Tech's Gender Gap Started At Stanford

JCallery writes: The New York Times has an in-depth look at the gender gap in tech through the eyes of Stanford's class of 1994. The article surveys the culture of the school and its attempts at changing the equation on diversity. It also examines Stanford's impact on the big companies (Yahoo, PayPal, WhatsApp, Stella & Dot) and big names (Peter Theil, Rachel Maddow, Brian Acton) that came of age during the pioneering era of the early web.

Comments

Are you kidding me?

[digsbo]

Number one, they're looking at the extreme high end of achievers, who - guess what - aren't representative.

And then the TFA has this gem:

"Dozens of women stayed in safe jobs, in or out of technology, while they watched their spouses or former lab partners take on ambitious quests."

Does anybody see what I see there?

Re:Are you kidding me?

[sphealey]

Yes, the women who were finally admitted to engineering school in 1943, 44, and 45, and who were then kicked out (in some cases bodily) in 1946 without being allowed to graduate (much less take the jobs for which they had sought education) were just playing out a male-centric fantasy of evolutionary biology "explaining" pre-historic history. Got it.

sPh

Re:Are you kidding me?

[AmiMoJo]

Does anybody see what I see there?

That women need more encouragement? That silicon valley rewards aggressiveness and risk taking, rather than good technology?

TFA says that silicon valley is a meritocracy, but then demonstrates that "merit" actually means masculine attributes rather than technical ability. That's the problem, and we lose out on potentially great tech and programmers because we don't value their work more than their personality.

What gender gap?

[crossmr]

News flash:
Not everything in this world is going to mimic the real demographics of the planet. If they idea is that we're all special snowflakes, we're sometimes going to find some people better suited to certain things than others. Unless there is evidence that the best person isn't being hired for the job, there is no gender gap. A gender gap is an artificial construct made by people who can't get past gender in the first place.

Re:What gender gap?

[haggholm]

Not everything in this world is going to mimic the real demographics of the planet.

No, but human abilities tend to fall along bell curves.

Observation: White males are overrepresented in tech fields when contrasted with non-white, non-male, or neither-white-nor-male workers.

Feminist/progressivist position: The reason behind this overrepresentation is a complex system of biases (consider all the studies that have shown that people whose names, listed, on resumes, sound white and male, are more likely to get called in for interviews), historical factors (such as unequal education opportunities), and cultural factors (for example, unequal participation can form a positive feedback loop because being the odd person out, especially in a very visible way, can be off-putting). Then, of course, there really is a lot of overt misogyny, as five minutes on Reddit can prove not merely beyond doubt, but also beyond hope. All of these things (or rather, the gender-related rather than race-related parts) are what feminists are referring to when they use the term "patriarchy". In my opinion that's a poorly chosen term, implying something less nebulous, more focused, intentional, and planned than is the case; but there you are -- the feminist movement isn't perfect either.

("Privilege" is another term that leads to endless misunderstanding, since it gets thrown around in a manner that can sound pretty accusatory, but that again misses the point. The observation that certain people benefit from certain injustices is not the same as blaming them for those injustices. Maybe you went to Harvard on the family fortune your great-grandfather made by exploiting slave labour, and are therefore better educated than the black guy across town whose great-grandfather was one of those slaves. You hold no moral responsibility for slavery, but your superior employment prospects are still the product not of disinterested meritocracy, but the outcome of slavery.)

Reactionary position: Nah, it just so coincidentally happens that (a) all the smartest people/people with most talent in these (high-paying) fields just happen to belong to the same demographic that's also most represented among business leaders, politicians, &c., and/or (b) the people who take an interest in these fields just happen to belong to that same moneyed and powerful demographic.

Sure.

Personally, I don't expect that the gender balance would be exactly 50% even if none of the above factors were present, as presumably some degree of inclination, and potentially (but not necessarily) some fractional degree of talent for many professions may be causally tied to biological sex, and presumably different jobs would go in and out of vogue with various demographics. (By analogy, from what I hear: Why are all the top-level swimmers in the US white? Because swimming just isn't very popular among African-Americans.) But, with a few exceptions where biological traits matter, as for jobs where men's statistical advantage in physical strength makes them, on average, more qualified, I don't expect the "natural" imbalance to be very large, and unless your company has keyboards with really fucking serious resistance and tactile feedback, such that the average woman could not type without the assistance of a hammer and nail sink, I don't think it's unreasonable to postulate that there's something more to it.

Another way to look at it: Suppose (this may or may not really be the case) that there was at some point horrible discrimination, since resolved, so that women for a long time avoided the field. Therefore, very few women work in the field, and since it ipso facto looks like a field with very few opportunities for women, very few women chose to get relevant educations and degrees. Employers can say, with some justification, that the reason they hire so few women is that there are few qualified c

Re:What gender gap?

