Survey: More Women Are Going Into Programming

itwbennett writes: We've previously discussed the dearth of women in computing. Indeed, according to U.S. Bureau and Labor Statistics estimates, in 2014 four out of five programmers and software developers in the U.S. were men. But according to a survey conducted this spring by the Application Developers Alliance and IDC, that may be changing. The survey of 855 developers worldwide found that women make up 42% of developers with less than 1 year of experience and 30% of those with between 1 and 5 years of experience. Of course, getting women into programming is one thing; keeping them is the next big challenge.

Comments

And we care because...why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps we could move the craft forward rather than focusing on the players?

Re: And we care because...why?

[Anonymous Coward]

In my area, women make up about 5% of the software developers. However, the women have the majority in management, project management, testing, and UI design.

Re: And we care because...why?

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

And you can be sure you'll keep hearing about how that 5% is not enough until it's around 50%, but nobody's going to say anything about the women majority in management, project management, testing and UI design.

Re: And we care because...why?

[__aaclcg7560]

Or that 95% of the male programmers probably don't want to work in management, project management, testing and UI design?

Re:And we care because...why?

[Barlo_Mung_42]

Why not both? If 1/2 the population feels excluded they certainly aren't going to be helping move the craft forward. Being more inclusive means there will be more brains working on hard problems. That's a good thing.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Anonymous Coward]

But... what I don't want to see is the political correctness infect programmer ranks. I like IT the way it is, something akin to the Wild West, at least places I've worked. I don't like working for women because they tend to lean to being PC, overly sensitive. I like the boys' club mentality of IT, always have, always will.

I rejected pair programming because I don't work well sitting next to someone. I rejected the notion of sitting in one open environment to "foster sharing and collaboration". Doesn't work for me. I need my own office where I can stream trance music all day long and focus on what I'm doing. Having to tiptoe around being nice to women, watching my language, being PC all the time. No. I love women, but as wife and friends, not colleagues.

Re:And we care because...why?

[freezin fat guy]

Feeling excluded is one thing. Telling people what to do is another.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because its fun to count the number of Penis and Vagina in the work environment and everything should be equal.

Brought to you by SJW Unity, a division of PAVA, Penis and Vagina Accountants

Re: And we care because...why?

[MyAlternateID]

And you can be sure you'll keep hearing about how that 5% is not enough until it's around 50%, but nobody's going to say anything about the women majority in management, project management, testing and UI design.

Personally I don't give a damn what sort of genitals a programmer possesses. I do care about what sort of skill they have.

Is that just too simple? Nothing in there to launch a crusade over? That's the problem, I take it.

Re:And we care because...why?

[Hognoxious]

You're jumping to a lot of conclusions there. I certainly wouldn't call this feller a poofter. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/h...

Oh, and it's salon. A saloon is where cowboys drink.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Anonymous Coward]

All this fearmongering over PC is nonsense. Basically: don't be a dick to people, at least without justification. Don't call women sluts. Don't use racial slurs. Don't be a complete insufferable ass that no one wants to be around. Actually treat others like real people with different personalities, wants, and needs.

That's not being PC, that's being a decent fucking human being.

Jesus whine some more why don't you.

Re: And we care because...why?

[cayenne8]

Hey, lets do what we've done to men in the basic education areas.

We've tilted the system so much, that now, a major majority of college students are now women...we've swung the pendulum so far, that now, it is men that are in danger of not being fairly represented in the upper education system students and grads, it will follow that men will soon likely be left behind in the IT and other tech fields.

While boosting women, it seems that we've also been hurting young men's chances at these fields they used to flourish in.

More and more of our young men are now being forgotten as important too. The idea of Political Correctness and the pushing of women in areas of education have not just promoted women, but they have seemingly actively gone to push men's numbers down in these ranks.

Re:And we care because...why?

[MyAlternateID]

Feeling excluded is one thing. Telling people what to do is another.

The entire premise behind "I am offended" or "I feel excluded" is that these are not complete thoughts. The complete thought ends with "... therefore I get to dictate what you can say, how you will think, and how you will live, and if you don't comply, all manner of social pressures will come crashing down on your head."

Re: And we care because...why?

[Oligonicella]

Ah, ah, ah... You can't use male motivations if one cannot use female motivations. We need to MAKE SURE that there is a 50% male population in those areas. Isn't that how this works?

Re: And we care because...why?

[MyAlternateID]

Because its fun to count the number of Penis and Vagina in the work environment and everything should be equal.

Brought to you by SJW Unity, a division of PAVA, Penis and Vagina Accountants

If people have the opportunity to do what they want to do, and are not pressured to do things they don't want to do just to meet some preconceived quota, that's about as equal as it gets.

Re: And we care because...why?

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

As Oligonicella said, it doesn't matter if the majority of men or women don't want to work in some jobs... equality, damnit!

Re: And we care because...why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he's referring to situations like this one:

Three male developers have been tasked with improving the quality of the software systems they're responsible for. They're looking into using the Coq proof system.

They're sitting together in the office's open workspace discussing this tool. The conversation goes something like,

Programmer 1: "What do you guys think about playing around with Coq?"

Programmer 2: "I've played with Coq for a few minutes, but I don't like it very much."

Programmer 3: "Yeah, I've tried Coq a few times, too, and sometimes it's way too hard for me to handle."

Programmer 2: "Yup, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, too."

Programmer 1: "Ok, that settles it. Coq is no good for us, so we won't touch it."

Well, since they're in an open environment, some of their coworkers overhead the conversation. These coworkers include a couple of women, and a male homosexual who is transitioning into becoming a woman, all of whom work in project management and design. All three are extreme feminists.

Taking the discussion totally out of context, these coworkers mistakenly hear "Coq" as "cock", as in penis.

As you can imagine, this brings an extreme level of outrage to these self-righteous coworkers. They think they're hearing sexually explicit, and possibly homophobic, discussion in the workplace. They go to HR, and raise a shitstorm.

HR cracks down hard on the three male programmers, who have no idea why they're being attacked. They try to explain what Coq is, and how it has absolutely nothing to do with penises or sex. It doesn't matter. They dared to say a word that sounds like "cock", and for that they must pay dearly, because coworkers got offended.

Instead of using their skills to improve the products that the customers want and need, the programmers are now stuck fighting political battles over a total non-issue.

I think that that's what the GP was talking about. Situations like those.

Re: And we care because...why?

[war4peace]

And over 50% for both genders, while we're at it! Come on, I know we could ultimately have 100% of each gender in any given job. Failure to achieve that is our own damn fault!

Re: And we care because...why?

[Falos]

The number 100 forcibly limits genders, the old boys' club has put an arbitrary ceiling on how big a portion is possible to represent in the 100-centile structure.

Fractions should be represented by number-neutral pictures, and anyone not doing so violently shamed.

Trigger warning: The word violence is totally gonna come barreling through this post, doing like 40 in a 35.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, ah, ah... You can't use male motivations if one cannot use female motivations.
We need to MAKE SURE that there is a 50% male population in those areas.
Isn't that how this works?

Exactly. What can we do to get men to work in management, project management, testing and UI design? If 95%of males don't want to work there, we have to take an honest what drives them away from these fields. I could be those fields are hostile to men's needs.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Dins]

Trigger warning: The word violence is totally gonna come barreling through this post, doing like 40 in a 35.

I'm triggered by the word trigger, as it reminds me of big scary guns, and you failed to adequately warn me that said word would be used.

This round of PTSD is all on you, buddy!

Re: And we care because...why?

[__aaclcg7560]

The short answer is that management, project management, testing and UI design aren't 100% programming.

Re:And we care because...why?

[Grishnakh]

Bad example with the nail salon thing. How many men have you seen with fingernail polish? There might be a few gay men interested in breathing those fumes all day, but they're likely employed in nail salons (or more likely own them). That field likely is almost-all-female naturally.

The child-care example is quite valid, however. Lots of men like being with small children, but our culture discourages that as they're seen as potential molesters. Another example is primary education: how many kindergarten or grade 1-4 teachers are male? There's simply no evidence that 95% of men have zero interest in being around small children, absent social stigma.

Anyway, I know you're joking about the cartel thing, but there's definitely a stigma about having men around small kids without female supervision, and this really is an inefficiency that's bad for society. Personally I think it results in a lot of women being around kids (because they fill the void basically) who really shouldn't be. As a society, we seem to have this idea that women are all wonderful, caring people when around small children, and it simply isn't true. A lot of them are nasty, heartless bitches and shouldn't be around any kids or have their own. Assuming men are generally bad and women are generally great with kids is bound to result in a bunch of these women taking jobs with children.

Re: And we care because...why?

[AmiMoJo]

Nah, it's only the anti-feminists who keep saying that. It's been said many times, the percentage is just a simple metric that journalists love. What matters to feminists like myself is that there are no gender based barriers, both sexes get equal encouragement and opportunity. Of course that's a really complex subject, and the problem isn't limited to girls.

Also, do you have any data on that imbalance in "management, project management, testing and UI design"?

Re:And we care because...why?

[wyHunter]

Guess what? There may be a glass ceiling, I don't know. But most of us engineer types stay engineer types all our careers. By definition, we ALL have ceiling. Once you go to management you aren't an engineer anymore, and you have to do many ethically questionable things.

Re:And we care because...why?

