Could a Grace Hopper Get Hired In Today's Silicon Valley?

theodp writes "There has been lots of heated discussion on the topic of where-the-girls-aren't, both in the tech and larger business world. Dave Winer broached the subject of 'Why are there so few women programmers?', prompting a mix of flame, venom and insight. Over at Valleywag, Nitasha Tiku pegs 'Culture Fit' as an insidious excuse used to marginalize women in tech. Completing the trilogy is an HBR article, 'Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?', in which Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic concludes the problem is that manifestations of hubris, which occur much more frequently in men than women, are commonly mistaken for leadership potential. So, with a gender and age strike against her, would a Grace Hopper in her prime even land an interview in today's Silicon Valley?"

Comments

Female programmers

[schneidafunk]

I only had one girl in my computer science classes in college, but she was an exceptional programmer. Now in the work field, again I encounter very few female programmers but am always impressed with their skill levels and dedication.

Re:Female programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

There weren't very many female CS students at college with me, and they ranged between worthless (few) to okayish (most) to exeptional (very few). In other words, pretty much followed the same patterns as the male students, albeit being far fewer in numbers.

That said, I gradumicated thirteen years ago. So YMMV.

Re:Female programmers

[notanalien_justgreen]

This is exactly the problem. The pipeline is bled dry waaaay before actual companies try and hire women programmers. There is quite possibly some sexism involved in hiring practices, but the bigger issue is why are there so few women in a position to be hired in the first place? Why aren't many women choosing to study these subjects. Are they being discouraged from studying computer science? Are they graded more harshly? Is it social pressure?

I've been wondering recently if it isn't more to do with expectations. Men are judged very harshly on their career. A man with a crappy job is often unfairly seen as a crappy man. Women are given much more space and encouragement to "find themselves" I find (anecdotal I know....) and can work "lowly" jobs without judgement. This is likely due to the fact that they encounter more obstacles than your average man, so people generally cut them more slack (reasonably). But I can't help but wonder if the lowered expectations isn't also preventing some women from finding their true potential. A more insidious form of sexism since it's based on good intentions.

Re:Female programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

why are there so few women in a position to be hired in the first place? Why aren't many women choosing to study these subjects. Are they being discouraged from studying computer science? Are they graded more harshly? Is it social pressure?

Maybe they damn well don't want to.

Re:Female programmers

[hairyfeet]

Here is what I don't get and why these "why are there not enough women in X" articles piss me off....why do we have to treat women like a man with an inverted penis, instead of what they are, a completely different creature that SOMETIMES have interests that overlap ours, sometimes not?

Does a woman's brain look the same as ours on a CAT scan? Nope, different areas are used more and different areas used less, in fact any scan tech worth his salt can spot a female vs male scan in seconds. There are plenty of fields where a woman will just slaughter a man, for example a female pilot will whup the dog shit out of a male pilot because she can take more Gs and in a fight the one that can push the plane the hardest without having a black or red out wins. Women are better at language, women are better at diffusing tense situations which is why they make better cops and hostage negotiators...the list goes on and on.

So why in the hell do we have to treat little Sally like she is just Jimmy without a penis? Why? ALL we should do is make sure that if little Sally WANTS to try out for a job she can without discrimination that is it, THAT IS ALL we should do. Instead we try to set quotas and if there isn't "X" number of this or that gender (this only seems to apply to women and certain minorities, nobody complains there is not enough white people playing basketball or males becoming nurses) everyone acts shocked! Shocked I tell you! That little Sally doesn't want to do the same shit little Jimmy does...did you ever stop to think maybe little Sally finds computers boring as hell? Did you think about that? Because I fix the computers that women use every day and I have found the VAST majority, I'd say at least a good 7 if not 8 out of 10 just want to do their job and get as far from the PC as they can when the work day is done. You see many females actually LIKE face to face interaction, I know, its weird, and they find just staring at a screen for hours dull and repetitive. Ironic considering the one time they like spending hours on the thing is FB and those damned FB games, or as I call them "hamster pushes the button and gets a treat" but hey I'm not a woman and if it makes 'em happy? More power to 'em.

