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Not Enough Women In Computing, Or Too Many Men?
itwbennett writes "Do geeks really 'drive girls out of computer science,' as the headline of a LiveScience article contends? Blogger Cameron Laird doesn't think so. In fact, 'I don't think "gender issues in computing" is important enough to merit the attention it gets,' says Laird in a recent post. And maybe the problem isn't that there are too few women in computing, but that there are too many men. 'I'm waiting to read the headline: "Women too smart for careers with computers,"' says Laird, 'where another researcher concludes that only "boys" are stupid enough to go into a field that's globally-fungible, where entry-level salaries are declining, and it's common to think that staying up all night for a company-paid pizza is a good deal.'"
I need a job.
"I don't think 'gender issues in computing' is important enough to merit the attention it gets,"
So why are you still talking about it?
One calm, level headed discussion about the disparity of genders in the world of computer science where everyone agrees on the solution with no emotions, personal anecdotes, gender studies, centuries of suffrage, accusations, cherry picked statistics, flamebait quotes from message boards, reverse sexism or chauvinistic undertones trumpeted.
Yep, this one sounds like it might be even as tame as your average climategate discussion.
My work here is dung.
It's still a great field with good salary, sane work hours and prospects for advancements. It's just not as compelling as during dot com boom. Women should stop making excuses and go into any good field they like.
Company-paid pizza and a soda, or fix it yourself.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Cue the moral outrage for a person promulgating deragatory gender stereotypes.
Wait, it is a woman? Nevermind.
The items he mentions are part of the reason I am trying to get out of IT.
IT workers are getting smaller and smaller salaries, having to compete with H1-Bs and out-of-country workers, have to deal with job scope creep, idiot managers, and expected to give up any semblance of work/life balance just to keep up.
It has gotten to the point where working in IT just isn't worth it because the positions just aren't respected.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
If you’re doing something you enjoy, you’re getting paid what you consider a reasonable recompense for your performance, and you stay up all night anyway... how is free pizza not a good deal?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Can we get over this whole sexism bullshit already? Who gives a damn if women don't work in IT? If a woman wants to do something in IT, fine. If she doesn't, fine. If you want to look for gender-based discrimination, look elsewhere.
If you go into any job for the wrong reasons and aren't honest with yourself about what the work is like, you're not going to enjoy it. It's like saying that people go into law or medicine only for the money; that may be true for some, but the ones who trully enjoy it recognize long hours come with the territory.
All the same things could be said with medicine as well.
... of "Introduction to VLSI Systems" Mead/Conway fame?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway
Paul B.
Since they are relative terms it makes no difference in how it is stated. So it depends on the point of refrence.
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
Boys grow up with computer games and at some point they get curious about how all that stuff is possible. I think that's the main motive lying behind men dominating the field.
I've been taking my 18 year old to tour colleges as he will be pursuing chemical engineering. Engineering starting salaries across the board (chemical, civil, mechanical, and electrical) are between $50 and $70k.
The solution for many comp sci students is to double major comp sci with one of the above "demand" areas, pass the professional engineering exam, and then the money issue is a non issue. Computer skills are now part and parcel of every engineering profession, so getting paid well to do what you love (if you love computers) should not be difficult.
The challenge for people hell-bent on starting their careers as programmers (as opposed to computer engineers) seems to be that starting programmers are not worth as much.
[By the way, the number of girls on his engineering tours seem to be between 10% and 20%. In other words, nothing there is changing. My son's solution to the ratio issue is to attend a large university where there are more female students overall.]
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
Judging by the women I know personally, these points aren't even part of their criteria for considering careers in IT. You know why most of the women I know don't work in IT? It's simple; they don't find the work interesting or engaging. It's the same reason I'm not a farmer or a journalist. People do the jobs they can do; often what people can do is determined by their natural interests. If women by and large aren't interested in technology, they will not work in IT. It has utterly nothing to do with the global economics of any particular industry.
We all know men and women are different, physically, psychologically, etc....so allow me to offer my viewpoint (these are gross generalizations, but I think you'll get the point)
Women act more based on emotions and feelings than guys do, whereas guys will act on logic and black & white facts. That's why you see more guys in fields like physics and mathematics, and more women in things like psychology, education, etc. (it's also why guys are more sports-inclined and women prefer yapping about everything and nothing over coffee)
Based on this, I think it's perfectly natural to point out that computers fields (very fact- and logic-oriented) are dominated by guys....
Flame this if you have something meaningful to say, I love debates on male/female dynamics & differences....
This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
Does the job pay your bills at an acceptable standard of living?
Are you doing what you are good at?
Are you having fun?
If the answers above are all yes, then who gives a fuck what some researcher thinks.
As a 49 yo grandmother, feminist, and C programmer for 20+ years I feel highly qualified to comment on this. The answer is that in my experience merit alone has been the only factor.
Odd we don't see many stories about the global shortage in female garbage collectors. Or janitors. And isn't a little bit 90's to go with the whole "Whoah, those powerful women are just too smart to go into computers! Girl powa!". It's not going to get you laid, I promise. Computers are a good field compared to most regardless of declining salaries or anything else.
Women aren't in computers because they tend not to be interested in it. Whether this is socialization or genetics or some mixture is up for debate, and of course there are exceptions but we see the ratio of men to women in computing because men are interested in or gifted in computing at a ratio higher than women.
I mean, pizza is pretty good. I'm waiting for an assault rifle benefit. Like, if we make our sprint goals, everyone on the project team gets an assault rifle.
This is my sig.
People are people, so why does it really matter if they have one set of facilities versus another? If they're are good at what they do, and get along with the gender spectrum, does it really matter in the end? If it is a matter of perspective on problems and what various minds bring to the "table of innovation," how does one account for the rest of the gender spectrum and what they have to offer versus just the two polar sides of it?
No, men just not that interested in being nurses, unless they're gay.
"only "boys" are stupid enough to go into a field that's globally-fungible, where entry-level salaries are declining, "
I'd like to know what fields out there are having increasing entry level salaries and can't be outsourced. Most of the examples given - like plumbing - require the existence of other people making good salaries to pay for the services so if all manufacturing jobs go away, we're pretty doomed in general.
Shoveling bits sucks. It was fun about 10 years ago, but staring at a screen for a few years leaves one wanting for a change.
Hope is the currency of fools
The reason so few women go into computing is that it's viewed as a "nerd" thing, and our society generally associates "nerd" with "male". In other words, most women aren't interested in computing because of the stigma associated with it. For most college-age women, going into computer science would be viewed as social suicide.
My wife, for instance, has an above average intellect, and could have done well in almost any field she chose, but computer science was the last thing she wanted to do. Why? Because CS is beyond her mental capacity? Nope. But it is outside of the range of things that interest her. She has no appreciation or fascination for how computers work. She just wants one that works reliably, but beyond that she's not interested in knowing how they work. Same with her car.
Point is, you don't need to come up with complicated, obscure reasons why there aren't more women in computing. The answer is boring and cliched to the point of sounding trite, but it's right there in front of your nose. Women in our society are trained to not be interested in technical careers. This whole discussion, in fact, is probably just an extension of the age-old question of why there aren't more female auto mechanics, etc.
