
Why is computer science a sausage fest?  - limedaring
http://www.stubbornella.org/content/2010/07/26/woman-in-technology/
======
philwelch
On someone's complaint about Google setting up a special grant program for
women, OP writes:

 _This stinks of jealousy. Why not be happy for the female students? Why rain
on someone else’s parade? Something good happening to someone else seems to
disgust fringley. Frankly, it comes off as childish._

That's a terrible argument. Can't you say that about _any_ form of
discrimination? "So what if all the nice houses and neighborhoods and schools
and drinking fountains and restrooms and universities are all restricted to
white people? Can't you be happy for them? Why rain on someone else's parade?"
There are good arguments to be made for reverse discrimination, but "can't you
be happy for someone else?" isn't one of them.

Other issues:

 _I believe CS and Web Development currently select for certain masculine
qualities that are largely unrelated to someone’s prowess as a coder. I
believe it is these tangential code-cowboy qualities women are unable or
unwilling to emulate, and not their skill or capacity for abstraction, problem
solving, creative thinking, or communication — All of which actually make them
better developers._

Then she lists a lot of code-cowboy vs. good-developer differences, involving
things like "working in teams" and "understanding human elements" and
"respecting people" (which are implicitly feminine traits, according to the
OP, unlike the focused solitude that "code-cowboys" employ.) This is triply
problematic--she dismisses out of hand the idea that men are better than women
at abstract reasoning and such, but implicitly argues that the qualities of
"good developers" are feminine and the qualities of "code cowboys" are both
bad for development _and_ masculine.

After all this, she complains that her talents were viewed as better suited to
management, when all that supposedly-feminine stuff like teamwork and
respecting people _are important parts of management_.

Incidentally, I think the reason for the gender gap is something she pointed
out in all of this--women are less likely than men to engage in deeply focused
solitary activities. Unlike her, I don't see the deep focus and solitude of
programming as a bad thing at all--even if it does keep out women.

EDIT HISTORY: Added "There are good arguments to be made for reverse
discrimination..." sentence.

~~~
calibraxis
Actually, a better analogy would be African-Americans getting extra
scholarships, to compensate for the relative lack of wealth their families
accumulated. I certainly wouldn't begrudge this.

Whatever cognitive differences there are between the sexes, I think they're
very minor. Do they keep people like Shakespeare from being considered great
writers, though women are said to have stronger verbal ability?

Anyone reading Hacker News knows how important communication, teamwork and the
human elements are, in real-world software development. We are not troglodytes
who shuffle into the office at night to partake in an ancient ritual of
becoming one with the Platonic forms. (Not most of us, at least.) The reality
is more like Office Space.

In fact, it is strange to consider men good at even just the technical aspects
of programming. Most apparently have a hard time solving basic programming
tasks (a common complaint here). Lore abounds of programmers with intimidating
resumes who turn out to have problems with basic datastructures. The software
world looks less like a meritocracy, and more like a cushy office job that
beats working at Wendy's.

~~~
Karzyn
"Actually, a better analogy would be African-Americans getting extra
scholarships, to compensate for the relative lack of wealth their families
accumulated. I certainly wouldn't begrudge this."

While I most certainly agree I've always wondered why they don't give the
scholarships based on economic rather than racial conditions. Quite frankly,
with the way that the US is right now, this would end up mostly benefiting
minority families anyway and would be much more palatable to the general
public.

That said, I grew up in a fairly well-off majority white suburb so I may not
have the best handle on the situation.

~~~
philwelch
Martin Luther King actually had very similar ideas. The fact is, racism was
used as a wedge issue for decades to divide poor whites from the black
community to the detriment of both.

------
Lewisham
Obviously anyone making any comment about this article is wandering into a
minefield of appearing sexist. While I agree with the sentiment (attracting
girls into CS is OK, putting some money at the end of a stick is OK, and CS
will benefit from them being there), one of the points did bother me.

 _The first time I spoke at a conference, John Allsopp contacted me to ask if
I would do it. I never would have submitted a proposal. You might say that I
should have, but I would counter that I shouldn’t need to act like a dude to
get respect._

To which I shall counter, _but you should have._ This is an attitude of
entitlement. "I am not the way you work, but I am a _girl_ , thus everything
is much harder for me, so I am entitled to have people bend over backwards
telling me how wonderful I am and flattering me by asking me to speak at a
conference."

She makes the assumption that all men are speaking at conferences too; but
they're not. Speaking at a conference is an honor. We've seen lots of stuff on
HN about how people make their own luck. If people are hungry, they will make
things happen. She wasn't hungry. She didn't _want_ to speak. That's not a
girl thing, that's just her. There are plenty of men in that boat too.

These articles, as alanh described, are almost always strewn with male sexism
too. I'm sad to see that this one is the same way.

The wider question is not one of male/female, but of equality in general.
Locker-room antics (of which I am guilty), work/life balance, teaching of the
sciences and engineering in schools... these are all things that need to be
reviewed about equality, not an us vs them, male vs female, attitude.