[Darinbob]

Why don't you care? Worried about competition? Basically, if everything is fair and above board, why only 5% female programmers instead of 50%? And don't blame it on something stupid like "women don't like computers" or "it's genetic". It's purely a social problem, because the percentage has been going down over time.

The reason it's a problem is that we want to treat all segments of the population equally. This is evidence that clearly we don't do this as a society, and that over time we are getting worse at it. If we claim as a society that we do not discriminate then it should be worth figuring out and fixing. Why defend the status quo when it is broken?

Re:And we care because...why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad example with the nail salon thing. How many men have you seen with fingernail polish? There might be a few gay men interested in breathing those fumes all day, but they're likely employed in nail salons (or more likely own them). That field likely is almost-all-female naturally.

The child-care example is quite valid, however. Lots of men like being with small children, but our culture discourages that as they're seen as potential molesters. Another example is primary education: how many kindergarten or grade 1-4 teachers are male? There's simply no evidence that 95% of men have zero interest in being around small children, absent social stigma.

Anyway, I know you're joking about the cartel thing, but there's definitely a stigma about having men around small kids without female supervision, and this really is an inefficiency that's bad for society. Personally I think it results in a lot of women being around kids (because they fill the void basically) who really shouldn't be. As a society, we seem to have this idea that women are all wonderful, caring people when around small children, and it simply isn't true. A lot of them are nasty, heartless bitches and shouldn't be around any kids or have their own. Assuming men are generally bad and women are generally great with kids is bound to result in a bunch of these women taking jobs with children.

Anecdote time: my brother is currently divorcing his abusive wife... a junior high school principal. And when I say abusive, I'm not just talking about calling him names in front of the kids (though she does that too).

My ex wife is so deranged that I won custody of our daughter after our divorce. Talk to anyone who works in any sort of social services related job, they'll confirm women do not automatically have a nurturing instinct.

I personally wouldn't touch a school teaching position with a 10 foot pole given our current climate. For the record I think Obama is a hopeless conservative, so I'm what you might call, "pretty liberal".

Re: And we care because...why?

[Darinbob]

Men are in no danger of being so unfairly represented that they end up underpaid on average compared to women, or having to create fake names and icons for online technical boards lest someone find out they're really male, or being forced out of their profession. And yet there are some morons out there who seem scared of this. They are in an amazingly advantaged group and can not even see it, instead acting afraid that one day they might not be able to tell sex jokes at work as if that is the worst possible discrimination.

Re: And we care because...why?

[clifwlkr]

Because it used to be more of a 9 to 5 professional job with realistic pay and expectations. Now it is a 60 hour a week grind where you must spend much of your remaining free time keeping up with the latest trends so you have a job when your current place either burns through its budget, or hires cheaper h1bs. It's not exactly the kind of environment for prospective mothers, for sure. Never mind the inherent solitude of todays world, as opposed to the past where there was a lot more down time as you waited for compiles, or time at the card sorter. The industry has changed dramatically, and not in a family friendly way.

Re: And we care because...why?

[warren.marco7781]

Thanks. I find women more responsible than men. This is all coming from a guy... This is it not to say that shit female management do not exist - yes, bad female managers - some of the them are the most horrifying people I've ever worked with. Some got hired because they are hot and management was in desperation. I find it's the upper management (aka owners/stock holders/ blah blah) will not work with *good* female management - - then throw them out the window with moving goal posts and shifty business metrics. It really wasn't their fault. But, if you are a guy that can talk BS and you win every time.

Re: And we care because...why?

[narcc]

Without exception, the workplaces with women were more "brittle" in terms of having to watch what you said, no off-colour jokes, no crude humour.

Woah, you had to show basic consideration to other people?! You can't be as crass as tactless as you'd like?

I can't imagine how horrible it must have been to be forced to act like a civilized human being 8-hours a day. The next thing you know, they'll expect you to bathe regularly and wash your hands after relieving yourself. Pure tyranny!

Re: And we care because...why?

[Darinbob]

I'm on a 40 hour week. By law they can not ask you to work longer without overtime in most states, and can not fire you if you refuse. This applies even to exempt workers. The 60 hour work week is self imposed although many companies will mislead workers on this account. If an exempt worker voluntarily works longer hours management will tend to fill in that extra time with more tasks, at which point trying to shrink back down again becomes a problem. The places that do tend to have the longer hours are startups, which are places to avoid if you want to have a life or sanity or a steady salary. It is true that this may make you look like the slacker, especially at a place the values quantity over quality, but blame your coworkers for setting false expectations.

The corporation is not the type of place for prospective fathers either! This is 2015, not 1950. Today fathers are parents also, they need to share in the child rearing. Ward Cleaver needs to take time off from the office before the Beaver becomes a delinquent. Besides, June Cleaver has a day job too because that's the only way to afford a house in California. After a new baby, dad needs paternity leave as well. I see no difference between male or female in this regard.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Ol Olsoc]

This isn't about forcing people to take jobs they don't want. However women are clearly capable of these jobs, and were clearly interested in them in the past.

If there is some biological basis then it does not account why the percentage of female programmers has declined over time, so I seriously doubt it's some sort of innate bias. There's a clear problem, even if you fail to acknowledge it. Why has the percentage dropped? You clearly don't care, but some people do.

There has been a lot of conjecture. And your choice is who you want to listen to.

At can be either the third wave "weak woman" model, where some incredibly trivial things can apparently force a young lady who is passionately into programming into dropping it completely.

Or it might be that women who have now re-entered the workforce voluntarily - as opposed to the "Rosey the Riveter" WW2 example of dire need - to perhaps adjust over time to what they find as a good career path.

Now an analysis of the two "reasons" is pretty important. The "weak woman" model presupposes that any negativity will destroy a woman's passion for the work, as well as ruin her self esteem. It's the same rationale that Barbie Dolls turn young ladies into anorexics.

It also fails because it assumes that the only career field in which there is any form of sexual harassment is STEM. Because I don't hear people whining too much about rampant sexism in the business sector, and there are a lot of women employed there. And if a dongle joke or a image of a Playboy model's face can destroy a young lady's passion for STEM, imagine when she gets to the workforce. You get hammered with more negativity than that every day. If that's the real reason, it makes no sense.

Now the other thesis, which I espouse based on many years of experience trying to recruit young women into STEM fields is that they have seen STEM, and want no part of it. And for much different reasons.

And those reasons are really long hours, mediocre pay, and an utter lack of respect. The image of the geek, working in the company basement, living on Cheetos and Mountain Dew, and working 20 hour days is not terribly inaccurate (I like their Crunchy Jalepeno Cheddar ones myself)

There might also be a correlation with thought process, but it is like walking into a minefield trying to suggest that there is any difference between the way men and women think in general.

But you do not have to invoke the second one, the first reasoning is fine by itself.

In the end, I question not so much why women are not going for STEM careers, but why any men are.

All of this is to say, if there is enough pay and prestige, and pleasant work environment, they will show up. And good luck with the idea of making the geek's work life better. That would cost money, and the woman making that decision might not want to spend it.

Re:And we care because...why?

[Barlo_Mung_42]

It's a spectrum. I'm sure there are people who are offended by things and it would be unreasonable to accommodate them. I don't think that's the case across the board here though. If reasonable changes can be made that make more people feel comfortable and included why wouldn't want to do that?

Re: And we care because...why?

[MyAlternateID]

I care about equal opportunity. I don't give a fuck about equal outcome. When you pretend that those two are the same thing, you stop being intellectually honest.

A tremendous number of cultural changes have happened to women since the '50s and '60s when a lot of computing was actually considered secretarial and therefore "women's work", however right or wrong that may be. To ignore those or pretend they happen in a vacuum and can't have any impact on women in the workforce is ridiculous.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Darinbob]

If you provide equal opportunity, and then over time the outcomes become more and more unequal, then I would suggest that the opportunity is not actually equal for some reason. And that is what is happening with women in computing. Outcomes indicate whether the opportunities are working.

I am not talking about the 50s and 60s. I am talking about the 80s and 90s, and not secretarial style computing work. I am talking about the programmers, system admins, and designers which all used to have significant representation from women. The exact same sorts of jobs we have today, though actually more technical than today's typical computing job.

And besides, no one's even asking for affirmative action here. Except for asking the stupid people to stop acting like immature boys while at work. Instead this is about how to encourage more women to get back into computing (where women used to be). And yet even doing something so minor as to encourage women to enter technical fields causes the idiots to claim this is misguided, a crusade against men, feminism run amuck, etc. Those are not the attitudes you would find in someone who believes in equal opportunity.

Re:And we care because...why?

[godrik]

I certainly care. I love computer science and I would love to do anything that can push the field forward.
Right now, in my college, only 20% of our CS students are female. What this tells me is part of the female population is not as attracted to the field than male. I do not know why. But it means that if we could attract them as well as we attract men, we would have higher enrollments. And so the top 10% would likely to be smarter.
In other word, I care about having more female in CS becasue I am afraid we are missing out on very smart people.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Darinbob]

But why did we have so many more women in computing in the 80s and 90s? Why did the "weak woman" appear after that point in time? It's recent enough that we should be able to reverse it before it becomes entrenched.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Ol Olsoc]

They are in an amazingly advantaged group and can not even see it, instead acting afraid that one day they might not be able to tell sex jokes at work as if that is the worst possible discrimination.

