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People Were Asked To Name Women Tech Leaders. They Said 'Alexa' and 'Siri' (fastcompany.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: The tech industry has a persistent problem with gender inequality, particularly in its leadership ranks, and a new study from LivePerson underscores just how depressingly persistent it truly is. When the company asked a representative sample of 1,000 American consumers whether they could name a famous woman leader in tech, 91.7% of respondents drew a complete blank, while only 8.3% said they could. But wait, it gets worse: Of those 8.3% who said they could name a famous woman tech leader, only 4% actually could -- and a quarter of those respondents named "Siri" or "Alexa." Now, granted, this represents only about 10 people in the survey group, but that's 10 people for whom the most famous woman in tech is a virtual assistant.

179 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. I can barely name any either by Galaga88 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I consider myself pretty tech-savvy and supportive of diversity and the only one I could think of was Melissa something who got fired or something from Yahoo? One from HP I think who was running for office. And another one who was with that bio firm that was apparently faking lab results or something. I can name plenty of female politicians however.

    I don't know if that's my fault, the fault of the press/media/society for not making me more aware, or the industry for having practically no women in it.

    1. Re:I can barely name any either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't care if there are women in the field or not; it's their choice. If we were asked to name some leaders in fashion design, I am sure there could be plenty of women, none of which I would be able to name but that doesn't make it unequal towards men, but there is a clear difference in choice. My wife hates World of Warcraft, but I loved it for years. This has nothing to do with gender inequality. There is nothing unequal about the situation. It is simply life choices. Men by nature choose nerd stuff (astronomy, electrical engineering, etc.) more often than women. So what.

    2. Re:I can barely name any either by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      Carly Fiorina was the first one I thought of too.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    3. Re:I can barely name any either by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Exactly, women in general are less likely to be interested in tech than men and therefore less likely to get into tech roles. It has nothing to do with inequality and everything to do with personal preference.
      Don't blame the industry, if anything blame gender biases during childhood, or just leave it be.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    4. Re:I can barely name any either by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For me.
      Ada Lovelace
      Grace Hopper
      Come to mind. But they are old examples.

      Most of the male tech leaders? Are not really tech leaders just CEO of big tech companies who are rather outspoken.

      Most of the real tech leaders are in the background making meaningful changes and directing technology without getting any real notice (man and women)

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    5. Re:I can barely name any either by losfromla · · Score: 1

      Those are the same ones for me
      Carly Fiorina - who destroyed HP, and failed at running for office
      Melissa something or other from Yahoo
      and I had forgotten about the pharmaceutical scandal one

      --
      Only I can judge you.
    6. Re:I can barely name any either by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also, it is silly to say this is a "tech" issue, since tech is actually doing much better than other industries. Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Melissa Mayers, were all CEOs of major tech firms. Even those led by men have women in high levels, such as Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook. 45% of top executives at Google are female.

      What other industry does as well?

      Journalists just like to pick on techies because we make more money, and we are changing the world and they aren't.

    7. Re:I can barely name any either by MaxiCat_42 · · Score: 1

      Don't forget Ginny Rometti (sp?). The one who's currently running IBM into the ground.

      Phil.

    8. Re:I can barely name any either by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And they aren't exactly what I'd call positive examples.

      It used to be said that "A woman has to be twice as good as a man to go half as far". . So it is a sign of progress that incompetent women are able to rise to the same level as incompetent men. If Jerry Yang can be CEO of Yahoo, then why not Melissa Mayer?

      This is not just limited to tech. In politics, we had Condoleezza Rice, who was both female and black, rising to the highest levels of government, despite blundering from failure to fiasco in every job she had.

    9. Re:I can barely name any either by tomhath · · Score: 1

      I probably would've said Sheryl Sandberg.

    10. Re:I can barely name any either by Sarten-X · · Score: 2

      Does Taylor Swift count?

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    11. Re:I can barely name any either by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      marissa meyers is NOT a tech leader. She is business person that was simply in the tech field. However, to be fair, she has a tech background, but never used it.
      Same with Carly Fiorina ( fucking bitch; hope she burns in hell forever when she dies for what she did to bell labs and HP); meg whitman, Ginni Rometty, etc. All of these women have actually been total disasters to the tech field and absolutely are NONE-TECHNICAL.

      OTOH, Admiral Grace should have been a HUGE name here.
      Sally Ride was extremely tech and made a huge impact.
      Lori Graver is one that helped establish new space, but I would not call her technical.
      How about the recent movie Hidden Figures? Cathy Johnson? Brilliant tech.
      Margaret Hamilton was a huge one in C. Sci. Then we have Ada Lovelace.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    12. Re: I can barely name any either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why is that you ask?

      Because they have a choice. You find a higher rate of women in tech in North Africa, morroco, etc.

      The lower the women's individual freedom in a country the more likely they are to go for stem jobs. Look it up.

    13. Re:I can barely name any either by butchersong · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I can tell you that when something breaks or needs built around the farm... the women have zero interest in it. They want to take care of the animals or do house chores/cooking. Maybe some yard work or gardening. All of that is good and needs doing but believe me, I would love some help repairing fence or building a run-in shed or whatever else. None are interested in things or designing stuff.

      Strip away the abstractions of modern life and take things back to basics, you learn some core truths pretty quick.

    14. Re:I can barely name any either by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Some stats: years ago, I counted kernel developers on "git shortlog -sn" who have a gender-obvious first name (I'm familiar with Western and Slavic names). People whose names I did not recognize were skipped completely; the first 1000 recognizable names had 8 women. There are multiple outreach programs for women, none exclusively for men.

      A more rigorous count, of who maintains Debian packages. I extracted the most recent changelog entry of all "key" packages in Stretch (as defined by autoremoval criteria -- ie, high popcon, d-i, or a build-dep completion of those). Whenever a name is not gender-obvious, I did a quick DuckDuckGo search. Stats:

      • 3 packages had (wrongly) a team as person
      • 42 were maintained by someone whose gender did not pop up in ~60 seconds of DDGing
      • 34 by women
      • 2 by a man who identifies as female
      • 4720 by regular men

      This means, only 0.9% of gender-recognizable uploads were done by a woman. Those 10 women in the analyzed set also did only 60% uploads a man would do. Likewise, outreach programs target women but none targets exclusively men.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    15. Re:I can barely name any either by dinfinity · · Score: 4, Funny

      Melissa Mayers

      Just as famous as tech CEOs Bob Gates, Steven Jabs and Marco Zurkberg.

    16. Re:I can barely name any either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Linus Torvalds is a tech leader. CEO's are typically accountants, managers and business leaders, not necessarily tech leaders.

    17. Re:I can barely name any either by Myrdos · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly, women in general are less likely to be interested in tech than men and therefore less likely to get into tech roles. It has nothing to do with inequality and everything to do with personal preference.

      I used to think that way. Now, I'm not so sure. When I was in high school in the 90s, only boys were likely to play video games. The girls just weren't interested. Maybe you'd find a girl who played one game because her brothers played it or something.

      Fast forward to today. Girls are playing video games left and right. And it's not just dating sims or Barbie Adventure or whatever, they're fragging people online. My point is that we thought there was an inherent difference in preferences between the genders, and it turned out we were mostly wrong. Games makers catered to boys because there was overwhelming evidence that there was almost no female interest in gaming. It's amazing how people conform to the way society expects them to be.

      Conversely, if IT support became known as a "girl thing", I bet the number of men trying to get in would plummet. And they would be genuinely disinterested, not just faking it to fit in.

    18. Re:I can barely name any either by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Gwynne Shotwell is president of SpaceX. And while she is a leader at a tech company, of all the companies that I've worked for and presidents I've known, none were what I would consider tech leaders. That title would more appropriately go to someone like Tom Mueller.

    19. Re:I can barely name any either by geoskd · · Score: 1

      Just as famous as tech CEOs Bob Gates, Steven Jabs and Marco Zurkberg.

      Somehow, "#^@& the Zurk", just doesn't have the same ring...

      --
      I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
    20. Re:I can barely name any either by Darinbob · · Score: 1, Interesting

      And yet, go back in the time machine and you will indeed see many women interested and working in tech. Just because today there is an insane frat boy culture in place in the IT basements does not mean that biology has changed. The first computer operators were very often women, because it wasn't considered a high status job. Sysadmins in the 70s and 80s had lots of women in those roles. The field of programming languages has been highly influenced by women from the start. You have a woman to thank for the system that Steve Jobs borrowed from.

    21. Re:I can barely name any either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You have a woman to thank for the system that Steve Jobs borrowed from.

      Are you talking about Smalltalk? If so, you left out 2 men.

      Alan Kay designed most of the early Smalltalk versions, Adele Goldberg wrote most of the documentation, and Dan Ingalls implemented most of the early versions.

