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The biggest complaint that I've heard from female engineers who have been around for more than a couple years is that there are so few of them, and that it is such a male-dominated industry. I can't speak for them, but I have my own complaints on this front, as a guy. Overlooking the specific gender biases that women face, there are real differences between how men and women work and interact, and I find it rather tedious to just work with men all the time. I have come to despise many aspects of programmer culture, and I feel that a lot of what I dislike is due to a heavily male influence. "Rock star", "ninja", "brogrammer" and the like all sound like words generated by immature men in roles of power. I think that the more egoistic, individualistic trends in work behavior are outgrowths of a distinctly male influence. This behavior contributes to the poor perception of the profession.

The only people I have ever seen use the terms rock star or ninja are women in HR/Recruiting.

Counterdote: I've heard men say it. But they were never programmers or engineers, always people in either sales or management.

The article has nothing to do with harassment. As a female in the software industry, I have experienced harassment perhaps once, and it wasn't from my colleagues.

Stereotype threat can occur even at 'sane firms'. It has to do with a person's perception of herself and what people might be thinking, not the way others are acting.

The article appeared to be arguing: women underperform because they spend mental effort worrying about stereotype threat. So let's educate them about stereotype threat so they'll be more conscious of it.

That sounds obviously counterproductive. Did I misunderstand?

It's not counterproductive at all. Knowing how to deal with such biases (whether they're internal or external) makes them easier to overcome.

For example, I'm self-taught, and while I have many years experience now and have done some significant projects, I still second guess myself quite a bit. (This is often called "Imposter Syndrome", see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imposter_syndrome.) I found it tremendously helpful to discover that people I've looked up to for years have felt the same way, and had helpful suggestions for getting over the internalized anxiety.

Everybody has nagging fears like this. Learning how to see them for what they are and to avoid making things worse for other people benefits everybody.

You're mixing different layers of worrying.

People underperform because they're worrying about problem X (confirming stereotypes). Let's refer to this as problem Y (stereotype threat).

Education about problem X would be counterproductive; the article is suggesting education about problem Y.

Being able to label that thing that's been interfering with my ability to get my work done is definitely a productive thing.

But I also think there's another, far more useful purpose for educating people suffering from stereotype threat about stereotype threat: they can then put a label to what is keeping them from getting their work done when asking their peers, mentors, or managers for help. And then their peers, mentors, and managers can pay attention to situations that might provoke stereotype threat, try to lessen them, and otherwise show a bit of compassion for the person suffering from it.

I say this personally: learning about stereotype threat cleared a huge communication roadblock I'd been having for years with managers and peers, and as soon as we were on the same page we were actually able to address some of the issues contributing to it.

While you make a point that it doesn't always have to do with harassment, your second argument is very weak. There's nothing anyone but yourself can do about "[...] a person's perception of herself and what people might be thinking, not the way others are acting."

If your issue lies with what other people MIGHT be thinking, then the issue is within your own self-confidence.

I agree that stereotypes are destructive, but only when they actually are present. One should be careful not to feel threatened by hypothetical thoughts from hypothetical co-workers before the fact.

There's nothing anyone but yourself can do about "[...] a person's perception of herself and what people might be thinking, not the way others are acting."

Agreed. On the other hand, for a person thinking negatively about himself or herself, the absence of feedback will often be interpreted as negative feedback.

Being nice to our colleagues (male or female or other minority group) and giving positive feedback when it's appropriate tends to increase a team's overall morale and productivity.

Absolutely. On a related note, we seem to be a lot better and consistent at giving negative feedback. Encouraging positive feedback and giving more of it to young people as they grow up would probably go a long way.

In talking to my female colleagues and female friends in the engineering profession, I would say that there are a lot more forces at work that make it difficult for females and some minorities to realize their potential. Most that are successful have found ways to get through them, but it doesn't mean that it's an ideal situation.

As the author points out, it's largely due to the perception of the events at school or in a workplace than the true motivations behind them, which you might argue that a successful women engineer needs more mental strength to get through these barriers.

As you mention, there is a lack of quality talent and it would be in our best interest to bring out the potential in as many people as possible. It may be that society happened to turn off countless competent engineers due to these perceptions and social forces.

I believe the question is less on how do you balance the workplace, but rather how do you bring out the best out of people so that the pool of strong engineers becomes bigger.

If I have understood you correctly...

Women don't have unique, unnecessary, gender-specific challenges because once the suits were mean to you?

Puzzling reasoning.

Something is hardly a "gender-specific challenge" when both men and women report running into it, yes?

Yes, both men and women encounter stereotype threat. However, in programming, stereotype threat works mainly against women. So in context, yes, it's gender-specific.

I'd say "stereotype threat" is more of a neurotic-specific thing than anything else.

It's well supported experimentally.

Yep, I'm just a pussy and need to man up, you got it. Must have got my sensitive feelings hurt, that's all this is. Very insightful comment, "bro".

Your language reveals much to confirm my initial suspicions. Good luck in your adventures.

You should do a better job reading the comments you reply to. His "language" mirrored the words he said he was harassed with, just as your response mirrored the dismissive attitude behind that harassment.

Wow, that's not what danilocampos said at all. Your old workplace was f'ed up! Totally agreed! However, the bad experience you had is off-topic relative to the article we're discussing.

You had a rough time, and stereotype threat is a real thing and a real problem that we should fix. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive! The fact that your old job was f'ed up doesn't say anything about the problem being discussed in the linked article.

I met plenty of women programmers who are good at their jobs who have made this kind of argument. Many have left computing.

What is different about the women you have met, and I have met, I'm not sure. But I can tell you many such women exist.

I am a damn good programmer. I have these problems.