But you can still make a reasonable job as a plumber, even if you are mostly dealing with broken toilets.
The other side is that there ARE still high end jobs available. But the low barrier to entry and lack of a solid union/accreditation procedure means there is little obviously different (to an outsider) joe shmoe working in IT support (plumber) at a corporation and a $300k/year job at Microsoft/Google (engineer job).
The key difference to me is do you say "I'm in IT", or do you say "I build X for Y company."
If you are saying "IT", you are the plumber, not an engineer.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
"In fact, 'I don't think 'gender issues in computing' is important enough to merit the attention it gets,'"
I disagree. The fundamental issue here is pretty simple: is there an untapped resource of potentially excellent computer scientists and/or IT personnel that are being turned off the subject for reasons having nothing to do with their actual capabilities? If so, is there a way to recruit them?
I don't know the answer to these questions, and they are going to be both controversial and difficult to answer, but they are important to consider if you want the field to thrive. As long as a gender disparity exists, writing it off as unimportant and not worthy of investigation isn't the right approach. You could ask the same sort of question about other fields and ones where the gender disparity is the other way around. Does it represent an unnecessary missed opportunity?
Perhaps women are smart enough to realize that when they finally want to take the step into parenthood, having a "slave" IT job that requires them to be up at ungodly hours just to keep up and deal with with the lunacy that often plagues that field. Thus, they start doing the math and realize that their family is more important than being IT slaves. In those types of decisions, women are MUCH smarter than men...
There are too few men working in nurseries. When you remove the feeding, nursing, the nappy changing and the fluffy toys, more men were happy working in the environment.
Where's the group that says this is global across all kinds of comp sci? Was this a group that was primarily interested in design and light coding? Was this a hardcore real time systems course? What segment of the computing professional demographic was this (or, was it simply lumping a group of people in a room to "work on computers" and putting random posters around the room?).
There's little there that says there's any detailed methodology. Without detailed methodology you can't exactly repeat the experiment to verify the results. If you can't verify the results, it isn't science.
Also, what happened to the mix of people when presented with a variety of other jobs in exactly the same room? Were more women drawn to the traditionally female biased work (communications based, biological, nursing/doctor)?
There seems to me to be little in the way of a verifiable hypothesis in this, simply a "We believe we can state this, can we put together a scenario that'll give us the results we want to say"?
Really, if I want a job, I'll put up with environments. I'm sure homeless hostels would attract a lot more cleaners if they weren't full of needles, and excrement where the stoners couldn't use the toilet properly, but hey.. People who needs jobs still do that (I did when I needed the cash as a student, and that's exactly the conditions you can find).
Yes, I'd have preferred not to.. But the realities of life are that you have to get on and just do the job, if it's one you want to do. If you feel you'd prefer to do other jobs.. Then you do.. Which is why women tend not to work in computing.. They simply prefer to do other things. Strangely, many of those other things are ones men prefer not to do.
With 15 years developing C++/.Net applications, I have run into ONE female developer that was good. Just an observation.
There are still good IT jobs out there, just not as many as during the boom. Realise that other industries also go through boom and bust cycles and that you're going to have to spend time and money getting qualified in something else. If you're going to spend most of your waking hours doing something, might as well pick something you enjoy and chase the good jobs in that industry, rather than chasing jobs and industries you don't enjoy.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
This is "News for Nerds", remember? If anyone thinks they will get a fair look when the message suggests men dominate the IT industry need only do a Google image search on the word 'nerd'. I think I found one or two females on the second page of results.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I am a girl. Being on call all day and all night / programming until mentally exhausted / etc. is not something I am willing to do. So yeah, I'm going into teaching. EVEN THOUGH I AM A GEEK. Thanks for telling me what the working conditions were in the field, Slashdot - you made the decision that much simpler.
Note: I was 13 when I wrote most of this. Take with several grains of salt.
The most important skill you need to have in IT is to have a logical mind and let’s face it logic is not something most Women have.
Of course this is a generalisation and the strength of the tendency does not, I think, explain the gender bias in these jobs. That is almost entirely social. I am going to go out on a complete limb and suggest that the increase in numbers of people from the East and Far East in IT is one of the factors that is driving gender equality backwards. In the UK, lots of Asian women go into medicine,law and accountancy because these jobs are seen as acceptable by their parents, while engineering, maths and science are seen as more male roles.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Isn't this just an echo of a previous troll on http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/12/17/187248/BBC-Lowers-HDTV-Bitrate-Users-Notice
On those occasions when I've been reviewing resumes for an open job requirement, it's rare for even one in fifty applicants to be female. I don't see anyone trying to keep them out, I just don't see them trying to get in.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
yuck. both links are loaded with it. the articles imply that skillset and mastery should take second place to feminizing the workplace enough so that women won't have to adapt? kiss my ass. the day that consensus trumps truth and emotions trump reason in the IT world is the day the internet epic fales. Feminism has gotten out of control. Women don't realize that men have the personalities and attributes they have precisely BECAUSE of objective reality. To throw some irony into this, women have SELECTED for these traits in men over what? millions of years? more? Feminizing IT or any technology/science field for the sake of 'community cohesion' stultifies the very truth deriving processes that make them worthwhile.
There's a reason many geeks aren't strong on the social skills scale: their brains aren't wired there.. they're wired to systemize not socialize which is the feminine counterpart. No, I'm not claiming extreme dichotomies, but the biases ARE there.
"Women too smart for careers with computers,"'
Wow seriously? SERIOUSLY? Has it really become THIS BLATANT?
"boys" are stupid enough to go into a field that's globally-fungible, where entry-level salaries are declining, and it's common to think that staying up all night for a company-paid pizza is a good deal.'"
so let me get this straight. It's no longer ok for a male to be a bit socially atypical in return for wizardry in his field when it 'offends' a female, but it's blatantly ok to stereotype him to the nth degree?
These authors deserve a beatdown...or sympathy because their shrewish, overbearing mothers psychologically castrated their fathers early in life.
Programmer 84k http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=programmer&l1=new+york
Garbage man 77k http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=garbage+man&l1=new+york
But the garbage man gets overtime and probably union benefits.
>better social prestige.
Only here.
Don't you think it is vaguely insulting to women to say they steer away from a career field is because they don't like the decorating? What was that you were saying about stereotypes?
Gosh, you know, I wanted to go into nursing, but I changed my mind once I saw how horribly those blue-green scrubs smocks clash with the beige walls.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
The upside is that we get to do something we actually enjoy. The deterministic behavior of programmable electronics (becoming indeterministic only when events can't be sequenced to the necessary temporal resolution) draws those with rational minds. For those of us with a good theoretical background in the mathematics behind it (and often one or two degrees to back that up), architecture positions pay well. I've been in the biz since 1975 from the ripe old age of 14.
The downsides, however, are many:
1) Often management doesn't understand the subtle reasons behind a problem, or why a particular solution that is easy and obvious is completely "wrong" (or at least inconsistent with future requirements).
2) There is no paid overtime. Salaries generally compensate for this, and frankly professionals SHOULD be expected to fix their errors on their own time (and their own dime). However, that does not work well in environments where workers are fungible: doofus A messes up, and expert B is stuck cleaning up the mess, often in "crisis mode" on his own time. YMMV depending on the shop. Good people tend to leave bad shops, though.
