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Comment by neo4sure | Hacker News Reader

"And the sexual harassment, while annoying, was just that: annoying. I cannot recall that it ever affected my work, nor that I lost any sleep over it."

This says it all. Most women are not like this author. They will loose sleep over it and rightly so.

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Here's what I don't understand. Traditionally male-dominated fields rife with harassment issues - like law and medicine - now have much less of a problem, because the gender ratio has been somewhat normalized. Tech companies are actually becoming MORE male dominated - yet medicine and law would be put to shame by the sheer amount of mental and financial resources that tech companies pour into diversity efforts nowadays.

What is different about the tech industry that girls graduating high school are happy to go into studying medicine or law, but don't want to study computer science? It seems the problem starts far before most people think that it does.

I can understand it by looking at my own daughters. Without a substantial effort from my part, they tend to gravitate towards nontechnical subjects. Peer pressure, influence from media all play a part in this. The issue is bigger than just a few techi bro's.

Absolutely. It's a society-wide cultural problem. And both the tech bros, the media image, and the idea that women don't belong there, are bad at it or shouldn't want to be there, are the products of that.

Software is one of the few areas where female participation has actually gone down since the 1980s. There used to be more female programmers.

Law and medicine are high status jobs, with a lot of people interactions. Yes, programmers have meetings. Not the same level of interaction as medicine, by a long stretch.

There are many TV shows glorifying medicine and law. How many TV shows glorify the job of a programmer? How would you make a TV show glorifying the job of a programmer?

So why do young men study CS in college if programmers aren't glorified? Not to mention that being a "nerd" and "computer whiz" has never been a culturally attractive label, no matter what people might say today.

I don't agree with this, but the implication seems to be that women/girls are shallower? Is there some other word to characterize "more likely to make major life decisions based on what the TV says"?

Because it's one of the only fields you're virtually guaranteed an an above average salary straight out of undergrad and it's an easier path relative to medicine and law

Anecdotally, it was often guys who had no shot at being high status anyway that chose CS, or earlier, who picked computers as a hobby.

Men in America, but not in the world in general, are more money conscious than status conscious. They're more likely to salve the idea of not having a respectable job with thinking about how much money they are making.

I doubt it. There are a lot of men who care a great deal about status. I've even heard of men who don't want to date women who make more money than them, because they feel it hurts their status. If they cared more about money, they'd gladly date a richer woman.

The problem is this patriarchal idea that men should be the main breadwinner. Our culture tells them they've failed at being men if they're not the main breadwinner. It also tells them they need to go all-out making money, which makes it easier for employers to convince them to make long hours. At the same time, women have this cultural role of mothers, where they should be concerned with having children, and put their children before their job, and therefore can't be expected to work as hard as men.

Alright, that doesn't explain why women are more prominent in other hard-working jobs like medicine and law. Still, it's a cultural prejudice that's still very much felt in much of society.

It's usually the other way round - women don't want to date men who earn less. You probably heard your version from the feminists.

Quite the contrary. This is the first time I hear of women who refuse to date a man who earns less than them (excepting gold diggers, of course), and I've heard about men who don't want to date women who earn more than them, from men who think women should not earn more than them.

Women marrying up is historically the biggest driver of equality in Western societies (poor people becoming richer). Economist have identified it as a problem because as women get richer and they don't want to marry down, that mechanism for "equality" is increasingly lost.

So there have been studies about this phenomenon (women not wanting to marry down), but I am too lazy to Google for them.

Also, financial troubles of the husband are the strongest indicator for impeding divorce. And breakups are usually initiated by women.

Every time this comes up I wonder if I should launch a dating site for rich women seeking a "houseman" for a partner. But somehow I am still not convinced yet that there is really such a huge market.

Yeah, but that's part of the old patriarchal system where men make money and women stay at home. In this age of double incomes, it should be irrelevant. Still, some people cling to the old patriarchy.

It's not just that, it is that women have the greater bargaining chip in the relationship. They have the womb for creating babies, so they can make more demands. Also, they make the greater investment into kids (at first, at least, over time it can change), which also warrants "compensation".

I'm not sure what they're supposed to be bargaining about in your view. Have you ever been in a long term relationship? Because what you're describing does not sound like a healthy relationship.

Do you have kids? Who got to stay home with the kids? Who got to work only part time when the kids grew older? Who pays the rent? That sort of thing.

And, as always: on average...

If you don't see it, I don't think I can convince you. There is much to learn about how the world turns.

I have kids, yes. We take care of them together. We both work 4 days a week. She pays the mortgage, I pay childcare.

In a healthy relationship, this is stuff you work out together, not through demands and womb-based bargaining chips.

Silicon Valley, Halt & Catch Fire, Scorpion, Mr. Robot. Lots of TV shows center around programmers. As with doctor shows however they don't focus on the medicine but the interactions of the people.

I suspect it's because of a prejudice that there's something anti-social about working with technology. And that prejudice effects both the people working with technology (some of whom embrace that anti-social attitude, when in a different environment they'd do something about it), and people who don't want to go into tech because of that prejudice.

She said the harassment came from clients not co-workers.

Yes but the point is she was ok with it. Which is not what a large population of females feel like...

Honestly, how do you want her to feel about it?

You can't sue customers for sexual harassment. Anyone working in a customer-facing position must be willing to put up with poor behavior (of all sorts) on the part of customers; it's pretty much part of the job description. If it gets bad enough you fire the customer, but in the mean time you just get the work done, take their money, and be ok with it. The only thing worse than annoying customers is no customers.

Oh please, do tell me how you are so in tune with how a "large population of females"(weird wording btw?) feel.

I've been in that position and I felt the same as the author in this particular regard. Obviously sexist clients made me angry to deal with in the moment, but they're the same as any other type of asshole when you come right down to it. And sleep time is too precious to waste thinking about assholes.

I still loved my job and coworkers and would recommend it to other women. Sure sexism exists, but it exists everywhere. Why miss out on a good gig because bad customers exist?

I'm not the op.

I was waitstaff once. I quit on day 2. I am sure if you surveyed most waitresses, they'd say they don't lose any sleep over the kind of sexual harassment faced from customers but that's survivors bias in my opinion.

Anyone who did lose sleep, like I did, quit like I did unless of course they had no choice but to go on because they needed the income.

Well, some people is stronger than others to social pressure. Anyway, the author is not saying that sexual harassment doesn't exist nor it does not matter, but that even putting those aside maybe engineering is just not an attractive field for women.

That said, I don't know if I buy that you have to be a dedicated geek to be in engineering.

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