2) Some flexibility on hours/location when children come. Women have a harder 'stop' than men do on their child bearing age, which frequently coincides with moving into senior development roles.
I've been in plenty of hostile reviews with completely harmless, introverted, soft spoken INTJ-types who simply can't get past some nitpick because it doesn't fit into their perfect, logical world view and refuse to budge an inch.
Our industry has a personality problem as much or more as it has a sex problem.
Unreasonable people come in all shapes and personalities.
I've also been on the reviewing end of plenty of types who think all small things are inconsequential nitpicks which excuses them from having to change anything. Then people moan about a lack of standards and consistency between teams...
I've also died in a ditch over naming conventions for unit tests - whilst not my proudest moment - it drives home one of the key points in the article, that good managers work with all their people to make a cohesive team. Everyone has things to improve on and can benefit from constructive criticism. Management is far harder than technical work as humans always have state, there's no such thing as a pure function for humans. Knowing how to coach, mentor, advocate for, protect, encourage etc is not something you are born with, and you can't really spin up an AWS instance of a team of humans to practice on.
The data suggests our industry has a massive sex problem. Refocusing the debate onto yourself is a blocking factor in solving this problem.
I've found myself finding more common ground with young women on my teams than with the young men for this reason, and for the reason that when I do have something constructive to offer during a review then young women generally respond to it in a way that I like (e.g. they make a value judgement about what advice was worth taking and what wasn't and do it).
The kind of men you're describing seem to find a way to turn everything into a sport, and seem to be oblivious to the effect that they have on people whose attitudes toward competition don't match their own. It is frequently embarrassing to watch, and definitely my least favorite aspect of this work.
> young women generally respond to it in a way that I like (e.g. they make a value judgement about what advice was worth taking and what wasn't and do it).
In my only 10+ years experience, I noticed women seem more defensive about their code being reviewed and I have to write long formal arguments if I'm suggesting any more than a trivial change. Then there will be a discussion afterwards and based on that it's 50/50 whether it gets done. Now I pad reviews with positives about the work to soften it in some probably transparent attempt to placate the reviewee.
With men, I review the code, make a suggestion, I usually get a note "sounds good, will do." That's not all men of course, there's always at least one guy who doesn't want his code reviewed at all, too good, doesn't see the point, etc.
This is me, but not at first. I think it took me a while to realize most arguments aren't worth it and not rocking the boat has a lot of social value, especially from a "get on with my day and let bygones be bygones" perspective. I suck up some really questionable criticisms from my boss on the regular. Its not a big deal. I find women in the workplace seem to learn this lesson much later than their male peers. I think female social culture is often argument and verbal heavy and that translates poorly into the workplace. I feel this is the downside of being more socially aware earlier on than boys. Girls seem to become very sensitive to perceived slights and that hyper-sensitivity doesn't translate well into the workplace.
I work with women in their 40s who will argue about the something trivial thing until they're blue in the face. I almost never see a man act like this, especially past age 30 or so. I think older men are just taught to take arguments and conflict more seriously and take on a certain level of stoicism, if not a strong level of emotional repression, at work. In the world of men a conflict could turn into violence quickly while women on women violence is much more rare and with much less serious consequences. A 110lbs girl isn't going to be able to murder me but a 200lbs guy could easily or accidentally do so. I think subconscious knowledge of that permeates our work life and affects how we develop. By the time we enter the workplace we've internalized certain attitudes, if your attitude is 'conflict is everywhere and needs to be constantly addressed' then you'll have a hard time at work, regardless of gender.
I remember being the only man in a group of girls at my first professional job and the gossiping and negativity was extremely high with them, now I can't ever imagine socializing like that at work. It just seems crazy and a guaranteed way to ruin your day and hate your coworkers and bosses. Some of it was absolutely justified but dwelling on it was counter-productive (no one went to HR or went to resolve things, they just seethed endlessly).
Nowadays, I've picked up the 'male stoicism' that always bewildered me about older guys when I was first starting to work a 'real job.' Now it makes perfect sense to me as it limits conflict, drama, and seething resentment. Meanwhile many of my female peers never made this advancement so we have to make special exemptions and treat them with kid gloves if they're even on the receiving end of anything they'll perceive as a slight. Its exhausting, frankly, and I wonder why women, with their ultra-refined social skills, don't see that this kind of behavior is ultimately self-defeating.
That said, the above is a generalization, but its definitely an 80/20 kind of things. 80% of the women I've worked with are like this, with 20% being the exception.
I'm sure whatever you'd like to replace these processes could be described in equally sweeping sexist terms going the opposite direction, you know.
I get what you're saying but at the same time... code reviews and conversations not debates/arguments are important regardless of gender. You're saying you want to built a tech org without that being a central idea to the way men and women on the team should work?
Frankly this is something I'd welcome too.
Also paid maternity leave, funded by taxes.
The issue is when code reviews become a competitive sport, and more about technical oneupmanship than they are about improving code quality and team knowledge.
Yes this can apply to males too, but my empirical observation is mostly more applicable to females.
there is that..
then there are managers and engineers who tell ppl to 'f off' or to 'gtfo' .. and thats deemed acceptable by culture - that needs to be dealt with.