7 ms·

> Most of the theories I've seen about the women-in-tech gap don't resonate with my experience because there was a very obvious 'women-in-tech' gap in about...

> Most of the theories I've seen about the women-in-tech gap don't resonate with my experience because there was a very obvious 'women-in-tech' gap in about... 5th grade? in my (typical, I think) American elementary school. I think your experiences are typical, thanks for sharing. I'm curious what theory-of-the-gap you've found that you like more than the ones you've seen? You were (intentionally or not) a little cagey about your ultimate position. :) For my part, I usually see that young girls are the ones who are pressured the most to stay out of STEM. I'm sure that by the time they got to 10, the little girls in your class already "knew" that afterschool computer games weren't really "for girls". Kids are very impressionable to even off-handed comments, and they will self-censor if they think they don't belong. Anyways, it's all to say that I think there's no secret--if you actually make little girls believe they can do math or code, they'll do it. It's just that as a society we spend a lot of time telling them they can't.

ajkjk 8y ago
Ah, it's really complicated. My hunch is that that's part of it but not the full story. I think it takes a mix of factors to make a person self-define as a 'computer geek' by high school, which is -- imo -- a point at which the gender divide in college is already determined. Various efforts blend the categories later on, but they're fighting against the categories that already exist by HS-age. Some factors: 1a. being socially allowed to love computers, OR 1b. not caring what's socially allowed <- me 2. obsessiveness (3rd-grade me would happily play videogames for 12 hours straight if allowed. Or read, legos, etc. Other kids would, like, learn everything about airplanes.) 3. not caring very much about socializing. 'play over people', if you will. 4. being intelligent 5. having 'growth mindset', the idea that you could go learn something if you wanted to. (I think I got this from books and RPGs and from not being demoralized early on.) 6. not caring very much about pop culture (in my case, because I didn't know about it. sports and music weren't on my radar). 7. being competitive: wanting to learn cool things to, basically, seem cool to other nerdy kids. 8. an innate desire to build things I would characterize (1b) and (2) and (3) together as being, basically, the 'autism spectrum' angle, which is (I perceive) more prevalent in boys, and I think that's where the main difference comes from. I think what the social effect you mention exists, but it might come before these categories -- ie, from a young age I was constructed so as to not care what was socially allowed and to want to obsessively play, and so I was basically destined to be obsessed with computers. I don't know how much is nature vs. nurture though. I also think that on average girls are less (7) naturally competitive and (8) naturally motivated to build things (citation needed), but that very well could be a social effect also. I think lots of people of any gender have their (5) 'growth mindset' squashed from a young ago. I also think lots of boys have almost everything on the list except for '(8) desire to build things', so instead of learning to make games, they get really good at Halo and play every day in college, or whatever. I also think that by the time college rolls around, these categories are all smeared together, and people end up going into tech or STEM (and I guess I mean specifically CS/Math/Physics) for lots of reasons. I'm only trying to describe the commonalities across the nerdy kids in HS. Disclaimer: all of this is hunches and is from ~2000-2008 and is probably not correct or true and if it was it probably isn't anymore.
JamesBarney 8y ago
I know lots of really smart women, many whose careers pay less than software. When I asked if they ever thought about coding all but one basically said they weren't interested. The one who was interested said she didn't pursue coding(is a PM instead) because during her first year of college she felt behind because some of her fellow students had 5-6 years of coding experience and she'd only had 1-2. So she switched to MIS.

ajkjk 8y ago

Ah, it's really complicated. My hunch is that that's part of it but not the full story. I think it takes a mix of factors to make a person self-define as a 'computer geek' by high school, which is -- imo -- a point at which the gender divide in college is already determined. Various efforts blend the categories later on, but they're fighting against the categories that already exist by HS-age. Some factors: 1a. being socially allowed to love computers, OR 1b. not caring what's socially allowed <- me 2. obsessiveness (3rd-grade me would happily play videogames for 12 hours straight if allowed. Or read, legos, etc. Other kids would, like, learn everything about airplanes.) 3. not caring very much about socializing. 'play over people', if you will. 4. being intelligent 5. having 'growth mindset', the idea that you could go learn something if you wanted to. (I think I got this from books and RPGs and from not being demoralized early on.) 6. not caring very much about pop culture (in my case, because I didn't know about it. sports and music weren't on my radar). 7. being competitive: wanting to learn cool things to, basically, seem cool to other nerdy kids. 8. an innate desire to build things I would characterize (1b) and (2) and (3) together as being, basically, the 'autism spectrum' angle, which is (I perceive) more prevalent in boys, and I think that's where the main difference comes from. I think what the social effect you mention exists, but it might come before these categories -- ie, from a young age I was constructed so as to not care what was socially allowed and to want to obsessively play, and so I was basically destined to be obsessed with computers. I don't know how much is nature vs. nurture though. I also think that on average girls are less (7) naturally competitive and (8) naturally motivated to build things (citation needed), but that very well could be a social effect also. I think lots of people of any gender have their (5) 'growth mindset' squashed from a young ago. I also think lots of boys have almost everything on the list except for '(8) desire to build things', so instead of learning to make games, they get really good at Halo and play every day in college, or whatever. I also think that by the time college rolls around, these categories are all smeared together, and people end up going into tech or STEM (and I guess I mean specifically CS/Math/Physics) for lots of reasons. I'm only trying to describe the commonalities across the nerdy kids in HS. Disclaimer: all of this is hunches and is from ~2000-2008 and is probably not correct or true and if it was it probably isn't anymore.

JamesBarney 8y ago

I know lots of really smart women, many whose careers pay less than software. When I asked if they ever thought about coding all but one basically said they weren't interested. The one who was interested said she didn't pursue coding(is a PM instead) because during her first year of college she felt behind because some of her fellow students had 5-6 years of coding experience and she'd only had 1-2. So she switched to MIS.