So as long as we make sure little Sally can do the job if she wants, which with the rise of startups and appstores frankly I don't see as much of a problem since anybody can start their own software house now, then we should just stay the hell out of it. I think if we did so you'd find that certain jobs women are drawn to, certain jobs men are drawn to because surprise! They truly are different creatures with different wants, needs, and goals.

Re:Female programmers

[niftydude]

Yeah, my CS class started with 6 females and 200 males.

There are plenty of "women in science and engineering" type programs to try and attract more females- but the girls aren't interested.

Even if classes become 50-50 from now on ( and I'm not seeing any evidence of this) , it would take decades for the numbers in industry to equalise.

Re:Female programmers

[Carewolf]

I would say the same, and I don't understand what is being said about leaders. The women have their fair share of incompetent leaders as well. Well not completely fair, since the women to men ratio is still low, but I would guess the ratio of incompetence female leaders to competent ones is the same as for men.

I can only think of a handfull of male leaders in IT that are more incompetent than Carly Fioni.

Re:Female programmers

[Chris Walker]

Up until I the last few years, I would have agreed that women programmers are rare (and they are at most companies). However, I now work for a company with a large number of Indian engineers, and about half of them are women. My conclusion is that the lack of women must be largely cultural (in the US) and nothing whatsoever to do with gender differences in ability.

Re:Female programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a 1st grade teacher who was "very concerned" with my math skills. She told my single, working mother, who was also earning a degree in civil engineering, "You know, there are even some girls doing better in math than him."

I remember the way she taught math was explaining a problem, then assigning a few pages of problems in our workbook, and offering candy (Smarties) for pages turned in. Math was right after recess, and the school wasn't air conditioned so she kept the lights off most of the day. Turns out, that at 6 years old I was just more interested in sleeping in a warm dark room after running around than earning candy by doing a bunch of adding and subtracting. Meanwhile, the girls who were talking during workbook time were given a pass, but boys who talked "were unfocused."

That would have been '85 or '86.

Re:Female programmers

[somersault]

Common sense! Good for you.

See people, all it takes is actually using your brain and not succumbing to "politically correct" bullshit.

I believe any futher comments in this thread to be redundant (though no doubt someone will nit-pick all the same).

Re:Female programmers

[mopower70]

That's selection bias at work. It's extremely hard for a woman to land a job in this field, and even before that there's a lot of pressure against it (the stupid idea that women can't do maths, the extremely male-oriented lingo and focus, etc.), so only the most persevering, most enduring women make it through.

No it's not. It's extremely hard for an employer to HIRE a woman in this field. There aren't any. I've hired for hundreds of technology positions from data center operations to development, and I've seen thousands of resumes. The women stick out mostly on account of their novelty. I have always hired on merit, but unless a woman was obviously unfit for the position (e.g., experience in a completely unrelated field or no experience at all) we always brought her in because it was such a refreshing change. This is not an advantage any man was ever given. And like the AC above, their skills fell pretty much along the same bell-curve as men: a few absolutely worthless ones, most of them about average, and a few standouts.

Re:Female programmers

[ShanghaiBill]

That's selection bias at work. It's extremely hard for a woman to land a job in this field

I completely disagree. I have worked at many tech companies over a thirty year career, and my experience has been the exact opposite. Many companies bend over backwards to hire more women programmers and engineers. I have heard many male engineers say that they would prefer a more gender balanced workplace, and have never heard any say they wouldn't like that. When I have hired women, the male engineers have always treated them with decency and professional respect.

On the other hand, I have never had any problem hiring saleswomen, or even female forklift drivers. The shipping crew at my last employer was 60% female, despite the crude sexism of their male coworkers that complained about too many "bitches" in the warehouse.

I think the dearth of female programmers is simply that women are not attracted to a career that involves sitting in a cubicle interacting with a computer. Women have broken into many male dominated professions. A majority of new lawyers are women. Nearly half of medical students are women. Unlike programming, those careers are perceived to have a lot of human interaction.