      Jobs didn't borrow from Smalltalk anyway, unless you count all graphical interfaces as inspired by Smalltalk. A woman (Susan Kare) designed the icons, no small contribution, but the code for Lisa and Mac was written by men.

    22. Re:I can barely name any either by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Same here and I have to go way back and go for Scientists if I want some that are not a problem: Meitner, Curie, Noeter. The next one I can think of is a very competent and smart EE I work with who did FPGA design before, who is, of course, not a "leader", just a very good female engineer. The fact of the matter is that there are not many. There are enough to show that women can definitely fill this role competently but that while few do so on the male side, very few do so on the female side of things. And I think we can say that this is basically their choice and should be respected. As far as I can see, equal opportunity exists and if it does not result in equal use of these opportunities, I am completely fine with that.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    23. Re:I can barely name any either by gweihir · · Score: 2

      Business leader, not tech leader. And a bad one. I have some more of those: Meg Whiteman, Charley Fiorina.

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      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    24. Re:I can barely name any either by gweihir · · Score: 3, Informative

      Ada Lovelace does not qualify. She is massively over-hyped due to some people desperately needing a shining example. While not a complete air-head, she apparently never did most of the things attributed to her.

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      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    25. Re:I can barely name any either by war4peace · · Score: 1

      I'd counter with Safra Catz.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    26. Re:I can barely name any either by bickerdyke · · Score: 4, Informative

      Thanks for going back a bit further..

      Hedy Lamarr. Worlds most beautiful woman (well, according to MGM marketing) AND inventor of frequency hopping!

      --
      bickerdyke
    27. Re: I can barely name any either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah rue being disingenuous, women see tech fields as being full of nerds and being nerdy and they know being nerdy isnâ(TM)t cool, so they donâ(TM)t want to get involved. Thatâ(TM)s not my problem and it isnâ(TM)t my obligation to make tech âoesexierâ to attract them into the field.

      Also, youâ(TM)re ur comment does a disservice to the countless women who are already in tech. The difference is, they actually went into tech and worked hard like everyone else rather than getting a degree in gender studies and just bitching about the lack of women in the field they themselves didnâ(TM)t even go into.

      Seriously, youâ(TM)re unhave to be some special type of retarded to just see a difference in how many women and men are in tech and conclude itâ(TM)s because of sexism. Do you also feel the same about the low percentage of garbage truck drivers who are women? You think there is some massive do4xe of women out there who desperately want to haul trash from the curb all day, but big mean boys are driving them away? Or do you think, like tech, they just donâ(TM)t have th fucking interest on the same scale as men do?

    28. Re:I can barely name any either by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace. I can't think of anybody current. (I refuse the include that ex-board member from HP.)

      Of course, one could branch outside computers and come up with names like Rosalind Franklin ... but I had to search that name up on Google. And there were Madame Curie...but now I'm digging into the past again.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    29. Re: I can barely name any either by reanjr · · Score: 1

      Women are traditionally handed failing companies. Successful companies are handed to men. Whether those companies led by women failed is pretty meaningless.

    30. Re:I can barely name any either by ayesnymous · · Score: 1

      You guys keep saying Melissa.

    31. Re:I can barely name any either by mmdurrant · · Score: 1

      Hedley!

      --
      I see my shadow changing, stretching up and over me...
    32. Re: I can barely name any either by liefer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You think Google's discriminatory hiring and promotion process is "doing well"? Interesting. And yes, hiring and promoting based on race and gender is discriminatory even if it gets you a pat on the head from the women in your life for supporting it

    33. Re: I can barely name any either by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      And that's just the software... Now think about the hardware that made this possible.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    34. Re: I can barely name any either by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      I was also surprised (or maybe not?) to find out that Hopper is somewhat overhyped, too. For example, what's that stuff about compilers? It is a gynocentric or a US-centric agenda that pushed Corrado BÃhm and Heinz Rutishauser aside? Or both of them?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    35. Re: I can barely name any either by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      What exactly is "huge" about Hamilton? That she founded a software methodology company that was ultimately about as successful as Simonyi's Intentional Softwarea?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    36. Re: I can barely name any either by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      Curie was a chemist and Lovelace was a socialite dabbling in mathematics. Very successfully, perhaps, but math isn't technology, it's math.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    37. Re:I can barely name any either by Carewolf · · Score: 1

      Ada Lovelace does not qualify. She is massively over-hyped due to some people desperately needing a shining example. While not a complete air-head, she apparently never did most of the things attributed to her.

      She is overhyped because she was the first programmer, pioneers are always overhyped, it is the nature of history. She is still less overhyped than for instance Columbus or Edison.

    38. Re: I can barely name any either by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      So we're supposed to take at face value the claim that Babbage had no idea if his machine would even work in practice until he met Ada and she made the first working program for his machine, something he apparently couldn't do as its designer? I don't know about you but I've always found that logic rather dubious.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    39. Re:I can barely name any either by bickerdyke · · Score: 1

      Not according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      bickerdyke
    40. Re:I can barely name any either by Megol · · Score: 1

      Or they are like me: I can't provide names. I'm bad at names, male or female.
      I could describe facial features for many tech leaders though including the current AMD CEO.

      Myself I think not being able to name female leaders isn't indicative of a problem, the problem being denial. Denial that there being discrimination (often group based and not explicitly gender based), denial of female leadership and/or science skills. I don't know how many times people otherwise intelligent have first denied discrimination (or claiming it's directed against white men), then saying there are no women in tech/science because they don't understand it, and lastly becoming angry when provided examples of women that have driven important technology/science forwards.

      (I guess seeing that pattern and thinking that it is illogical makes me a SJW?)

    41. Re: I can barely name any either by gweihir · · Score: 2

      Looks like it. Hopper seems to have been a competent engineer, but not a pioneer as far as I can tell. This really comes from a feminist agenda to display women as superior and that fails miserably when looking at actual facts in the computer space. (Fact is that women do pretty much exactly as well there and generally in STEM as men, there are just far fewer active there.)

      Now, "feminism" is not a homogeneous movement. It is the "female supremacist" faction (basically gender-based fascism) that comes up with over-hyping some females to show that supremacy they desperately believe women have.

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      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    42. Re:I can barely name any either by gweihir · · Score: 1

      She most certainly was not the "first programmer". Nobody knows who that was but it was a lot earlier. The distinction given to her is a complete fabrication. In actual fact, she was not even a programmer, because there was nothing to program besides an idea that could not be built back then. That means any potential "programming" activity by her goes back to the original meaning, namely "to create a plan" for something and that is basically as old as human intelligence.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    43. Re: I can barely name any either by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed. One could even observe that this reasoning makes no sense whatsoever.

      But that is probably just an instance of "male logic" were things are expected to make sense. In "female logic" (with apologies to all the women that do not subscribe to this bullshit), there are only two rules "female -> good" and "male -> bad", and it is quite clear that Babbage was a bumbling idiot and only Ada recognized the incredible value of what he accidentally stumbled over but did not comprehend in the least.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    44. Re:I can barely name any either by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      I think that drafting up a computation process makes you either a mathematician, or perhaps a computer scientist, especially if it's designed for a specific abstract machine. The former had been apparently done by Euclid (GCD) about two millennia before Ada did it.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    45. Re:I can barely name any either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Look up Hedy Lamar's inventions. Besides the piano-roll frequency hopping invention for controlling torpedos (which she invented with a man), she also invented a box that hooked onto the side of a Kleenex box, for storing used Kleenex until they could be thrown out. That's the invention of an armchair inventor, not a technical person. What do you want to bet that she funded the frequency hopping work, but did not have near the technical input of the man she worked with? Oh sure, her name is on the patent; she had _money_. And it appears that she deeply cared about the Allies winning WWII. (Does anyone know the details of the frequency hopping invention, to possibly confirm my suspicion?)

      But yes, she was beautiful.

    46. Re: I can barely name any either by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      In addition to female supremacists, there's a lot of women looking for role models that resemble them, and it's common to over-hype people under those circumstances. That's probably what's happening here. There isn't a big push to declare Ada Lovelace or Grace Hopper as the greatest, just to present them as more important than they actually were.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    47. Re: I can barely name any either by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      It's entirely possible that Lovelace showed Babbage that an Analytical Engine would be more generally useful than he'd thought, or that (had he transcended the mechanical limitations of his time and built one) it would be easier to use than he thought. I'm not saying it happened these ways, but it could have.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    48. Re:I can barely name any either by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      As far as I can see, equal opportunity exists

      Sure. All I want is equal opportunity.

