As someone with a -4 week old daughter, this is a subject at the forefront of my mind.
I always see tremendous skepticism whenever an article comes out saying that we need to reduce the gender gap in tech. The attitude seems to be that if a gap exists then it is natural and there is no point in taking affirmative steps to reduce it. What I find interesting is that these same people probably wouldn't apply this reasoning to many other situations. They're often totally willing to believe that we have too many people in liberal arts programs and not enough in engineering programs, or not enough people going to college or too many people going to college. They're often willing to believe that we have a "digital divide" that needs to be corrected, or that there aren't enough people with science backgrounds in Congress, or any of a number of other ideas predicated on the presumption that positive action is required to address some imbalance in society.
So you have already decided that your four week old daughter wants to become a programmer? Why not wait and see how she feels?
At the dawn of programming, it was stereotyped as a profession for women (yes, really). Later on, men became more prevalent. But it's not like women were ever barred from the field, or from getting an education in general. In fact, nowadays most people who graduate from university are women.
Given all that, I get the impression that the constant hand-wringing about the dearth of women in tech is more about companies hoping to expand the labor pool for what is still a highly-sought and well-paid profession, rather than about empowering women to do what they want. The former is still a legitimate concern, but not something a father needs to lose any sleep over.
I think it's disingenuous to chalk up the underrepresentation of women in the tech sector to merely self-selection. You really have to examine the structural issues that might cause women to select out of a well-paying, in demand career.
I'll use the legal field as an example because I think there is a lot the technology field can learn from it. Women had been allowed into law school and admitted into state bars since the turn of the century. However, as of 1960, 96% of law students were men. In the 1970s, law schools and law firms took affirmative steps to encourage women to join the profession. By the late 1990s, enrollment was almost even.
Today, 45% of law students are female as are about 45% of incoming associates at large law firms. 20% of firm partners are women, and about a third of newly-promoted partners are women. Neither law schools nor law firms take directed affirmative steps anymore to recruit women (beyond the usual affinity groups and the like). The gender equalization efforts were self-propagating. Once the field had a critical mass of women, women self-selected into the field at similar rates to men.
I think it's weak to assume that women just don't want to do engineering work. Would the number of women who wanted to go into engineering be as low today if there were a reasonable number of women already in the field? I don't think so.
Your premise is false. Law schools and law firms actively marketed themselves to women and actively tried to enroll or hire a certain number of women. Tech companies have never taken such measures. Heck, only the biggest companies een pay lip service to the idea of trying to recruit more women.
Amen! Thank you for highlighting this. I've been following threads such as these on HN - I'm surprised and saddened at the level of sexist (sometimes even misogynistic) comments they seem to procure. To me, the overall weight of comments show an undue amount of skepticism. They'll fastidiously pick apart the research or article semantics, and keenly pull out standard diversionary or derailing tactics. Strange considering we're far from living in a meritocratic society (as illustrated by studies such as these: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/201...). On the upside, I've created a program to log everyone who flaunts sexist comments on HN and elsewhere - they will never do business with me. All the best!
I think you have to take into account that people value their personal experiences. We all have encountered women in our lives and sometimes in Tech. Since I never attempted to rape a tech woman, or diminished their achievements, I tend to find the typical portrait of male tech environments insulting. From my personal experience they are not true, and you have to provide a lot of arguments to override people's personal experiences.
Discussions of gender equality: the only subject on Hacker News or Reddit where someone will, with a straight face, try to refute an empirical study with anecdotal evidence.
I did not say the study is false or anything. I just tried to explain the sentiment of people accused of fostering a sexist industry.
For what it's worth (although this is tangential), I think the study is interesting but I can still think of a lot of questions to ask. And it wasn't about IT, the experiment was done with lab jobs.
That's a great article. The takeaway is right here:
"Whenever the subject of women in science comes up, there are people fiercely committed to the idea that sexism does not exist. They will point to everything and anything else to explain differences while becoming angry and condescending if you even suggest that discrimination could be a factor. But these people are wrong."
Comments
As someone with a -4 week old daughter, this is a subject at the forefront of my mind.
