And the "sexism" debate was stirred by people who were only tangentially involved in Tech, like the PR person "Adria Richards". If you listen to actual women with actual Math, CS, or EE degrees, you'll hear a different story.
As someone whose listened to actual women with Math, CS, and EE degrees (and women who are working in technical roles without degrees in those fields, as both women and men in the field do), I disagree. You'll hear a mix of stories from those women, some positive, some as bad (or worse) than those from women "tangentially involved" in tech.
OTOH, I don't think that sexism in the tech industry would fail to be a problem if it only victimized women in non- (or less-)technical roles within the industry.
> Technology companies are generally considered to be some of the most sought-after employers in the world. We have an inherent “home field advantage” when it comes to recruiting the largest and richest talent pools of our most critical position: software engineers. However, despite this advantage, our data indicates that software engineering teams in tech have proportionally fewer women than several non-tech industries; namely healthcare, retail, government, education, and nonprofits. For example, a typical software engineering team in a healthcare company is likely to be 32% women, compared to 20% in technology. While these non-tech industries employ significantly fewer software engineers versus technology, their teams tend to exhibit greater gender parity.
You don't end up with 50% women in other industries with basically the same role without some sort of reason.
That conclusion cannot reasonably be inferred from the post you are responding to.
From my perspective as a software engineer, we work in a male-dominated field, and we've made the work culture and norms what we want them to be [1]. The few women who do end up on engineering tracks often leave, and in a lot of cases they move into engineering support roles (dev evangelist, marketing, etc.).
I think Adria Richards is a loud, exceptional example that doesn't tell the story here. The reality is, this is a very quiet, insidious problem; women are walking away from our field, or just not showing up.
I don't believe that half of the best of the best talent pool just doesn't want to do engineering like the other half. There's a reason they're disinclined, and I accept that I'm part of it -- I'd like to see it change, and I think we have a responsibility to do better. I believe that as an industry, our future suffers for it.
http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-index/articles/2015/06/29/ge... [1]
In 2013, only 26% of computing professionals were female — down considerably from 35% in 1990 and virtually the same as in 1960. While the percentage of women in engineering has risen since 1990, the progress is modest –rising from 9% in 1990 to 12% in 2013.
http://fortune.com/2015/03/26/report-the-number-of-women-ent... [2]
People make this argument about female dominated fields (particularly education and nursing, which are, or have been, areas of perceived shortages) all the time; they probably don't make it as often in tech industry focused discussion fora, for reasons of lack of relevance to the venue.
http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Registered_Nurse_(RN...
The average yearly income of a nurse in my country is between $3k less, and $10k more than the average salary of a software developer in my country, depending on the source.
Although the stresses are perhaps not comparable, it's important to note that a nurse working the same hours as a typical software developer could expect to earn around twice as much.
Mind you, educational requirements may be more expensive than for software developers. I'm not familiar enough to speak to that.
http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Employer=Toronto_Distric...
An average elementary school teacher in a nearby city makes about $3k less than an average software developer, with around 7 weeks paid leave. At least one female respondent in another nearby municipality recorded having 10 weeks of paid leave and full benefits. With that, I think that total compensation must be at least on-par.
http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Social_Worker/Salary...
Average salary of a social worker is around $15k less than that of software developers in my country. I don't know as much about social work. I suspect it's good, hard work. I hear that it's risky. Benefits packages are mostly ubiquitous though.
Of the small sample on this site, all respondents said that they were extremely satisfied with their employment as a Social worker.
http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Clinical_Psychologis...
Average clinical psychologist salaries are about $25k higher than average software developer salaries in my country. Likely owing to higher typical educational requirements.
Of the small sample on this site, all respondents said that they were extremely satisfied with their employment as a Clinical Psychologist.
Teachers in the US make on average $58k or so, varying from state to state quite a lot. It's about $30k less than the average software developer in the US, and if you're not very senior as a teacher you might get fired every year and rehired in fall. It's not a very secure job in many places, actually, even if you can teach math or science.
Nurses in the US make a lot more money, on par with developers, but much more physically and emotionally demanding.
Your comment has little to do with the comment you are responding to.