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Note: I really would like an answer for the first question. What's the reason that everyone seems obsessed over getting more women into programming? Why do peo

• michaelchisari 15y ago
  Women are fighting to get more respect and representation in computer programming. That's why we're having this discussion.
  • icebraining 15y ago
    Which was actually started by a man.
    • danso 15y ago
      ...and the point is? a) Many of the leading abolitionists in America and Europe were white and b) if we're in agreeance that the majority of comsci professionals are men, and that comsci professionals make up much of HN, then it's not surprising that this discussion, or any discussion on HN, was initiated by a male.
      • icebraining 15y ago
        The discussion wasn't started on HN, but on G+. But the point isn't that there's no discrimination, just that we're not necessarily having this discussion because "women are fighting to get more respect and representation in computer programming."
        • michaelchisari 15y ago
          This essay by Mr. Werdmuller did not start the discussion, it's been ongoing for a while now, and this essay is just a part of it.
• solipsist 15y ago
  Perhaps women just don't want to get into computer science. And no amount of bending over backwards and trying to appeal to female programmers will get us to a situation of 50% female developers. Or perhaps they do want to get into computer science and there are a number of obstacles stopping them. Most people would agree with this. If you're going come up a controversial answer, you better have some solid evidence backing you up.
  • k33n 15y ago
    > Most people would agree with this. I doubt it. And I don't really find his answer controversial at all.
  • yummyfajitas 15y ago
    If you're going come up a controversial answer, you better have some solid evidence backing you up. Would he not need solid evidence if he were pushing the politically correct answer?
  • tsotha 15y ago
    >Or perhaps they do want to get into computer science and there are a number of obstacles stopping them. Most people would agree with this. You might want to provide some support for this before you start demanding evidence from other people.
  • ryandvm 15y ago
    What are these obstacles? Employers are dying to hire female programmers. Universities are dying for females to enter CS programs. Right now, a women that sets her mind on programming has an easier chance of landing a job than any given guy. Basically, women just aren't interested. I'm not sure it's an obstacle. Why aren't we just as concerned that there are far fewer male hairdressers than female?
    • solipsist 15y ago
      Why aren't we just as concerned that there are far fewer male hairdressers than female? CS jobs are held in higher esteem in society than hair dressing jobs. They pay more and require more experience.
• bethling 15y ago
  I don't think we need to get to 50% - I would just like it so that women don't feel like they're pushed out - some of it is cultural (it's easier to believe that you can't do something as well as the next person when the messages around you reinforce that this isn't the right field to you) - but some of it is a negative atmosphere created by the sexist jerks. And it's not most, or even many of the guys I've worked with, but it just takes one or two to complete ruin an environment. Had a had a child when I had planned to, I can almost guaranteeing that I wouldn't have bothered returning to software development. It's better now - I don't know if it's because I work in a different city, with different people, or maybe I'm just older and the younger women deal with the same old crap. It'll still pop up from time to time - and I'm getting better at seeing the warning signs that someone is going to be that person, deal with it before it saps any of the remaining enjoyment I have for the field.
  • michaelchisari 15y ago
    it just takes one or two to complete ruin an environment People seem to forget this. All it takes it the complacency of most men to let those one or two blowhards create a hostile environment.
    • jdp23 15y ago
      That's a great point. The HN community's a great microcosm. There are a few sexist jerks, and a number of guys who routinely defend sexist jerks. Of course there are also plenty of guys who speak out about sexism, and then there's what seems like the the vast majority: guys who would rather not talk about it. The net result, my women friends tell me, is that the overall feel is hostile to women.
      • deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
    • pickeju 15y ago
      Amen. As a lady dev, I think this is a universal truth. I don't think this particular male-dominated field is probably any more sexist than other male-dominated fields, though. IMHO: What holds some women back more than anything is unwillingness to be a potential lighting rod everywhere you go. I have kind of a pioneering spirit, and am willing to fight the sometimes daily battle to be recognized more for my merit than my high heels. But I absolutely understand why another woman would find that kind of effort exhausting and unworthy of her time. Some people are happy standing out in a crowd and others are not. Most people are crowd people. It's not good or bad, just a preference.
• roc 15y ago
  > "Is that really what differentiates programming from fields with more social interaction (like sales) or fields with more of a human aspect (like health care and medicine)?" If you're implying that programming just isn't work that most women are interested in, you'll have to more-precisely indicate what it is about programming that puts them off, given that accounting has no such problems. Every accounting department I've ever seen is at least half female and many have a female majority. Surely there are different skills involved, but many overlap in type [1] and it's a bit of a stretch to imply accounting is any closer to stereotypical female-dominated fields like social work, sales or health-care. [1] Technical, precise, largely impersonal -- there's even database, script and simple application work
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  • wisty 15y ago
    Job stability? Reasonable hours? Promotion prospects, without working like a maniac? Women tend to value those things, often more than men. Also, women in IT are often undervalued. A boss will assume they have no real talent, for some reason. While a guy who shows any ability will often be seen as a genius. People just don't assume that girls are hardcore hackers, while they assume that any guy who talks the talk (and wears are really bad t-shirt) is. I know I think that way, but I'm aware of it, so I can consciously compensate.
    • roc 15y ago
      > "Job stability? Reasonable hours? Promotion prospects, without working like a maniac?" There are plenty of corporate programming jobs with those attributes.
      • pugnusferreus 15y ago
        Still depends on your boss. I used to work for a bank and my head of department dislike people who goes home before 7pm. Our official working hours is 9am - 6pm. I was called into the room once for going home at 6:15pm.
• Jem 15y ago
  "We are talking about the same women who fought tooth and nail for things like the right to vote and who do lots of really tough things like raise a family (often alone). Are we to believe that a few sexist programmers scare off these same women?" Just because we can fight doesn't mean we should have to...
