Why So Few Women Break Through Tech's Bro Culture | Hacker News Reader

Why So Few Women Break Through Tech's Bro Culture

bloomberg.com

11 pointsdenzil_correa10 comments

Discussed 2 days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14487299

I always think this is not even a male/female problem. A lot of males also don't fit into the bro culture.

Probably right, but as a male it is easier to ignore when you are not the target.

Or maybe in more self-determining(aka free and developed) countries women actually have more choice in career paths and a lot of them don't even like computers, let alone programming. Unlike nations without as much privilege or freedom which have much higher ratios of women engineers/programmers for obvious reasons.

Does bro culture exist in plumbing and sanitation? What about non-bro culture in nursing. Sounds damn stupid.

The actual science on this subject is pretty interesting, to bad the pseduo-journalists don't read any of it.

I recommend watching this, it's amazing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask

Does this also apply to Wall St.'s Bro Culture? Nah, but seriously. Just call it what it is. A toxic workplace.

And now that I'm done addressing the title, the article doesn't seem to actually have have anything to do with "Bro Culture," so much as general bullet points about employment trends with regards to gender diversity. The word, "bro" doesn't appear elsewhere in the article, which makes no further attempt to even define it.

Further, I have a few problems with its analysis. First, the article states that education pipeline changes are unlikely to address gender imbalances in tech because, "Women already earn about half of all college degrees in STEM subjects and have for more than a decade, but those figures include psychology, sociology and other female-dominated disciplines." I don't see how that fact precludes the possibility of bringing more women into the field through education. It doesn't even seem relevant; yes, computer science is part of STEM, but...it's ignored because other majors are also part of STEM?

The article then asks, "What’s behind these [gender] gaps?" and only presents a single possible answer: "One study showed that college-age women tended to steer clear of engineering and computer majors because they think they must be brilliant, not just hard working, to succeed..." Okay, if that's the core issue then what can we do about it? Any suggestions? The author just moves on.

The article's ostensible premise seems to be rattled off in question 7 with a few statistics and a single opinion, but I'm not totally sure that that's really what the title was driving at. I'm sorry, gender diversity in tech is a serious issue that merits serious discussion, but this article doesn't seem to have a solid idea of what it wants to discuss or say.

While we're at it, let's break through all of the "Bro culture" that's holding women participation back in other fields:

> Aircraft Pilots and Flight Engineers (7.2% women)

> Actuaries (17.9% women)

> Physicians and Surgeons (36.7% women)

And then let's break the fem-bro culture that's holding men back from entering these fields:

> Registered nurses (9% men)

> Elementary school teachers (19% men)

> Social Workers (20% men)

What about trash collectors, construction workers, miners, loggers, Alaskan fishers, fire fighters, and other dangerous jobs?

Are people seeking equality with them?

I heard medicine became much safer when women entered it in greater numbers. Might these other fields become safer with more women in them?

Those are jobs where physical strength is important, which is an area where there are significant biological differences between males and females. Human males generally are bigger than human females, and usually have a higher strength to mass ratio.

That doesn't mean that women cannot do those jobs well. It just means that given equal opportunity we would expect those jobs to remain heavily male.

We make machines that people use to do those jobs. We've designed them for men. If we designed trash trucks and other tools for women, women could use them. The Americans with Disabilities Act led the nation to redesign many things for wider usability.

The question remains, is anyone pushing for equality in those jobs, or only the non-dangerous ones?

I hate it when a reporter didn't understand statistics writes a statistic heavy article. Point #2 Talks about how few women the are in upper management compared to everyone else. But fails to see how few women there are in upper management everywhere else. The article claims women make up roughly half the general workforce. But only 30% are in upper management (this seems like a larger travesty than the topic of the article.) In the computer industry, women make up between 25 and 30% but they make up 20% of upper management. While 20 is less than 30, the important thing is what percentage of women in the industry ride higher Turns out a larger percentage rise on the computer industry than in the general workforce.

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