1) do you think there are more men in engineering exclusively as a result of men being prejudiced against women?
2) do you think your male co-workers are less qualified to be engineers because they were hired for their gender?
3) one of the engineers in this article said she felt uncomfortable being aware of being the only female. Can anyone explain what causes the discomfort?
1.) Not completely. This profession isn't appealing to a lot of women for many reasons outside of it being prominently male dominated.
2.) No
3.) In my early career I was always the only female on smaller male dominated teams. New male devs that came in initially automatically assumed I was administration. It only took a few days for them to realize what I did and all had total respect after.
I personally think the heavy PR push towards women in code over the last couple of years has made it more uncomfortable for women in the profession. I for one don't want that kind of spotlight on me. I want to be judged for my capabilities not for my gender. I am also turned off by companies who heavily promote that they hire women/men equally. I want to be chosen because they think I am the best fit for the job not because they are trying to fill some more female seats.
1. Did you have [what shouldn't be] atypical interests as a girl?
2. If yes, did other girls discriminate against you because of those interests?
My thinking is that it's a compounded problem: as liberal as I might try to be with my children, their peers might disuade them from doing what they want to do (primarily because of their archaic upbringing). It's always good to re-evaluate your beliefs, so I'm genuinely interested here.
Regardless, thanks for your insightful comment.
[1]: https://twitter.com/mariofusco/status/772677525885640704
1. No and never have. Other than interest in boys ;) But I also wasn't boy crazy like a lot of girls.
2. Other girls can't relate to me and I to them. I have a couple of very close girl friends that I have been friends with for a long time but I tend to mesh with men better.
I also have 4 sisters all of whom I am very close with. Not one of them have any desire to get into this profession.
Bottom line is many women just don't want to do this and for reasons that have nothing to do with it being a male dominated industry. Does that make it more difficult for the minority of women who are drawn to this profession? Yep! But trying to force more women into it is not the answer imo.
Also - I am not totally convinced it is because of the rhetoric we as females are exposed to. Yeah, that makes it hard for a lot of us that are not drawn to that type of stuff but I do believe many girls are. As an example: I have a 4 year old daughter. We do our best not to expose her to that but she is so drawn to girly things. It is in her DNA. My son on the other hand isn't and neither was I. I believe I am the minority though.
Women and Men are different and are drawn to different things. That is not a bad thing.
Exactly! I know exactly how to achieve gender parity in tech, force more women to do it. But alas, that's even worse!
A lot of the guys I know seem to have gotten into tech while modding their computer games. I myself got into it while creating websites for computers games I played (Petz and Creatures primarily) that had very active online communities I wanted to play a greater role in. You can accomplish or support stereotypically feminine goals/interests with tech and, when presented within that context, it can inspire girls who are stereotypically feminine to want to jump in if given support.
But I think tech is not often presented as a means to an end that little girls are not at all interested in and the "natural" path of computer game modding (I have no idea how common this is in reality, but it seems most of the guys I run into Sf have it in their background as an entry point) that so many men seem to fall into isn't one as many women follow.
Do I think this means the world is ending and we all need to freak out? Not really. But I do think this statement
> Women and Men are different and are drawn to different things.
Is too flippant as an explanation for why women aren't in tech. Because tech is a tool and it isn't limited in use to male interests. People learn to cook not because they necessarily enjoy throwing ingredients together (though some do), but because the final product is worth the effort. Why women aren't actively learning and using such a powerful tool is an interesting question that I think isn't answered by innate differences in male/female interests.
> Bottom line is many women just don't want to do this and for reasons that have nothing to do with it being a male dominated industry...
Personally, I think a much larger issue than the pipeline "issue" is that male dominated fields tend to create environments that are hostile to women or, really, any person with professional standards of behavior. I was turned down for a position with a whole bunch of bizarre reasons; I later learned that company routinely had business meetings and events at the local strip club and their CEO routinely handed out cocaine. Clearly I was not a culture fit.