3) Academic training has given way to "trade skills". I am appalled that many undergraduate programs focus on the IDE or bloated library of the day, instead of fundamental algorithms and classic processor architecture. Add to this the fact that many non-experts can't tell the difference between the skilled and the not so skilled.
Still, I wouldn't do anything different.
In Liberty, Rene
I'll just recite what I know from my own experience
I do not think that personal experience plays in the same yard as science.
I am with Linus on this one
Linus is right
The man makes sense
He is absolutely correct on this one
IT can be a harsh place for programmers, it is true.
That's why you are really better off if you can find a product development team to work on, where the software product is the star of the show instead of an abused supporting player.
But even IT *can* be good, you just have to figure out what niche to carve to make things better where you are. It helps a ton if you understand the business and can propose technical things that really do help some function of the company.
Working it IT is a far more political environment, but it is possible to navigate within that structure.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Too many dudes
With too many dicks
Too close to my shit
Too hard to meet chicks
I need better odds
More broads, less rods
I came to do battle
Scadaddle with the cattle prods
Too many men
Too many boys
Too many misters
Not enough sisters
Too much time on, too many hands
Not enough ladies, too many mans
Just don't piss her off Mr Bobbit.
He's absolutely right. Women are too smart for careers in computers. Most intelligent women take a close look at the unrepentantly fucked-up culture that surrounds computing careers, and run like hell.
It's men who are dumb enough to tolerate the aspy-programmer types, the sneering arrogant IT guys, the mailing lists full of flaming personal attacks leveled by closet bullies empowered by semi-anonymity, the phallic-compensating gadget consumerists, constantly "helpful" types who manage to insult while trying to rescue, and the sexually inept who use pinup wallpaper and leer at any woman in eyeshot. Membership in (or at least tolerance of) a repellant boys' club is an almost-mandatory feature of our industry.
Men don't have to be passionate about computers and programming to do well in our field. It's possible to be a day-job geek who never plays video games, doesn't own an iphone, and doesn't read xkcd, yet still thrive in high-tech. They get flamed them for a few newbie questions and they'll just think you're an asshole. But brilliant women who are not passionate about the field are smart enough to tell us all to go fuck ourselves after the first serious flame, because they know nobody should have to put up with that shit.
So yes. Women are in fact generally too smart for careers in computers. He nailed it.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
A woman named Jeanna Bryner wrote the original article, entitled "Geeks Drive Girls Out of Computer Science" (1st link), which is arguing the fairly standard point, that women are turned away from CS due to a male-dominated geek culture. The reply, from a male blogger named Cameron Laird (2nd link), argues the opposite, that women are too smart to go into computing.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If women don't find technical roles appealing IT project management is a good way, for those interested, to go. It's very challenging and crucial role in delivering software project.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Fortunately their is a comment on the blog that has some interesting insight...
http://www.itworld.com/tictacns
Not enough Women in Tech
I believe this may be the article that MSNBC was referring to:
http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=54341
"It was brought to my attention in an ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) newsletter.
My opinion is that Tech is a tool, a means to get from point A to point B, like a car. I think women want to be the travelers, using Tech to achieve their goals and using the auto industry analogy, they generally do not want to be the mechanics. When we hear about tech, we usually hear about the techies/mechanics, we do not hear about the many other skills that the tech industry requires to thrive and people tend to not pursue things they are not aware of."
That.
Prior to the tech inovations of computers and the internet, we had cars and trains as the feets of an earlier generation where the people who were most into building and working on hotrods were men, but many mechanics have ladies who loved their vets and mustangs. People who have fascination with trains have mostly seemed to come from men as well, though many woman use them as a means of transportation and wouldn't think twice about hopping on a trolly, light rail or subway, though they don't care about how it works, just that it does. To some degree this affects many sciences...
Perhaps this says somethign more about differences between men and women...
Ave Molech Setting
The article seem to claim that women avoid IT fields because of the geeky masculine (stereotyped) environment not because of the lack of interest in IT.
But, isn't this a more profound connection? Maybe because some women are not interested in IT issues they are also not interested in geeky stuff (Star Trek and the like) either and try to avoid it. So it might not be: "don't like male geek environment => don't go to IT field" relation it might be: "not interested in IT and geeky stuff => don't go to work in IT/geeky field" Which seems normal to me and doesn't blame anybody for anybody's choices, but hey, who is going to make money researching and publishing something like this...
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Too many misters, Not enough sisters
Too much time on, too many hands
Not enough ladies, too many mans
Karma: Non-Heinous
You've just described most professional jobs.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Telling women they're smart always gets me laid. They like to be flattered, especially about something they feel insecure about.
FTA: "...the image is of the computer geek surrounded by such things as computer games, science-fiction memorabilia and junk food...", followed by "...many women don't like the portrait of masculinity that it evokes..."
YES! GEEKS ARE MASCULINE!!!
When is it going to be enough for women to stop complaining. Any woman willing to invest the time and effort to get into the IT field will get as much as she puts in. It 2009 the excuse for a glass ceiling is bogus. I have had Good and Bad women managers, supervisors and co-workers. If a woman feels there is no place for her where she work's she is free to start her own company. There are all kinds of incentives for women on business. When will we see an incentive for disgruntle male IT workers who thinks they can run a better IT company? When Pigs fly!
I'm so tired of diversity, quotas, political correctness and affirmative action. I'm a CS grad student...half of my classes are women most of which are Indian. Does that count?
Why do we even care? Will more women in CS somehow result in finding an algorithm that beats Quicksort? The Halting problem will become decidable? C won't be a POS language?
Another example of "progressive" thinking showing how backwards it really is.
Not this bullshit again. We all know that women can do whatever they want because they are superior to men in every way (except for bad things like starting wars and committing murder, then of course men are superior).
If there are less women in IT than men it is because the women want it that way. I think there were at most 5 women in my entire graduating class that were in the CS program. Most women (and to be fair, most people) just see computers as gadgets and expensive toys and don't really care about how they work on the inside. Again, just being honest here, most men get excited when you ask them about their plasma TV, surround sound, network setup, etc but I've never known any women that could be considered technophiles. I'm sure they exist, it just isn't as common.
Another serious problem I've noticed is that there are not enough women working in construction. Living in Houston, I drive by a lot of construction throughout the city on a daily basis and I have never seen a single woman working at a construction site. Talk about a crisis!
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
'where another researcher concludes that only "boys" are stupid enough to go into a field that's globally-fungible, where entry-level salaries are declining, and it's common to think that staying up all night for a company-paid pizza is a good deal.'
But a company-paid pizza is a good deal!
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
I feel like it.
First of all, men are more for the dog eat dog competition while females choose to help first and compete second, in comparison to males. Because of this females tend to stick in groups. If we are alone and surrounded by sausages it takes away the advantage and comfort we are use to.
When I went to college (I'm only 22, so not that long ago.) there was more females in my comp sci classes than males. When I went to Intel there was more females to males hired. However, all it takes is one asshat guy to come in and be disrespectful enough to push us away. We will go be in our group somewhere else by transferring to a different part of the company.