Re:Female programmers

[cardpuncher]

Not exactly Silicon Valley, but if you have access to BBC iPlayer, check out The I.T. Girls, a documentary about early women programmers or search for more information on Dame Steve Shirley - the reason she called herself "Steve" for business purposes rather than "Stephanie" is all too clear.

In the UK, and I would guess in most of the rest of the world, women were "allowed" into IT early on because it wasn't seen as being a career. As soon as money could be made from it, the women were squeezed out. Grace Hopper likely would not have been hired in the 1960s, never mind now.

Britain did have significant numbers of women programmers - ICL used to have an army of "pregnant programmers" who did a lot of its software support while on maternity leave (back in the days of 300 baud modems) and Steve Shirley's company "Freelance Programmers" employed women based at home. And there, I think you have it: until the IT industry is prepared to employ people who want to go home occasionally and have a life outside work, it's going to be more hostile on average to women than men.

Re:Female programmers

[harperska]

This is so true, and if I had mod points, you'd be getting them.

What we should be doing, and what gender (or classification of your choice) blind really means is that women should be treated the same as men at the interview and at the annual review. It is true that in many fields there is still a wage disparity between women and men doing the same job with the same skills and qualifications. That is a genuine wrong that must be fixed. What <classification> blind doesn't mean is that job hiring or school admissions should be quota based, as quotas always seem to cause more trouble than they are worth. True equality is on a case by case basis, rather than a statistical measure across populations.

Re:Female programmers

[gewalker]

Plus, Grace Hopper has been dead for 10 years. Not even affirmative action can cover for that job seeker fax paus.

Re:Female programmers

[jellomizer]

The low numbers, is the fact why it is hard to find exceptional. The population isn't a normal distribution, but shifted a bit.
There is always a bit more worthless then exceptional. However if you increase the population up you find more, but if you reduce the population down then you wil find very few.

The worthless developers tend not to last long, if they do, they kinda just suck your sole as you need to make up for them.
The Okayish you tend to work with fine, and they don't bother you. The exceptional you may not even realize they are exceptional, they do their job and get done. Also women tend not to brag as much as guys do, so there is less self promotion.

Re:Female programmers

[Newander]

That matches my experience. About half are below average.

Re:Female programmers

[zuzulo]

I have a similar metric built after years in business, tech, VC, etc. Its quite simple, totally not politically correct, and very tongue in cheek. But for your entertainment:

Dimensions for analysis:

x-axis factors:
1) Height short -> tall
2) "WASPiness" waspy -> non-waspy
3) Sex "female" -> "male"
4) attractiveness troll -> model
x-axis, (0-N)=1+2+3+4
y-axis factor:
5) Odds of Incompetence likely useless -> potential illuminati
y-axis, (0-N)=5

So it turns out the further away from the origin (0) you get on the x axis, the closer to the origin (0) you get on the y axis. That is, the taller, waspier, more 'male', and more attractive you are the higher are the odds that you are incompetent in every sense of the word. So if you ever meet a short, non-waspy, non-male, unattractive person in a position of power, be very, very careful. They are probably extremely competent. ;-)

This model is clearly US centric, btw, I suspect it wouldn't hold up very well internationally ....

Re:Female programmers

[Creepy]

I work with about 1/3 of a company being female programmers, some didn't even get a college degree when they started (which started to be required after we were sold off to a large company). It also was started and run by a woman for many years before eventually sold off multiple times and now run by a man, though he was recently forced out and will be "retiring" at the end of the year with no replacement announced yet.

That said, I work with a lot of outsourced employees in India and China. In those countries, the ratio is almost 50-50 for male and female programmers that I work with. In my generation in America, it was nerdy to be a computer programmer, so women avoided it. I think that taboo is slowly ending, but it will be a few years before tech-savvy women that grew up in this generation get to college.

Re:Female programmers

[asmkm22]

I don't believe for a moment that it's any kind of negative force, such as sexism or bigotry, that's keeping women out of the field. It's just not interesting to most of them. I know it's hard to talk about in today's politically correct world, but men and women ARE wired differently. Exceptions certainly exist, but they are still just exceptions.