I had to chuckle at that. Have you ever heard a group of women getting together and either telling raunchy jokes or graphically describig their boyfriend/husband's funy face when he cums? I have.

All of this bullshit is bullshit for very large values of bullshit.

Its like third wave feminism has gone so far around the bend that thy hate a victorian era version of women's psyches. The present day idea that hearing a bad sexully oriented word irreparably damages a women is plain unrealistic.

Women have sex drives

Women have a sense of humor

The two most filthy minded raunchiest people I have ever worked with were women.

Very very few are as pure as the driven snow.

And yet we somehow have follen into a pit dug for us by humorless misandrysts.

My favorite story of the utterly screwed up system we have fallen into comes from my lab's machine shop, where of course, the old days of calendars showing women in bikinis have been utterly banned.

I the pursuit of banning any "offensive images from the workplace, one day, the wrong person saw on the inside of one of the machinists toolboxes, an offending photograph of a young woman in a cheerleading outfit. She went to HR to complain. After all, the obvious sexual undertones of a machinist, and seeinf the tittlation such a person would get from looking at such an offensive image were all there.

So HR aid the guy a visit. Told him the photo was offensive to a woman and must be removed immediately.

His answer - and this is paraphrased, because it became a legend around the place, went something like "I'll take the picute of my daughter, who is a high school cheerleader out of my toolbox when you put out a memo that there wil be no photos of people's children allowed anywhere here."

HR left, with their tails between their legs. I have no idea what they told the offended woman.

But as I have always said about these things, you have to pay attention to who you listen to. Because outraged humorless misandrysts won't ever be actually satisfied. No outraged humorless people ever are.

Re: And we care because...why?

[thinkwaitfast]

The number of female hams (ham radio operators) is a consistent ~11% across countries, cultures and time. Back in the olden days of personal computers, hams were first adopters of the technology, being well versed in electronics.

Re:And we care because...why?

[hcs_$reboot]

We care because the new girl who entered the programming team makes an excellent coffee.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Blymie]

Classic bullshit.

Female behaviour is civilized, but male behaviour is crass, tactless, and rude.

If male behaviour is crass, tactless and rude.. then female behaviour is also equally negative. Perhaps simpering, two faced, and gossipy.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Ol Olsoc]

Right. If you are all about equality that is great. Explain then why the equality has dropped over the years.

They don't want the lack of respect from management, the mediocre pay, the crappy work surroundings, and the innsane hours.

Perhaps you might answer a question yourself since you seem to ask a lot of them, and as if there is no answer than different versions of "All IT is sexist assholes".

Tell me why there is no sexism, no good old boys club patriarchy in the fields that women do go into.

Business - now there is a field devoid of any sexual anything. Right? My wife cold tell you tales that would curl your toes about the business world and the shit that goes on there.

So you have made the accusations against us. Now answer the questions of why this situation doesn't exist in the fields womendo go into.

Re:And we care because...why?

[thinkwaitfast]

/. aricle 1: We need more brains working on hard problems.

/. article 2: There are too many people in the world. What will they all do?

Re: And we care because...why?

[Blymie]

Good grief.

I keep hearing how women used to be large part of the programming community.

Yet, sure, when it was LITERALLY MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF TIMES SMALLER!

It's like comparing how many people worked creating clothing, centuries back. Yup, a lot more of them were men.

Now they're women or children in third world nations. There is LITERALLY NO COMPARISON!

Programming 30 years ago, was so different in environment, in the way it was done, the languages, what you needed to know, the work methodology... that it was an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT FIELD!

Equality isn't declining. It never existed. So, ask yourself, why?

Re:And we care because...why?

[thinkwaitfast]

Offensensitivity

Re:And we care because...why?

[thinkwaitfast]

Where are the (potentially) best participants going? Perhaps to better fields with a greater chance of a career lasting more than 20 years.

Re:And we care because...why?

[Ol Olsoc]

There's simply no evidence that 95% of men have zero interest in being around small children, absent social stigma.Anyway, I know you're joking about the cartel thing, but there's definitely a stigma about having men around small kids without female supervision, and this really is an inefficiency that's bad for society. Personally I think it results in a lot of women being around kids (because they fill the void basically) who really shouldn't be. As a society, we seem to have this idea that women are all wonderful, caring people when around small children, and it simply isn't true. A lot of them are nasty, heartless bitches and shouldn't be around any kids or have their own. Assuming men are generally bad and women are generally great with kids is bound to result in a bunch of these women taking jobs with children.

And the great irony in the all men are pesos/ all women are saints outlook is that all you need to do is go to the sex offender registry, and see that there are a lot of women on them. There's still a lot of sexual abuse going on in schools. Only now that male teachers are almost nonexistent, it is becoming pretty difficult to blame the guys. Though no doubt some will try.

Which is why although I think that everyone should have their say, and if you are a misandryst who sees every problem as men's fault, yeah, you should be able to speak your mind.

But freedom of expression does not mean we have to pay attention to these people. Kooks are kooks, and will never be anything different. TWF's are actually promoting the weird idea that women are very weak, if you listen to them long enough.

Re:And we care because...why?

[Ol Olsoc]

Why don't you care? Worried about competition? Basically, if everything is fair and above board, why only 5% female programmers instead of 50%?

Are you going to answer my questions? You ask a lot of them, yet provide no insight.

Is it impossible that given the respect, the pay, the working conditions many in IT face, that women might want to go into different fields?

I say that is correct, and given that women go into other fields with a solid track record of sexual harassment and evenassault, it might not be those poor shy geeks that are causing the problem. The job often sucks.

Any thoughts, or are you just giong to recycle the same questions over again?

Re: And we care because...why?

[narcc]

Female behaviour is civilized, but male behaviour is crass, tactless, and rude.

First, I said nothing about either stereotypical female or male behavior. You invented that all on your own to fit your preconceptions.

Second, the OP is complaining about being unable to engage in "crass, tactless, and rude" behavior. Specifically, "off-colour jokes" and "crude humour". He thinks that "these things are all healthy male banter". Read our posts again. This is pretty obvious.

Essentially, his complaint is that he can't engage in crude and uncivil dialogue in mixed company without facing social consequences for his admittedly anti-social behavior. He blames women, though I doubt many men would want to work with someone that unprofessional. He puts me in mind of the Drew character from Office Space. Would you want to work with someone like that?

Re: And we care because...why?

[Ol Olsoc]

Thanks. I find women more responsible than men. This is all coming from a guy.

Of my three favorite bosses, two were women. I do not at all subscribe to the "woman managers are bitches" theory.

Re: And we care because...why?

[BasilBrush]

You're quite the social inadequate, aren't you.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Ol Olsoc]

But why did we have so many more women in computing in the 80s and 90s? Why did the "weak woman" appear after that point in time? It's recent enough that we should be able to reverse it before it becomes entrenched.

I'm saying that the things that keep women out of STEM, especially programming, are it's inherent unpleasantnesses - no respect by management, not so hot pay, primitive working conditions, long hours, and not particularly good employment prospects. I've asked more than once, "Why would anyone want to go to this field?"

It's entrenched pretty well, I doubt that it will change.

The thing I don't like about blaming it on the patriarchy is that with the other things mentioned above, we can spend a long time trying to fix the wrong problem.

Re:And we care because...why?

[Grishnakh]

The problem is that some people's opinions somehow carry more weight than others, and they somehow get favor with the court system. A man would have to be either very brave or very stupid to try to get a job as a kindergarten teacher these days.

Re: And we care because...why?

[martas]

and were clearly interested in them in the past

You mean back when those jobs looked nothing like they do today? Gee, I wonder what might have changed since those times...

Re: And we care because...why?

[Darinbob]

They still look pretty similar. Ie, computer help desk support is mostly the same, such as interacting politely with clients and helping the entire company run smoothly. No wait, I guess that did change... But I'm still writing code, it's still in C or C++, still some shell scripting, not doing anything stupid like JavaScript. Of course many of the same women from back then are still in computing, the problem is getting new women into the field.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Anonymous Coward]

No you've got it wrong. The point is that the overpaid, overentitled, overcompensated, overly favored MALE (or any majority with a shared attribute) is using it's influence to KEEP OUT FEMALES (or any minority with a shared attribute and an axe to grind) and therefore the MALES (or any majority with a shared attribute) MUST BE SUBVERTED AT ANY COST! It does not matter if there is only a ~0.00000000000000001% MALE (or any majority with a shared attribute) population for the given job (or any possible activity) the FEMALES (or any minority with a shared attribute and an axe to grind) MUST NOT SUFFER BECAUSE OF THE MEN! (or any majority with a shared attribute!) And you can bet that as long as that sub 1% MALE (or any majority with a shared atrribute) is present at the given job (or any possible activity) FEMALES (or any minority with a shared attribute and an axe to grind) will SUFFER until that sub 1% becomes 0%.

As far as computer programming goes I'm all for more women to be programmers if they want to be programmers. I do think some bad actors exist in IT that disbar people based on prejudice, and those bad actors should be held accountable for their actions. I just don't think it's as bad as it's currently being claimed, and I think that there are some who are using the real bad cases to gain an unfair advantage by crying victim. An opinion that gets reinforced when I see things like the last part of the summary: "Of course, getting women into programming is one thing; keeping them is the next big challenge." emphasis mine. So if they don't want to be programmers, then why should we force them to be programmers? Isn't that just as bad as keeping out those that do? Why should they be lured into to a career that they don't want and then be kept there by force of society? Oh right, it has nothing to do with desire to participate and everything to do with creating victims, punishing the innocent, and giving power to whose who helped organize all of it.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Darinbob]

So why do men want to go into the field if it's so unpleasant?