Not only that but females have more non work issues to deal with that pulls us away. We also have to deal with promotional issues. Men brag to others about what they do for their ego, for what makes them feel good. Females tend to help each other to feel good. With the exception of the few are willing to segregate ourselves out from the crowd and push forward in the work world.
I can say a lot under the subject but take it with a grain of salt. My personal experience often varies from the majority and I'm not trying to create a stereotype.
I am going to go into a career involving computers because I LIKE computers and technology, not because I'm a materialist and that's the way to get 12% more salary. I like the geek culture and I would hate to live in an environment where my Linux/particle physics/math jokes would be met by blank stares. I would hate to live an environment where other people's jokes would be met by my blank stares. Computers are my interest and nothing can change that, so going into a career anywhere else would be putting a square peg into a round hole - constant frustration and a general lack of job satisfaction would ensue.
</rant>
How many years before slashdot enters the post-"IT gender naval gazing" period?
love is just extroverted narcissism
...that in the 21st century we'd moved away from this kind of sexist nonsense.
If there aren't as many women in computing ("enough women" is a nonsense term: what's "enough") then it's because women don't want to be in computing.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
There aren't "enough" women in computing because they don't want to be.
In any case, what's "enough" actually mean in this context? It's a leading question to ask if there are "enough women in computing".
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Heads up: Your rather minimal website is not actually valid html5, due to a minor issue in the IE specific code. That code using a '--', but technically that ended the comment, making the next character a syntax error.
The government should work for the good of it's citizens: that *should* be it's sole purpose.
Letting H1-Bs into the country works directly against this, regardless of any (often fraudulent) claim that there is a short-term shortage.
We're supposed to be in a market economy - shortages of skills should result in increasing wages and an increased incentive for employers to train staff. Yet whenever the market begins to move in that direction the government starts shipping in the foreigners: which only benefits the global corporations.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Do geeks really 'drive girls out of computer science
And so what if it does? Do geeks have to banned from computer science so girls will want in? Do guys have to pretend not to be geeks so girls will want in?
If girls don't want to go into computer science because of geeks, then so what?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Teaching is hard work, low pay, and often very thankless. My mom was a teacher for about 25 years and I really wouldn't wish that on anyone. While it is the sort of thing that certain people thrive in, particularly those that are very caring and have a "Save the world" mentality, I think most skilled people would be better off doing something else. The pay is just not in line with other jobs requiring a master's level of education. Now that might be ok if it were easy work, but it isn't. Teachers have tons of homework to deal with, it is very much a job that is not 9-5. Then there's all the problems. You WILL have parents shout at you, try to get your fired, you'll have kids that come from broken homes, you'll have to be a babysitter as well as a teacher.
So, if you are the kind of person who thrives on helping others, the kind of person who saving just one person can be a worthwhile reward for a lot of work, then look at it. However if you think that it is going to be less work than IT you are kidding yourself. I work so much less than mom did it isn't even funny.
Just make sure you know what you are getting in to.
I can't believe that an industry in constant need of talented people would find too many of any kind of person a problem. Employers that I hear speak on the topic of hiring have one thing one their minds; filling empty seats. And let me touch on female engineering talent- in my 25+ years of Software Development I've had the pleasure of working with TWO talented female engineers. Why only two? Well, from my experience I think a lot of it has to do with a ridiculous cultural stigma American pop society puts on education. I have seen this all throughout my educational experience growing up in the 70's, and I'm sure its changed little; in fact I'd be willing to put up some good money its only gotten worse. I specifically recall a very popular girl in high school explaining to me how she was going to get through life with her ass so she didn't have to study, at all. Wonder where she's at now?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Geeky/Nerdy paraphernalia is unappealing to women...
Am I the only one who got this from that article?
I don't think its geeks that are driving women out of CS. I think men and women think and see things in different ways. Our brains function very differently. The very idea that they could draw the conclusion that they did based solely on womens reactions to varrying degrees of geekery... it's quite a stretch.
Just my two cents though...
Thomas A. Knight
Author of The Time Weaver
I'd suspected it was true since highschool, but I guess women really aren't attracted to geeky things.
Moderation : -1 Conservative Viewpoint
I live in Italy, I'm at the Computer Science Engineering faculty (the one called EECS in USA, Computing in UK). :-)
I started university back in 2002, there were only 4-5 girls in a class of 120+ students. After leaving university for need of working, I reentered to finish it two years ago.
Now there are a little more girls: 10-12 in every class of 120+ students.
Still few.
Same story for Electronic Engineering and for Telecommunications Engineering and some others.
But there are lots of Engineering faculties where the male/female proportion is balanced, such as Business Engineering, and even faculties where there are more girls then boys, such as Biomedical Engineering.
When you subscribe to the university there are no obstacles in the faculty choice, nobody knows why girls never choose computer-related faculties.
Same story for technical high schools: very few girls. It seems that few girls are interested into these subjects. Why? Nobody knows.
But some years later on your workplace you find women complaining that there are more men in the IT industry.
How nice.
How come we never see encouragement for men to get into 'female-dominated' positions? I have seen that the government and universities are generally willing to take on much of the financial burden of female students so that they can study STEM (Science, Tech., Engineering and Mathematics) related subjects, but not the other way around. I've known very, very good male students who struggle to get funding (in grad school) while the girls seem to have it easy (to the point where I have sometimes felt that some of the girls exploit their gender benefits).
Also, the article is a joke - more like 'girls avoid messy rooms more than guys' is the only reasonable conclusion we can draw from it.
If more women wanted to be developers they could just start their own start-up, like many men have.
Personally I'd prefer to date women that are geeky and by geeky I mean actually geeky not just that she wears a hello kitty t-shirt and black rimmed glasses.
However, I found my options are to hold out for something like that and give up sex or compromise just hope she's not some needy woman that can't live with the fact I may want to do things on my own sometimes. Hell, even with sex, sometimes it's nice to go back to the basics and jerk off once in awhile.
> centuries of suffrage
I don't think that word means what you think it means...
I think what we need to watch out for is Australians:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-EN8dpAvBw
CORRECTION:
"Not Enough Women In Computing, Or Too Many Men?"
Should be "Not Enough Single Women In Computing, Or Too Many Men?"
http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=621
Asnwer: too many men and women.
By now, we should have nothing but robots in computing.
So I get to stay awake all night with computers AND get free pizza..
What else do you need?
(Oh, and the salaries are declining due to excessive pizza eating so it does kind of balance out)
How often does this have to be said? Yes, there are more men than women in IT. Why is that? Um, because?
Disclaimer - I'm a woman and I've worked in the IT field for almost 20 years.
Yes, I've found that in general IT is a boy's club. I'm used to being the only woman in the group. And I'm used to the crap that I have to put up with being the only woman. I've been ignored, talked over, dismissed (well, they tried that), and generally excluded. It happens. Grow a pair.
No one is going to go out of their way to make women feel all warm and cozy. So you can't use traditional female tactics to carve out your place. And unfortunately that's what most women fall back on when faced with a difficult situation.
My way of making things tolerable is to take my place on the totem pole relatively early on. I watch the personalities and, sad to say, make the weakest one my bitch. Once I do that then I'm on my way to acceptance. It's how they play, it's how I have to play. YMMV
I've mentored women in IT and it isn't pretty. But if they learn a few tricks they can at least stay long enough to find out if they like the work and can work in the environment.