That's an extreme example, but, to a lighter degree, male dominated fields normalize behavior that would make the average woman deeply uncomfortable in terms of casual sexism. The company I work with right now supported me when I requested we put a halt to casual use of words like bitch, slut, etc. as derogatory words thrown about the workplace. But the fact that even needed to be brought up as unacceptable is insane and they could easily have pulled a "we're all happy this way; YOU'RE the one with a problem".
I care more about why women leave the field and don't come back despite loving the work itself than I care about why Suzie chooses to major in English rather than CS. And that is an issue of a male dominated field. One of my friends is a male nurse; he's surrounded by women. And he's happy as a clam. I don't know many women who feel the same when the situation is reversed.
Sort of? I read a LOT as a kid. I bought a book randomly as a third grader on interesting sites for kids on the net; this led to my Dad teaching me how to get on the net and my older brother helping me set up my first web page for my "online pets" via AngelFire. It's a website, so one might think atypical interest for a girl. However, I soon was teaching myself basics (aka copy pasta) so my site (moved over to Geocities :P) could be the prettiest in these online communities...which were dominated by girls. The USE of our technical knowledge was very typically female (caretaking games of animals, story-telling, community driven, pretty-all-the-things, etc).
However, I also I played Diablo online and other video games with my siblings and Dad which is not considered normal for girls I believe. Comic books were also big in my house, so Batman was my favorite thing ever as a kid. Barbies and him had many a storyline together in my backyard.
2. If yes, did other girls discriminate against you because of those interests?
No. Not at all.
It's not been 'the last few years' It's been about 30, now. I can remember them pushing when I was in elementary school.
Also, it's a misnomer to call it '[gender] dominated'. Tech is largely female rejected. Just as most men reject teaching, nursing, or the social sciences. Those aren't female dominated either, but male rejected.
I'm perfectly happy working with competent people of either gender. I don't give a shit what's in their pants. Just don't be an idiot and we're all good.
Addressing it this way doesn't diminish or invalidate the issues people have with this state of affairs. And it still allows people to constructively ask the question, when a desire to increase the diversity within tech workplaces is present: How do we make tech more attractive to females?
"Male dominated" is, yes, technically the current state of the tech industry, but it's not accurate to ascribe male domination as a self-fulfilling cause when female rejection consists of many other reasons too.
It depends what those issues are
> still allows people to constructively ask the question.. How do we make tech more attractive to females?
Why is this of value? If tech as it is isn't attractive to females, why dress it up? Do we do the same with any other field?
The word "dominated" or "domination" does have a slight stigma attached.
> It depends what those issues are
Not really. Female rejection implies and is consistent with male domination, it's simply addressing the root cause rather than the symptom. It doesn't claim to change the situation at all.
> Why is this of value?
First, let me stress that this is not a cause I've picked up for myself, so I'm not the ideal person to ask.
However, within this thread there are sources that show measurable benefits to increased diversity in the workplace. As I wrote in the very sentence you partially quoted:
> when a desire to increase the diversity within tech workplaces is present,
What I'm saying here isn't that the question needs to be asked, merely that addressing the issue in this way doesn't preclude people who DO want to ask it.
"measurable benefits to increased diversity" is a little suspect. What kind of benefit, and to who. I don't accept that any good end justify the means.
Also, Male domination is the result of female rejection. To flip causality, you have to show that women want to go into tech, but are prevented from doing so.
It seemed pretty clear most people considered compsci pretty low on the social status hierarchy.
She is only 5 and the girls and boys in her pre-k class were talking about women doing X roles and boys doing A-Z roles. I'm convinced this whole less women in STEM, less women in many professional roles in general are very cultural that starts from a super, super young age.
We've been trying to course correct. I try to show her different women in fields that have done things. I try and talk to her about how smart woman are, etc. But honestly I don't know what the answer is, society-wide, beyond a very, very slow multi-generational nudging of young women telling them they can get into whatever field they want.
Sorry kid, you can't be a lumberjack. Or a lumberjill, or whatever. Women are actually so good at being anaesthesiologists, actuaries, corporate IP lawyers, and electronics hardware engineers that there aren't enough left to let any take the dangerous and low-paid jobs. So keep your grades up, girls.