[AmiMoJo]

One person doing something does not meant that the 50% of the population who share her gender is dishonest. #GamerGate is over, the bullshit was exposed. Let it go.

Re:Slashdot is exceeding itself lately...

[adri]

I was working in the first dot com boom during 1998-2001. Now, I was working in Amsterdam rather than the US, but I did get to feel exactly how screwed up this situation got. And looking back at it, this article does re-iterate a lot of those points quite clearly.

The people that succeeded were for the most part the ones that put in long hours, were ruthless about achieving their goals and cared not about things like "work/life balance", "emotional stability", "health concerns", etc. Whenever I came out to the US to talk shop with other internet infrastructure people, they were working long hours, ignoring what the industry said they could / couldn't do. There were women in tech, but they weren't the programmers - the ones I met tended to be algorithms people, data scientists, etc. They weren't in the meat grinder of bashing out C/perl code.

The article covered the long hours, it covered what happened when things went pear shaped, and it did a pretty good hatchet job on the kind of focus and ruthlessness you needed to get where you wanted to go. It was amazing to watch and now a little scary. Then the dot-com bust happened and people lost everything. Plenty of people I knew said "fuck it" and left the industry. Those that stayed either made their money, or they were just suckers for loving their jobs. They didn't have strong personal relationships with others. They just loved kicking ass and taking names in their work career. That sometimes worked out for them and sometimes didn't.

A lot of the people I knew in the tech field did just leave and look for something more stable. The people that stuck it out were homeless, couch-surfing, living with family/friends, existing wherever they could just to get over the sheer loss of everything. Not everyone is cut out for that level of destitution and dedication - eventually they'll snap and go off to something more stable.

This field is terrible. It chews you over and spits you out. If you're lucky then you make a bunch of money and save a bunch of money. Plenty of people working in tech and living in San Francisco aren't even doing that. We don't necessarily churn out people who are risk takers out of university - heck, churning out creative thinkers just became an "in vogue" thing again with this whole maker faire mentality that's happening nowdays. But when the thing crashes again, you'll see the same cycle - those who are willing to risk it all and live hand-to-mouth from wherever they can will do it. Others will go find whatever is safe and stable and start life again from there.

Now, is that gender biased? Maybe. Someone has to go do a little more research to figure that out. But from what I saw, there were a handful of women that stuck through that and came out ahead. Most that I knew just gave it in and went back to school, moved in with parents, or decided to stop work and have babies. The guys seemed more happy to take the risk again and again and live hand-to-mouth.

There's lots to fix. We have to stop being insensitive asshats. part of that is institutional - the brogrammer culture is strong here. Part of that comes out of all of the stupid stress and anxiety that litters this community. It's hard to pay attention to how you live, how you interact, how you make others feel, how to communicate well and well, how not to be an asshole if you're always stressed out, anxious and sleep deprived. add in a bit of being shouted at and some threats about your job security and .. well, you just stop giving any fucks. Part of it is no constant exposure to dealing with other people and a focus on your ability to churn out code - your job doesn't tend to want you spending time each day to improve yourself in all ways - it needs to be work relevant, and hey you have that deadline that just appeared? Eww. It's good to see people standing up and calling out bad behvaiour. it's good to see that some communities are sprouting up and eschewing shitty behaviour. But I'd really like to see the stress, anxiety and hours drop as well as a focus on people interaction. My 20 year old self gave no interest to any of these things. My 35 year old self .. suddenly realises that it's pretty fucking important.

Almost Shirley

[rmdingler]

If you're a regular contributor to content, at a probability near one you will have encountered the undeserved down mod.

In the eye of the beholder, one's genius is often the waste-of-oxygen of another.

Re:As always, looking at this wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is that starting in the 1990s and really rolling after 2000 the tech world damaged itself in some fundamental way

Yeah, like constant demand for long hours, a severe disinclination to pay a decent salary, constant threat of being outsourced, no real promotion ladder, no real prospects after you turn 40, and most of the job is the tedious stuff that nobody likes doing.

No, No it doesnt.

[thesupraman]

I am sorry, what data does it have?
Oh, you mean it has unsupported assertions that match your desired worldview?

Let me make my own suggestion:
Pre mid 90s, CS was a rather unpopular course, generally filled with people who had a true interest in it, and in quite low numbers.
Therefore it tended to have a moderately (more) balanced gender participation, although that does vary quite strongly depending on location.