We could go on and on about why there aren't more male nurses, and the conversation would be silly if we tried to ignore the fact that guys just tend not to be interested in nursing because they're guys.

As for females in this industry, I've seen all kinds. Some are good, some are inexperienced, some just plain suck, and others are incredibly talented. Just like their male counterparts.

Re:Female programmers

[stanlyb]

If you think it is easy to wake-up at 6am, prepare the breakfast, dress-up the kids, send them to school, go to work, work, go back home, take the kids, prepare the dinner, check their homework, listen to their stories, and after midnight finally falling asleep.....
Yep, it sounds easy, you should try it for awhile.

Re:Female programmers

[nahpets77]

Wish I had mod points. I have a female friend who works as an elementary school teacher and she told me that 100% of the teaching staff at her school are *women*. So what? Who cares? I think women are drawn to other fields, simple as that.

Re:Female programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds to me like the woman in your scenario has a shit husband.

Re:Female programmers

[cusco]

quotas always seem to cause more trouble than they are worth

You weren't around during the 'separate but equal' decades of the US educational system, I take it. There were perfectly valid reasons why quotas really WERE necessary. Most places have done away with them now as it's no longer a shock to see a black child in a mostly-white school any more, but the only reason why that is the case today is because it was FORCED down the throats of unwilling school boards across the nation. Quotas have their place, it just depends on the situation.

Re:Female programmers

[serviscope_minor]

just that men don't tend to go into teaching

You couldn't have picked a worse example:

They don't now. You do realise that in the within recorded history the last 20 years of female dominaed teaching is a massive anomaly. The thing is you get this thing called "feminisation" where female domiated careers are seen as worth less, and that puts off men. That coupled with the "being the odd one out" syndrome puts off even more.

Teaching was for the longest time a perfectly respetable career for men.

I think therefore we can conclude that the recent trend to women must be a recent sociatal pressure (and not a good one) rather than anything inherent.

However, even if we could wave a magic want and made all that bad stuff go away we're never going to see a 50/50 split in the technology field.

Quite possible, but we're talking here about a 999/1 split, not a 70/30 or 80/20 split. Once it's 999/1, then something is very, very badly fucked up. Men and women are just not that different.

Off all the women I know from childhood, only a small fraction have gone into technology.

And what of all the men? The majority of people--men and women--do not go into computing.

The thing is that computing is very male dominated now and you are in computing. Therefore you see only men who have gone into computing. That's massive, gigantic selection bias.

Another nice point: women were actually much more common in the early days of computing? Why? Dunno, but it shows that it's not an "inherently male" thing.

They didn't choose these fields because they were "pushed away" from programming.

Some of were deeply passionate about programming. Most people in programming aren't, just liek most people in most fields aren't passionate. For many people it's a thing to fall into for lack of any better ideas. This is where subtle pressures start to matter: who's going to go into a second choice field massively dominated by one gender and rampant sexism?

Re:Female programmers

[serviscope_minor]

There are those that will say your statement is sexist...

I'm sure there are. More sensible people would simply say that the statement is ignorant and excessively simplistic.

Re:Female programmers

[luis_a_espinal]

And more to the point, this country more than any other country in the world had hordes and armies of Rosie the Riveters and number crunchers building American industrial and scientific might. We can argue that such a phenomenon stopped when men came back home from the war, but that is only a partial answer. It's not just opportunities that might have dwindle, but the attitudes that compelled women to steer away from those opportunities that need to be explored.

And no, Grace Hopper would not get hired in SV.

She was a woman, and she was already in her late 40's when she started making significant contributions. SV is a haven of ageism.

Unlikely

[Anonymous Coward]

She'd probably miss the job interview on account of being dead for 20 years.

Re:Unlikely

[Rhacman]

I'm on board. I've been on teams where 'replacing' certain developers with dead bodies would improve overall team productivity.

Re:Unlikely

[AmiMoJo]

I've been on teams where dead bodies might smell better too.

Why so few women sanitation engineers?