For boys, I'd just have to come up with some other basis for bullshitting them into preparing for the better jobs. ("Sorry, son, but you can't be an oceanic fisherman if your kneecaps are the same size. You're just going to have to become a plastic surgeon if you want to make one of 'em bigger.")
1) No, women think I am batshit insane too. Most people in America are prejudiced against mathematicians, worrying that liking mathematics says things about our mental stability and sexual desirability. But some men get to be boy geniuses and there's no corresponding stereotype for women that I can find.
2) In academic math I do often see that. There are mediocre guys who persist (you're at MIT with only two ok papers?) when good women are pushed out (with 4 good papers and that MIT degree, pushed to teach, hates teaching, leaves for industry).
3) If all the guys pointedly ignore me, like in that 7th grade math class, I have to eat lunch alone and don't talk to anyone all day and that is sad. If all the guys in turn ask me out, like freshman year of college, I get tired of all the emotions. If all the guys ask me what math I'm learning when I'm 3 years out of the PhD, it's a bit weird but I'll tell 'em. If everyone looks toward me when it's time to take notes or do education and outreach or get the point of view of "the woman", that's just plain annoying. My handwriting is crap, I'm not always a caring or approachable person, and I certainly don't agree with all women about anything (compare this answer to the other answer in the thread). The older I get the less I care but that's because I'm grumpy and married. (Men do treat me differently when they know I'm married.)
1) I think it's a significant contributor. I remember my first programming class at college, there were a couple of hundred people in there, and maybe half a dozen women, I felt very out of place, and had I not been so stubborn I think I would have quit.
2) No, definitely not, I have some great male co-workers. I doubt that they were hired by their gender though, at least not explicitly or on purpose - I believe there was probably some unconscious bias going on, but this is not their fault and they still passed the technical interviews as I did.
3) I understand what she means (see my first answer) - I think it has to do with feeling out of place, like imagine you go to a party and everyone is dressed in fancy white suits, but you come in and you're dressed in a super colorful t-shirt and no pants (not because you wanted to, but because you thought you were supposed to dress that way) - you stand out and don't feel like you belong. It's like that.
This happens for lots of reasons -- as a white dude, if I refer people, a majority of my programmer friends are white dudes. That's fine. But if you care about diversity, you can look for other qualified programmers via different channels [new grads, especially from a place like CMU [1]].
Similar things oftentimes sway conferences so that the lineup of speakers is skewed more than the actual demographics of individuals in the associated field.
I presume conference-creators aren't being malicious, they're just not trying to be diverse [A]. Some of this may also be a result of common personality traits. Some women might not feel qualified to speak about a subject when another person [with an identical background] would. This can happen because "men overestimate their abilities and performance, and women underestimate both." [2]
Thus you'll have bias in the # of people who respond to a call for proposals.
[1]: http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2016/february/women...
[2]: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-conf...
[A] Why is this a problem? Partially because of your question (3). Lack of diversity at a conference makes diverse people feel uncomfortable / unwelcome. This creates a feedback loop, as well. Mostly men ==> activities men are interested ==> only men attend conferences.
I imagine conferences are best if they can enrich everyone interested. Providing videos for people who can't attend, making people who want to come feel welcome, etc
NB there's lots of great literature about intersectionality, so much of this doesn't just apply to the male/female issue. For more reading, check out some of these: http://theteej.tumblr.com/post/122334039549/hi-white-friends...
Definitely not. Humans are complicated beasts, so it'd be pretty impressive if there was an exclusive reason. I do think, however, that EVERYONE is prejudiced against feminine behavior (with "women" just being used as short hand), not just men. I actively am aware of my prejudice against feminine presenting women or men and when I interview people I go out of my way to mitigate my biases through objective assessments.
On the other hand, at the end of the day I want to work with people who will have the same values when it comes to the company culture and similar ideas as to what good code looks like. We're all looking for allies at work and it's impossible to know whether someone 100% fits your idea of a "good" co-worker, so we use shortcuts...like how similar they are to us. And gender is one variable of similarity, so I'm sure it plays an important role in hiring decisions.
2) do you think your male co-workers are less qualified to be engineers because they were hired for their gender?