~~~
mattdw
_"To which I shall counter, but you should have. This is an attitude of
entitlement."_

Clay Shirky has written about this at length [1]; the basic point being that
women are socialized their whole lives to not be entitled or aggressive but to
stay quiet and in the background, while men are constantly socialized to take
what they want, step forward, go for it, "be a man" etc. Obviously there is
much variation, and yes, geeks tend toward the not-so-aggro end of the table,
but I think it's still an important point.

I'd also suggest that, sure, there are lots of men not speaking at
conferences, but I suspect _proportionally_ there are even more women for whom
that is true.

[1] <http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/01/a-rant-about-women/>

(edit: added link)

~~~
seunosewa
The passivity thing really puzzles me. Why would I want something and not go
for it?

~~~
jarek
Oh boy...

Depending on how much you want something, and your personality, the following
and more may readily discourage you:

* Fear of rejection

* Fear of seeming out of place

* Fear of general embarassment

* Fear of disappointment or being underwhelmed upon conquering fear of embarassment and/or ignoring embarassment produced

* Fear that "it won't be worth it"

/a male

------
jeiting
"CS education also focuses a lot of effort on puzzles and very abstract
concepts when practical applications where you can see the why and how might
work better for women (and a hell of a lot of men). I like yummy algorithms,
but we could make CS education more accessible by putting them in context."

Why must we make a field more accessible? It would also be more accessible if
we just threw BS degrees off the back of a parade float. But, sorry,
programming is at its core thinking about the abstract, learning to realize
that, although you are writing in python/json/xml/rpc/wtf you are really just
doing discrete mathematics. CS programs should not teach in the specifics,
because frankly, the specifics don't matter.

This was the same argument that the women in physics tried to make when I was
an undergraduate. Appalled at the poor retention rate of women in first year
physics programs, the solution was to make first year physics more
'accessible' (i guess this means easier). I'm sorry, but this is not the right
way of thinking about the problem. Raise the students up, do not bend the
program to raise numbers.

Diversity is great, but context free grammers and recursive descent parsers
are greater.

~~~
_delirium
It also doesn't seem to account for the reduction in gender diversity over the
past 20 years or so. Around 1990, women were around 35% of CS majors, and
today, they're around 17%. What accounts for that drop? I don't think it can
be "puzzles and very abstract concepts". If anything, the core
theory/systems/PLs areas have declined as a proportion of the overall CS
curriculum over that time period, and more applications-focused areas have
increased in prominence. Many CS departments now have HCI faculty and classes,
for example, which virtually none did in 1990, and there's lots more robotics
and other explicitly applications-oriented areas in the curriculum as well.

Not that _I_ know why there's been a decline in women in CS over the past 20
years, either. But I think any explanation of why there aren't many women in
CS now has to account for why there were more women in CS in 1990--- despite
CS not being that much different at the time, and probably actually more
"hardcore" systems/theory oriented.

~~~
Lewisham
I was under the impression (and by impression I mean I have no idea where I
read this and thus cannot back up anything I say) that the problem was at the
secondary schooling level; girls started out with a healthy interest in
science and engineering when they begin at 11 or 12, but that interest level
rapidly decreases as they move through schooling.

The question is what is happening in the way we're teaching girls that they
get so turned off by it? Obviously its not _innate_ , because as you note,
there used be a lot more women graduating with CS. I guess there could also be
a societal argument as well, but I wouldn't know enough about the cultural
norms of 1990 to comment.

------
kylec

        CS education works best for people who already know how
        to code before they begin. CS teaches the theory behind a
        practice in which they assume you already have some
        skill. Women are less likely to already know, because
        they don’t play video games as much.
    

This does not make any sense. How does playing video games translate to coding
skill?

~~~
moultano
One anecdote that I heard from people involved with the CMU admissions
criteria for CS. In addition to GPA, leadership skills, etc. they used to also
look for something interesting technical that you'd done prior to college.
They have now removed that criteria from the selection process because they
found that it did not correlate with success upon coming to CMU, but it did
correlate with gender.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Could you provide a citation for that? I'd be VERY surprised if doing
technical work before college did not correlate with success.

In my admittedly anecdotal experience (at a college way below the level of
CMU), introductory programming classes had a classical bimodal distribution.
There was a cluster of grades at 30 (people who weren't interested in
programming) and another cluster at 80 (people who coded as a hobby and
already knew nearly everything the class had to teach).

