.

In fact, all of the women on the "technical side" (Dev/Ops/whatever) are
entirely offshore resources, with 2-3 notable exceptions. None of the
exceptions are American, either, for that matter (Indian/Russian/German).

------
mytailorisrich
Women do not tend to choose to study IT and engineering subjects and thus end
up being relatively 'rare' in these types of roles.

It's not down to companies.

Changing that requires a long term plan focusing on primary and secondary
education. University is too late. In the UK many schools encourage pupils to
develop interests in all subjects these days and to teach them that they can
be whatever they want, so that girls may find that they like engineering and
boys that they like nursing (for example). I think it's the right way forward
but obviously it is a slow evolution.

~~~
dllthomas
It's my understanding that, within a given cohort, we see more gender equality
at graduation than later points in time.

If that's the case, and especially if it's more so than other industries, then
companies are likely to blame for at least a portion of the difference,
although not necessarily at hiring.

~~~
mytailorisrich
In engineering subjects, in Europe, men are the overwhelming majority in
university.

After graduation they may choose jobs differently than men.

Then women are more likely to stop working when they have children, or to
choose a job with a schedule mores suited to looking after a family.

To me it still boils down to early education and to change the view of both
genders on jobs and industries that are seen as "for boys" or "for girls".

~~~
dllthomas
> In engineering subjects, in Europe, men are the overwhelming majority in
> university.

In the US as well. But that doesn't tell us much about why. It's clear that
it's not a first-order result of the behavior of companies; it could be a
higher-order effect - for instance, students often choose a major based in
part on the expected career to follow. If women expect to have a harder time
in an industry that will impact their decisions, no matter how much we
encourage them to like it.

So it _might_ be "down to companies"; what you are presenting as evidence to
the contrary isn't persuasive.

> After graduation they may choose jobs differently than men.

And they choose those jobs based, in part, on how they expect to be treated.
Making sure they can expect to be treated fairly, can expect to find a job,
and can expect good working conditions, is something that's within the purview
of companies employing people in these roles.

> Then women are more likely to stop working when they have children,

This matches my understanding, but I don't think it makes up the bulk of the
drop-off, much less the entirety. This is one part of why I suggested
comparing attrition to other industries.

> or to choose a job with a schedule mores suited to looking after a family.

Schedules are within the control of a company. There are many engineering
roles perfectly compatible with a light or flexible schedule. Meanwhile,
nursing - the example you picked up-thread as stereotypically female - isn't
known for either of those.

\----

I'm not saying that there's nothing to be done "upstream", in areas where
individual companies have no influence. I am saying that present day companies
_do_ have things they can do to improve the situation; and that, insofar as we
want to place blame, yesterday's and today's companies probably deserve some
portion of it.

------
nonines
None in my team. About 3-4 in my open plan (I guess about 100 coworkers in
it). Same numbers in Uni.Similar numbers to all the companies I've been so far
(best one was about 80-20).

SW Dev seems to be male dominated for as long as I remember myself in it. Made
a motto out of it that I hope I'm gonna pass to my kids: "steer away from any
environment where the gender stats are skewed beyond 60-40. This is just not
normal."

~~~
chuck9302
Presumably then you are also teaching your kids to not become hair dressers,
beauticians, child minders, social workers, care workers, psychologists or
teachers? Because those fields are also "just not normal" by your standards.

------
J-dawg
I wonder how long before a self-appointed member of the language police tells
you off for using the word "females"

~~~
LandR
I can't keep up with what words you should and shouldn't use but "females" in
this context does sound a bit odd.

I wouldn't ask how many males do you work with, I would just way "how many men
do you work with."

Similarly, I would say "How many women do you work with?"

But maybe that's an issue as well. I don't know. This language policing is
mostly a minefield I don't care to navigate. The OP clearly wasn't trying to
be offensive or anything like that, so i think (and hope) it's fine.

------
lewisj489
I am sorry to anyone that finds the word "female" offensive. I just wanted to
start an open dialogue, not offend anyone.

Sorry.

~~~
J-dawg
Personally, I find it offensive to pander to these people ;-)

------
gshdg
I work on an engineering team of 15 with 5 women.

None of whom would find it acceptable to be called “females”.

That’s not “language policing” as described elsewhere in the thread.

You don’t see men in the workplace being called “males”. “Female” and “male”
as nouns are used to describe animals. It’s dehumanizing. Don’t do it.

~~~
lewisj489
So gender ratios aren't a thing?

[https://i.imgur.com/lk7GPDB.png](https://i.imgur.com/lk7GPDB.png)

~~~
gshdg
I’m not sure I understand what point you’re trying to make with the graphic
and terse question. Could you please expand on that?

------
remux
There are only men in my IT department. In the whole company (food production,
over 900 employees) about 350 women work.

------
photonios
I work in Romania as a developer, in an office with a little more than 40
people.

In terms of women in the office:

\- 2 developers

\- 1 project manager

\- 1 QA manager

\- 1 HR

\- 1 office manager

It's a little low for this city and country. In most larger companies, the
ratio is 60-40. Sometimes higher, sometimes lower.

Romania is a former communist country and the state did not make a difference
between male/female. It didn't matter. You had to work. This kind of thinking
has kind of continued.

It's starting to change though. Romania has extremely favorable laws for
women. Pregnant women work 6 hours / day till 32 weeks at 100% pay. After
giving birth, they can stay home for up to two years at 85% pay. Fortunately,
most of them return to work after two years.

------
LandR
One. But she isn't in a technical role.

~~~
lewisj489
If you don't mind me asking, how many employees?

~~~
LandR
10