Slightly. It's not about being hired "for their gender", it's about tendencies in terms of they represent their abilities. A woman says she can do something, she usually has the relevant background/skill-set. A man says he can do something and he's likely to mean "I can teach myself this though I don't know the language or the relevant framework. I may also not have set up my environment yet..."
So. That's an uncomfortable trend with new male hires.
3) one of the engineers in this article said she felt uncomfortable being aware of being the only female. Can anyone explain what causes the discomfort?
If I'm in an all male group that I haven't been in before or that I know sometimes wanders off into unacceptable behavior, I'm readying myself (which is uncomfortable). I'm readying myself to keep talking after being ignored, to call out someone who repeats one of my ideas as if it's their idea, to call out a sexist comment or a boorish joke (I swear to god the amount of men who think the words bitch, slut, whore, etc are just dandy every day insults is insane), to politely decline to go open the door/get coffee/leave the room to perform a menial task, etc. It's uncomfortable.
At my work, I don't feel this way; I'm the only female engineer but it's really borderline irrelevant at this point. I'd be hard to replace, and I established very early on what makes me uncomfortable and the cofounders police that behavior now so it's nearly non-existent. Which is wonderful; I don't want to be a kill joy, I don't want to mother anyone, I don't want to be lone person complaining as everyone mocks me behind their back (aka being established as "that" girl; the very idea behind the statement being YOU are the problem for wanting to be comfortable at work and treated respectfully) I just want people to act like adults in an professional environment and to treat me as an equal who deserves my spot at the table. And I get that. But it took time and effort and support from the leaders of the company.
1) No. When women ask me what I do for work, I get just as many awed looks and statements like "Wow! That's really impressive!" from them as I do from men. I've been to career fairs recruiting college students for entry level software engineering jobs. When I ask men if they're interested they often say like "No, sorry, not a CS major" or something, and women often laugh, or act like I'm crazy/making some sort of joke for asking them. Both genders need to get their shit together and realize that there's really no reason for this to be a male-dominated field.
2) Not at all. I don't think that engineers are "hired for their gender" as much as some, from time to time, may be "overlooked for their gender." I think this effect is much stronger as women age (everyone wants more girls in tech, but no one wants 40 year old mothers in tech. Although ageism is, granted, a factor for both genders), and for higher-level positions (women may be recruited for entry-level jobs, front end development, or UX design, but not, say, as IT managers, or lead security officers).
3) This is a genuinely interesting question. When I first started working, it didn't bother me at all that I was the only female. I mean, I hung out with guys a lot in high school, I have a master's in software engineering, I'm straight -- obviously, totally fine talking with men! It never bothered me at all.
But, as the months and years wore on, and I kept working at startups/small companies where there weren't any women besides me, or there was just a female office manager or something, I started to get a little "stir crazy." Can you imagine going months without having a single conversation with someone of your own gender? I lived with my boyfriend (now husband), and, while I was especially busy (wrote a book, did some freelance work, got a half-time master's over four years -- very few women involved with any of those), sometimes I didn't get out much on the weekends. There were literally no women that I could talk to, during day to day life.
I've tried to make more of an effort in recent years to talk to women and make friends with them, but it's a lot more difficult than it used to be, and I've been told that they feel like they're "talking to a guy." When I got married, there was a bit of a crisis when it seemed like one of my sisters wasn't going to make it to the wedding -- I didn't have any bridesmaids to replace her. I mean, scrolling through my list of Facebook friends, literally couldn't find any female friends much stronger than "casual acquaintance"
Anyway, the discomfort, for me, wasn't just "Oh no, all these guys around, this is super uncomfortable" but feeling really unsettled and unbalanced in a way that you can't quite put your finger on, and that feeling builds up over many years. For me, the problem isn't necessarily "too many men" (although there have been a few extreme instances where I really disliked being surrounded by all the dudes -- DEF CON, and "Friday beer o' clock and Call of Duty in the office," and that time one of my co-workers was confused about how vaginas work, spring to mind), as much as it is "too few women" and I feel like I'm missing out on a significant part of... womanhood? That sounds cheesy and lame, but, that's really the best way I can think to describe it. It would just be really really nice to have another lady around sometimes.