      However, as a straight cisgender upper-middle-class white man, I'm not in a good position to see unequal opportunity. That's much easier to see from the disadvantaged side. I'm much more interested in hearing from people who aren't straight or cisgender or white or men or upper-middle-class about what they experience.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    49. Re:I can barely name any either by AlejandroTejadaC · · Score: 1

      Melissa Mayer? Her name is Marissa Mayer. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/3...

    50. Re:I can barely name any either by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      In the 90s, computers were a geek thing and less people were interested, now they're more mainstream and attract more interest. But it takes time for these kids to enter the workplace...
      There is also a huge gap between someone who plays games or browses facebook, and someone who is actually interested in tech.

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    51. Re:I can barely name any either by lucia-om · · Score: 1

      Marissa Mayer. She is among the more memorable in the news.

    52. Re:I can barely name any either by Kartu · · Score: 1

      She didn't invent frequency hopping (which was a known concept decades before her) she co-patented actual device that could do frequency hoping.

    53. Re: I can barely name any either by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      Ada almost certainly did have a much broader vision of a universal computer's capabilities, since Babbage was all about function tables, but that's hardly relevant to the issue of programming priority.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    54. Re:I can barely name any either by minstrelmike · · Score: 1

      Seems like most of the women mentioned are executives, which isn't the same as technical leadership. I don't know of any recent _famous_ women techies. If I was asked, I would have said Grace Hopper or Ada Lovelace. Maybe Hillary Clinton since she ran her own email server ;-)

    55. Re: I can barely name any either by Carewolf · · Score: 1

      So we're supposed to take at face value the claim that Babbage had no idea if his machine would even work in practice until he met Ada and she made the first working program for his machine, something he apparently couldn't do as its designer? I don't know about you but I've always found that logic rather dubious.

      Of course he knew, he designed the thing. But he didn't spend the time writing a programs for it, he had Ada to do that. He probably could have done the same if he hadn't had Ada, but that is alternative history.

    56. Re: I can barely name any either by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      Of course he knew, he designed the thing. But he didn't spend the time writing a programs for it, he had Ada to do that.

      Surely you can't be serious.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    57. Re: I can barely name any either by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      And yet, go back in the time machine and you will indeed see many women interested and working in tech ... The first computer operators were very often women, because it wasn't considered a high status job.

      Sure, if by "many" you mean "a few thousand".

      I see people making this argument all the time, and it seems so silly. The reason you saw mostly women "computer operators" in the early days is because there were very few such jobs, and they weren't very glamorous. Men worked on the hardware and the research needed to improve it; a few thousand talented women floated to the top and took the "software" jobs which men didn't want. That doesn't mean that the pool of women who were interested in tech was larger back then; on the contrary it was likely much smaller. They just happened to have an entire field left to them because men were more interested in other aspects of the emerging technology.

    58. Re: I can barely name any either by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Someone majored in patriarchy theory at college.

    59. Re: I can barely name any either by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I was specifically addressing your claim immediately before my reply, not whether Lovelace was the first programmer.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  2. Leaders...in tech? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    We don't generally have 'leaders'. Those in the role are too clueless.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    1. Re:Leaders...in tech? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Whoevers maintaining this trollbot...don't you have a life? Obviously not.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:Leaders...in tech? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Very true. In this worls, people that desperately want to become "leaders", not people that actually have what it takes. Explains a lot.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  3. If you're a woman by omnichad · · Score: 1

    Go start a company. Entrepreneurs are the only men in tech that people know about. If asked, I could maybe name Grace Hopper, but CEOs of eBay or Yahoo aren't really "in tech" they are in "being CEO."

  4. No control group by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    How did they do when asked to name a famous man leader in tech?

    1. Re:No control group by taustin · · Score: 1

      My thought exactly. The only names most people are going to come up with are people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who aren't famous for being tech leaders so much as for being billionaires, and famous for being famous.

    2. Re:No control group by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      How did they do when asked to name a famous man leader in tech?

      Well let's see...you got Clippy, you got Jeeves, you got the guy from Apple who throws the thing through the face of big brother, the annoying guy from the Verizon commercials who I think started a company...

      That's about all I got. Wait, is Clippy male? I'm pretty sure he is, but I never got close enough to check.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:No control group by Merk42 · · Score: 1

      How did they do when asked to name a famous man leader in tech?

      Well let's see...you got Clippy, you got Jeeves, you got the guy from Apple who throws the thing through the face of big brother, the annoying guy from the Verizon commercials who I think started a company...

      That's about all I got. Wait, is Clippy male? I'm pretty sure he is, but I never got close enough to check.

      That wasn't a guy.

    4. Re:No control group by HiThere · · Score: 1

      A good point. The only men I can think of off-hand who got famous for tech are Steve Wozniak and Linus Torvald. The others got famous for being rich or powerful.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    5. Re: No control group by Wycliffe · · Score: 1

      Steve Wozniak and Linus Torvald are both famous because they helped create multibillion dollar products. Basically they are famous for creating a rich and powerful product even if they themself are not rich and powerful. They are a fascination because they let their billion dollar ideas get away.

    6. Re:No control group by ranton · · Score: 1

      How did they do when asked to name a famous man leader in tech?

      The article does say that 57% were able to name a male leader, with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg being the most common.

      The interesting about that list though is that everyone was a founder. None of these men were appointed to their positions; they created their positions. I can name a few female tech leaders, but all of them were appointed to their positions. It would be interesting to find out how many people knew Marissa Mayer and compare that to how many people know Satya Nadella. Or compare how many people know Sheryl Sandberg (COO at Facebook for 10 years) as compared to Kevin Turner (COO of Microsoft for 11 years).

      I would be surprised if Satya Nadella and Kevin Turner have better name recognition than Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg among the public.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  5. Could they name any leaders in tech? by tippen · · Score: 1

    Did they ask those same people to name any ten leaders in tech? Is it a gender issue or the usual not being aware of something they don't particularly care about problem?

    1. Re:Could they name any leaders in tech? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's only 3 paragraphs, but let me RTFA for you:

      "Meanwhile, more than half of the respondents (57%) were able to correctly identify a male leader in tech, with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg being the most commonly cited names."

    2. Re:Could they name any leaders in tech? by tippen · · Score: 1

      What is this "RTFA" you speak of? Something new they are rolling out on /. now?

    3. Re:Could they name any leaders in tech? by Wycliffe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's only 3 paragraphs, but let me RTFA for you:

      "Meanwhile, more than half of the respondents (57%) were able to correctly identify a male leader in tech, with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg being the most commonly cited names."

      All 4 of which are famous not for tech but for being rich figureheads. If you excluded the half dozen super famous then people would likely not do any better. Ask the average person to name 3 people (male or female) in a specific field like AI, biotech, etc... It's not surprising that 3 of the 4 people who were named were in charge of some of the largest companies on earth. Elon Musk is the outlier but that's just because like Trump and Tony Stark he intentionally keeps himself in the limelight.

    4. Re:Could they name any leaders in tech? by Kielistic · · Score: 1

      They're 4 businessmen in the technology sector that successfully built their own companies into billion(?) dollar enterprises and household brands. I wonder why people might know their names. Must be because they're men.

    5. Re:Could they name any leaders in tech? by Kopp · · Score: 1

      But then, what is the issue ? That people cannot name anybody ? or that there is nobody to name ? What woman in tech is on the scale of any of those 4 ?

    6. Re:Could they name any leaders in tech? by Merk42 · · Score: 1

      No, you see, because they lead their own company in the technology sector, GP doesn't think it's enough to count.

  6. This doesn't prove anything by BluPhenix316 · · Score: 1

    The only thing this study proves is that 1. Most people don't care enough to know who are CEOs and hot shots in tech 2. Some people are idiots.

  7. Context mistake? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Maybe they said, "Siri, what's a good answer to that question?"

  8. So? by DRJlaw · · Score: 1

    When the company asked a representative sample of 1,000 American consumers whether they could name a famous woman leader in tech...

    Ask 1,000 American consumers whether they could name a CEO of a Fortune 500 company and, unless they happened to be an employee of a Fortune 500 company and named their own CEO, 90% would probably draw a blank.

    It's not useful information to your average consumer. The only reason that people can name Zuckerberg and a few others is that they're (in)famous and extraordinarily obscenely rich, as opposed to the typical corporate leader who is a milquetoast that seeks to avoid bad publicity like the plague and is merely obscenely rich.

    These are consumers, not people employed in a field being asked to identify female leaders in their field. The information is irrelevant to them.

    1. Re:So? by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      Plus many tech companies that hit it big and whose CEOs are "tech leaders" started the company themselves. So...what do you do? Force women to star t their own tech companies?

    2. Re:So? by klashn · · Score: 1

      Totally agree. Ask me to name famous actors and I can only come up with a few. I don't really watch movies and average people don't really follow tech.