I always see tremendous skepticism whenever an article comes out saying that we need to reduce the gender gap in tech. The attitude seems to be that if a gap exists then it is natural and there is no point in taking affirmative steps to reduce it. What I find interesting is that these same people probably wouldn't apply this reasoning to many other situations. They're often totally willing to believe that we have too many people in liberal arts programs and not enough in engineering programs, or not enough people going to college or too many people going to college. They're often willing to believe that we have a "digital divide" that needs to be corrected, or that there aren't enough people with science backgrounds in Congress, or any of a number of other ideas predicated on the presumption that positive action is required to address some imbalance in society.
So you have already decided that your four week old daughter wants to become a programmer? Why not wait and see how she feels?
At the dawn of programming, it was stereotyped as a profession for women (yes, really). Later on, men became more prevalent. But it's not like women were ever barred from the field, or from getting an education in general. In fact, nowadays most people who graduate from university are women.
Given all that, I get the impression that the constant hand-wringing about the dearth of women in tech is more about companies hoping to expand the labor pool for what is still a highly-sought and well-paid profession, rather than about empowering women to do what they want. The former is still a legitimate concern, but not something a father needs to lose any sleep over.
I think it's disingenuous to chalk up the underrepresentation of women in the tech sector to merely self-selection. You really have to examine the structural issues that might cause women to select out of a well-paying, in demand career.
I'll use the legal field as an example because I think there is a lot the technology field can learn from it. Women had been allowed into law school and admitted into state bars since the turn of the century. However, as of 1960, 96% of law students were men. In the 1970s, law schools and law firms took affirmative steps to encourage women to join the profession. By the late 1990s, enrollment was almost even.
Today, 45% of law students are female as are about 45% of incoming associates at large law firms. 20% of firm partners are women, and about a third of newly-promoted partners are women. Neither law schools nor law firms take directed affirmative steps anymore to recruit women (beyond the usual affinity groups and the like). The gender equalization efforts were self-propagating. Once the field had a critical mass of women, women self-selected into the field at similar rates to men.
I think it's weak to assume that women just don't want to do engineering work. Would the number of women who wanted to go into engineering be as low today if there were a reasonable number of women already in the field? I don't think so.
To get women into medicine, law, advertising, etc, it was sufficient to open the door.
Why is that insufficient in technology? What makes tech different from the other fields you mentioned?
(That lack of "affirmative steps" is not a good explanation, since the "affirmative steps" persist in tech even today.)
Your premise is false. Law schools and law firms actively marketed themselves to women and actively tried to enroll or hire a certain number of women. Tech companies have never taken such measures. Heck, only the biggest companies een pay lip service to the idea of trying to recruit more women.
Engineering schools and big engineering firms do the same.
I'd be very surprised if small (e.g. 5-10 person) law firms ever put any more effort into recruiting women than small tech firms.
Amen! Thank you for highlighting this. I've been following threads such as these on HN - I'm surprised and saddened at the level of sexist (sometimes even misogynistic) comments they seem to procure. To me, the overall weight of comments show an undue amount of skepticism. They'll fastidiously pick apart the research or article semantics, and keenly pull out standard diversionary or derailing tactics. Strange considering we're far from living in a meritocratic society (as illustrated by studies such as these: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/201...). On the upside, I've created a program to log everyone who flaunts sexist comments on HN and elsewhere - they will never do business with me. All the best!
I think you have to take into account that people value their personal experiences. We all have encountered women in our lives and sometimes in Tech. Since I never attempted to rape a tech woman, or diminished their achievements, I tend to find the typical portrait of male tech environments insulting. From my personal experience they are not true, and you have to provide a lot of arguments to override people's personal experiences.
Discussions of gender equality: the only subject on Hacker News or Reddit where someone will, with a straight face, try to refute an empirical study with anecdotal evidence.
I think you exaggerate. Most of these discussions are not about empirical studies but about opinion pieces.
You were replying to an article involving an empirical study.
I did not say the study is false or anything. I just tried to explain the sentiment of people accused of fostering a sexist industry.
For what it's worth (although this is tangential), I think the study is interesting but I can still think of a lot of questions to ask. And it wasn't about IT, the experiment was done with lab jobs.
That's a great article. The takeaway is right here:
"Whenever the subject of women in science comes up, there are people fiercely committed to the idea that sexism does not exist. They will point to everything and anything else to explain differences while becoming angry and condescending if you even suggest that discrimination could be a factor. But these people are wrong."
boom headshot.