The article mentioned in Ambient belonging: How stereotypical cues impact gender participation in computer science. Cheryan et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol 97(6), Dec 2009, 1045-1060.. My institution apparently doesn't subscribe to this APA journal. Here is the lead author's website. She posts reprints of many of her papers on her lab's website, but this current paper is listed as in press. I agree with Laird that it would be nice to read what the article actually said. But I also think that it was weak to posti a blog response criticizing a popular news medium's reporting on a scientific paper, without first reading the paper. The blog post consists of suppositions of how the popular report may have differed from the facts in the academic paper. And then warns that the popular media is just trying to attract eyeball to advertising rather than establish "truth". Of course, the rich irony here is that the blog post is based on no primary source (e.g. an interview or the academic article in question) and makes a controversial opposing claim based on little to no information or evidence, and does all this on an advertising supported site!
the sort of innate "what makes this tick?" mentality. As a kid, I was always taking stuff apart to see how it works, building stuff (and as I learned more) fixing stuff.
At the same time, my sister was playing with barbies.
You need the "knack" (as dilbert calls it) to be good with technology, be it electronic hardware or software, mechanical, etc. I find the amount of women with it to be very few and far between, I wish there were more.
When I can't sleep, I often find myself thinking about a circuit, or how to code around a problem, etc. I just don't see many girls with this mentality, it's a shame really.
Sent from my PDP-11
Software Engineering is NOT for single guys. Get a lady BEFORE you enter. Most Indians and Chinese are smarter that way. They'll work you so hard that you won't have enough energy to remain yourself after the work day let alone see a girl and remain charming. You guys know American Porn was played constantly in foreign lands so that those idiots would come here suckering after our American Pies. That's why RedTube, YouPorn all those free sites are made just for YOU FOREIGNERS. Welcome to America. Losers.
...where everyone always talks about it because its "politically" correct or incorrect.
My experience goes like this: To really know wtf you are doing, you have to spend insane amounts of time on the computer, fscking with stuff. I'm talking about skipping the prom or the homecoming game and trying to get the stupid fscking 8-bit western digital SCSI card to work on like version 1.x.x of Linux. Or, trying to decipher some crazy-a$$ code written by some drunk guy back in late 1970s by a crappy C compiler to figure out htf something is supposed to work.
The point is, while I had social relationships during teenage years (yes, I've dated few girls), I have spent most of my time on the computer. Matter of fact, I would be half asleep in school and work, and load on Jolt Coke and Mountain Dew just so I could stay up longer so I can mess with stuff on my computer.
Now, I have not, ever, in my entire life, met a girl that is like that. Matter of fact, I've only met handful of guys that were like that. The funny part is, all the guys that were like that actually have great jobs as lead engineers and make tons of money.
Other people (including girls I've had in classes) work in less interesting places either doing IT type of stuff, or doing stuff like web development, Java or CS (blah to all of those).
In my opinion, most of the girls are much more social than guys. So, I think most of them spend more time talking to their friends than staying up till 3AM to compile FreeBSD.
The most amusing thing is, I have had a lot of foreign (and very hard working) girls in my classes, however I fail to see any of them with the geek gene. :)
Many women are too smart to bother working, that is what men are for. The world works in such a way that women do not need to work, provided they are attractive to enough males. Women are taught this from an early age - hence why women mature socially years earlier than men (on average). Easily 50% of women are "kept" in this way, unless they choose to work or are really ugly or have other deficiencies according to men. From age 18 - 33 or so, women have tremendous power over men based on appearance alone.
OTOH, males are trained from an early age that if you want a woman (and all that entails), you need to have a high paying job, power or both. The better the job, the better the woman you will likely attract. Better can mean all sorts of things - family, status, beauty, smarter, fertile, cute, famous, etc. There's almost zero chance of a man being "kept" although I'll keep trying.
When i had to choose a career, was seeing computing more as a medium than as an end, a tool for whatever else i could pick. But also was the easiest path choice, and one that in that moment had good odds of get a job after finishing it (other things i liked back then, related to chemistry or physics, looked back then with low odds of getting a job, at least in my country). It turned to be not only a medium for other things, but an end by itself, but i saw that after starting.
Now, if mostly getting a job is what decides what you choose at that age, women just had more options than men, at least in the short term view that i had back then, specially in the "tool" (as in computing as a tool) career field, either picking a harder/longer/exotic career or go for a short training to get a profitable job fast.
Software is an insane asylum. Run for it and save your last vestitude of sanity before they trash your beautiful conscience minds in their horrid delusions. I say this... warn the others... before..a.sdgeawt029686------
The problem with the computing profession is that there just aren't enough really hot chicks with tattoos and piercings, who wear tight, camo, short shorts, thin white t-shirts a couple of sizes too small, who collect gory zombie flicks, who love fragging the asswipe from accounting in deathmatch, and who will do anything you ask them to do for some Cheetos and Coke.
Come on, I know you're out there!
Gurgle. Crunch. Gurgle. Crunch.
We enter a field no other sane men would dare enter.
I don't care if there are many, few, none or all women in IT. There is no such thing as too many or too few.
All I care about is whether anyone was disadvantaged in them being there or not being there.
In my life I have heard a few loud voices claiming that there is discrimination but have witnessed with my own eyes the way that many (most) women avoid talk about computers and show little desire to tinker with the hardware. Those few who do, have been welcomed into the crowd. The average greasy nerd would be in heaven if a girl or two were to show an interest in his obsession (computers, not... anyway).
God how I get fed up with the simpletons who take a few figures and read their own sorry prejudices into them, without the slightest effort to justify it... and while we're at it, no, dogs are not being discriminated against because there are far fewer of them to be found up trees than there are cats.
News at 11.
You know the “equality” thing has shot way over its target, when women are told to somehow feel the need to get into jobs that most of them don’t like (no offense to those who do like it :), to follow some purely male ideals of what resembles a high-status job.
I think it’s not equality that is fucked up anymore. (Except for some old assholes in high positions.)
It’s that true female values/interests are still seen as something “lower”.
Ask a woman what she *really* wants to do. What she dreams of. The goals in her life.
Then filter out the society-imposed expectations, that she does not really want.
After that, you will find, that for nearly all women, becoming a great programmer is one of the very least things she would ever want to do. Most women would I know hate doing programming and math, etc.
The things most women really want to do, are somehow seen as “low-status” in society. And that is what is wrong.
But what strikes me most, is that, independent from the genders, raising a child, is never seen as something special that deserves respect and payment. It should be the most important, best payed, and most prestigious job in the whole world!
After all, it actually IS the most important and hard job of all! And you can’t even quit!