  9. Re:I'm bad with names... by coolmoe2 · · Score: 2

    Hey you leave Melissa alone!!! Shes misunderstood.
    Oh she did it for the money... then maybe shes not so misunderstood after all.

  10. Ric Romero reporting in... by MrLint · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just like many other surveys regarding ppl who really aren't tuned into a particular segment of a thing.. they are gonna say whatever.

    Lets also contrast the names ppl said for men. Bill Gates (not really a tech leader anymore does philanthropy) Steve Jobs (IS DEAD), Elon Musk... literally currently in the news because rockets, and making a big PR thing about it. Mark Zuckerberg, in the news well its facebook, and everyday is a PR disaster there.

    So who'd currently in charge of MS or apple? Whos in charge of google? Is this more related to who makes (or is made into a big PR presence.

  11. Hilliary "Bleachbit" Clinton? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Email server in her bathroom. That's a tech leader.

  12. Not many famous male tech leaders either by yorgasor · · Score: 1

    If you ask 1,000 people to name any famous male tech leaders, I'd bet of those that can name any, only 95% of the people could only name Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

    --
    Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
  13. Gender Inequality by GoJays · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This gender inequality stuff is really starting to get to me. *facepalm*

    What if, a certain gender just doesn't naturally have an interest in a certain subject? When I went to school for computer network administration almost 15 years ago now, there were 6 girls in my program of about 600. It is not that they weren't allowed or being held back from applying. My program was in the same course application guide as all the rest. I imagine females just don't care to work/learn about computer networks. Similarly, males just generally don't care to go into Early Childhood Education, or Nursing. With that said, you don't see me screaming out how men are misrepresented in the day care workforce! Not everything in this world has to be equal, that's what makes it so special. People like different shit. It is not that males are keeping females out of their "club", in fact I think some males would be MORE THAN welcoming to have a few female companions working in IT, as it would be the only exposure they have to the opposite sex.

    So if women aren't going into IT related jobs because they don't have an interest for it, how can one expect a woman to be in a leadership role for one such company? Generally people who lead companies, started said company and have a deep interest in that subject. Makes sense to me.

    1. Re:Gender Inequality by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      +5 million informative because you're aware that reality is different than what the SJW crowd wants

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    2. Re:Gender Inequality by Tyrannosaur · · Score: 1

      Be careful, there was a bro at Google that got into big trouble for saying virtually this exact thing.

    3. Re: Gender Inequality by Visarga · · Score: 1

      They are just like Republicans, but reversed. It's a religion.

    4. Re:Gender Inequality by dwye · · Score: 2

      When I was in school, the field was 1/4 female or more. Since then, women have decided that CS/IT is a male preserve more than being chased out. No idea why, but it is probably related to more people going in from high school or college than earlier, where some working stiffs just had to pick it up and then got really interested. Once, supposedly, secretaries could just pick it up. Now, you have to decide before college, spend years at it, all with people like us. Might explain it (or just a great excuse).

    5. Re:Gender Inequality by ScrappyTheObscure · · Score: 1

      Literally every time we have a discussion of gender roles here, someone says "people should all do what they want and women don't want computing"... well let me see if I can frame this up.

      Fallacy #1: People seldom "naturally" like things:
      You "like" things many of the things you like when you're young because people showed them to you/shared them with you/included you in them. If you never spent much time with them, you might stumble across them at random and decide you LOVE them. It does happen, but it's a lot less likely. We need to help girls know what computers are good for so their choices are actually honest ones.

      Fallacy #2: Things you "naturally" like are what you should have.
      You might naturally like blowing up buildings, but except in the very narrow case that you become a demolitions expert as an engineer, that's really not a societal good and we should be steering your shit out of it. We *know* that tech teams with diversity on race and gender lines are healthier, so steering for that objective is probably in our societal interest.

      Yes, you'll note -- I am indeed failing to supply you with data. I linked to some in an earlier comment, though, if you're interested. If you don't buy my basic logic, though, there's no point in arguing about whose fact set is better.

    6. Re:Gender Inequality by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      It is the social norm that does it. More than 50% of engg grads from India are women, enrollment rate is in favor of men, but graduation rate is in favor of women.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    7. Re:Gender Inequality by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      My program was in the same course application guide as all the rest. I imagine females just don't care to work/learn about computer networks

      The problem here is you assume the only relevant input to the situation is the application guide and biology.

      There's a little under two decades of societal programming going into you and into women before you even open that guide. Which then leads to people making choices in that guide.

      For example, did you take any time to look at the parts of the guide that covered, say, early childhood development? Or other courses that would lead to being a kindergarten teacher? Probably not. Wanna know one of the big reasons why you didn't? Picture a kindergarten teacher in your mind. That teacher's probably a woman.

      Other societies don't have that bias for teachers of young children, so it's doubtful there's a biological basis for this.

      So yes, society does have an affect on what is acceptable for both men and women to do. You should see the shit stay-at-home dads deal with for "breaking the rules".

      I think some males would be MORE THAN welcoming to have a few female companions working in IT, as it would be the only exposure they have to the opposite sex.

      And here's the other gigantic part of the problem. Woman starts showing interest in IT. Some r/incel dweller tips his fedora and starts being massively creepy. That's not exactly going to continue to foster that interest in IT. Especially since it is going to happen over and over again.

      Let's say she's interested enough to file the necessary restraining orders and powers through to starting a career. Some dipshit at google writes a manifesto about how women aren't cut out to do the work, to widespread acclaim by other men in the field. And her boss keeps staring at her chest during every conversation, and demands she fetch coffee for the team. Her suggestions are ignored unless repeated by a man. And there's another 3 r/incel types in her department, continuing that fun and excitement.

      Not exactly going to do well at retaining the women who do end up in IT. Just like we as a society don't do well at retaining male kindergarten teachers.

      So the whole "we need more women in IT" thing is about correcting that shitty environment. Because if it becomes normal, there won't be that societal programming. (And the same should be done for male kindergarten teachers, but this is Slashdot not Educationdot).

    8. Re:Gender Inequality by Sperbels · · Score: 1

      Men are creepy in all industries. Tech does not have a monopoly on bad behavior. Just look at Hollywood. Think that's bad? Look at Wall Street. Guys in that industries are way worse than tech guys or Hollywood actors/producers. This notion that nerds are sexual predator savants is all in your mind. It does not actually exist.

    9. Re:Gender Inequality by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It's a shame because there are genuine issues here, for men as well as women. But we get low quality stories like this that throw out some half baked survey and don't add anything meaningful to the debate.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    10. Re:Gender Inequality by SEE · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What happened is the personal computer.

      BYTE Magazine ran a few reader surveys back in the late 1970s, and they reported that its readership was 98-99% male. This was at the time that, indeed, people working in CS/IT were a quarter female; but the people who made a hobby of computing were effectively all male from the very start of personal computers making it a viable hobby.

      As personal computers became more common, more and more people were exposed to them early, so the number of (male) people taking up tech as a hobby increased, and the CS/IT intake pipeline got more and more dominated by hobbyists who decided to turn their interest into a career. People who decide that it might be a worthwhile career in college (or the workplace) wind up in classes with people who have years of experience with tech as a hobby and spend their free time getting better at it.

      Which means that interventions at the college and employment levels are far too late, and even high school is probably not soon enough. Whatever filter is behind boys and not girls getting into computers as a hobby acts in early adolescence at the latest.

    11. Re:Gender Inequality by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Not so much for saying it as insisting on pushing it into people's faces, according to the labor board investigation.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    12. Re:Gender Inequality by sad_ · · Score: 1

      when you ask woman to comment why they didn't consider an CS education, you should be happy to get an answer, most of the time it just didn't even crossed their mind as a possibility.

      --
      On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
    13. Re:Gender Inequality by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      Men are creepy in all industries. Tech does not have a monopoly on bad behavior.

      When you attempt to use the desperate and thus creepy men as a selling point for the field, that isn't relevant.

      "Come join IT! Some creepy guy will harass you!!" isn't a terribly effective recruiting slogan.

  14. theres a few by doronbc · · Score: 5, Informative

    Gwynne Shotwell (COO of SpaceX), Meg Whitman (CEO of HP), Carly Fiorina (former CEO of HP), Marissa Mayer (former CEO of Yahoo), Limor Fried(CEO of Adafruit), Jeri Ellsworth(CEO of CastAR, self employed electrical engineer) current and former women of STEM: Peggy Whitson, Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Marie-Sophie Germain, Stephanie Kwolek, Katherine Johnson, Vera Rubin, Mary Somerville, Jill Tarter, Gertrude Elion, Beatrice Shilling, Katharine Burr Blodgett, Maria Mitchell, Marguerite Perey

    1. Re:theres a few by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

      Was going to say I'm not sure Ada Lovelace & Grace Hopper should be on theist as they are not current... but people bring up Steve Jobs so carry on I suppose!