I don't think it's so bad. It's a pretty cushy job actually. Good hours, good employment prospects, the pay is awesome, and management listens to what I have to say. Of course, I'm not junior either and not in IT.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Darinbob]

Except it really isn't that different in many ways. IT is the same - help out the clients and keep the computing infrastructure running smoothly. Except that 30 years ago it wasn't full of people who panicked whenever a woman walked by. Programming is mostly the same unless you're on the web.

But if the computing world was a million times smaller, why did men grow to fill the ranks when space opened up and not women?

Re: And we care because...why?

[KGIII]

Once in a while you say something intelligent. That was one of those times. It appears to be more frequent as of late which makes me wonder if you've modified your views (which is perfectly acceptable once one removes ego from the equation), are tempering your speech, or have learned to articulate better. You sure as hell don't need my approval for anything but, suffice to say, I approve.

As an egalitarian, I think the key metric is equal opportunity. Women are vastly over-represented in higher education but opt for different fields than men. While this may seem like a bad thing, I am forced to ask why it is seen as bad? If they opt to not enter the field then who are we to force them? Do they not have enough encouragement already? What problem is being solved by advocating change and how will this negatively impact others or is an ends-justify-the-means situation? How come, for instance, you're not advocating equality in sentencing for criminal convictions?

Given what I've seen, and I could be considered a bit of an outsider looking in, so few have kept their eye on the goal of equality. That is the goal, right?

What do you hope to resolve? What goals do you have? Women aren't some weak construct that need protection. We're generally past the point of having to whack Og over the head lest he drag your woman off using her taint as a one would use a plastic six pack ring. If women are choosing to not get involved in the field then why try to create a false motivation? Let them do what they want and are capable of. If the issue is ignorant people creating an offensive and hostile environment then deal with that but to think this is applicable to a single gender is intellectual dishonesty.

Re:And we care because...why?

[KGIII]

Hmm... Hiring women isn't just going to magically make more brains in the field unless you're advocating hiring folks they don't already need to hire for some strange reason.

Re:And we care because...why?

[Ian A. Shill]

Is it true that sometimes smart people want to do other things with their time than work in IT?

Re: And we care because...why?

[AmiMoJo]

Is that something that actually happened in real life, your just in your paranoid fantasies?

If it happened in real life, how did the unfair dismissal lawsuits go? Why don't you name the company to publicly shame them, like we would with other sexist companies?

Sorry, but extraordinary claims like this are going to need a little bit of proof.

Re: And we care because...why?

[AmiMoJo]

At can be either the third wave "weak woman" model, where some incredibly trivial things can apparently force a young lady who is passionately into programming into dropping it completely.

It's nowhere near as extreme as that most of the time.

I'm male. I was previous at a really crap job. No support, no documentation, lots of pressure. I left and moved to a different industry after about six months. I'm not weak willed or anything like that, I just don't see why I should put up with a crap job and work environment when I can move on and have a much easier, better life somewhere else.

I'm passionate about programming. I do it as a hobby, for fun. I also do it as a job, but I'd be happy to move into another unrelated field. Doesn't mean I'd be "giving up" on programming, just means I'd be doing it as a hobby only and working on something else.

Re: And we care because...why?

[devent]

That's a no brainer. Because if a job is open people will take it. But woman have more options than man. For example, marrying a man who goes into STEM, or make money off looks (which includes everything from ads, to modeling, to porn, to marrying), or go into services or nursery or kindergarten or teacher jobs.

Re: And we care because...why?

[meta-monkey]

I think you just have a shitty workplace. Mine is nothing like that.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Ol Olsoc]

So why do men want to go into the field if it's so unpleasant?

I'm not so certain all that many do any more. And the stereotype of the shy geek does have some origins based in reality. Its also how I got involved in it, because all of our IT people had great trouble interfacing with the suits. So they needed someone who was comfortable around shakers and movers.

I do know that when we moved my whole group into the basement area where before there were only a few of us, the ladies wanted carpeting, and they wanted a drop ceiling put in where there were once only concrete floors and pipes and ductwork ceilings. Before that, I never gave much thought to the decor.

It is folly to think that women and men have the exact same thought processes. Women are in general, better communicators, and much more aware of their surroundings. Men are in general, much more focused on problems. Put those things together, and you have a darn good synergy. Having people not think alike and make for great innovation.

I've always identified as a pragmatic. Ideology takes a distant second to the concept of having things work. Which is all to say that Identifying IT as a hotbed of sexual discrimination and harassment, and the weak examples put out as proof - like a photo of a Playboy model's face, long used in Classes on digital photo work, or dongle jokes, or the word "bossy" - as the root causes of less female participation are silly and destructive to women.

Because you cannot buy into those excuses without buying into the idea that women are weak, and cannot handle anything perceived as a problem. I know women are not weak, but there is a lot of pressure put on society to accept that almost Victorian model of gender.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Ol Olsoc]

At can be either the third wave "weak woman" model, where some incredibly trivial things can apparently force a young lady who is passionately into programming into dropping it completely.

It's nowhere near as extreme as that most of the time.

I'm male. I was previous at a really crap job. No support, no documentation, lots of pressure. I left and moved to a different industry after about six months. I'm not weak willed or anything like that, I just don't see why I should put up with a crap job and work environment when I can move on and have a much easier, better life somewhere else.

Aren't you making my argument? You left the job because it was for shit, not get out of the field because the job stunk.

The last thing I would say is that women are weak. Which is why the weak woman concept espoused by so many - the woman who will actually abandon a career path based on silly reasons, is so weird. There is absolutely no way that every single job in IT will be perfect, where everyone respects each other, and nary a negative comment is heard. That just isn't how humanity works.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Blymie]

No, it is very much different. Your example of sameness (help clients and keep things running smoothly) could be said of computing versus hvac equipment. So what if you still help clients? You do that at McDonalds too! So what if you have to maintain something?

You have to maintain and keep any number of things running smoothly, from a slushie machine to a high end server farm. That doesn't make them the same, but good try at trying to pretend that someone could be parachuted in from 30+ years ago, or even 20 years ago, and be able to do the job today.

No. Way. It is an ENTIRELY new field. New management techniques. A new place in the business place. More widespread. More complex, by FAR in a variety of different ways.

But all of this is a red herring! Who the hell cares how many people of what type were in the computing field $x years ago. It is an utterly meaningless metric. So many things change over decades, not only the field itself, but society as a whole, schools, societal norms, you name it!

Yet, you're picking on some unrelated example, and thinking that it has to do with what's inside. It isn't. Look at the world in its entirety.

Perhaps there are good, high paying jobs in other fields? Perhaps there are fewer women that want to be in the workplace? Or, any number of things?

Further -- sexism is about equal opportunity, not equality. Women are NOT men. They are NOT THE SAME as men. At all! Why?

Because we're using the plural, and the plural allows one to use statistics to validate data on large sets.

Individually? Sure, there are smart women, educated women, women that WANT to be educated, and women that beat out men in many metrics. Equality is all about ensuring that even though metrics exist, that stipulate that a certain group tends to be "this way", that the *individual* gets the change to show their own skillset.

So, it is absolutely, 100% not wrong to say "Women are not well suited to technology fields in general". Because it is *true*.

The very important thing, however, is that "no one is left behind" due to the above valid assertion. Because yeah, individually, there are some kick ass women out there, in this field -- and others that can contribute equally well.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Blymie]

And I might add -- the whole point of my above statement, is simply this.

If women don't want to be in the field, WHO CARES. All that is important is that there are no blockers if a woman DOES want to be in the field, and she is capable.

That's it. Anything else is an INSULT to women. The thought process that "We need to HELP these POOR, INCOMPETENT, TIMID creatures get into a workplace" is absurd beyond comprehension.

Women are STRONG. They don't need YOUR help, or ANYONE's help, as long as artificial blockers to employment are not in place.

As for language, and "how people act", what the hell man? I've met women that are far more foul then men. If you want the workplace to change, then fine, it can change. But it had better not change for one sex or the other, but for logical reasons.

Re:And we care because...why?

[lsatenstein]

women, genetically, are more maticulus then men. Once on the project, they produce far far better code than do men. Unlike men, when they get home, they have other responsibilities, such as children, groceries, etc. Let her husband assume those responsibilities, and watch--much higher quality code, with good clean logic.

Thats been my fantastic experience as their project leader. Suck that up Guys.

Re: And we care because...why?

[sky75]

The problem I see with your "weak women" argument is that you seem to suggest that all of the harassment women in STEM fields is trivial and if that drives you from the field, you are weak. I am a female and have worked in IT my whole life, from my very first support job answering phones at a local ISP, to software development, to my current role in engineering management. I am not the kind of woman who gets offended at pictures of scantily clad playboy models. I have, over the course of my 20+ years in this field: 1) Had a customer refuse to speak to me because I was female (he stated this explicitly); when I refused to get him another tech but told him I'd be happy to troubleshoot the problem, he said "how about I troubleshoot on your ass, and you swallow?" My director later said I should have found a male tech for him to work with. 2) Had someone offer to help me get a job at their company if I slept with them 3) Had my boss at the time IM me from his office to tell me he was jerking off and thinking of me 5) Had very many socially awkward co-workers ask me out in a variety of inappropriate ways - leaving notes on my car, persistent e-mails after an explicit no, and one guy who said he felt like I was laughing at him when I declinded his advances. 6) Watched ideas I've pitched be ignored until they were repeated ad nauseam by a male co-worker 7) Heard managers say they won't promote women because they just get pregnant and leave 8) Heard co-workers say they will quit if one of the females are promoted to be their team lead because they won't work for a woman The point is, I've managed to thrive in this field despite these things but at times it has been extremely difficult. Women are not asking for things to be easy, but they are asking for an equal chance.