~~~
moultano
That's certainly true for the first programming class, but I don't think it
has any effect on the first theory class.

------
petercooper
A "sausage fest"? Classy rhetoric! Is nursing a "tits fest" or elementary
education a "vagina fest"?

It'll be great when intelligent people can stop identifying themselves or
their sense of humor by their genitalia, race, or any other physical
characteristic that has little to do with how good they can be as _people_.

I agree that women might not want to hear "dick jokes" or "be groped" but
_most people don't_ regardless of gender. It's not a male/female dichotomy
we're dealing with - it's a respect/idiocy dichotomy.

~~~
derefr
You're completely right, of course—but I have to point out that elementary
education _is_ a "vagina fest", and not even a self-selected one. There is
definite discrimination preventing men from entering the field—mostly by
parents who don't want men around their kids.

~~~
Tichy
I seriously doubt that is the reason - on the contrary, I constantly hear that
people would like more male teachers. However, I don't think the salary is
sufficient to feed a family. Not sure if that is the main reason, but it might
be a factor in men's decisions.

~~~
philwelch
There's a massive witchhunt against pedophiles that keeps a lot of men out of
most occupations dealing with children.

~~~
Tichy
I don't think that is as much of a problem here in Germany, so I doubt it is
the major deterrent. Though in general being a teacher seems rather risky to
me. Certainly if pupils or parents want to screw up your life, they have all
the possibilities to do so.

~~~
derefr
Ah, my comment was only meant to include North America; I am not at all sure
whether elementary education in other places has equal amounts of gender-
iniquity.

~~~
Tichy
I have heard the same complaint about almost all teachers being women here in
Germany (at elementary school level). And of course we worry about
paedophiles, I just don't think it has reached witch hunt proportions yet.

------
alanh
> On the other hand, he assumes those women didn’t deserve to be sent to
> JSConf. Why should he assume that?

Utter crap. That’s clearly not what the critics are concerned about. The women
may indeed deserve to go — but no more than men who are _not_ being offered
the same grants. _This_ is what is objectionable. This, and the implication
that women need pushed into the field or artificially assisted, strike some as
sexist.

While she does make some good points towards the end, this whole piece is
strewn with similar assumptions of male sexism, and is devoid of any
realization that some perceived affirmative action as reverse discrimination.

~~~
adamesque
Except, they're _not_ just assumptions of sexism. You should at least skim the
MIT study she refers to in her article
(<http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html>). It was an eye-opening, empirical
study showing that discrimination did exist – and that it didn't look like
ordinary bigotry.

I can't help but think that it's only possible to get worked up about reverse
discrimination if you don't believe that the "forward" discrimination exists
in the first place.

~~~
alanh
You’re absolutely right about “the only way people would get worked up about
reverse discrimination,” of course. What I object to is her assigning evil
intentions to people she’s never met.

------
gwern
As usual, I like Philip Greenspun's explanation better than all of the
anecdotes and fuzzy generalizations in this blog post:
<http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/acm-women-in-computing>
<http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science>

tl;dr: It's because the women who would do well in CS/STEM have much better
paying, or easier, or more prestigious options available to them.

~~~
mattdw
…or, you know, the directly hostile and sexist things women sometimes
experience in the industry. As described in the original post.

Not to say that Greenspun is wrong in his conclusions, but when women are
saying "I find it unpleasant to be in the industry because…", it seems kinda
patronising to turn around and suggest that _they're_ wrong.

~~~
Tichy
To experience the sexist things, you would first have to enter the industry,
though. I somewhat doubt it is a good explanation. Also, is life in CS really
so unbearable for Stubbornella and other women?

------
patrickgzill
Who cares?

Whether meaning to or not, these posts always degenerate to a laundry list of
why men are slobs | jerks | adolescents who are living in Mom's basement | a
disgusting unwashed bachelor pad | a van down by the river.

Guess what - the reason that there are so few women in CS / programming, is
because most women have decided to do something else with their lives (for
whatever reason).

That kind of thing tends to happen in a free society.

------
dman
Ive seen many articles talking about code cowboys, or the lone rockstar
programmer. It might just be the places ive worked at but I have yet to see
anyone who fits this description. An anti social arrogant person who makes a
lot of mistakes would simply find it hard to stay hired in todays comp sci
world.

------
gamble
> We are veterinary technicians not veterinarians, dental assistants not
> dentists, medical assistants not doctors.

Women are now a slight majority of medical students and ~95% of nurses. Women
make up >75% of the students in veterinary school, and around ~50% of students
in dental school.

~~~
ptomato
None of which in any way contradicts what she said.