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  15. Ah, the "problem" by dbrueck · · Score: 1

    I guess this is a good click-bait article, so good job in that sense Slashdot. I liked how neither the summary, nor the article itself, nor the other website that that first article was citing, could list off any examples either. Why? It's pretty simple but not overly politically correct to say it, but here goes: there aren't any.

    There are not currently any female equivalents of Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, or Bill Gates.

    I have a hard time seeing that as a problem that we must somehow solve, and have a really hard time seeing that as some sort of "proof" of inherent unfairness. On the contrary: there are many, many, many men in tech and so the number that actually have widespread name recognition is, percentage-wise, a very small number. It's so small that the odds of being a famous tech person is more or less the same independent of gender. Or it could even be lower for men for that matter. Boo hoo!

    What's really a shame is the whole mentality of "I spot a difference, so it goes without saying that it must be caused by racism/sexism/ageism/whateverism".

  16. Why is it a problem? by DavenH · · Score: 1

    >> The tech industry has a persistent problem with gender inequality. That's as valid as to say that women have a free will problem that prevents them from choosing to occupy all areas of employment in the same numbers as men. Is it as big an outrage that the coal mines are under-represented by women? Particularly when sampling at extremes of distributions (CEO level being one), outcomes are heavily distorted by any intrinsic bias (in choice, importantly) that slightly shift the mean of that distribution.

  17. But how many men are "Leaders" either? by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I consider myself pretty tech-savvy and supportive of diversity and the only one I could think of was Melissa something who got fired or something from Yahoo?

    Ok, but how many *male* tech leaders can you name?

    I can only think of a handful also. Jobs, Gates, Zuckerburg, Bezos, and kind of Musk (though he's almost outside the real of tech as it's normally thought of).

    You mentioned Carly ran HP. Well who runs it now? I have zero idea. Same goes for who runs Yahoo, or Uber, or Github, or whatever.

    There just aren't that many leaders, period, and I'm not sure women are so under-represented since there are three I can think of quickly (though one is sadly probably going to jail, I still feel like she had good intentions at the start).

    Some people mentioned none of the women had a very good rep. Well, look at the men! Of current tech leaders who has a "great rep"? Zuckerburg???

    It would be nice to see more women in charge of companies but it's kind of a hellish job that people have to choose and truly desire, not one that can be thrust on people. I don't know how you get anyone into that mental space, much less convince more women alone it's a good idea.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:But how many men are "Leaders" either? by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can't think of who's in charge of most tech companies...
      In fact, those in charge generally only come to prominence if they are big personalities or if they screw up catastrophically. Your average company leader sits in his/her office and gets on with their job quietly.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    2. Re:But how many men are "Leaders" either? by vux984 · · Score: 1

      "Ok, but how many *male* tech leaders can you name?

      Well... several of the biggest tech companies mostly.
      I can name several of the founders / execs at Google. Brin / Schmidt, etc.

      Nadalla at Microsoft now, Gates before.
      Jobs at Apple before, Cook now. Ives is a memorable person there as well.

      Oracle i assume still has Ellison although i only know him for being an ass.
      Musk at Tesla / SpaceX
      Branson at Virgin if that even counts... but virgin galactic right?

      Bezos at Amazon
      Zuckerberg at Facebook
      Kalanick at Uber before... not sure whose there now, and Kalanick only as an asshole.

      Intel - I'd recognize the same for sure but its not coming to me right now (male)
      Nintendo -Miyamoto & Fils-Aime. I'd recognize the CEOs name too but can't recall it, definitely male

      What does that even leave as big tech companies I probably should know about. Twitter? Snap? HP? AMD? Samsung? Sony?
      Looking it up... twitter is male, snap is male, samsung is male. HP is male... but I'd never heard of him. And looking at the recent list:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      The only two i do recognize are Carly Fiorina, and Meg Whitman ... both for their political adventures, and probably only *because* they are women who headed HP, rather than any actual tech accomplishments beyond being women who headed HP.

      AMD is also led by a woman... Lisa Su... and I've never heard of her.

      I mean you are right, maybe the reason I can't name many females is that as percentage there just aren't that many. And looking at the list of men, very few of them I'd really think of as tech leaders, even if I can name them.

    3. Re:But how many men are "Leaders" either? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > Intel - I'd recognize the same for sure but its not coming to me right now (male)

      Uhm,

      * co-founder Gordon Moore (of Moore's law fame)
      * ex CEO: Andrew "Andy" Grove

    4. Re:But how many men are "Leaders" either? by vux984 · · Score: 1

      Yeah... i had to look it up... Brian Krzanich is the current CEO.

      Gordon Moore I should have mentioned myself; although i wasn't honestly sure if he was still alive. (although I guess i mentioned Jobs who is definitely not...)

    5. Re:But how many men are "Leaders" either? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      I only consider Gates and Musk to be tech leaders. The others are just business leaders. I don't even consider Facebook or Amazon to be tech companies (though they may have some side hobby projects that are tech related).

  18. Could we skip the clickbait please? by ScrappyTheObscure · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is a really poor quality Slashdot story - and I say that as a woman.
    Yes of course *I* can name women who are or have been company leaders in tech (Melissa Mayer, Sheryl Sandberg)
    And I can also name hands-on technologists. Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace, Kathy Sierra and Sandi Metz all come to mind without trying.

    That said, "we have a problem with an absence of women in tech -- most people can only name Siri and Alexa" is a story without real merit.
    If you must discuss gender imbalance in our industry could you pick something smacking a bit less of click-bait as your only link? I mean, please.

    If you'd like a link talking about why gender diversity is actually a boon to companies, try this one:
    https://www.ncwit.org/sites/de...

    If you'd like a link on ways of actually getting women to take the computer science plunge, try this one:
    https://cs.stanford.edu/people...

    I should really not allow myself to be trolled into commenting, but this is garbage and Slashdot can do better without even trying very hard.

    1. Re:Could we skip the clickbait please? by Scarred+Intellect · · Score: 1

      I am glad you allowed yourself to get trolled. Otherwise I wouldn't have found the links you posted. So for that, I thank you.

      Typically I try not to give a shit what someone's gender is (I'm already married, so dating's out). I do think that subconsciously society may tend to steer women away from tech, and I'm sure there's WAY more to it than that. Someday I'd like to be running my own company, and want it to be welcoming to everyone. I'm no SJW, but also don't want a "boy's club".

      So again, thanks for getting trolled. I'll read your links and share with other like minded individuals I work with.

    2. Re:Could we skip the clickbait please? by ScrappyTheObscure · · Score: 1

      At some point I should really put together a post full of true ball-mover research. There's *plenty* out there.
      Anyhow, I'm glad it was of use to someone.

    3. Re:Could we skip the clickbait please? by Scarred+Intellect · · Score: 1

      I'd look forward to seeing that. There's so much bullshit to wade through, it's hard to discern the valid papers/articles from the idiocy.

  19. Carly Fiorina? Meg Whitman? Marissa Mayer? by Seven+Spirals · · Score: 1

    There ya go... Okay, Alexa and Siri. Now name famous men in nursing. Whoops! Times up!

  20. Grade Hopper [Re:If you're a woman] by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Grace Hopper

    Good answer! Although she's often associated with COBOL, which has negative connotations to many*, she was a pioneer of higher-level languages regardless.

    Higher-level languages were considered a toy for amateurs or "loser" techies back in the mid 50's, so she had an uphill battle. When the military and big co's eventually discovered they were wasting too many resources re-translating existing programs for specific vendors and models of computers, they went hunting for cross-platform language ideas, and Grace was ahead of the curve.

    * Although Grace was not directly involved in COBOL's definition, her languages had a huge influence on it. As far as the technical merit of COBOL, it's clunky by today's standards, but has survived because it does its niche well, having many built-in operations for the typical work found in back-end business, finance, and inventory processing. To match that with say Java or C#, you'd have to create bunches of data-processing and finance API's, and it would probably still be more code for the same task compared to COBOL.

    1. Re:Grade Hopper [Re:If you're a woman] by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      The big advantage of Cobol is the way how you can describe data stuctures in code to represent the layout on disk or paper. So you basically never need print or parse logic.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    2. Re:Grade Hopper [Re:If you're a woman] by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      And also in chunks: groups of fields, including the nesting of groups. You can say "move groupA to locationX" rather than the per field approach that haunts us today.

      It's a feature that made me push to meta-tize the column selections in the draft query language SMEQL. One can have the column names in a table and add grouping columns (meta columns) so that one can do a query to select the column list.

      In SQL pseudo-code, it would look something like:

      SELECT columnName FROM myColumns WHERE myGroup in ('foo','bar','glip') INTO columnList
       
      SELECT expandList(columnList.columnName) FROM employees WHERE salary < 80000

      But, be more compact than SQL in doing such. One can meta-tize the column ordering also by putting an ORDER BY clause of one's choosing in the first query.