[Anonymous Coward]

You never see women hanging off the back of a garbage truck. Is this a problem? Why is it a problem that women don't want to be programmers but not a problem that women don't want to be "garbage persons?"

Re:Why so few women sanitation engineers?

[LoRdTAW]

There are a few women working the packer trucks (rear load garbage trucks) in the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY). I have seen them.

Re:Why so few women sanitation engineers?

[mopower70]

Maybe because programming and tech jobs in general are viewed as high prestige and the cutting edge of technology

Where do you work? I've been in technology for 20 years and programming and tech jobs have about as much prestige as a plumber or mechanic. I actually think that's one of the main reasons women DON'T pursue tech jobs in favor of doctoring and lawyering.

Re:Why so few women sanitation engineers?

[knarf]

Senator is not a carrier. Politician is a carrier.

Neither of them are carriers. USS Enterprise is a carrier. Politicians may have egos the size of carriers but that seems to go with their career choice.

Admiral Grace Hopper

[mknewman]

Having met http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_hopper briefly while I was at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_at_Austin back in the '70s I can say without a doubt she would be highly regarded in the current environment. She is known for COBOL but her accomplishments are many, including very early compilers and standards for FORTRAN. She was very influential to me. If she was 40 today I would easily imagine her leading a Silicon Valley company, as her tenure in the Navy was very similar, requiring leadership and technical capabilities, but she chose military service for her career, making what I consider very significant advances in computer science. She really was quite an imposing figure for a 90 lb grandmotherly woman. I wish I could have known her better. During many of her lectures, she illustrated a nanosecond using salvaged obsolete Bell System 25 pair telephone cable, cut it to 11.8 inch (30 cm) lengths, the distance that light travels in one nanosecond, and handed out the individual wires to her listeners. One of her great quips: "The most important thing I've accomplished, other than building the compiler, is training young people. They come to me, you know, and say, "Do you think we can do this?" I say, "Try it." And I back 'em up. They need that. I keep track of them as they get older and I stir 'em up at intervals so they don't forget to take chances."

Re:Admiral Grace Hopper

[jabberw0k]

I heard her speak at a Heathkit Users Group conference in Washington DC, 1986. What an inspiration! Three quotes stand out: "I do not accept 'because we've always done it that way' as an excuse." "It is always easier to ask forgiveness than permission." And: "Computers are getting better at answering questions, but will a computer ever ask an interesting question?" The Admiral is a life-long inspiration. (I still have a nanosecond.)

It explains US foreign policy perfectly also.

[Anonymous Coward]

" manifestations of hubris ... are commonly mistaken for leadership potential "

Not limited to tech jobs in the valley.

Re:It explains US foreign policy perfectly also.

[Rob the Bold]

" manifestations of hubris ... are commonly mistaken for leadership potential "

Not limited to tech jobs in the valley.

Is there any field where this doesn't come into play?

E.g. A big part of a hiring decision is based on how well a candidate presents himself -- I'm deliberately using the masculine pronoun here -- in a resume, interview, and general self-promotion. Someone better at promoting himself will therefore (usually) appear more desirable. Unfortunately, there are only a few jobs where the ability to be interviewed is the primary skill required in the position. So you hire people based on how good they are at doing something else -- not the job at hand. Reminds me of soccer games that end in a shootout: "let's just settle this stalemate by playing a different game to see who wins". Why don't they use jacks, or rock, paper scissors?

Yes

[schneidafunk]

Of course, anyone with credentials like this: "She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar in 1928 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics and earned her Master's degree at Yale University in 1930." would get an interview at a tech company, or even become the CEO.

No chance!

[jerry_gitomer]

Because she didn't have a degree in computer science her resume would never be approved by HR. The hiring manager wouldn't even know she applied.

Re:No chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because she didn't have a degree in computer science her resume would never be approved by HR. The hiring manager wouldn't even know she applied.

Not to mention she wouldn't have 10 years of Java/C#/PHP/etc.. experience.

Re:No chance!