~~~
stretchwithme
except for the whole women are "not doctors" thing.

~~~
Confusion
That depends on whether they go on to become doctors, veterinarians and
dentists instead of assistants to those. The fact that someone has a certain
education does not preclude them from ending up in a more assistive job
related to the education. In fact, if women are still underrepresented among
new doctors, veterinarians and dentists, that would be a likely explanation.

~~~
Tichy
I don't think somebody studying medicine ends up being a nurse. Not the women
mentioned here either. I suspect Stubbornella simply didn't check many
numbers.

For example, maybe because a lot of women are working in people facing jobs
(secretaries, receptionists), it distorts impressions. Meanwhile, the men are
shoveling shit in the backyard. At the same time lots of men and women have
"better" jobs, but they are not as visible. So the impression is "women tend
to become receptionists".

------
nzmsv
If you take a look at @fringley's Twitter page, there's a comment from Diana
Clarke, employee of FreshBooks. It says,

    
    
      I wonder if Dr. Browne, Dr. Hutt, Dr. Ruiz still want to give you a reference.
      Don't worry, I'll ask for you (@fringley).
    

Now _that_ is low. Women who are able to compete on merit, not backstabbing or
special treatment, should be disgusted as well.

Also, more proof that this is a forbidden topic. I can discuss wars, religion,
and economic policy until blue in the face. But say anything about gender
policies and face the consequences.

------
awongh
ugh. I really can't help but cringe whenever anyone tries to throw their hat
into the ring and take on this problem, even if they have an inside take.

 _CS education also focuses a lot of effort on puzzles and very abstract
concepts when practical applications where you can see the why and how might
work better for women (and a hell of a lot of men). I like yummy algorithms,
but we could make CS education more accessible by putting them in context._

I kind of wish this had happened when I was doing CS. What does that say about
me? (I'm a guy)

I think these kind of over-generalizations about an entire gender do nothing
but contribute to the PC echo chamber.

I don't know what contributes to the gender disparity, but I _can_ say that I
have plenty of male friends who also can't really contemplate being a
programmer, and for many of the same reasons that are cited that women may not
be attracted to the profession... I think it can be an intimidating profession
no matter what your gender- anything like coding that has such an insular
culture is the same.... Maybe it's just a chicken and egg problem.

~~~
Keile
Seems like you put a lot of effort into this reply.

~~~
awongh
I did, because in I feel like gender stereotyping in general is overstated.
Are there differences between men and women? Of course there are, but blanket
statements, like the one you made below _I suspect women aren't attracted to
computer science careers as often as men because they generally like more
artistic and creative ventures_ ...I feel like it's statements like this that
don't help things. Women are more artistic and creative? I'd like to think
that gender is a more nuanced (and maybe fluid?) thing, that has more subtle
qualities to it than reductive statements like that suggest it does.

~~~
marquis
i'm glad to read your comments, as i feel the same way. i get remarks based on
my gender from both men and women. the fact of the matter is, i am female but
i am also the type of _person_ who likes to spend a lot of time alone thinking
and controlling my immediate environment. thus computing appeals to me. i also
was introduced to computing at the right age, before adolescence when being
sociable wasn't so much of an urge so even though i didn't code much through
my teenage years i was able to pick it up later very easily and with
confidence. i think it's really this simple: a blend of personality type,
circumstance and privilege.

------
naner
_It is much more subtle, but just as ugly. These days, bright, thoughtful,
enlightened people assume that the absence of women in certain fields results
from women being unable to compete on merit. The assumption that, if someone
creates a scholarship for women, it is because otherwise, women can’t hack
it._

I tend to think it is that women often don't have the type of personality that
allows them to enjoy a highly technical field. I can't be the only one whose
noticed that a _lot_ of computer scientists have some mildly autistic
qualities. I do okay in most social situations but I have gone _weeks_ without
talking to anyone (besides the cashier at the grocery store, etc.) and I have
been the awkward guy in a number of situations. And I am much better
socialized than a lot of my colleges at work and in college. The field appears
to attract this type of personality, I don't know why. And women appear to
have these problems less frequently and less seriously than men do. And this
also jives with her "code cowboy" stereotype.

------
othermaciej
It's interesting to compare to the proportion of women in or entering other
"traditionally male" fields that are often seen as having a "boys club"
atmosphere:

\- ~21% of practicing software engineers and ~21% of CS degree recipients are
women.
[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/298007/Making_I...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/298007/Making_IT_Work)

\- ~25% of practicing lawyers and 44% of law students are women.
<http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-4197736.html>

\- 30% of doctors and 42% of med students are women.
<http://www.uslaw.com/library/article/ABAWomenJustice.html>

It seems that medicine and law are significantly more effective at recruiting
female students, and somewhat less so but still significantly more effective
at attracting women to the workforce.

Is there anything CS has to learn from these professions that are often seen
as "macho", individualistic, and prone to long work hours?