    3. Re: Grade Hopper [Re:If you're a woman] by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      One ought to keep in mind that Zuse already had Plankalkul in the 1940s, but he didn't have sufficient hardware to run it.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    4. Re:Grade Hopper [Re:If you're a woman] by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      COBOL is an excellent language for a class of applications that I never liked working in and refused to as soon as I got the chance to move away from it. My experience left me with an intense dislike of the language. I told my son that, if I found porn, drugs, and a COBOL manual in his room, I was going to call him out on the COBOL.

      Still, it was an impressive thing to develop at the time, and it did have some nice features for the time.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  21. Re:haven't most of them been disappointments? by omnichad · · Score: 2

    Melinda Gates does great stuff--but she's not a tech leader--so different category.

    Oh, she certainly is a tech leader. Unless you think Microsoft Bob isn't visionary.

  22. Re:Well here's yer problem by omnichad · · Score: 1

    Psychopaths and sociopaths make up a large percentage of CEOs, regardless of gender.

  23. Re:They asked for Leaders by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 1

    I'm gonna throw Elizabeth Holmes in with that crowd too...

    --
    Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
  24. Which genders are unequal? by Dog-Cow · · Score: 3, Funny

    In today's gender-fluid world, perhaps the actual problem is that not enough people in tech identify as women.

  25. Re:haven't most of them been disappointments? by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 1

    I had to google this, because I didn't know her name, but Limor Fried is the founder of Adafruit. That's probably the closest I can get, and yeah, I couldn't remember her name.

    --
    Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
  26. I consider myself tech savvy, but... by midifarm · · Score: 1

    I can only name you a handful of men off the top of my head that I would identify as tech leaders. e.g. Elon Musk, Steves Jobs (obviously deceased) and Wozniack, Linus Torvalds, Gates used to be there. But other than that...

  27. Re:They asked for Leaders by losfromla · · Score: 1

    Who is Elizabeth Holmes?
    Yes, I could google it but I'm more making a point...

    --
    Only I can judge you.
  28. The reason for that by Jodka · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Women are often psychologically unsuited to be tech leaders. Here are four rules of women in the tech workforce.

    1. Men compete by outdoing each other. If Sam builds a rocket which goes to 1,000 feet, then Jim competes with Sam by building a rocket which goes to 2,000 feet. Women compute by undermining each other. If Sally builds a rocket which goest to 1,000 feet, then Jill disses her on Facebook, spreads a rumor that Sally has venereal disease, and flirts with her boyfriend.

    2. Men deduce causal relationships and use those to control outcomes. Women assign emotional valances to everything and react to those. If the instrument's Z axis drive motor burns out, Larry measures the weight of the platform and the lead screw pitch, looks up the torque specs of the motor, then calculates that the load exceeded the motor specs. Mary sees that a stepper motor was used to drive the Z axis which makes her feel that stepper motors are "bad" and she issues a company-wide order prohibiting the use of stepper motors in designs. (This, by the way, is a real example)

    3. Never, under any circumstances, make placement or promotion decision according to gender. It should have not influence whatsoever. Behavior is not reliably related to gender. Some men behave in a characteristically female mode and some women in a characteristically male mode. There is a plausible argument that had Margaret Hamilton been denied her role in the Apollo program that the United States have many frozen astronaut corpses on the moon.

    4. If you follow the guidance in the previous point exactly, hiring always the most qualified candidates with no regard to gender, you will end up with disproportionally more men in tech leadership positions because of the first two points.

     

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature.
    1. Re:The reason for that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > feel that stepper motors are "bad"

      Or worse, decides because the manufacturer's LGBTQP policies are not strong enough that you need to no longer buy from them and destroy any of their product that you already own. That's what happened to us with Red Hat. Our female CEO banned us from traveling to or even talking on the phone with anyone from North Carolina. We dropped Red Hat and have now hired about 20 new devs to convert everything to Microsoft garbage. I'm updating my resume, because after two years since we did that, we don't even have a basic prototype working.

    2. Re:The reason for that by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Women are often psychologically unsuited to be tech leaders. Here are four rules of women in the tech workforce.

      And men are often usioted as well. But you singled out women. So please fuck off.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:The reason for that by Jodka · · Score: 2

      order prohibiting the use of stepper motors in designs

      That has to be an interesting story.

      It is, but I have a better one.

      So one day I get phone call from the CEO asking to set up a "very important" meeting to show me how to document source code. I'd been a professional software engineer for about twenty years, at that point, so it's not like I didn't already know how to do that. The source code was already heavily documented with inline comments, I always use meaningful variables names for non-abstract, physical parameters and generally favor readability over compactness. Anyway, we sit down in front of the computer and at first I am lectured about how what I am about to told is "the right way" to document code, how important it is to do always do it this way. Then she opens up Microsoft Word and proceeds to a create a nested outline, like the way you were instructed to outline books in grade school. It looks like this

      Program Foo
                Files in Program Foo
                          File bar.cpp in Program Foo
                                    Line numbers in File Bar
                                                Line 10
                                                          Sets the variable field_size_degrees
                                                          Calculates the the field size in units of degrees
                                                Line 11 ....
                                    Variables in file bar.cpp
                                              field_size_degrees
                                              calculated on line ten ....

      The program is about 10K lines of C++ and still under development, so of course line numbers embedded in the outline would change when any line is inserted or deleted above.

      The CEO had no programming skills at all. Could not wright "Hello World" in any language. Never read code. Though, when I pointed out that this is not the way that programmers typically document source code, I am, in an tone of extreme fury, told I that I am wrong and that she is a "software development expert" because her "CV says so."

      So you might wonder, how such a business survived. And the answer is, we had no customers and sold no services. Our only source of revenue was government business grants, about $1 million/year, for which we were first in line because we were a majority woman or minority owned business.

      If you are middle class and live in the U.S. about 1/3 or your income is confiscated in taxes. If you also have a kids, house repairs, college bills, medical expenses, its is difficult to make ends meet. Meanwhile, the federal government is squandering money funding CEO ego trips for arrogant women dilettantes. Now, every time someone tells me to support women in the workplace, I silently think that they have no idea what the hell they are talking about.

      --
      Ceci n'est pas une signature.
    4. Re:The reason for that by Jodka · · Score: 1

      > feel that stepper motors are "bad"

      Or worse, decides because the manufacturer's LGBTQP policies are not strong enough that you need to no longer buy from them and destroy any of their product that you already own. That's what happened to us with Red Hat. Our female CEO banned us from traveling to or even talking on the phone with anyone from North Carolina. We dropped Red Hat and have now hired about 20 new devs to convert everything to Microsoft garbage. I'm updating my resume, because after two years since we did that, we don't even have a basic prototype working.

      Get the hell out of there.

      --
      Ceci n'est pas une signature.
    5. Re:The reason for that by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      There is a plausible argument that had Margaret Hamilton been denied her role in the Apollo program that the United States have many frozen astronaut corpses on the moon.

      No, there isn't, actually. Unless you can reason why a late-coming manager of the AGC software project should have any influence on that. (One ought to note that management of the AGC software effort was a clusterfuck in general, with Bill Tindall, an outsider, having to rein the whole mismanaged group in, to my understanding even post-Hamilton.)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  29. Re:We need more women leaders by Kopp · · Score: 1

    you mean, for the shareholders, right ?

  30. It's a Publicity Problem by imperious_rex · · Score: 1

    I suspect the respondents were just being smart asses with their Alexa and Siri answers. As for me, about the only women tech leaders that immediately come to my mind are Sheryl Sandberg (mainly because of her Lean In book, as prior to that I heard very little of her), Meg Whitman (former eBay CEO), Carly Fiorina (formerly of HP), and Marissa Mayer (formerly of Yahoo).

    There's many more women tech/business leaders that, by accident or by design, just don't get the limelight. A few that immediately come to mind:

    Glynne Shotwell (SpaceX)
    Ginny Rometty (IBM)
    Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) Note: Given that she was accused of defrauding investors Holmes isn't exactly a good example, but for a brief time she was quite the media darling.

    I'm sure there's many others, but those are the only ones that I can immediately think of.

    I'm not sure why some women tech leaders don't get much media attention. I suspect one reason is the political bias of journalists, who want to push the idea of the tech industry being a "good ol' boys club" and women tech executives run counter to that narrative so the general public is unaware of the progress that women have made (and more progress certainly needs to be made, but it won't happen overnight as much as feminists want it to).

