Comment by mysticllama | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mysticllama | Hacker News Reader

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Look at the population of women in fields such as:law, medicine, social science, etc. and you'll see that STEM lags behind in parity. The percentage of women in computing, according to some studies, isn't much higher than it was in 1960! [2]

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]

Why does nobody make this argument about Nursing, or Teaching, or Social Work, or Psychology, or any of the "Female dominated" fields? When men don't go into a field, they find a way to blame men for it, when women don't go into a field, they find a way to blame men for it. Don't women have any agency? Are they dumb robots that only do what men tell them? Maybe they don't WANT to be in STEM fields...

> Why does nobody make this argument about Nursing, or Teaching, or Social Work, or Psychology, or any of the "Female dominated" fields?

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.

Another issue with this argument is that all of those fields are considerable less well remunerated than technology.

http://www.livingin-canada.com/salaries-for-registered-nurse...

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.

Canada is nice.

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.

People bring this up in every single thread about sexism in HN and almost every single time somebody gives them a cite to any of the several of efforts dedicated to getting dudes in those fields.

Which is meaningless without means of comparison. The fact that programs exist somewhere in the world tells us nothing about the importance placed, or resources spent, on those efforts.

Maybe if you actually worked in said industry you've have a better sense of the environment. I doubt the average nurse (male or female) knows much about how the tech industry works.

How many articles in mainstream media bemoan the lack, or treatment of, male nurses compared to IT workers?

Your comment has little to do with the comment you are responding to.

This is not a mainstream media article. It's a blog post. I doubt my cousin the insurance adjuster ever heard about it, just as I never hear stories about the insurance industry.

For law and medicine - is it because there's less sexism, or because the fields are more prestigious and therefore women who wish to be in those fields let more of it slide in the interest of retaining and advancing their career?

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