~~~
sjf
Better salaries?

------
stretchwithme
When we truly treat people as individuals, we'll accept whatever the situation
exactly as it is.

The diversity we find in humanity is exactly what has been required for us to
get as far as we have. Its an absolute necessity, yet many are troubled when
we see different types of people pursue different things. And just as many are
troubled when other individuals pursue things they're "not supposed to".

I think we all need to learn to go with the flow.

------
sn
Some, but not all, of women are capable and some, but not all, of men are
capable. Perhaps the numbers of capable men exceed the numbers of women. Even
so that doesn't mean women as a whole are incapable of excelling with CS.

All professionals wants to be treated with respect and not be typecast,
whether there is a population of 5 or 500,000 for their particular subgroup.

Community members going on about how women are less capable etc. makes for at
least a partially self fulfilling prophesy. If a community member is
badmouthing my particular subgroup, I am gong to assume they are prejudiced
against me. Only the women who really, really love technology will go into a
field in which they expect to be significantly discriminated against.

------
shib71
The argument that I usually have, and constantly resist, is that a) generally
women just aren't as interested in CS as men, and b) that's ok, so c) why give
out scholarships to make CS artificially attractive, and d) if the industry
isn't suffering for the lack (arguable) what's the big deal?

But I think that the _people_ in CS are being degraded. The women have to deal
with a constant stream of rubbish, and men are being conditioned to provide
it. It appears that some people are not being given full credit for their
skills and work, and in an industry powered by kudos as much as money that
should offend everyone.

------
Tichy
I must admit some parts of that annoy me. You can't argue with the sexist
jokes and assumptions of being a secretary. But not wanting to be a Cowboy
Coder? What does it mean, women coders always comment their source code? I
don't think I have actually ever met a Cowboy Coder (I am 38 now, 10 years
professional software developer, coding since I am 12), so I seriously doubt
their mysthical existence is a significant deterrent for women in CS.

Also things like "computer games are for men" - well if you really want it,
create games for women. Nobody is preventing people (men or women) from
creating games for women, or in general, from creating the environment for
learning and working they desire.

If it is true that it is harder for women to get CS jobs, it would be a
serious concern. I'd like to see more hard data about it, though. The people I
know all would love to hire more women.

At the company we currently work for, we also have one woman coder (this is
100000% more women coders than I usually see at companies). But thanks to
Scrum, we have several female designers in the teams, so at least the overall
atmosphere is not all masculine. That's one of the few things I consider good
about Scrum. By overall atmosphere I just mean a lone woman does not have to
feel weird. I don't in general encounter penis jokes or whatever in masculine
environments either (also no Star Trek posters - most offices simply have blue
carpet, some unhappy plants, desks, computers).

------
parfe
Why is logging a sausage fest?

Why is construction a sausage fest?

Why is fishing a sausage fest?

Why is trucking a sausage fest?

Why is computer science treated as though gender balance is important when
there are plenty of fields where women are nearly non-existent.

~~~
missizii
All the other professions are high-risk and require significant physical
strength. Men are generally more comfortable with high-risk, high-reward jobs,
and have a physical strength advantage over women.

Computer Science is not high-risk and does not require significant physical
strength.

~~~
parfe
So why choose computer science as an area to push for more women to
participate in?

It seems like the opposite of equality.

"Here are a bunch of dangerous, yet lucrative career tracks, but I think more
women should be programmers because it's safer than climbing a ladder."

~~~
missizii
Women are more risk averse than men. It's a well-known evolutionary strategy
for men to choose high-risk/high-reward pursuits.

Also, you completely ignored my point about these careers being suited to
physically extremely strong people, which are disproportionately men (due to
biological differences).

Women should be programmers because they are as mentally capable as men, and
they can handle the minimal physical requirements. If a woman is just as
strong as a male lumberjack/fisherman/etc, and perfectly fine with the risk,
then she should be able to do that job as well.

(More than 500,000 people are treated in the US for ladder-related injuries.)

~~~
parfe
It's absurd to be fulling willing to believe, on average, that physically a
woman is weaker than a man, but for some reason her brain ( a physical
structure! ) is identical in all areas of ability.

~~~
missizii
Are you arguing that because men are, on average, physically stronger than
women, it implies that they are smarter or more analytical than women?

That's like arguing that because women have, on average, smaller feet than
men, they are smarter or more analytical than men.

~~~
parfe
I didn't say smarter. You made that up.