  31. On the flip side... by JoeDuncan · · Score: 1

    (quickly) Name 10 male romance novel authors

    Can't do it? Huh, seems to be based on some kind of "availability heuristic"

    1. Re:On the flip side... by dwye · · Score: 1

      The problem is that male romance novelists use a female-sounding name, just as George Sand and James Tiptree used male names.

    2. Re:On the flip side... by JoeDuncan · · Score: 1

      The problem is that male romance novelists use a female-sounding name...

      Oh yeah, you're right. Pseudonyms are CLEARLY the biggest factor here...

    3. Re:On the flip side... by Kartu · · Score: 1

      I'd also struggle to name 10 female romance authors, heck, even one...

  32. Re:Oh shut up. by Visarga · · Score: 1

    > You asked "to name women tech leaders" and got idiot answers, but did you ask "to name men tech leaders"? No, you didn't. You presumed you wouldn't get idiot answers.

    Not just that, but they should calculate the percent of CEOs that are known by name, male and female. There are many more male CEOs that are unknown by the public.

  33. Not much to choose from, media at fault by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 3, Informative

    Any female at the top of the corporate ladder is given such outsized attention that their flaws become outsized too. Examples off the top of my head:

    Elizabeth Holmes...fraudster

    Marissa Mayer...OK at Google, failure at Yahoo resulting in ugly buy-out. Bit of an limousine-SJW streak about her, but not possible to tell how good she actually is, just that she's cocky and the dice rolled her way at Google but bit her in the rear at Yahoo.

    Carly Fiorina...enough said.

    Ursula Burns...seems like a solid person, and but it's not clear whether Xerox did well or poorly under her.

    Whitney Wolfe...bumbling gun-grabber who wants to censor the rest of the internet too, not just her own app, which I had never heard of until she made it clear that guns are verboten on her app. OK...who cares?

    Cheryl Sandberg...thinks every woman wants to be a superwoman who gives a 110% of her attention to both work and home life. And she does something at Facebook...right?

    Ginni Rometty...maybe she's the exception here, because as far as I can tell she's just another run-of-the-mill PHB without anything glaringly wrong with her that isn't wrong with any other CxO at a big tech company.

    Mary Barra...they sent (yet another) accountant to do the job of a car guy.

    Gwynne Shotwell...OK SpaceX is successful. And you'll notice that she's more likely to be a rocket geek than a hard-core feminist in her NPR appearances. At least the ones I've heard. An Elon Musk hogs most of the camera time anyway.

    Male CEOs certainly have their scandals, but their maleness isn't so front-and-center in their public personae that when they fail, they fail, when they succeed they succeed. But if it's a woman CEO...good Lord, the press falls over themselves talking about her clothes and her diet and her everything that doesn't matter about running a company that then they go splat, they leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

  34. Oh don't forget by aoism · · Score: 1

    Ellen Pao .. bwhaha. Failed at claiming sexism. Failed at reddit. Now that I think about it - the only modern high up women I can think of who have made an impact are the ones who've really screwed everything up. That's not to say men don't screw everything up too - there is no shortage of them, but at least there are superstars like Musk to balance it out.

  35. Ok by ledow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    OK, I'm not anti-feminist, I have a fairly good grounding in tech fields (I mean, it's my career, hobby and interest, so you have to have, no?), I read the news, I see new tech come out, I know the main brands, I am aware of some famous people associated with those brands and things they've said and done - over the last 30-something years.. So long as we're constraining it to tech as in consumer-brands, things you'll have heard of, not "science" as such, etc.

    Erm... well, I'm struggling. I'm sure that someone can reel off 20 names, but I honestly can't think of one that springs out that the random person in the street will have heard of. Who's the female Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates? Even Jeff Bezos etc. is pushing it expecting people to know who he is, but who's a female in a similar position that a person in the street will go "Oh, yes, I forgot about her!" or "I didn't think you meant that type of company".

    Sure, it's indicative of a problem in the tech field but is it really that damning if there aren't any female household names in tech? People who you'd say "Oh, this should be a good interview / discussion / court case / advert, it's got her in it"? I can't name one.

    Okay, I'm going to cheat. Google. "famous women in tech" (the equivalent male version of which gives me Elon Musk,
    Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai (?),
    Evan Spiegel (wasn't he in Ghostbusters?))

    Sheryl Sandberg. Nope.

    Grace Hopper. Not by name. Picture suggests possibly one of those NASA calculator people from decades ago? (Google tells me she was a programmer... okay).

    Ada Lovelace. Now I know who she is. It's possible a few of my science-y friends will have heard of her. But the person in the street won't have. And how far back are we going here.

    Meg Whitman

    Radia Perlman.

    Hedy Lamarr (I know she did some cool stuff, including something like inventing the glider plane or something? But nobody's going to have her on the tip of their tongue for tech innovation alongside, say, Bill Gates).

    Okay, I'll go more recent: Sheryl Sandberg (again), Susan Wojcicki (?), Ginni Rometty, Meg Whitman, Angela Ahrendts, Safra Catz, Ruth Porat, Lucy Peng, Amy Hood, Jean Liu, Zhou Qunfei, ... I've not heard of any of these people, sure as hell none of my friends have.

    Maybe the reason that people can't name a famous woman in tech is because there aren't many (or maybe any depending on your definition of "famous" and "tech"... is Julian Assange?). That, sure, is a problem. But making it sound like we're dumb because we can't name one when... well, there aren't any... that's just attacking people on the basis of them being ignorant of a fact which you possess. That's not a fair fight. How many of those reporters could name one BEFORE they started writing the article? How many of the people interviewing the people in the street?

    For sure women are under-represented, and I don't see why that couldn't and shouldn't be changing. But I don't see why a "man-in-the-street" quiz is somehow detrimental to that.

    If you want us to name a famous woman in an industry - be that person. Make us remember your name. For sure, nobody is ever going to remember mine. But if you say "tech" and "woman" together, pretty much the Venn intersection is exceedingly narrow and niche.

    ((I'd also like to point out that all the guys I can name, I dislike. Because to a tee they are business and mouth-piece over any kind of actual technical innovator, loudmouths, eccentric, say stupid things, etc. etc. These aren't engineers, they're salesmen and stock-brokers.))

    1. Re:Ok by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Hedy Lamarr developed radio guidance systems.

    2. Re:Ok by ledow · · Score: 1

      And Tech != Science.

      So name someone in TECH that's not in Science, or IT. Because you're just narrowing the field rather than expanding it.

      Famous female scientists, I can probably name one or two, but they won't be universal and they won't have much to do with "technology" as such (sure, they use it, but they won't be considered "tech people").

      I'm considering high-tech (sorry) industrial, manufacturing, IT, etc. and I'm still stuck. Is Ferrari involved in tech? Is Mr Musk only because of Tesla or despite that?

      And again - okay, go ahead. Outside of purely scientific fields (biologists, theoretical physicists, etc.) but counting people who build, invent, engineer, etc. anything considered high-technology - name a female that the person sitting next to me now will know.

  36. Are the VA products sexist? by mysidia · · Score: 1

    How come Amazon, Apple, and Google's virtual assistants are ALL Female, at least by default?

    Are they trying to conform their product to traditional gender stereotypes --- regarding the gender of person who would most often have the job role they see their assistant as filling?

    Why can't we have Alex and Sean instead of Siri and Alexa?

    Or, are they saying people would think their virtual assistant was incompetent or weird, OR expect it to do more advanced functions if it was male by default?

    1. Re:Are the VA products sexist? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      They're female by default in the US. I've read that at least Siri is male by default in some other places. If nothing else, a female voice tends to be easier to understand under adverse conditions.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  37. Re:Most didn't want to be pidgeonholed as nerds. by ponraul · · Score: 2

    This is how the goal posts are going to shift: even when women are pushed into "STEM" at higher rates it won't be good enough because they'll be mostly asian and white and therefore not oppressed enough.

  38. DIVERSIBOT ACTIVATE! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    This is a really poor quality Slashdot story - and I say that as a woman.

    beep. I detected that you are of the WOMAN gender. Slashdot harbors an inclusive environment. Please notify us if someone touches your SHARP KNEES without consent. beep boop.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:DIVERSIBOT ACTIVATE! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Thank you for providing an excellent example of why women are made to feel unwelcome some places.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  39. Alexa and Siri are common female names by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    I'm not surprised ...

    On the other hand I'm super bad with names, I basically only know them 'passively'.
    You can ask me: do you know Zuckerberg? I would say yes. But if you asked me for tech leaders I would first of all not call him a tech leader and secondly his name would not come to my mind anyway.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  40. Sexism Against Men by holophrastic · · Score: 1

    It's been a long time since Dr. Sbaitso. I don't think I've heard a digital assistant with a male voice since.

    Women complain about gender bias all the time. How come men don't complain that our cars, computers, smartphones, and household assistants don't sound like us?

