Simple response to his thesis: there used to be more women in programming... back when it was harder.
So yes. Before, programming was hard, and low status. Now it's easy and high status, and men think that women aren't there because it's too hard. No, they were there when it was hard.
Who thinks that? Hard is something relative. The author says that men could be more prepared to tech because a biological predisposition that makes tech easier positions for them (better abstract thinking and more tolerance for stress, for example), while women are more prepared for other things likes taking care of others (because they are better in socializing and empathy). As tech became more competitive the women just left it for other things while men get into to get more status.
You can keep the bridge you bought in brooklyn.
I know plenty of people who are in CS for the challenge. They absolutely love writing software.
Also, nurses do what they do because they feel great helping people but in no way is that easy. Working in terminal care is extremely mentally taxing as many to all of the people they work with are preparing to/going to die. In the same way, nurses in the ER/ICU have to deal with people dying that are in no way prepared to die and that is also extremely mentally taxing. In regard to being physically taxing, much in the same way that people in CS have to deal with deadlines and long stressful working hours, nurses can often end up with up to 18-20 hour shifts with their off-hours and off-days classified as on call hours that they will usually get called in to work for.
Nurses definitely are in the field because they enjoy helping people but that in no way means that they have an easier job than people in the CS field.
We should respect all the jobs and understand that all of them required different skills and also that different people have different skills. And we should try not to force people into jobs or discrimine (either negative or positive) because of the gender or height or race or whatever. We should evaluate the skills and give them something they will enjoy doing and will do great.
Before the list of software contractor was smaller, so the few places you could work in was NASA and Military.
Now the variance of jobs is much greater, so not all jobs are NASA level hard.
That to me sums up the difference. It is now vastly easier to write and run a program. But that doesn't tell the whole story. Programming careers realty do have a red queen race quality to them.
I really couldn't compare it to fields I haven't worked in. But I do think that programming certainly can reach hellacious levels of stress and complexity.
Is this true?
Or is it the old "machine code is harder" idea?
How many people here programmed assembly language in middle school, but would have been stumped (or at least strained to the max in comparison) if made to read say, the Design Patterns book?
The kind of assembly programming you do in middle school is a far cry from the difficulty of designing and maintaining an entire program in assembly.
Something has changed since then and I am unable to perceive or explain what it is.