If you're willing to accept that men and women have different physical
characteristics and different aversion to risk, why then must the brain have
an exemption when it comes to ability? Why can't men be more comfortable
programming a computer?

And the more important question, why should there be an effort to lure women
into computing?

~~~
marquis
>And the more important question, why should there be an effort to lure women
into computing?

well, that's a fair question but what about the opposite? "why should there
_not_ be an effort to lure _anyone_ into computing?"

there are a lot of people who have a genuine interest in computing, but don't
enter it because of either lack of role models or social pressure. so, they
are really missing out on something that may make them happy as adults, and
for reasons beyond their control. not beyond their ability.

another factor i've noticed a lot in my career, working as a programmer but
interacting with a lot of creatives, is that a lot of people, perhaps young
women, are not interested in spending a huge amount of time alone, which may
be the only pre-requisite to learning computing - being interested in finding
out how stuff works more than going out with your friends and/or succumbing to
peer pressure to be sociable. computing isn't something you can do with a
group of people. you can sit in the same room but ultimately you need to focus
for long periods of time without distraction. i just haven't met a lot of
people in my life who can/want to do that, and aren't already in a field that
needs that focus.

------
tom_ilsinszki
This might be a risky comment for me, but I'll bite the bullet.

Why I'd like to see more female developers?

* I wanted to have more women (girls) around at university. Yes, one reason is sexual attraction (I hope it's not a problem, that I mention this, but I am a human being after all), but I also found that girls are an essential part of how human groups are formed. You might become really good friends with another guy at uni, just because you like hanging around the same girl at the beginning; on the other hand, you might not chat up and start hanging out with that other guy initially.

* It would be far healthier for (young) people to socialize in a mixed environment.

* A lot of women that I know are more social and caring than me in day to day communication. I'd also love to have and learn more of that.

* Women tend to think differently. They have a different approach to problems, which is what teams are all about; having people with many different approaches, so that when a there is a problem, someone can think of the easiest possible solution.

What I'm not sure I like about this post, is that it seems defensive. Tries to
prove that _"there are female developers who are just as good as men"_ too
hard, while it forgets to focus on what women are better at, and also what the
tech community would win if we all _actively_ knew that the community needs
more women.

I'd love to work in a mixed community of men and women.

~~~
hbd
I think a lot of men actually stay away from technology both for the same
"cultural" reasons as women and because of the lack of women. I know you
generally start college earlier in the US, but when you get older you start
thinking about what friends you'll spend your life with etc. When you're 23-25
the prospect of spending 5+ year in a quite homogeneous environment can be
unwanted.

This might be a complete misconception, but I've gotten the impression that
American twenty-somethings are quite childish. And with people attributing
Israels startup success partly to youths "growing up" during military service
(which I don't recommend), mixing things up seems like a good idea.

This is not aimed towards your comment, but I've notices that a lot of the
time when non-technology and especially social science topics comes up here at
HN. Everyone seem to disregard research and suddenly becomes experts based on
what they feel. It's quite obvious that most people here aren't going to be
experts in sociology or women's studies.

------
ddewey
Pro: I understand the reasoning behind affirmative action better after reading
this quote: "People mistakenly assume that affirmative action is about
granting minorities undeserved privileges. In it’s purist form, affirmative
action is about allowing minorities natural talents to flourish by removing
artificial, unfair barriers and decoupling the true skills required to succeed
in a profession from the cultural baggage that builds naturally within an
insular community."

Con: The author seems to try to be fair, but quickly falls into the trap of
characterizing men in the field as "socially-challenged-uber-nerd[s]". She
says that "a lot of men would rather not live like code-cowboys", but goes on
to recite a litany of bad traits that are "masculine qualities" and contrasts
them with the traits of a "good developer". That's a good way to alienate male
readers who would otherwise be sympathetic. Perhaps men do advocate for
themselves more actively in the workplace, and that should be corrected for by
affirmative action; saying that men "pester the boss until she finally relents
to send them to a conference" doesn't accomplish anything.

Con: spelling.

------
jquery
For the opposite reason that nursing is a taco fest.

------
wisty
Even if women (statistically) suck at programming (a common claim here), I'm
pretty sure that even the good ones are turned off programming because of the
lack of female co-workers, discrimination, and other factors.

I'd guess that the average women in technology is underrated (only the real
enthusiasts get through), and talking them down is going to lead to further
discrimination.

Would I suggest that CS departments aim for 50% female students? Not this
decade, and maybe not ever. But should women be given more credit, more
opportunities, and more encouragement to start their own projects (rather than
just contributing _)? Hell yeah.