[Plumpaquatsch]

Because she didn't have a degree in computer science her resume would never be approved by HR. The hiring manager wouldn't even know she applied.

Ahh, but she would lie to HR, and ask forgiveness later ;-)

Re:No chance!

[DNS-and-BIND]

I see we have never dealt with H.R. before.

Coincidentally, H.R. has the opposite problem - over-representation of females.

Why aren't more women in science fields?

[hsmith]

Yes, easy to blame evil men for everything - keeping Grace Hopper from getting a job in Tech in 2013 (Assuming she wasn't dead).

In the 80's, women made up most of CS programs around the country. When I went in 2000 - they made up a handful of the entire class. But, engineering was the same (for all engineering majors).

There isn't some evil conspiracy to prevent women from entering tech (some of the best innovators in tech I know are women). They simply, for whatever reason, aren't interested in it.

Re:Why aren't more women in science fields?

[Koreantoast]

Shouldn't that raise concern though? Given that there was greater parity up into the 1980s, why have the numbers of women programmers dropped so dramatically over the last couple of decades? This is on contrast to other STEM fields where the numbers of women have been steadily growing. Unless you're saying 50% of the population suddenly lost interest in what is considered one of the more lucrative fields in the global economy right now.

Re:Why aren't more women in science fields?

[AmiMoJo]

Even if you are correct that women are not interested, isn't that in itself a problem?

Girls tend to do better than boys at school, but at some point get turned off STEM subjects. Is it an innate female disposition? The fact that they are good at those subjects suggests not.

What is your theory? Do you have any evidence to back it up?

Re:Why aren't more women in science fields?

[shbazjinkens]

In the 80's, women made up most of CS programs around the country. When I went in 2000 - they made up a handful of the entire class. But, engineering was the same (for all engineering majors). There isn't some evil conspiracy to prevent women from entering tech (some of the best innovators in tech I know are women). They simply, for whatever reason, aren't interested in it.

My stepmother was a programmer in the 80's. She quit and decided to be a homemaker because of rampant sexism in the workplace. Among the things she's told me about that, the one that stands out is that the office would throw incentive parties at strip clubs in order to exclude her from being rewarded for her work. She's a smart lady.. but they would give her the most menial of tasks (mainly testing other programmer's code, and having to very thoroughly document problems or else they would be dismissed as her error).

One would hope that the same things aren't going on today, but from reading /. my guess is that lots of things going on in the workplace make it a male-dominated workforce, least of which would be the capability and interest of smart women in doing the work. Instead, you'll find them in the more gender-neutral fields of medicine, chemistry and biological sciences.

I was shocked and thrilled that in my first industry job our staff programmer is a woman in her late fifties. That gives me hope that maybe it wasn't this bad everywhere. She's brilliant at her work and has a very strong work ethic. I truly didn't expect to see any women in my workplace after my experience in college.

Flamebait

[onyxruby]

This article, as well as the source articles are all nothing but professional trolls written for the express purpose of generating page views. What's next, links to articles on Jezebel asking if the average man beats his wife before or after raping her?

What are they on about now?

[HornWumpus]

Women don't often choose tech as a career. But those that do get paid more and find jobs easier then comparably qualified men.

Every company that does any business with government is always looking to hire females/minorities. They are required to. Don't pretend that doesn't have an effect.

Slashdot has grown up

[BigHungryJoe]

Ten years ago the comments to this story would have been riddled with crude, misogynistic jokes. In fact, I wonder if the story was meant to elicit such a response from Slashdot. Congrats on rising above, everyone.

Women are better than men when they act like men

[quietwalker]

There have been lots of studies about this, and one of the most telling related self-employed/small business owners based on gender lines, where men and women had relatively equal qualifications. As self-employed individuals, this avoids the potential bias of a glass ceiling or other unfair discrimination. As you'd expect in today's environment, men outperformed women on average.

However, that's not all. The study included a metric to determine the goals of the individuals; money, etc and if you split it up your comparisons based on their goal focus, you found something interesting; men tended to focus on making money, and would sacrifice vacation, schedule, family, etc to do it, while women placed higher priority on a short commute, flexible schedules, family (including child-rearing), and so on. This is all expected stereotype, not at all interesting.