Re: And we care because...why?

[Ol Olsoc]

The problem I see with your "weak women" argument is that you seem to suggest that all of the harassment women in STEM fields is trivial and if that drives you from the field, you are weak.

Wow. It's time for me to just keep quiet about this. No matter how I try to say that women are actually strong, and not weak, I'm wrong. I say they are stronger than the excuses given for them staying out of STEM. It's too confusing to say women are strong, then have people come back to say I'm saying they are weak when I say thyy are not. I give up.

I'll state one last time my thoughts, then go back to the tried and true method of not sharing my opinion.

Real actual sexual harassment should in every case be pursued actively. Perhaps the list of what construes sexual harassment is being expanded beyond reasonable expectations. Because It's a big world, and a lot of people in it, some who are plain nasty. It woud be great if we could protect everyone from jerks. The guy that tried to force my wife to give him oral sex at work has now become the moral equivalent of a dongle joke.

BTW, she aggressively proceed to use the system to destroy his life after that little assault.

Work is often nasty for everyone, men included.

Anyhow, I''m sorry for your experiences. You might actually prove my point about the strength of women, but I'm finished with the matter.

Re: And we care because...why?

[nick_urbanik]

HR cracks down hard on the three male programmers, who have no idea why they're being attacked.

Happens all the time. It's so sad that as a result, we cannot have attractive, interesting people around any more, just more of those male programmers.

Re: And we care because...why?

[hucker75]

The best person for the job should be hired, not making sure we have 50% women, 50% niggers, 50% poofters, etc.

Keeping them certainly is the challenge

[Anonymous Coward]

When I started in the industry, in 1974, there were a significant number of women around and, by comparison, it was a non-sexist workplace.

Fast forward a few decades and one of the brightest students I ever taught - she had a Master's in art history before deciding to become a member of the IT crowd - tells me she's quitting and training to become an "aesthetician" because she is sick and tired of (I paraphrase) being treated like shit because she is female. She is far happier and more relaxed now.

Oh yes, this is a real problem.

   

Re:Keeping them certainly is the challenge

[gstoddart]

tells me she's quitting and training to become an "aesthetician" because she is sick and tired of (I paraphrase) being treated like shit because she is female

So now instead of working with assholes she'll have to look at them.

That she considers this an improvement says just how bad it must be.

Re:Keeping them certainly is the challenge

[Anonymous Coward]

When I started in the industry, in 1974, there were a significant number of women around and, by comparison, it was a non-sexist workplace.

I started in 1985. Same story. About 1/3 women engineers (with also a woman CTO), very collegial work environment. We didn't have the draconian harassment laws where injury is determined by the alleged "victim". And yet, the kind of brogrammer behavior we read about now would have gotten any man at least chewed out by his super, ostracized by the rest of us, and likely fired.

Re:Keeping them certainly is the challenge

[Grishnakh]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the 80s were a better time. Everything went down the tubes with the invention of grunge music.

Re:Keeping them certainly is the challenge

[Oligonicella]

So is "AC" some landmark where we can begin to check to see that this is a real story as opposed to something you just made up to support a particular view, complete with self-appointed authority ("I ever taught")?

Re:Keeping them certainly is the challenge

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to break it to you, but your apprentice was being treated like shit because technical people get treated like shit. She just had an excuse and was able to apply the Narrative.

I lost a very bright student as well (Bachelor in English fwiw) who wanted to learn some programming because she wanted to be a more valuable employee. The department she was in was 90% female and 100% female at the management level then.

On the other hand, maybe it does have to do with being a woman. When I used to be in that department, I'd tell it like it was when I got shit, and I was very good at making my case for the boss, who was a very fair and level-headed woman, although I suspect she was giving me male privilege at a subconscious level. Otherwise one of the best bosses I've ever had, learned a lot of non-technical things from her.

Re:Keeping them certainly is the challenge

[stephanruby]

IT is just like HR.

If your department is not seen as the main revenue generator for your company, you can easily be treated like shit by everyone else within your company.

It may not just be because you're a woman.

Is it Friday already?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Percentage of uterus-possessing humans in random field annoys SJWs

I didn't realize it was Friday. Please, go on.

Weekly "diversity in tech article"

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like it came early this week!

Re:Weekly "diversity in tech article"

[jsrjsr]

Hmmmm... I usually get 15 points and they arrive twice a week. I use them up pretty fast. Guess you've got a ways to go yet.

Re:Weekly "diversity in tech article"

[KGIII]

I have no idea? LOL I only get 5 at a time? I have 'excellent' karma. I once got ten and was kind of surprised by it. They appear randomly, though I'm sure they're not truly random.

Retention is a bigger issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I graduated with a masters degree in CS in 2008, and as such now have 7 years job experience. Watching the other women I graduated with it's entirely a retention issue. The reasons for why they left the field were wildly varying, but I only know of two who graduated with me who are still in the industry out of maybe twenty.

Re:Retention is a bigger issue

[tomhath]

Yup. My experience is that a large percentage work for a couple of years, then start having babies and are gone forever. Daycare for one is tough, leaving two or more cute toddlers and paying for day care isn't worth going to the office.

Re:Retention is a bigger issue

[T.E.D.]

But you should see that same effect with every industry, not just with CS. Toddlers aren't more expensive to care for when you program computers for a living. There clearly has to be something else going on, something specific to CS.

Re:Retention is a bigger issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Take an informal survey of female programmers that you know (might be a small sample size, unfortunately). Of those who are married, what is the profession of the partner? I'm willing to bet (based on my experience) that the answer is "programmer". Even if the woman is not married to another programmer or engineer, chances are they are married to someone who makes a lot of money. I have *never* met a woman in IT who had significantly more earning potential than their husband.

Which is not to say that I think there is a huge wage disparity between men and women in IT (I think there is one, but it is very small in NA). It's just as well that I am posting AC, because I think this next statement will not be popular with some people, however true I think it is: it seems to me that woman (in general) tend to choose partners either in the same social class that they are in or higher. Men seem to do the opposite.

The upshot is that women in IT (or other high paying professions) who have babies also have husbands who make enough money to support a single income family. Also, most countries/companies give maternity leave, but not paternity leave. So this means that a woman with a high paying job (that has good maternity benefits) will take up to a year off work to look after the baby. Her husband will spend approximately 0% of that time looking after the baby. Most people have their first baby within 10 years of starting their career in IT, so that 1 year represents 10% or more of your overall experience.

Every woman in IT I have ever worked with who has had a baby has experienced the same thing. They intend to go back to work after maternity leave. After a year of being the sole care taker of their precious baby, they can not imagine anyone else looking after the baby. Their husbands have gotten promoted and been given raises in that one year, so the prospect of the husband looking after the baby seems ridiculous. Since there is enough money coming in (and day care is expensive anyway), the thought of handing over the baby to some one else seems absolutely horrible at that point.

For some professions (like doctors or lawyers) there may be considerable pressure for the woman to come back to work because the practice is an independent business. But for programmers, engineers, technicians, research scientists, etc there is very little pressure to return. A year away is a long time and their jobs have long since been filled by someone else.

My personal opinion is, if you want women to stay working, you have to give them a reasonable alternative to being the sole care taker of their baby. For example, if maternity leave was set at 6 months and if the spouse were then given paternal leave for the next 6 months, women would have a reasonable choice for returning to work for at least 6 months while their partner was looking after the child. It would also even out the burden for careers across the partners, so that the woman isn't always at a disadvantage.

I think without this kind of change, the only place that women will be a representative force in the work place is in lower paying jobs where the woman is forced to go back to work because her partner can not support the family on a single income.

subjects are for cows

[Anonymous Coward]

Females in tech are still bumping up against the glass ceiling

I feel for 'em! I'm a guy and I keep bumping up against the glass ceiling, too! I wanna be a multi-millionaire! I would even settle for billionaire!

More women = good stuff!

[grub]

I keep the sexual harassment forms in the bottom drawer of my desk.
That way when a woman goes to get one, I can check out her ass.

Re:More women = good stuff!

[dontbemad]

I wish I had mod points today.

+1 Hilarious

Re:More women = good stuff!

[grub]

It was a joke: nothing more, nothing less.
Like if I were gay and wrote "Oh that's too bad, less cocks to go around." Lighten up.

Re:More women = good stuff!

[pecosdave]

Look at the users profile picture, I do believe we have a celebrity poster on our hands!

Re:More women = good stuff!

[grub]

FEWER cocks, sorry.

Re:More women = good stuff!

[LaurenCates]

Oh, get over yourself. I'm female and I gave him a mod point for that.

I haven't made use of my fainting couch in years, by the way.

-LaurenC

Re:More women = good stuff!

[LaurenCates]

Uh, whoops.