(Believe it or not, some people actually like having a child. How weird is that. </sarcasm>)
Ok. Just my two cents.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Neither it is too many stupid questions. Why do women not study CS? Well they don't want to. Why do women not want to study CS? Because they think it is boring. That's why they all study math. And something else. I heard lots of complains about the bad payment, the hard work, the long working hours, and these many foreigners in the US which make so much competition. Well the point is they all speak English, so they can easily work in their home country and in yours. However, there are plenty of job opportunities in Europe. And in most companies you might even be able to work in English. But it would be helpful to speak the language of that country too. You could take courses. For example: You could go to Germany. With am master degree in CS you get something between 36 000 EUR and 43 000 EUR if you are fresh out of university. And you get a paid leave (if I'm not mistaken that are 25 or 28 work days eg. 5 to 5.5 weeks). You get health-care and the company pays half of the cost. And it does not cost more when you have a family. They are all inclusive. And you pay less tax when you have children. And they cannot dump you after probation period, you get at least 3 month cancellation period.
There have more of those socialist laws here. You cannot be kicked out of a flat you rented. And people normally do not carry around guns. The only bad thing. The school system sucks as much as in the US (official OECD values). But may be you could go to any other west or north European country like the Netherlands (good schools) or Sweden (good schools and even better health care)
In my experience women in IT are less willing to go to the mat for the team. I've never met a woman in IT willing to regularly work 16 hour days, willing to sleep in the office, or willing to pull all-nighters to meet a deadline.
But I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence. I think it has to do with genetic and culturally imposed priorities. It's still overwhelmingly the case that when the shit hits the fan for the team that counts, the kids, the family, that it's the woman who stays up all night, doesn't get to sleep more than 2 hours at a time, takes them to the doctor, picks them up at school, or drives them to practice.
I don't see why this is considered a problem. It was good enough to get us out of the trees, to the top of the food pyramid, and even to travel beyond our home planet. Obviously it works. And it's not as though the option isn't out there. Women certainly can choose not to have children, or certainly can hold out for a man who is willing to take on the majority of the burden of raising them.
If a woman decides, on her own, not to get into programming, science or engineering, I see no problem at all...It's her choice.
If a woman wants to get into programming, science or engineering, but is prevented by lack of intelligence or talent..That's just the way it is. Not all people, men or women, have what it takes to do this work.
If a woman wants to get into programming, science or engineering, but is prevented by law, tradition, custom or peer pressure...Then we all have a problem.
That's why there's not a lot in software. If they do, they don't stick around long. Furthermore, there are way too many people in the field. This is the fault of the phony American economy. The tech boom of the 90's brought a plethora of incompetence into the field. Women don't generally work hard on anything. Most women that are employed hold jobs that are unproductive. Teaching(non-sense in the public schools mind you), planning a company party, selling Gucci hand bags, or posing for Playboy are not good ways to grow an economy. If one considers manipulating men to do all of their work, then yes they probably are smart. Take men out of the equation though, and you're left with nothing. (My apologies for straying a little off topic)
Girls are the reason computer science exists. The constant state of rejection computer nerds live in by the opposite sex is what fuels this discipline. So women, indirectly, are the major contributing factor to the progression of computer science.
Being a guy, I can safely say that there are not enough women, period.
Seriously, do have to have a fucking article on women in the computer industry twice a month?
There aren't a lot of women in IT and we shouldn't be doing ANYTHING to change it anymore than we should try to change the disproportionate number of men in the construction or auto maintenance fields. Fucking get over it. How many of you have a woman mechanic? I'm sure they exist, but in the last 4 shops I've put various cars through I've never seen an actual grease monkey that was a woman.
We do not need to do anything to meet any gender/racial/religious/past time/favorite food/whatever quota.
I think you'd be surprised at the amount of male tail male nurses pull.
(Okay, sure, Anonymous Coward cause I'm lazy.)
I'm a very well paid young female programmer, I make more than most of the guys I graduated with as well as female friends who have their masters in the sciences. (I have a college diploma.)
I've had little to no issues being the only female in numerous workplaces, frankly no one cares. But then again, I don't go looking for discrimination, I do my job, as does everyone else. It works. The End.
Working all night for a company paid pizza? Not on your life. You're not in the wrong field, you're in the wrong job.
The phrasing here is a little degrading, isn't it? As a female software developer, I'm dumber than other women for doing what I enjoy?
And amen to a lot of the other comments defending CS and IT jobs.
What was the point of this exercise?
I'm disappointed that such a shoddy excuse for "research" would come from my Alma Mater! I'm a woman, who likes debating star trek, playing video games (except MMORG's, I hate them! Call me antisocial, but then, that just a translation of 'bitch' isn't it?), drinking unhealthy amounts of caffiene, and learning about all things science and technology-related.
The punchline: Is that I was constantly discouraged by adults and peers to have any such fascinations with things. In a medium-sized town in the 1980's, it was unacceptable to like things that were outside of the norm. My parents didn't even think I was smarted enough for college, but maybe I would find a good husband while I was there. I graduated with honors. I paid for every f^cking semester on my own and I'm proud of who I am today.
So, it's not that women aren't interested, it's that they aren't encourage, and/or they don't realize all the options that are out there for them. I really believe that times have changed. Don't assume we're asking about computers to be polite, I for one really want to know. I hope to have a daughter someday. I hope she'll be an Astrophysicist, but if she wants to be a rodeo clown, that's ok. You be the best damn rodeo clown you can be sugar!
By the way, I've been reading slashdot since 2000, but this is my first post. I've kept my trap shut long enough, but I'll still remain anonymous for now.
End note
Males are four to five times more likely to Autism Spectrum Disorders including Asperger syndrome than females. Conincidence?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
The problem with people in IT is that they don't know how to say NO.
I do know how, and that has ensured a long career while having a fulfilling life outside work.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... if the IT field was not hostile to women.
As it is women are treated badly in general terms, but the sexism, very often completely not seen as such, clearly needs to be addressed.
Many folks out there use your same reasoning just to mask their obvious misogyny.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Those are just excuses from people that are not willing to address the real issue: sexism in the work place.
We know there are professions openly hostile to women, IT amongst them, you can't make an excuse by citing examples of careers which men don't want to follow.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How do I deride allegations of sexism? By doing a sexist rant.
Well done AC, well done.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"it's just saying a male dominated environment turns off women"
That would have been the situation with most jobs during most of human history.
It is the typical "blame the victim" mentality, putting the onus of improvement on the oppressed part rather than the oppressor. Truly despicable frankly.
Any men worth the name should be doing soul searching instead of trying to find excuses for the unacceptable low amount of women in certain careers.
.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Now tell us something that is really useful please.
Guys in a privileged positions in a given marketplace referring to tired clichés and stereotypes is evidence of absolutely nothing.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Also remember that you can negotiate many of the conditions of the job you take.
Teachers do a lot of work out of hours, if that is the only reason you are going into teaching I would think twice, IT people are more likely to be compensated properly for unsocial working hours.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... when IT is not openly hostile to women.
Then we can talk about the choices they are making *freely*.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Describe your misogynist behaviour as "natural" ( "Do guys have to pretend not to be geeks" ) .
Ignore social consequences of misogynist behaviour ("And so what if it does?", "If girls don't want to go into computer science because of geeks, then so what?").
The irking think is that people (men?) utter these comments with a straight face.
Don't you guys have mothers, sisters and daughters? Do you think it is acceptable that they should have to deal with all this mindless sexism if they would want to pursue a technical career?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And the only way it is going to happen is when people like you, that know how it is to be discriminated against, tell to all the geeks-nerds all the things they are failing to see.