_ <http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_women_in_FLOSS>

~~~
Tichy
"should women be given more credit, more opportunities, and more encouragement
to start their own projects (rather than just contributing)?"

What exactly does that even mean, though? And wouldn't it also be rather
patronizing?

Btw, I don't think anybody ever encouraged me to start my own projects.
Society in generally encourages you to become an office drone, no matter if
you are male or female..

------
missizii
I'm not a fan of the male-stereotyping in the article. At best, it's
unproductive, at worst, it insults men and so they stop listening.

A lot of the responses here on HN though demonstrate exactly why many women
leave software engineering. Read these responses and ask if you like your
mother, wife, girlfriend, or daughter working with people who have these
attitudes. In an all-male group, the level of misogyny is camouflaged because
there are no women to talk about. When there's a woman around, it's exposed,
because she is both a target of any misogyny PLUS all the discussion about the
drama created by it. Most women cope by becoming "one of the guys" and
laughing along when someone makes a sexist remark. The stereotype of the un-
made-up geeky female hacker exists because a lot of women notice the
difference in how they're treated when they wear a skirt, heels, nice hair,
and make-up, as opposed to jeans, sneakers, ponytail. It's a lot easier to
dress sloppy and not be made a target.

Another problem is that a significant amount of workplace happiness derives
from having friends at work. It's a lot harder to make friends when you're the
only woman and you occasionally wonder, "does he really view me as a friend?
or is he flirting? that sounded like flirting." Or consider networking - the
best way to advance your career. How do geek guys network? It's not usually
golf. Networking with geeky guys usually involves late nights gaming, coding,
drinking beer (in my experience). I'm not comfortable going to my single
coworkers house to play video games and drink beer until midnight, or staying
at work coding with a couple coworkers after everyone else has gone home and
the secret mini-fridge in the server room has been opened. It could lead to a
bad situation with lots of misunderstanding that could ruin a career. Best to
just avoid it.

If it wasn't a wide-spread problem, then why does every single woman in the
industry feel like it's something she has had to deal with personally? I've
been in the industry 5 years and I'm considering leaving because I feel my
gender is holding me back. I'm smart and hard working and I can do really well
in a field where being a woman isn't going to hurt my career.

------
elblanco
If there was ever a field where the current, male dominated, population
_wanted_ women in it, it's CS. I've never met a male CS person that wasn't
genuinely happy to have a woman in the room doing CS as well.

I think the issues of men in CS relate more to it being a uniquely problem
solving discipline, not prone to the kind of social interactions women want it
to be. (I know I'm at risk of stereotyping here, but I think the concept is
valid).

I've met some really fine women Computer Scientists, and I never saw or heard
from them that they'd ever been materially discriminated against for being
female. Anecdotal I'm sure, here's another. My group of college friends all
formed out of people in the CS program at my school. We were pretty evenly
split along male/female lines. Now, many years later, of our group, none of
the women have stayed in pure CS (or some branch like InfoSec), opting to go
work in different fields, like requirements management, or managing personnel
doing CS type work. When asked why they left? All of them say that the
relentless focus on pure problem solving eventually just wore them down and
that they craved more human interaction. Sitting in cubes all day hacking out
code just wasn't what they wanted to do with their life.

Now, this kind of experience may not be true everywhere, I'm sure there are
places where there is rampant sexism. But if a woman wants to do CS, she's
more than welcome to do it, and based on my experience, barriers to her
presence in the field will not be because of sexism. Similarly, you see lots
of thinking about "why so few women in CS?" but you don't see any for
construction/garbage handling/music composition/long-haul truck
driving/<insert list of traditionally male dominated fields>.

I think if you really want to understand the CS question, you have to
understand the others. For some of the fields, it's pretty easy to chalk it up
to the physical side of the job. But why so few women in music composition?
There are absurdly few women in _any_ kind of music composition. I don't mean
"song writing" as in lyrics -- there's tons of women crooners. I mean putting
notes on a page, or spinning and beat matching discs, or whatever. The demands
of the profession are really no different than CS, yet I think representation
is very similar.

------
jchonphoenix
The thing that bugs me most about articles about "women in CS" is that they
seem to ALWAYS ignore the most important contributing factor to why there are
fewer women in the field: interest. In my experience at my university, it
isn't that women aren't smart enough or dedicated enough to do CS. Its just
that they don't find it all that interesting to them.

If I found CS boring, I doubt I'd stick around either, regardless of what the
opportunities looked like.

------
random_guy
This is _really_ sexist, and the very fact that she can get away with it (and
even get lots of praise) should make us all reflect on how fucked up social
conventions and politically correctness are.

I've written about the topic here ->
[http://usingimho.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/men-and-women-
on-r...](http://usingimho.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/men-and-women-on-rubygems/)
and i've been smiten to death in the comments because i dared to state the
_fact_ that only around 1% of the opensource projects on rubygems are made by
women and that we all should reflect on that.

Here's a passage of her article:

I believe it is these tangential code-cowboy qualities women are unable or
unwilling to emulate, and not their skill or capacity for abstraction, problem
solving, creative thinking, or communication — All of which actually make them
better developers

Think about if a man dared to write the following:

I believe it is this inability to go straight to the point that men are unable
or unwilling to emulate, and not their ability to understand other's needs and
to understand how social situations work — All of which actually make them
better marketers

------
geebee
I'm arriving to the discussion too late to make a fairly minor point.. but I
do think that this blog post misses the boat completely on her dismissal of
the fastest growing occupations for women.

"We are veterinary technicians not veterinarians, dental assistants not
dentists, medical assistants not doctors. We like to believe we have evolved,
but the data speaks to something else."

Utterly untrue. Women are not doctors? How on earth can she make a statement
like this?

According to this site:

<http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/charts1982to2007.pdf>

"Since 1982-83, the total number of women entering U.S. medical schools has
increased every year (in fact, the annual increases reach back to 1969-1970).
Women’s share of the matriculating class has likewise increased. Women went
from less than a third (31.4%) of all matriculants in 1982-83 to a high of
49.6 percent in 2003-04. In 2007-08, women were 48.3 percent of all
matriculants."

This data is a little old, I wouldn't be surprised if women surpass 50% soon.

------
Keile
I suspect women aren't attracted to computer science careers as often as men
because they generally like more artistic and creative ventures. In other
words, most women prefer careers and interests that allow them to be hand-on
empathetic with the objects and people around them. In general, computer
science is hardly portrayed as such a career. It may involve aspects of these
things, but women generally aren't aware of it. The role models they see are
all in the same sort of areas, and the majority of their female peers are all
into the same sort of things.

It creates something of an echo chamber that simply multiplies a compounding
effect with dominant culture that discourages women from even entering a
computer lab filled with sweaty nerds, much less think about joining them.