The woman giveth, and Slashdot taketh away.

Re:More women = good stuff!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a joke that reinforces the associations. That makes it a bad joke.

Re:More women = good stuff!

[LaurenCates]

I don't think you're replying to me, but I will have you know that my tits were voted the sweetest at the New York State Fair in Twenty-Aught-Three.

To casually pass around a title that some of us have earned, damn it, why that's an insult, you contemptible cur!

And if that was directed at me, apologies in order, and thank you for addressing me by my proper title.

Re:More women = good stuff!

[Oligonicella]

As with many AC's, this one has decided s/he is an arbiter of social norms. In this case, what constitutes a "good" joke.

Re:More women = good stuff!

[Oligonicella]

Hers were far more aesthetically appealing.

Re:More women = good stuff!

[grub]

No problem, you can mail me a mod point.
Cheers!

Re:More women = good stuff!

[LaurenCates]

Wouldn't you prefer pics from the aforementioned goat?

Apparently, it must have been a close enough race that my victory is in doubt.

Re:More women = good stuff!

[HornWumpus]

Bad joke...smack...bad...

Re:More women = good stuff!

[thinkwaitfast]

In other words, fly. Los Angeles beckons.

Re:More women = good stuff!

[KGIII]

Going to spell the return is one of the magic for any reason AyrLine or abandoned persons of Yaadein for dayanlmas have AC and kind skntlarn solution adn preferred magic spell to bring back the outgoing one Ceiter much preferred.
Going to bring back the magic of one of the abandoned AyrLine couples preferred to lie magic lovers reunite. What is the outgoing how to bring back the magic are due to http: // gidenigerigetirmebuyu of ... [gideniger of ... magic.com] abandonment of the detailed information from our website if you want to bring back the magic going as you alabilece Bonds or ayrlmann details should be known and balatlmald play accordingly. According to where they stand in the Ksacas playing different persons may be adjusted.If you want to bring back the magic Bonds is going to pass it enables communication with persons are advised to have sufficient knowledge experience to this spells. Aldatldk from the side of many of fake psychics who want to bring back the magic going kandrldk Bonds are known.So to bring back the magic or psychic choice for any play is very important. Especially going to bring back the magic of the virtual environment is not far from claiming yaptklarn medyumlarn closely Connection for a portion with the great psychic.These people are well-informed even if they claim they are expressions unintended and steal Fixture for many of these persons playing side made from the actual medium is not the slightest information about it. Fake medyumlarn not Madura our site http: // gidenigerigetirmebuyu of ... [gideniger the ... buyusu.co I] can visit.You can get information on our website for information and details bring back the magic of going about it. but also for going to or leaving the Fixture lover you can share about this spell CEI yorumlarnz hesitation.

That doesn't help but it looks like a Markov chain bot in a different language. My browser add-on indicates it is Turkish and the translation was done with Google's engine.

No, I have no idea why I bothered.

Re:More women = good stuff!

[cwsumner]

Wouldn't you prefer pics from the aforementioned goat?

Apparently, it must have been a close enough race that my victory is in doubt.

Now, -that- is funny!!
sorry no mod points today...

The populatiry of Women in the workplace

[Anonymous Coward]

The trend is to hire more of them in all capacities and jettison the men,
The popularity of this I attribute to them being easily dominated by managerial types, men are far more likely to seek a little more parking lot justice than their female counterparts...

All joking aside, I would never exploit that feature myself, but nearly every boss man I ever met would do it in a second. God help us the American workplace is such a fricken joke. So much amazing science goes into how to fuck us that I wouldn't want any human being to be subjected to it.

Naturally

[Faust6]

I would think so given the amount of corporate subsidies and incentives available in the past few years. Lets see what happens when those are removed.

I don't believe her.

[gerald.edward.butler]

In all my years working in IT I have NEVER seen the kind of behavior that is claimed. Women get out of IT because IT sucks. It's incredibly socially isolating (working with a machine all day). *Most* women want much more inter-personal interaction. That's a fact.

Re:I don't believe her.

[PaulRivers10]

Yeah, your post is 100% right on. Programming is basically dealing with a sociopath all day long. It doesn't care how you feel, or your social rules, and it's not a person.

Re:I don't believe her.

[Anonymous Coward]

Programming involves dealing with many sociopaths all day long. The computer is the only honest one out of the bunch.

Re:I don't believe her.

[AmiMoJo]

I'm getting a 500 error from TFA, I guess the hamster died, but I've seen stuff that puts women off.

At university one lecturer was quite dismissive of female students. Still, that's nothing compared to what a women I met years later told me about. Her lecturer wouldn't help her at all, refusing to explain anything and only working with male students. He was apparently quite openly sexist, although this was eastern Europe and I don't think that level would be tolerated in western European countries.

At work I've seen a few things... Lots of unwanted attention. A bit of mansplaining. It's generally a good place to work though, not too bad. The worst incident was a microagression against homosexuals. A guy interviewed and afterwards the interviewers were telling the rest of us about him. His personality came up and one guy blurted out "oh god, he's not gay is he?" Sometimes it just slips out.

Fortunately we have a fairly progressive policy on paternity leave and needing time off for kid stuff (illness, accidents, school etc.) so the guys who have become fathers have been okay, but one told me that the place his wife was at were being really difficult about it and effectively demoted her.

Re:I don't believe her.

[T.E.D.]

*Most* women want much more inter-personal interaction. That's a fact.

No, its not, Its a either a theory or a belief. If its a belief, then no amount of data will sway you from it. If its a theory, we should be able to test it with data.

Myers-Briggs personality tests measure this exact thing, and are very widespread. The resulting data is that 47.4% of women are introverts (a minority, but barely), while 54.7% of men are introverts (barely a majority). When you add in the fact that there are more women than men, in absolute numbers it should be pretty close to a wash. But at best this explanation of yours should, according to your theory, result in women only being about 47% of SW developers instead of 50%.

How you react to this data IMHO determines whether your supposed "fact" was a theory or part of a belief system...

Re:I don't believe her.

[KGIII]

Well, to be fair, wouldn't the remaining 52.6% qualify as "most?" They didn't say things like, "an overwhelming majority." In fact, and not an opinion or belief, your data says exactly what they said. Perhaps you meant to say it is a trivial amount? Of course, how you react to this actual fact is important. > 50% = most. Of course they could have been more articulate - then, you could have too.

Re:I don't believe her.

[T.E.D.]

Well, to be fair, wouldn't the remaining 52.6% qualify as "most?" They didn't say things like, "an overwhelming majority."

No, just strongly implied it. Also implied it is enough to explain the discrepancy, which would be a flat out lie. As they say, statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics.

Re:Abandon IT

[Grishnakh]

They're not going to be tossed out as obsolete. As another poster above noted, women are a majority, not a minority. Just not in actual coding; they're a majority in places in management, project management, testing, and UI design. So the women are concentrating (smartly, I'll add) in things which will be the last things to be outsourced, if ever, and aren't as subject to age discrimination. As usual, this shows that women in general are more social than men, and move into jobs which require more socializing and less of just keeping your nose stuck to a monitor all day, even when it involves working with men who do exactly this.

Re:Abandon IT

[__aaclcg7560]

Thank God I'm working IT in the government sector. I'm 46-years-old and surrounded by other gray beards like myself. Can't outsource my job when a security clearance is involved.

Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[Chris Mattern]

The fact that 48% of first programmers are women does nothing to show more women are getting into programming. It is entirely possible (and maybe probable) that it's been 48% for a long time, and what we're seeing is not more women getting into programming but that a lot of them are getting out again quickly.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[LaurenCates]

Or that it's a natural effect of programming becoming somewhat less of an end unto itself, but as a utility for another career.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[T.E.D.]

The fact that 48% of first programmers are women does nothing to show more women are getting into programming. It is entirely possible (and maybe probable) that it's been 48% for a long time,

It hasn't been. For instance, here's a graph showing CS undergrad degrees (which ought to correlate a fair bit) plotted against the rate at which women enroll for other degrees. For every other degree there's a steady upward trend, but for women something weird happened in 1984 and they peaked there at about 37%. Last year (assuming I'm reading it right) only about 18% of CS undergrads were women. If there's been a big spike up, that's encouraging to see.

FWIW, I got my degree in '89 and this jibes pretty well with my experience. After my first year in the industry, when yes about a third of my coworkers were women, I had seemingly fewer female colleagues every year. My immediate development group has had no females in it since I started here in 1998, until this summer when we had a female intern for a few months.

One wonders why someone would speculate on this subject, when data is easily available. It really amazes me the length (male) people will go to in order to argue that there's no real problem here. I guess some guys really like living in 1975. Ugh.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[RedK]

None of your data support your argument that this is a problem though. What if women just aren't majorly interested in programming in IT, just like it seems men are less interested in daycare work ?

What barriers do you perceive for women in IT/Programming ? Because I see none. I see a bunch of folks dumping a lot of good money into "fixing" it though, so I guess there's good money to be made in pretending there is a problem.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[HornWumpus]

84 was the peak of the first computer gold rush.

The girls were just picking majors based on salary surveys.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[T.E.D.]

The girls were just picking majors based on salary surveys.

And guys don't do this? You have some data to back this speculation up with? I wouldn't dare make a blanket speculation about jewish people all being greedy or black people all being lazy without even a fig leaf of data to hold up. So why is it OK to do that with a stereotype-based argument about women being greedy and less interested in intellectual pursuits for their own sake than men?