During the later 90s, the 'tech boom' made it a much more popular course for a lot of people who through it could be a path to 'success', the
content was watered down, the attendance went through the roof, and more of a male bias was seem.

HOWEVER, what to know where the opposite happened? business courses, MBAs, Laywers, Doctors.
Thats right, women CHOSE to avoid tech because they saw a larger payout in other areas - and women in general are better at long term planning.
Women went for the established, known risk long term payout of those kinds of course (at least as viewed at the time), whereas Men tended to bias more
towards the 'excitement and risk' of tech, with a lower probable payout.

But history meant a few of the tech people ended up making it big - so not its 'unfair' that more women didnt choose that path, and its the mens fault.

Get real, CS, and other tech courses, were most certainly NOT sexy in the early-mid 90s, and women were not excluded - most people who took them
were looked down on by much of the rest of the faculty.

Or, should we perhaps look at the current gener in bio-research, and advanced medical? a HUGE bias to women - who is screaming out about fixing that
equality? yes? please? no one? thought not.

Its just more of the usual - if something does well, women want 'equality' inforced there, but if it doesnt, they are happy to ignore it.
Or should be be trying to fix the gender gap in trades and manual labour areas? more women working in mines and fabrication?

Thought not..

Re:Clickbaiting Bullshit Works

[ShieldW0lf]

Doesn't anyone else see that it's immoral to press, entice or implore a woman to sacrifice her child bearing years so she can fix your computer, or to let other people do so?

Didn't the article about how Facebook is funding freezing womens eggs wake anyone's eyes up to just how fucked up we've become?

Is that what you want for your daughter? Sure as hell isn't what I want for mine.

If that's what you're going to use your power for, you shouldn't have it.

Seems to me that the high tech women CEOs

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

have all been massive failures.Well Virginia Rometty hasn't been a massive failure, but she hasn't been a success either.

Re:A Brand New World In Which Men Ruled

[Austerity Empowers]

Yet "high-tech" started long before that, and was already very gender biased. The article specifically said "email", which was quite common in the 80s on college campuses and high tech industries, I know because I had to maintain some legacy scripts, rules for which were set up in the 80s and nobody really understood anymore in 2000.

The article is correct on some facts, but is entirely lost in narrative.

Smart kids are usually socially awkward

[Tony Isaac]

Face it, smart kids were mercilessly teased in school since a long time before 1994. But being socially awkward, these kids stick to what they ARE good at, like tinkering with computers. This provides an escape for them, since they don't have a clue how to be accepted by others.

Girls tend to mature socially earlier than boys. They DO understand how to relate to others socially, and they don't want any part of the kind of treatment they see their smart male friends enduring. So...they do the smart thing...they stay away.

Is this all a terrible injustice? Probably. But we shouldn't be blaming the men. They are the ones who stuck with their quest despite the pressure. If there is anyone to blame, blame Hollywood, which (at the time) produced movie after movie reinforcing the "nerd" stereotype.

Keyword = 'Diversity'

[Taco Cowboy]

Whenever I scan a document or an article and the word 'Diversity' pops up ... sigh!, yet another useless Political Correctness piece of crap!

The theme is always the same --- no matter if it's tech, or business, or wealth, or whatever-you-can-think-of, their basic argument is that someone has been _WRONGED_ and we must do everything to right the wrong, to make sure that the disenfrenchised party is disenfrenchised no more !

The 'common theme' is 'GAP', and the adjective can be 'racial', or 'gender', or 'wealth', or whathaveyou

They never care to address the WHY, they only want to talk about the "injustice"

The society is not going forward if every time they come up with something new the rest of us have to stop everything in order to 'help the disenfrenchised'

Re:Clickbaiting Bullshit Works

[Intrepid imaginaut]

The point is that it shouldn't be a choice between kids or career.

Yeah the choice is kids or career without much water between the two. If you don't like that resign yourself to having your children raised by strangers and hired help, which for most isn't acceptable. Raising children takes time and effort, something that the convenience of white goods and reduced physical requirements in the workforce hasn't changed.

What we're seeing now is a lot of women who went into the workforce and discovered that they were going to be neither wealthy nor successful, just like 99% of men in the workforce. Instead they're going to have a middle class lifestyle that they'd probably have been able to enjoy anyway plus a family had they chosen to raise kids instead. Is it any wonder womens' happiness has been decreasing.

That's not to say that men shouldn't be househusbands except it seems women aren't very attracted by that. Patriarchy, right?

I think first of all that the religion of feminism needs to die loudly and publicly along with every other social engineering cult, and secondly that people need to learn to differentiate between "a career" and "financial independence". These aren't the same thing.

And do not mistake me for a conservative or a traditionalist, I am neither.