~~~
mattdw
_"…dominant culture that discourages women from even entering a computer lab
filled with sweaty nerds, much less think about joining them."_

You have a good point here, but it's not just that they're sweaty, it's that
all too often they're actively hostile to women – whether it's sexist jokes,
an obsession with rape in DND games (all too frequent) or just the way they
seem shocked that a woman could actually be good at coding. Makes things a bit
unpleasant, yeah?

~~~
andymorris
For pretty much all of my coding life, I distanced myself from the other
people doing CS. I stayed and worked hard at it because I enjoy it, and
definitely out of no love for the "dominant culture".

Yes, we're all a socially inept bunch of geeks, whatever. Socially inept girls
should fit right in, and the rest of the girls can do what I did - ignore it,
and just focus on learning.

------
magma
Most of the arguments made seem to suggest there is discrimination in CS
education, and subsequently in the workspace.

Even if we assume this to be true, How does this explain the lack of women in
open source projects?

Further, the author seems to reserve a special place for the Rockstar
developer. Personally having been rescued a few times by such Rockstar
coworker's all nighters, I have only respect and awe for such Rockstars.

------
tynman
The school I teach at has recently found that women are actually more valued
than their male counterparts by employers at the time of graduation. They've
been averaging 4% higher job placement and about $2k higher starting salary;
95% and 62k, respectively, for women.

[http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=11721767&hl=2](http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=11721767&hl=2)

------
heatdeath
Another article demanding that coders have no self-respect, but this time,
it's assumed that self-respect is a masculine trait.

------
njharman
The stereotyping of and bigotry against males in that diatribe was rather
offensive.

------
STHayden
no matter if you think this article is well written or not I'm kinda tired of
people's answer to gender inequality. We are not in some golden age of
equality. equality has changed for the past 500 years and will continue to
change. If you know it's going to change how can you not try and learn why
it's changing and how you can affect it?

------
simonjoe
She's just mad because women suck at computers.

------
Uchikoma
Computer science is no science at all.

------
astartup1
There is discrimination not against women but certain traits that are abundant
in females. And some of those traits are not suitable for computing
profession. Like majority of guys will not be suitable for nursing. It is not
about competition, guys can do better nursing if need be and women can do
better programming when they do. It is this simple, if women are REALLY
capable and NATURAL candidate for Computing, why do we need to create
artificial channels for them? Ohh... I get it. This is like saying I have
world class athlete but he needs a separate competition to prove it. But still
I think if there is (and there is some) discrimination against women, then
generalizing men as selfish and evil, won't do any good.

~~~
varjag
Who the hell is natural candidate for Computing anyway?