I really don't get this. I don't get why its OK with everyone for an entire industry to be such a huge demographic anomaly, I don't get why its OK to dismiss every fact presented with BS made up on the spot, and I don't get why its OK to use complaints about it as a free excuse to spread unsupported (and provably wrong) stereotypes. Its like this one topic somehow magically transforms a community of data and logic driven thinkers into the Divinity School of Liberty University.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[T.E.D.]

None of your data support your argument that this is a problem though. What if women just aren't majorly interested in programming in IT, just like it seems men are less interested in daycare work ?

You are seriously countering objective data with "What if..." and absolutely nothing else? Simply stopping your search for information the instant you hit on something possibly exculpatory is for climate deniers and anti-vaxxers, not a self-respecting nerd. If you think there's a hole there, attack it. Go find yourself some data on women's "natural interests" that controls for societal effects, and throw it up here.

(Hint: unless you are far better at this than I, you won't find it. I've looked. It turns out that women's personalities aren't that different from men's, and what differences do seem to exist aren't of either the kind or the magnitude required to explain the data).

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't get why its OK with everyone for an entire industry to be such a huge demographic anomaly

Same reason everyone is OK with the "anomalies" in the health sector, education sector, clothing industry, the military, sanitation, etc.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[HornWumpus]

Dimwit, I will explain.

I will use smalls number so you can understand.

There are 2 people majoring in CS, they genuinely like it etc. They are both men (duh).

Now the salaries go crazy and the greedy show up, 4 men and 4 women join the program. What just happened to the skew?

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[AmiMoJo]

Indeed, retention is a problem. We are hearing a variety of reasons. Fortunately overt sexism does seem to be declining, but things like unwanted attention, suspicion (some people seem to think all women are litigious or primed to accuse) and poor work/life balance are sill big issues. Of course they affect men as well, but are more likely to make women switch career.

Having said that, the numbers presented here don't seem to tally with the numbers graduating. Could women be switching to programming after graduation?

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[LaurenCates]

The funny thing is, a lot of people in this thread do the whole "assertions" thing and lack evidence.

There's a glass ceiling...except for people like Marissa Mayer, Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton.
There's a brogrammer culture...except nobody's hauled out any proof that this is a thing.
There's evidence that maybe men and women have different preferences in careers...except where there isn't.
There's an overwhelming amount of sexism that takes place in workplaces...except in places that are pretty helpful and facilitate careers for women (and if you think there isn't, it's because you didn't ask your HR department).

Can we all just agree that there isn't really a homogeneity in the world where things are all the same in all places?

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[T.E.D.]

Dimwit, I will explain. I will use smalls number so you can understand. There are 2 people majoring in CS, they genuinely like it etc. They are both men (duh). Now the salaries go crazy and the greedy show up, 4 men and 4 women join the program. What just happened to the skew?

So you are proposing that in fact the absolute numbers completely changed around in 1984, and that's what caused this? OK...so why didn't you actually go grab those numbers to prove me wrong?

Perhaps because the actual numbers don't show that? See, the absolute enrollment numbers for men and women went up during that period for a further 2 years, and then leveled off. There was a bubble there, but it peaked years after the share of women did, and the level on either side in absolute terms was roughly the 1983 numbers (whereas the delta afterwards has been steadily increasing). So no, there isn't really any relation between the absolute numbers and relative ones, and no, there was no huge drop off in enrollments in 1984.

Bah. Enough of doing trivial research for sexists with intellectual projection issues. Next time, do your own googling. I'm not interested in any more rectally-extracted theories.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[T.E.D.]

Heh. While as insulting as all my other responses, this one is at least based on actual data. Bravo to you, AC!

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[HornWumpus]

You need to look at the decade running up to it, not 2 years. There was a great increase in money chasing enrollment running up to the peak. At 2 year difference in the peak isn't likely statistically significant.

I sat on the floor of the overstuffed lecture halls. EE not CS. But close enough.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[T.E.D.]

You need to look at the decade running up to it, not 2 years. There was a great increase in money chasing enrollment running up to the peak. At 2 year difference in the peak isn't likely statistically significant.

Again, I'm through chasing zephyrs on this subject. Do you have data that shows "money chasing enrollment"? Because I could counter-speculate that the whole argument is BS, based on specialist doctors and lawyers being options making far more money for about the same intellectual requirements if you don't care about anything but money, and then you could argue they aren't the same because of the extra education required, and we can be here forever arguing over made up BS.

Data, or it isn't an argument.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[T.E.D.]

Having said that, the numbers presented here don't seem to tally with the numbers graduating. Could women be switching to programming after graduation?

They actually don't jibe with any numbers I've seen. It was a self-selected internet survey, so about the furthest thing from scientific that could be imagined.

It would be nice if it were true, and we've finally got this issue on the way to being fixed. But the survey just being an outlier seems the more likely explanation right now.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[thinkwaitfast]

From my experience, most males get out too.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[KGIII]

Curious. You didn't tell them to supply data when the vast majority of your other replies to speculation contained exactly that request. Methinks you're too emotionally invested to offer a valid opinion.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[T.E.D.]

RedK is asking a completely fair question:

No he isn't. He's throwing up something he just thought up off the top of his head as an excuse not to look into this issue any further. We know this because he could easily have spent 3 minutes googling this question himself and come up with data one way or the other. (What am I, his personal Google monkey?) The fact that he didn't bother proves he doesn't give a shit about getting to the bottom of the issue; just about finding an excuse for ignoring it.

Re:Conclusion not supported by given evidence

[meta-monkey]

Your reasoned arguments and pleasant conversational tone have no place on the Internet. You were supposed to call him a "faggot white knight SJW" in all capital letters followed by no fewer than six exclamation points. Girls are so bad at interneting.

Basement

[Art Challenor]

Do women programmer's live in their dad's basement? Just asking...

Re:Basement

[frank_adrian314159]

Do women programmer's live in their dad's basement?

Well, if it tracks the male programming population, probably only about 90% or so of 'em.

Yes, that was a joke... Now you know why I don't make them often.

Re:Basement

[drinkypoo]

Ummm... Do we still call them neck beards?

Given modern grooming techniques, it's multiply inappropriate to refer to women as 'beards'.

It's a Miracle Problem Solved

[Crashmarik]

Enough already.

Best and Brightest

[PopeRatzo]

Stories about women in tech always bring out the best in Slashdot readers.

Re:Best and Brightest

[T.E.D.]

Stories about women in tech always bring out the best in Slashdot readers.

It really has gotten to where I dread opening any such story. For everything else, I can find really good insightful commentary. For this subject, it seems like all the moderators are members of the Bobby Riggs fan club.

Re:Best and Brightest

[T.E.D.]

Anything relating to race brings out the white supremacists.

That I've seen too. To a letter extent than the mysongony, but it happens. The thing is, the proverbial "racist, sexist, anti-gay..." folks are always here. They post on every story. Browse at -1 and you'll see what I mean. The difference is that on a story like this, the moderators agree with them.

That's the part that's so evil and depressing.

Re:Best and Brightest

[LaurenCates]

Where is this misogyny I keep hearing about?

Generally, the guys in these threads are pretty positive on me.

Now, I've been accused of being a karma whore before, and I'm not going to say that doesn't bother me.

But I don't get the sense that Slashdot, or tech in general is any more miserable for women than anywhere else is.

People are dicks to each other sure, and they'll find ways of finding your soft spot. If your soft spot is that you get touchy when anyone insists you're inferior because you're a woman, congratulations, that's where the dicks are going to keep hitting you.

Calling me a "bitch" and calling you an "asshole" isn't worse for me because I'm a woman. Nor is it misogyny (even though the insult was gendered). It was directed at me and only me. And I have no problem with that. You have every right to feel the way about me that you do, as does everyone else on Slashdot.

However, to say that the majority of the Slashdot population has yet to prove to me that it hates women, and I dare you to prove me wrong.

Re:Best and Brightest

[PopeRatzo]

We're tired of being told how horrible we all are by you authoritarian thugs.

For the record, here was the entirety of my post:

"Stories about women in tech always bring out the best in Slashdot readers."

And the AC takes this as "being told how horrible we all are by you authoritarian thugs". You just can't be nice to some people, I guess.

Re:Best and Brightest

[PopeRatzo]

The motives and ideology of your kind...

Lovely.

Re:Best and Brightest

[KGIII]

They post on every story. Browse at -1 and you'll see what I mean.

Data or it's not an argument. In fact, I can prove you are making data up - there are plenty of articles without racist comments. But, seeing as you made the claim, provide proof.

Not that I'm a racist (I'm actually racially mixed) but I think I've found someone who's pretty damned dishonest. Which is funny because you've then the temerity to claim a moral high ground. "I'm not as wretched as them!" That does not make you a good person. I dare say that you disgust me.

Re:Best and Brightest

[paradox11]

People are dicks to each other sure, and they'll find ways of finding your soft spot. If your soft spot is that you get touchy when anyone insists you're inferior because you're a woman, congratulations, that's where the dicks are going to keep hitting you.

Calling me a "bitch" and calling you an "asshole" isn't worse for me because I'm a woman. Nor is it misogyny (even though the insult was gendered). It was directed at me and only me. And I have no problem with that. You have every right to feel the way about me that you do, as does everyone else on Slashdot.