• kubrickslair 15y ago
  This article is pretty relevant, whatever side you are on, it's worth a read. My fundamentalism is better than your fundamentalism http://blog.fawny.org/2010/07/28/stubbornella/ http://blog.fawny.org/2010/07/28/stubbornella/ Bear in mind that the author is not a computer scientist, and views narrow-minded geekery with some distaste. But he raises quite a few interesting points. I quote: >“Underrepresentation” is an insulting concept. Who exactly gets to decide how many women should hold down jobs in a certain field? Who then gets to decide when too few women hold down those jobs? In short, who says women are underrepresented in technology? Who sets the quota? I don’t exactly hear complaints that men are underrepresented in kindergarten teaching and nursing. (Actually, there are men in nursing, but many of them are gay. So are lots of male teachers. Perhaps that explains why this is a topic women’s advocates do not want to discuss.) >“Merit” is a misnomer. Hence “women[’s] being unable to compete on merit” means nothing. But the airy dismissal of merit as a real issue incurs collateral damage. There isn’t any dispute that typical female brains differ from typical male brains, though the extent of the differences is disputed. Susan Pinker, in The Sexual Paradox, characterizes the differences as significant, while Lise Eliot, in Pink Brain, Blue Brain, argues that within-sex differences dwarf between-sex differences.
• akeefer 15y ago
  There's no single reason why there are fewer women than men in programming, so asking if sexism is "the real reason" is asking the wrong question. Instead, you should ask, "is it a real reason" why there are fewer women in programming? I think that the answer there is probably yes, and I think that if you talk to enough female engineers, they'll tell you that the sexism and insensitivity is a turnoff to them. It obviously doesn't push every woman out of the field, but it's pretty hard to imagine that it doesn't discourage at least some women from pursuing a career in software. Getting to 50/50 gender equality isn't the goal; the goal is to not have women discouraged from doing a job that they'd want to do because of the (often unconscious) sexism of their potential coworkers. If we did that and the field was still 70% male, then okay, but can anyone say we're honestly at that point yet, and that no one is turned off by this stuff?
  • jdp23 15y ago
    Great point. NCWIT has a good summary of the various factors leading to underrepresentation of women at http://www.ncwit.org/thefacts http://www.ncwit.org/thefacts and the book "Unlocking the clubhouse" goes into a lot more detail.
• agentultra 15y ago
  It's not that "women just don't like tech, so what?" It's more likely that they learn not to like it from an early age due to sexist gender stereotyping. http://www.7wonderlicious.com/2/post/2010/12/girls-stem-and-the-negative-influence-of-gender-steretypes.html http://www.7wonderlicious.com/2/post/2010/12/girls-stem-and-... One of the most disgusting things I read when this conversation comes up are the remarks and arguments from the apologists. Their common thread is that "we shouldn't be offended." It's a completely asinine position to take and any reason they offer for why is equally laughable. The problem is that as these ideas persist, they reinforce gender stereotypes and contribute to the aforementioned problem of young girls having to choose between being stereotypical girls (and thus accepting all the baggage that entails) or being smart (and accepting all the baggage that entails). Such a choice is a hard one to make. That it persists is one of the great injustices of the world that women suffer. And the great tradgedy is that ignorant male assholes who want to avoid being pegged as a sexist ignoramus will argue blindly that women are equal, that it's okay to objectify them, that everyone should relax, that maybe women just don't like tech otherwise there would be more of them in it. Wake up.
• pickeju 15y ago
  >"What's the reason that everyone seems obsessed over getting more women into programming?" Because a greater diversity of life experience leads to better design, usability, and implementation. Women are users, too, and when women devs have input into interfaces intended to be used by women, the product can be much better for it. Obviously there are other ways to incorporate women, children, the elderly with user acceptance testing and usability reviews, but why wouldn't you want that kind of diversity and insight on your team?
• podperson 15y ago
  So I read the original post (well, I skimmed it) and then your response. My first impulse was to decide you're an asshole blah blah, and I start discussing the topic with my wife who is doing grant-funded research on this topic (she's a social psychologist). So the big obstacles to women in a lot of professions are social norms (like sexist behavior, people refusing to hire you because you're not the kind of person they expect, or career structures that force women to choose between work and having children) and stereotype threat (fear of one's conduct reflecting badly on the group to which one belongs). To take the real estate agent example: the business may have a lot of sexist jerks (I imagine they're better at pretending not to be though, since they are selling stuff) but there are plenty of good norms (e.g. real estate agents generally have very flexible schedules). And there's no problem with stereotype threat -- women aren't widely considered to be bad at talking to people and selling houses. TV shows have a huge impact on stereotype threat (and probably norms as well). E.g. there are plenty of shows on TV that show women being successful doctors and lawyers without failing socially. (These are also, to some extent, professions involving helping people and communicating -- which women are stereotypically good at.) The same cannot be said for software development (which isn't portrayed much on TV, and when it is stretches credulity). I think that there's one thing I can say for certain: the reason sexist jerks are prominent in the software business is that they're allowed to be. There's no question that if more women were in the industry there would be less tolerance of sexist jerks, but getting women into the industry is probably as much a problem of addressing stereotype threat, tokenism, etc. as it is combating norms. Meanwhile, sexist jerks aren't helping. So call them on it.
• rubinelli 15y ago
  The reason why people care about getting more women into programming is the same reason why we will never get rid of the creeps: there simply aren't that many people with the ability to write software. A job applicant that can write a function that implements bubble sort and comes for the interview on time and wearing clean clothes is already way above the median. I'm not thinking of any specific example here, but a key developer of a successful open source project can be a total jerk and still get plenty of job offers and even a few speaking invitations.