I am sorry you encountered gender-policing behavior at your last job: that is exactly what I, as a feminist, am trying to fight against for both men and women. Saying that because patriarchy hurts everyone it isn't a problem to be solved, though, is unhelpful. It is a matter of "yes, and": it hurts men and it hurts women measurably more (https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/258/1/Sc...) and in neither case is it acceptable.

It's not just at work: conferences, meet ups and most of all online I encounter attitudes every day that either demand I act like a man, just as you did. The difference between us is that they aren't asking you to do something that is biologically impossible, and reminding you in the process that you will never, ever be able to simply fit in to your chosen profession.

I am a damn good programmer. I have these problems.

Do you really start thinking about how bad woman are believed to be at science and math every time you speak to a male colleague or walk into a room full of men? I don't know, I'm asking...

The difference between us is that they aren't asking you to do something that is biologically impossible

Are you suggesting that male programmer behavior has a biological basis?

It's not that conscious, but every time I walk into a room full of men... hm, the closest analogy I can think of is arriving at what you thought was a fancy dress party only to discover everyone else is in jeans and a t-shirt. Every time I take a deep breath and step into a crowd where people assume I'm from HR or I'm with whatever man I'm chatting with that second.

It's not even that I think about it all the time; it's that I am subtly reminded of it over and over again. It is impossible to forget, because the environment and people around me reproduce them, mostly entirely unintentionally. Even just the lack of women is a subtle, ever-present reminder that I am doing something weird and kind of awkward.

It's not something that is easy to describe. I'd compare and contrast this with, say, science fiction conventions, which are usually 40% women and where I encounter none of the same awkward out-of-place-ness. Still uber-nerdy, still has lots of socially-awkward men, way fewer reminders of how many stereotypes I violated getting there.

As for the biology quip, I apologize for being unclear. I meant that telling me to "man up" would be like telling you to "be a woman": illogical. The only thing I was attributing to biology was gender itself (and even that can be mental, physical, both or neither.)

It is impossible to forget, because the environment and people around me reproduce them, mostly entirely unintentionally. Even just the lack of women is a subtle, ever-present reminder that I am doing something weird and kind of awkward.

It's interesting that you're conscious of all this and yet it still effects you. In your case it seems to not be a case of stereotype threat but more a lack of self-confidence (re: "doing something weird and kind of awkward") or a need to fit in. If they started hiring more women developers would that make you feel more confident in your own abilities or have a positive effect on your job performance? If so why?

Well, it depends what you mean by "effect". I certainly think I cope with it better because I am aware of what is going on. I'm experienced and successful enough to be confident in my code, and I got there in part by learning about sexism and how it functioned so I could sift what of my personal judgement was about me and my performance from what was about the people around me.

The whole experience is very lizard-brain; I can rationalize it after the fact and compensate for the dynamic when making decisions, but that doesn't completely get rid of the emotions in the first place. Like how just because you know a film is a horror film doesn't mean you don't startle when something jumps out at the screen.

I don't know for sure if it affects my performance, since I haven't performed tests on myself, but I believe the evidence I have read that suggests it probably does. I can't really explain the mental toll that that being a constant visible outsider takes, especially when people around you say things about the group you belong to without remembering that you are one. It's not crippling, but it isn't pleasant either; sort of like wearing ten pound weights all the time.

I don't think having more women around would make me more confident in my job performance, but it would make me more confident in my employment and leave more energy to devote to the job. Jobs, especially programming, include teamwork, camaraderie and talking with coworkers. It's a lot harder to relax and fit in when you don't entirely no matter what you do.

I don't want to give the impression that this is all in women's heads either. Groups of people bond over whatever they have in common, whether it is shoes, pets, culture or gender. Right now, if some guy in the work place says something sexist or talks about how weird and incomprehensible their wives are or talks about typically-masculine things like cars or football or scotch or how they hate GUIs or how people need to stop being such pussies or how the best coders are all men, they are signaling group membership by defining themselves against another group, which I can't help but belong to. Even if I don't say anything at all, just existing is enough to disrupt the maleness-centered bonding that would otherwise be going on (at best. At worst I get "complements" like, "oh, you're not like other women!" and they keep on defining group membership in a way that would exclude me if they hadn't made some careful and possibly-temporary exception in their mind.) Once there are enough women in a space, dudes stop trying to bond over how male we all are and we can start bonding over the work we do or the books we like or whatever the reason is we are actually there.

I think when there get to be enough women in a group it improves some men's performance too. There are some men who backlash when it happens because they have defined themselves by the masculinity of their groups. They are the ones who talk about how we don't need to worry about there being no women in CS and how the whole thing is biology; those opinions don't magically change when women do enter a field, even though they become pretty silly. On the other hand, other men can stop worrying about whether they are acting manly enough and stop spending effort to hide parts of themselves to better fit in to unrealistic masculine norms and focus instead on the work at hand.

Ah I see... From your vocabulary, writing style and misandrist digs I can tell you're a "trained feminist" and I know once that belief system takes hold there's no going back and as such, there's no point in arguing. I'm sorry to have wasted your time. Good luck to you and especially to your colleagues.

Wow. I took the time to engage in good faith, to try to explain what it is like to be me and how that varies from what you seemed to expect.

Now I feel like a shmuck for having assumed the same of you. Glad you found a way to dismiss everything I said so you can keep believing whatever it is you want to believe.

This is an ongoing made up fake crisis

... because ...

I've yet to see

Your personal experience does not form reality. Well, your own reality perhaps, but the rest of us live in a world where the sum of others' experiences prove what is made up or not.

I'm not saying there is a crisis, but you're saying that there isn't just because you haven't heard about it personally. Which is kind of like saying there is no such thing as three-toed sloths because you've never had someone talk to you about seeing one in person.

I am a woman engineer and agree with everything you said, seriously