I think this is spot on. People will attack what they see as vulnerabilities. Once you show that something bothers you.. that means they found your button, and are going to start pressing it.. repeatedly..

The keyword: Worldwide

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It is very common for women to enter IT side in India. In the recent years more women are graduating from college, more women are getting engineering and medical degrees than men in India.

Re:Abandon IT

[Anonymous Coward]

Every company I've worked at that had an official QA department always had the majority of the QA team offshore. Oddly enough, the majority of the onshore QA team were women, while most of the offshore teams were men.

Because Math is no longer required to Program

[OSULugan]

It's because math is no longer required to program effectively, right?

Re:Because Math is no longer required to Program

[serviscope_minor]

Um no not at all. I can't help but wonder what level of lack of comprehension leads to you to believe that learning to code from scratch and becoming an effective coder are remotely the same thing.

Barriers to women often subtle or invisible

[WillAffleckUW]

Here at the UW there are a lot of women engineers, mathematicians, data scientists, biochemists, and computer scientists.

The main problem is that a lot of firms talk about diversity, but aren't great on actually hiring women in tech. And when they get hired, getting shunted into more "traditional" roles, like being asked to cover the phones or front desk (as a female) when the male interns aren't asked to do that.

Fix that. Hire first, treat equally, and fix the top levels too. If your board room is male only, or tokenized, you're doing it wrong.

Re:Barriers to women often subtle or invisible

[wyHunter]

Again, I have 30 years experience in this field and I have never, ever seen that. Guess what? Engineering salaries are far higher than temp workers. Engineers do not get asked to watch the phones regardless of gender. Have you graduated with your BS yet?

Re:Barriers to women often subtle or invisible

[phantomfive]

The main problem is that a lot of firms talk about diversity, but aren't great on actually hiring women in tech. And when they get hired, getting shunted into more "traditional" roles, like being asked to cover the phones or front desk (as a female) when the male interns aren't asked to do that.

I would be really interested if you had evidence of this, because it goes directly contrary to my experience.

Re:Barriers to women often subtle or invisible

[WillAffleckUW]

Who said it was a free market? The barriers to entry in capital formation are fairly steep for women.

I see you think you live in a democracy, when you actually live in an oligarchic republic, and that everyone else has ease of access to capital markets.

How precious.

Re:Barriers to women often subtle or invisible

[WillAffleckUW]

(stares at person)

Right.

Reread what I posted. Like most inexperienced people, you glommed onto the first term, and did not either RTFA or the actual phrase you are "replying" to.

Re:Barriers to women often subtle or invisible

[tazan]

Yeah, I would say the opposite. My experience is they are more likely to get promoted out of their developer job. Someone who knows the application and doesn't mind talking to the customers and can communicate well is fairly rare. Most of the guys on the teams I've been on have no interest in talking to the customers. Most of the guys that don't mind, probably shouldn't.

Re:In your dreams

[Faust6]

Eh? I wasn't privy to college incentives, aside from the mere virtue that being in college is now a necessity. Funny that the trades get so little attention in spite of the lopsided male presence, even with potentially generous compensation (though longer working hours) - that doesn't seem to matter. Breaking down barriers of job segregation in practice just means women in higher education. The corporations are happy I guess with the influx of supply, wages were bound to be suppressed eventually.

Hey OP, wanna know why?

[Anonymous Coward]

This statistic is actually the way its mostly been for a long time. Guess what happens to all these women in 2-4 years time? They get out.

They do one of 2 things:
1. they get married and leave the workforce to have kids.
2. move into a management position.

Re:Abandon IT

[Grishnakh]

There's big disadvantages to that: insane and idiotic government regulations, horrible and shitty software (the government only uses Windows, and loads it down with all kinds of malware), crappy work locations, etc.

Re:Cracked record approach

[mydn]

Flexible working ,creche, part time advertised technical role

I wouldn't want to work anywhere that had a nativity scene displayed all the time.

Re:In your dreams

[LaurenCates]

Ah, Sheryl Sandberg.

Was so squashed by the word "bossy", she cried all the way up to her high-ranking position in a top tech company.

Re:Abandon IT

[__aaclcg7560]

I must be lucky then. The government network I work for is no different than the average Fortune 500 corporate network. The only drawback is that I get up at 4:30AM to catch the express bus to start work at 7:00AM.

In other news...

[TeknoHog]

...more programmers are going into women, if you catch my drift. And I think you do, being the ever so smart programmer yourself.

Percentage of Personality Types (INTJ)

[clifwlkr]

Well one thing that comes to mind is that some of the best programmers tend to be of personality type INTJ. The frequency of INTJ in male vs. female population is clearly shown to be radically different. Let's look at all of the INTx types:
Intellectuals (NT)
Population Male Female
ENTJ - Chief 4% 5.5% 2.5%
ENTP - Originator 4.5% 6% 3%
INTJ - Strategist 1.5% 2.5% 0.5%
INTP - Engineer 2.5% 4% 1%
All NTs 12.5% 18% 7%

Seems to pretty clearly show why we might have a difference in the number of male vs. female programmers, huh? I doubt the males are forcing personality types on them.

Re:Percentage of Personality Types (INTJ)

[Anonymous Coward]

There are much more interesting numbers than that. IQ is not a good indicator of overall intelligence, but it directly tests a few things like pattern recognition and abstract logic. While the curves of men and women are very close, the curves do NOT have the same shape.

The curve for women is steep while the curve for men is more shallow in comparison. This makes men's IQ more variable than women's (this same variableness compared to women is noted in tons of such charts). In addition, there are more men than women that are conceived (with miscarriage rates for males being 2x the rate of females and a ratio of around 100 women for every 108 men -- 105 men in the USA). These numbers become about equal by the 26 or so at which point women continue to gain (think about that, in the US, at least 5/100 men die before 26 -- if no women die at all).

From an evolutionary standpoint, this situation is fairly optimal. Women's genes are more stable meaning that fewer children are being born to absolute idiots. The expense of this stability is fewer women at the extremes (note: fewer does not mean none and does not mean that the women in the extremes are any less capable than men in the same category). In order to continue to push society forward, humanity rolls the risky dice with the men. 108 men are born with more geniuses, but also more idiots. A huge amount of these idiots are killed off early in life (which is probably why IQ favors men by a few points overall). The point in time when most men are considered to be at their most attractive also happens to coincide with the age where the genders approach balance.

Depending on which IQ analysis, the ratio of women/men at the 95th percentile is as much as 1 to 4 with the numbers skewing even more drastically in extreme top. The number of STEM jobs is estimated to be 7.6million, but that number includes non-technical roles as well (things like managers and "sales engineers"). If we accept the given numbers, then 1 in 18 people -- 5.5% of the population -- work in STEM. If these people generally correlate to the best and brightest (interestingly, our 95the percentile number), then we would expect to see ~20% of STEM workers to be women.

Since these numbers are accurately reflected in the current distribution, why would we assume that there is a shortage of women?

Finally, if STEM is so discriminatory, how do we describe other professions. Society as a whole and medicine in particular use to heavily stigmatize against women entering the field. The discrimination faced by women was very pervasive and fairly well-documented. Women dealt with the discrimination and proved how good they can be as doctors. STEM has far less stigma and far less resistance to women entering. Why haven't women done what they did with medicine? The answer is that the women who are both interested and have the capability are entering and succeeding. Any other answer will imply that women are too weak -- sexism of the most extreme kind.

Re:Percentage of Personality Types (INTJ)

[T.E.D.]

Yay! Best high-modded post I've seen.

So based on these numbers for "All NTs", you'd expect to see about a 2:1 male:female ratio in the industry. Let's test this against the real-world data.

What we see is that there was indeed a time when we saw that ratio in CS programs. It was back in 1984. Today, its greater than 5:1. So something else, starting in 1984, happened to CS. Also, it only happened to CS. Not Law School, not Medical School, not the physical sciences. Just CS. For example, INTJ is supposedly the best personality type for scientists. M-B would predict a 5:1 ratio there. Today women are north of 40% of students in the physical sciences.

Conclusions:

1. Meyer's Briggs personality types do not explain the gender distribution in CS
2. Meyer's Briggs personality types do not have the data to explain the difference between the delta between CS and other "INTJ" career types.
3. Meyer's Briggs personality types do not explain the gender distribution in the Physical Sciences. There's a good chance they won't for other careers, if checked.

Does it matter?

[vilanye]

All this hemming and hawing and yet no one has asked why it is important to force, yes force, women into programming.

What do they offer that is unique?

Re:Does it matter?

[serviscope_minor]

no one has asked why it is important to force, yes force, women into programming.

Well, since no one's forcing, yes forcing, women into tech and since no one thinks it's important to force yes force women in to tech, I think it's fairly obvious why no one is asking if that's important.

Re:Abandon IT

[Grishnakh]

That's funny because the new job I am about to start in a week for a DoD contractor just bought me a Mac Book Pro. I wonder how they are going to put Windows and malware on it.

Good luck connecting that thing to a DoD network.

I love the city I live in too, but I guess not everybody appreciates hills and trees with all kinds of outdoor adventures just a short drive away.

Many DoD facilities are not in or near cities.

Re:The solution is

[cwsumner]

Actually, "fuzzy logic" is a known thing and is often used for selection and filtering of reports, and such.

I don't know if it was designed by a woman, but I would not be surprised... 8-)