"Growing a pair" is not a solution, it is pandering to the inadequacies, insecurities and prejudices of men in the field.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The first wave of programmers were mostly women for many historical reasons.
As soon as their male bosses and peers realised they were creating this "equality monster" they began to make sure women no longer accessed positions of responsibility in technical jobs.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The question itself is sexist. "Not enough females..." or "Too many males..." implies that there is some ratio of men:women that you would like to meet in the IT industry. If you are trying to reach some proportion of employees based on gender, race, or any other artificial division we have used to differentiate ourselves, then you have already created an environment where getting the job done is less important than meeting some trivial detail that has absolutely no benefit to the company, other than perhaps PR.
IMHO, unless you have some kind of evidence that gender, race, etc. is being used to discriminate against otherwise qualified employees, then stop worrying about it and let people naturally gravitate to the jobs they want.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
A lot of it has to do with society itself. Right now its still more of the "norm" for men to do certain jobs and women to do other jobs.
You guys get company-paid pizza??? Dang, that would be soooo cool.
Keep Doing Good.
But I write software, and I stay employed all the time, despite my unwillingness to work over 40 hours per week, and despite my insistence on a healthy six figure salary. I have done this for 16 years.
....You get pizza for overnights?
all i get is stale chips out of a vending machine, paid for by me.
Those who can, do.
Warning: Offtopic note.
It's not possible to take any meaning from "This." or "That." as a full sentence, without the benefit of watching where your hands/fingers/flashlights are pointing. It's devoid of meaning, and I've seen it quite a few times in recent weeks (not from you, just in general).
Judging from the rest of your comment, you are capable of assembling words in a meaningful manner. What gives?
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
I'm in this job because I enjoy it. Simple as that.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
... the very first programmer was a woman... Ada Lovelace.
Actually there were/are many more notables as well.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Of course, she ended up telling the divorce court complete lies "he was abusive and hit me, I have to divorce him" and the court sucked it up and she ended up taking the house and the car, while I was admonished by the judge because "men like you are a bane to our society
It's wrong of course, to say, that, in a western culture. But, from strictly a game theory perspective, she has power over you because she makes more dough, and is going to claim you hit her, so you may as well hit her.
Then, if you really wanted to bury yourself, you could express your superiority for only beating her by pointing out in Islamic countries, the woman would not have even been allowed to be a doctor, and then would have been stoned to death for screwing. In African nations, she would have had her genitals mutilated and then been beaten to keep her from screwing, and then in China they have that 1 child policy and probably would have killed her, because she wouldn't be allowed to be a doctor because she might wind up screwing, so really, just slapping her around a little bit is no big deal, given what the rest of the world does, and the judge needs to be more tolerant of other cultures.
And if you really, really wanted to bury yourself, you could say that the whole white male christian culture of being nice to women is actually a minority viewpoint on the planet, and that, since white male christians were pretty much the planetary bad guys for the last 400 years or so, you could really say that wars are caused by men who don't beat their wives, and that really, you were just beating your wife for world peace, the same way John Lennon beat his women.
And, mindful of John Lennon beating Cynthia as he's writing All You Need is Love, you could really go all out and start singing your favorite Beatles song, and punch your ex-wife in the face in court, singing "Give Peace a Chance"...
You probably still would have lost the house.
This is my sig.
The fact is, more young boys than girls will treat any kind of toy or stick or whatever they can find as a weapon, and more young girls than boys will treat any kind of toy or stick or whatever they can find as a doll, and I think most people who are parents and truly think about it realize that this happened at an extremely young age for their kids. If there is a "nurture" side to how this works, it is exerted very early and in a round-about way.
It's just the way it is. Somehow, there are certain types of jobs that are more likelly to be filled with a specific gender. I beleive this is result of a extremely complex combination of education, genetics and culture.
I'm a pilot. In this job being a women will make your life extremely easier. There is a consensus in the industry that women are better at managing aircrafts systems. In my own experience, I'm sure that is very true. But, I'm also sure women often don't like the job of flying airplanes around. It's just a job for them. Maybe that's the reason women's landings are rougher on passengers. Maybe that's why women will never do something out of the manual, because it's just a job, they aren't even thinking, they are just machines doing what they are supposed to do. When they have to make decisions not covered by a manual they always ask others to decide from them. Usually the manual is right, so... women are in fact better pilots.
But if you do something because it's a job, someone else will do it for fun and much better than you.
is always more sexism?
To explain away the lack of women in IT, the only explanation given is always one that is even more sexist, ie that the environment is not girly enough. Supposedly all those Star Trek posters are driving them away, so the answer's got to be Hello Kitty stickers or something ... right.
I currently work in a publicly traded multinational corporation. The ratio of women to men in non-IT positions in middle management is roughly 50%. In upper management it's much lower for some reason, and I can suspect you can find some fault there. However for IT it's below 1%, and that's in line with the job applications we get. There is no late pizza+coke coding at night sessions. We have 35 h work week with plenty of vacation and flexible work hours, as every one else.
Women just don't want to do that kind of work. It's a good question as to why they don't want to, but they don't want.
Just look at traditionally male jobs, such as police. Women nowadays are the majority of qualified applicants for police jobs -- largely because policemen wannabe are often too dumb to pass the tests, I shit you not. It's a real problem here, well not a problem for me but a problem for the administration for some reason. Contrast this with IT. I've heard several time recruiters say that being a woman was a plus for a candidate -- except that there aren't any!
So you can try to find hidden disincentives all you want. Somehow someone is being mean to them -- I know, all those hormone driven geeks, overflowing with testosterone ... ah ah ah let me catch my breath. No, seriously. They don't want those jobs. Period.
Let me put it another way. Transgendered people are very rare in the population. Much rarer than women, obviously. I know only two personally, (formerly) men who want to be women. They're both in IT -- and I wasn't acquainted to them through work. I don't personally know any woman working in IT.
My personal conclusion: women with an interest in IT careers are biologically rarer than women with penises.
Physics is in a similar place.
The sooner IT people start realizing that this debate has nothing to do with gender, and everything to do with professionalism and quality of life, the better off everyone will be.
Let me explain how physics works, and see if this sounds like IT:
If you're just starting out, you are most likely being asked to do things that you really shouldn't be doing. If you're managing others, you are most likely asking the people below you to do things you had to do in the past, but they probably shouldn't be doing. People with family are not expected to do as much work, but are automatically cut off from the best projects and jobs. Efficiency and quantity of work are the only real measures of professional advancement. The exceptions to this are by definition in the "weak," "uncompetitive" areas. These "weak" people living close to normal lives are made fun of by the late night shift.
The people (in physics this would be Congress) positing that gender is the issue are disingenuous. They don't want to face the realities of what it would take to relieve the job competition and make the field attractive to a broader cross section of people.
We have new neighbours - only 2 apartments in the building. My wife has a bad back, so I clean the floors while she accepts some other household chores. As a result, I was spotted yesterday mopping the common access area to the 2 flats. The neighbour's boy was very considerate, and expressed his great gratitude that I was cleaning the stairwell. At which, I pointed out that it's no big deal and why I was doing it (your turn next week, sonny - hehehe) because he was confused that it wasn't my wife doing the cleaning. His Dad pipes up then, and says: "If it's a woman cleaning, we all think it's normal, but when it's a man, we know it's unusual and so that's why we acknowledge it so pointedly".