    I cry foul sexism. We ought to be insisting that Siri come with a male-voice option. It's only fair.

    I am person, hear me roar.

    1. Re:Sexism Against Men by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      How come men don't complain that our cars, computers, smartphones, and household assistants don't sound like us?

      You mean like this dude?

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/te...

      We ought to be insisting that Siri come with a male-voice option.

      It does, moron.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Sexism Against Men by holophrastic · · Score: 1

      Really? Alexa comes with an Alex? I had no idea. I'll check that the next time I'm at the neighbour's.

  41. Math or language illiteracy? by TheSouthernDandy · · Score: 1

    Of those 8.3% who said they could name a famous woman tech leader, only 4% actually could -- and a quarter of those respondents named "Siri" or "Alexa." Now, granted, this represents only about 10 people

    • 1000 * (0.083 * 0.04) * 0.25 = 0.83, or perhaps 1 person, if math illiterate.
    • 1000 * 0.04 * 0.25 = 10 as stated, if just plain illiterate. Even so, if they identified Siri or Alexa, then this 4% could not in fact identify a famous female tech leader, as these two names are not tech leaders.

    So, what happened again? The inability to express the issue clearly kinda takes the sting out of the critique.

    Besides, the more alarming thing was that all the other active respondents identified Tay. :)

  42. Poor Cortana by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

    Once again, Microsoft gets no respect. Maybe they need to make commercials or something, showing Cortana is a woman.

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  43. non sequitur by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

    This has nothing to do with gender inequality. There is nothing unequal about the situation.

    The first statement may be true, but the second doesn't follow. We can have unequal and unfair circumstances, even if a particular example is fair.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  44. If they asked about male tech leaders instead by bettodavis · · Score: 1

    I bet the answer would be entrepreneurs and CEOs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Probably Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. And that's probably it.

    Most people would only recall something or someone they saw in the news, not who invented binary logic or created a revolutionary mathematical theory of computation.

    Albeit Alan Turing has gained popular appeal or late, given his conflicted life and the movies dedicated to depicting it. Oh and because Benedict Cumberbatch played him.

    1. Re:If they asked about male tech leaders instead by thecombatwombat · · Score: 1

      If only there were some kind of article, perhaps linked in the summary, that would say if they did.

      (I kid, but come on.)

  45. only one I can name is Lisa Hsu by Khashishi · · Score: 1

    I don't think of Marissa Mayer and Carly Fiorina as tech leaders.

  46. Re:Well here's yer problem by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1

    Interesting. What's the ratio of psychopathy between men and women and doers this account for the sex population discrepancy at the CxO level? Also, does tech have more, less, or the same amount of psychopathy as other sectors?

    --
    That is all.
  47. Mary Barra by tomhath · · Score: 1

    CEO of General Motors, trained as an electrical engineer. She's going to beat Tesla in electric and self-driving vehicles.

  48. Lisa Su, CEO AMD by LionKimbro · · Score: 1

    My first thought was Lisa Su. She's an engineering nerd turned CEO, and I think she's doing good for AMD.

  49. And how many men can people name? by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    This is the problem with selective polling and ad hoc reasoning. Many Americans can't name a single Supreme Court justice, why would you expect them to know female or male tech leaders.

  50. Re:GIVE IT A REST by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

    I'm still waiting for a 'tech product' that isn't a rehash of some older tech product...from anyone. IM is something I used in the 80's, 30+ years ago, and that's ignoring the phone.

  51. Carol Bartz? by Prien715 · · Score: 1

    From Wikipedia:
    She became CEO of Autodesk in 1992. According to Forbes, Bartz "transformed Autodesk from an aimless maker of PC software into a leader of computer-aided design software, targeting architects and builders." She is credited with instituting and promoting Autodesk's "3F" or "fail fast-forward" concept – the idea of moulding a company to risk failure in some missions, but to be resilient and move on quickly when failure occurs. She stepped down as CEO in 2006 and became the executive chairman of the board.

    During her 14-year tenure as the company's CEO, Autodesk net revenue substantially increased, and annual revenue rose from $300 million to $1.5 billion, with the stock price rising an average of 20 percent annually.

    Her tenure at Yahoo didn't go so well, but it's tough moving from a software company to a media/advertising company.

    --
    -- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
  52. Limor Fried by JarekC · · Score: 1

    Limor Fried is the first lady who comes to my mind when I think of tech leaders. Marissa Mayers seems to be a successful product manager who evolved into business leader than a truly tech person.

  53. Equality if opportunity vital. by AlanSargent · · Score: 1

    Equality of outcome not. Saying that women are in general just as interested in programming as men could only come from someone with no knowledge or experience in the field. That some women are is great, and all barriers to their careers should be removed. But being interested in tech doesn't in this context mean wanting a latest iPhone to play games and take photos and watch YouTube. Social Justice Warriors please go home.

  54. and yet they are a minority by aepervius · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And yet among early teenager girl they are still a minority playing CS:GO or whatever. And you cite the 90ies , well those boy playing game many of them tried to program their own late 80ies and early 90ies. And later became developer because they found tech interesting. When I was in university for a few lecture to student (lecture about virus how they are made, psychology, and how to protect , late 90ies for developer) and I had a quick conversation with the women there a pattern emerged : SOME (not all) of the men were there because they liked all tech or computer game stuff. NONE of the women I ever spoke were into that, they were laughing at it and wanted in for the money. Now this is anecdotal, so I can't generalize to whole population. But I do wonder if indeed there isn't simply something fascinating for boy/men in those technical stuff which go bleep-bloop with pretty light, which simply does not attract the crushing majority of girl/women. Another anecdote is all women I know programming where I work now grew into it from other position, and telling them you code stuff for fun is as foreign as speaking being an alien from another planet. They simply view it as a job - like other job. I have yet to meet a woman which went for it for the passion. They do exists, but compared to men who do it for the passion.... At some point you start wondering if all those "inequality" article are just BS and there is indeed a more fundamental reason why women are underrepresented. They simply don't care for it.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  55. Don't try to be popular, take risks by iamacat · · Score: 1

    I didn't get into coding because it was hot. It was for nerds who were not physically strong enough to get into manufacturing and not social enough to be in management. Few girls wanted to be total outcasts. I had a physical fistfight with my father for not going into business instead. If you really want a (far out) chance to be a recognizable household name, follow your inner calling rather than current trends. It may not pan out, but you will have fun.

  56. Surprising? by bankman · · Score: 1

    It's actually more surprising that it's only people considering that almost 50% of a recent poll thought it was a good idea to make Trump US president....

    --
    I feel so sig.
  57. Re:We need more women leaders by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

    Either way is good. The Shareholders should be for women leaders because theycan be paid 25% less. The engineers should be for women leaders because the budget can be more negotiable.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  58. Reverse Experiment by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

    Name the top 5 women in nursing?

    Now do the reverse -- name the top 5 men in nursing?

    The point? Whether it be nursing or tech -- no one gives a fuck.

  59. Mod mistake by baubo · · Score: 1

    Posting to invalidate modding error

  60. You made that up by Kartu · · Score: 1

    Fast forward to today. Girls are playing video games left and right. And it's not just dating sims or Barbie Adventure or whatever, they're fragging people online.

    Women gamers mostly play:
    1) all kinds of "mobile games"
    2) Sim's kind of games
    3) very little of "frag" kind of games (outnumbered 20 to 1 or so)

    So while there definitely is a sizable pool of girls playing "boys games", that's not what most girls do.

  61. Here's a few by knorthern+knight · · Score: 1

    Marissa Mayer ran Yahoo into the ground.

    Meg Whitman ran HP into the ground.

    Susan Mauldin (BA and MFA in "Music Composition") was the CSO (Chief Security Officer) at Equifax

    For bonus points,

    * Melinda Gates (Yes, Bill's wife) came up with Microsoft Bob

    * Julie Larson-Green https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    > Julie Larson-Green (born 1962) was the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) of the Office
    > Experience Organization at Microsoft,[1] where she worked 1993 through 2017.[2]
    > Larson-Green notably managed the implementation of ribbons in Microsoft Office 2007

    --

    I'm not repeating myself
    I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
  62. "Tech as it's normally thought of" by GPS+Pilot · · Score: 1

    kind of Musk (though he's almost outside the real of tech as it's normally thought of)

    Musk leads teams that design more-physical assets (rockets and cars). So he's like Wernher von Braun and Henry Ford. That's the realm of tech as it's more-traditionally though of, not as it's been thought of in the digital/web-centric period of the last 2 - 3 decades.

    "Tech as it's normally thought of" might someday return its focus to things other than digital devices and the web.

    --
    That that is is that that that that is not is not.
  63. The nerve on some people..... by OppMan29 · · Score: 1

    They totally forgot "CORTANA"!!!!