What was interesting is when matched to those women who made money their motivation, men were beaten handily. In fact, once paired with same-motivation/goal, women out performed men almost across the board, achieving a higher success rate, and in general, a higher level of subjective happiness across those metrics. The averages are just skewed because more men choose money than women, and we tend to use money as an objective measure of success.

The salient point to take from this is: Men and women have different goals and motivations, and that can affect both their career choice and their apparent success in a given field to an uninvolved observer. Trying to artificially adjust this rate will probably end badly, unless you change the definition of success. However, few businesses willing to hold an employee up as 'very successful' when their primary goals include child rearing and vacation time.

As an aside, this is also why there are so few female CEOs, especially of larger, higher dollar businesses. Many of those CEO's have unbroken strings of management reaching 30-40 or more years. On the other hand, many female managers have taken time off for children, family, etc. They're not being penalized, but simply put, one individual shows a greater dedication towards advancing the business than the other. ... I'd like to link to the article, but it was in a business magazine, and I couldn't find a reference to it online

Re:Women are better than men when they act like me

[quietwalker]

I'm not a 'feminine dude'. I wouldn't even say I'm a feminist, insofar as I expect that men and women should be treated the same, not given special treatment in order to play catch up, or whatever. However, that's not what I was pointing out.

The raw numbers say women outperform men in many cases where the stereotype and common knowledge AND anti-male politicking says they don't, but only when they are aligned with the same goals we use to measure success, primarily money.

This is actually a common trend; more women graduate college, they tend to be promoted faster, they do better in male-dominated fields such as stock trading and mathematics, make better managers, business owners, etc.

Really, all this leads up to a single inescapable fact: Since women are better than men in general at white-collar tasks, they should be the primary wage earners, and men should be required to lounge at home watching tv and taking care of the kids. It's a more efficient solution.

Re:I've met mostly men

[HornWumpus]

I've worked for women. Wasn't that bad. Better then working for a _short_ man. That really sucked.

I will never again accept work from any man shorter then 5'6''.

Career Paths

[Livius]

A hundred years ago, with very rare exceptions, a woman's career was her marriage. The man was expected to participate in the money economy, and provide for her retirement, while the woman engaged in arguably harder and more important work (raising children) that happened to not be part of the money economy.

That, however, was a hundred years ago. Both sexes have to adapt to contemporary realities. It's both a systemic issue of opportunities (which both men and women are responsible for) and initiative on the part of the women to pursue certain careers.

Re:Career Paths

[cusco]

You need to go back and research some history. The post-WWII period was really the first time in the last several centuries that women were expected to not have to bring income into the household. You probably don't realize that because most of the literature was written by the upper class, but women of the lower classes had to work for the family to get by. Weaving, knitting, needlepoint, painting ceramics, cheese making, butter making, washing clothes, and the like were all sources of income that could be done out of the home, as were raising chickens and rabbits, collecting eggs, and salting fish.

Women often worked outside the home, and not only in the stereotypical one-room schoolhouse of the movies. My grandmothers and great-grandmothers all worked in resorts and restaurants, a shoe factory, a comforter factory, canneries, basket factories and a fishing lure factory. They were not uncommon in that regard. The storied life of 'Little House on the Prairie' was just that, a story. In reality the mother would probably have spent a couple days a week at the local meat packing plant or the flour mill.

Re:If you really care about this issue...

[wonkey_monkey]

In a real way, the issue is not just why are women underrepresented in various technical/scientific fields, but also why are they over represented in others. More women are going to college after all.

The real issue is why does it matter so much? Do we really have to get an exact 50/50 gender split in every discipline before people will stop banging on about it? We should strive to make sure everyone has an equal opportunity regardless of gender (or race, or whatever else) but that is as far as our collective responsibility needs to go. After that you leave it to the individuals, and if fewer women show an interest in a particular area, so be it. Study that, if you find it interesting, but don't assume something must be amiss (or amister).