Having grown up in a more sexually "equal" culture than he, I immediately thought it was a rather sexist comment, but some calm reflection made me realise that it's just his conditioning - he just never sees that in his culture and upbringing - and he has his own "burdens" that he carries and would never "force" his wife to do.
Sometimes, you just got to step back and let people be people - we're different, and that doesn't make anything in particular actually "wrong" or "right". Each to their own, and stop pretending and making yourself a victim.
Incidentally, I'm a generally much more thorough cleaner than my wife anyway, so it all turns out for the better in the end.
Is it equal for both men and women yet? no quit whining and come back when it's fixed.
It's enjoyable to be a lawyer because you have the power to lock an innocent person to jail.
It's enjoyable to be an investment banker because you have the power to turn stupid people into debt slaves.
It's enjoyable to be a tech worker because ????
If we can find out the ???? part, the next step is profit!
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On the subject of women in computers, I've noticed only a few categories:
I am always pleased to meet the exceptional, talented American woman. With men, obviously I see talent and mediocrity, regardless of origin. If you are a talented woman, regardless of where you are born, please commit time to volunteer at and American school to speak to promising girls in your local schools. There is obviously a cultural problem at work here. If women want to solve this, they can. I will not get in their way. In fact, I will help, but I can only do so much as a man in this situation.
I first got involved in computing when I was 8yo, and typing, doing excel and tinkering with hypercard.
a field that's globally-fungible, where entry-level salaries are declining, and it's common to think that staying up all night for a company-paid pizza is a good deal
Never really entered my mind at the time. It seems to me that at the time a girl would not have been encouraged to take such an interest in computing at that age, if not actively discouraged.
The time that most of us at /. really developed our interest in things geeky were before we started noticing the fairer sex, and it would appear that we managed to bypass that altogether. I don't think that geeks tend to drive off women from the profession, I think that the initial interest is never truly engendered there to begin with.
It would be an interesting survey to ask women who have worked in computing for 5+ years, why they initially joined the profession. Then run the same survey on a comparable group of men, and compare why they are where they are.
... I call bull. I have my undergraduate, and graduate degrees, in criminal justice, and more then 70% of my classes were female. (I always joked about how I was told I was going into a male dominated field, and most of my classmates were females). Now I'm going after a bachelor's in computer science, and 8 out of 14 in my current C.S. class are female. And I'm at a large state university in the midwest.
How many years before slashdot enters the post-"IT gender naval gazing" period?
I prefer air force gazing, they have more chicks than the navy. How many years before you figure out the difference between a navel and naval?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
so from the reading of this story (thread) and similar stories, the conclusion I've come to is that the ones complaining about the lack of women in IT jobs are men.
I admit, my data is a little stale - I graduated HS/College in 95/99.
I work at a defense contractor. There's a little bit of sexism that seems to be primarily from older former military types, where I think it's less that I'm a female programmer than I'm a female programmer working on artillery software. And the one time that I overheard a co-worker who got passed over for promotion in favor of me comment that to get his promotion he would have to change his gender.
In college, I was in the first class of women that they admitted. (It was an all engineering and science university.) To placate people, they accepted additional students equal to the number of women so that no one would whine that they could have gotten in, if it weren't for those girls. The most sexism I had to put up with was actually from my Psych prof, of all people. Other than that, I think the divide was more between the merely-geeky-enough-to-go-there and the ubergeek types. Anyway, they opened up their pool of applicants and the average GPA went up quite a bit.
I was very lucky; we had conversations about this in college, given our environment. I knew someone who's own father didn't want her to go to college because "you'll just get married and waste all that learning". We all had to deal with teasing in high school, etc, but it's difficult to tell if it's the same as what other geeks went through, or worse for women. Personal experiences are difficult to compare.
Most companies quit buying free pizza years ago! As a woman that has worked in IT doing hardware/OS/Citrix support I'd say most of the comments here are pretty far off. Women do have their issues in this industry as well as a variety of industries as well. But so do men, and people of various races, religions and sexualities! If you ask me your experience in the industry will be exactly what you make of it, regardless of any of these factors. I'm 38, and I think I can safely say the primary reason that there aren't a lot of women my age in the industry is because when we were growing up there was still the lingering perception that science/math (computers scarcely existed then) were "boy things." I don't think that is the case so much anymore, and consequently there are a lot more women in IT than there used to be. I personally very much enjoy being a "geek" on most days! I don't think anyone is driving girls away from anything! Silliness!
A company with a diverse team usually has more institutional intelligence. A company with a mono-culture will have to do studies about everything they develop. "Let's ask a consultant what women / blacks / people with children" think about it. And then later: "We had no way of knowing."
And - only to have women going into child-care would be bad too. Because then, for a working single woman the only male role model the child had, would be her crappy ex ;)
It really is sorta silly.
I mean, I'm a liberal. Well, a progressive, but I'm in tune with liberal ideas and, hell, I think there's still a lot of systematic gender discrimination going on.
But, men and women really do think differently. They want to do different things with their life, they want to do different things day to day.
Some of that is, indeed, social conditioning. For example, there's really no reason we have so many female nurses and not nearly the same percentage of female doctors. The jobs aren't that dissimilar. (And you can't argue that it's the other way around, that men don't want to enter the medical field just to do nasty gruntwork, considering the percentage of men in garbage collection and road construction...men do not mind dirty jobs, and in fact hold most of them.)
Likewise, the fact there are less female political leaders is almost certainly due to prejudice against accepting female leadership, because, in actual fact, women tend to be more charismatic and social, exactly what you need to succeed in politics.
Women solve problems socially, men solve them mechanically. That is an absurd oversimplification, and it is purely statistical, but it is a real actual difference that controls what they enjoy doing, on average.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Sorry, but that's BS. It's not about making the world more average, it's about making places more diverse.
Diversity is good. Forcing diversity for its own sake is idealism gone wrong.
A company with a mono-culture will have to do studies about everything they develop. "Let's ask a consultant what women / blacks / people with children" think about it. And then later: "We had no way of knowing."
If a company is developing or improving a product where such concerns matter, they'd be best off with studies and/or the external consultants. The company would have to be very large to have a representative sample of $GROUP to vet the product. Even for a very large company, an outside perspective would be preferable; the feedback from employees might be colored by their internal knowledge. At best, fellow employees from $GROUP might be able to shoot down the most ridiculous ideas.
- T
The perennial issue that always crops up when gender issues are discussed is the fact that men and women are different.
Yes, what you're saying is entirely true. The problem however is that the discussion is always left at that and never explored further. The difference may be due to inherent differences, but using that as the default answer is just as disingenuous as saying 'God did it' and leaving it at that. A historical example could be the wide gap in participation in sports, which has changed along with societal attitudes.
A similar statement to yours could be made as such: It's almost like whites and blacks are well, different!
Never underestimate cultural values, as humans are social creatures.
Women in computing do the same thing that women in medicine, law and lots of other fields do: Graduate, work for a few years, hook up with a guy and start popping out kids. At that point, they work part-time if at all and all of their education is for naught. That makes them even less apt to stay up all night for those coding marathons.