Comment by whakojacko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whakojacko | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

IMO, Its considered an issue because 1. Women have succesfully entered lots of other previously male-dominated fields (Doctors, Lawyers, Business execs, etc). 2. Tech is considered a "sexy" field to be in.

To expand, Women are still a minority in a lot of areas of work where physical differences are mostly unimportant-E.g. truck driving, skilled construction workers (carpenters/electricians), etc. Other engineering fields (eg EE) are similarly male-dominated, but being an EE or whatever isnt "sexy" in the way tech is, so it doesnt get as much attention. By "sexy" I mean the software industry has lots of high-paying jobs, growth, job security (if you are good at what you do), and, most importantly, publicity. Facebook essentially didnt exist 6 years ago, now they have 500m users every tiny change they make is "big" news. If you can create your own company (which , relative to other industries, is incredibly easy to do), you get lots more money and publicity. This makes it a popular target for the "Why arent there more women in industry x" discussion.

Do you really believe that the general perception of programming/IT is "sexy"?

There is an easy test for what fields women find as having social status. Look at the cover of Harlequinn romance novels.

I conclude that doctors, bankers, marketing executives, writers, poets, dukes, slaveholding Southerners, vampires, werewolves, and Catholic priests are all seen as more desirable than engineers are.

Dukes are appealing to women? Conclusion: YCombinator should start handing out titles of nobility upon acceptance to the program. Problem solved!

"And over here is Duke Smith, Lord of Databases, who rules over over data warehouse, and whose rippling pecs shine like the morning dew..." uh, sorry, got off track there.

You were probably joking. But just in case somebody from another country is reading this (and missed the reference):

I am female, and have never read a Harlequinn romance novel. None of my female friends have read them, either. None of my older female relatives have read them either. (I'm not saying some people aren't reading them. Just that they're like daytime soap operas: Cheap enough to make, and popular enough to survive, but not necessarily relevant.)

Must be something wrong with my friends and me. Lately many of us have been crushing out on guys who work at coffee shops.

But my point is this: There is such a thing as sub-culture. This means not everybody likes the same stuff. To put it in start-up terms: it's the long tail... of attraction.

This is 2010, people. :D

#dowatchalike

I am male, and I am not into porn. That doesn't mean it doesn't accurately reflect the desires of males, on average.

Material like that will cater to it's audience. Then the only question is, who is it's audience and do they represent a significant portion of the greater whole we are trying to study.

For sure. That's why I made my "long tail" reference. (I'm geek first, female second. :D)

The Long Tail taught us that the single most popular thing still has less people into it than not into it.

Thankfully for (male) software engineers, not all women enjoy Harlequinn romance novels. :)

You're making the mistake of conflating "I wanna fuck that" with "I wanna be that." For the rest of the argument, I defer to thesethings.

I agree, my little theory about why women don't want to work in IT or study CompSci is that they don't want to hang around with the nerdy types.

Medicine and Law has more prestige.

"Medicine and Law has more prestige."

And, thanks to economic protectionism, a largely guaranteed source of white collar income. Programming is much riskier.

Even if you disregard who you work with, what else do medicine and law have that compsci doesn't?

* your family & friends will be able to grasp what you do

* on average, in those fields you can have a much greater positive impact on other people than you can employed developer

* your field is insulated by the need for education - you don't have to worry about 16-year-olds who think working 20 hour days is fun

* codes of professionalism (whether or not they're slavishly followed)

* regulatory boards that can and do eject bad apples

* very hard to outsource to India or other destination du jour

* law firms and medical practices don't go boom and bust as often as tech firms do

I'm a female developer and I honestly don't care... but then again, I've made myself impossible to compete with. I'd also gnaw off my own leg before working in a corporate tech environment.

Let's face it -- the movie that sums up the life of a corporate developer best is _Office Space_. The IT Crowd doesn't make it much more appealing.

Meanwhile, lawyers and doctors and biotech and all sorts of other fields where there are more women -- they get the awesome shows and movies.

Your reasons might explain why women enter medicine and law rather than CS. Except for the first reason, they don't explain why women enter advertising and sales but not CS.

Further, everything you just said applies equally well to any sort of professional engineer (i.e., the kind where you get certified) or to actuaries. Those fields exhibit a lack of women similar to CS.

>Let's face it -- the movie that sums up the life of a corporate developer best is _Office Space_. The IT Crowd doesn't make it much more appealing. >Meanwhile, lawyers and doctors and biotech and all sorts of other fields where there are more women -- they get the awesome shows and movies.

That's it! We need the IT port of House!

your family & friends will be able to grasp what you do

After listening to a med student and a pharmacy student discuss what they've been doing while on rotations, I'm not entirely certain this is true.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com