Comment by tomp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomp | Hacker News Reader

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This comment would be OK if we were talking about the profession of lawyers, or doctors, or investment bankers, but programmers?!

Programming is an ideal career for the introverted and "socially awkward". You don't need formal education, you don't need to talk to people, all you need is a computer and a book or internet connection, and most importantly, curiosity and desire to explore and learn about computers. You can't blame the lack of any of those on "boys' club" or "glass ceiling"; the best programmers are self-made, and nothing is stopping women from becoming top-notch hackers.

I think you are focusing on the wrong problem. Yes, it's true that men outnumber women in the field of programming, but guess what: non-programmers outnumber programmers much much more! Less than 5% of the people I know are programmers, and I work as a programmer. Why don't we try to make this profession more interesting to everybody, instead of focusing on just 50% of the people?

> nothing is stopping women from becoming top-notch hackers.

A lot is. Contrary to your comment, programmers have to interact with other people in order to participate in the industry, whether they're in college learning or have just taught themselves and are looking for a job. I've had quite a few female friends tell me about high school teachers and college professors who told them, straight to their faces, that programming was "for men" and they don't belong. There are still plenty of male employers who pass over perfectly qualified candidates just because they're women; plenty of male classmates who harass women with "get back in the kitchen" jokes. One of my friends even dropped out of the program all together because of it.

> Why don't we try to make this profession more interesting to everybody, instead of focusing on just 50% of the people?

Because in order to make it more interesting to everybody, we need to even out our numbers. Otherwise, when we open up the field to everyone, all we're going to do is inflate the numbers without changing the ratio.

The total number isn't the problem; it's the ratio.

> high school teachers and college professors who told them, straight to their faces, that programming was "for men" and they don't belong. There are still plenty of male employers who pass over perfectly qualified candidates just because they're women; plenty of male classmates who harass women with "get back in the kitchen" jokes.

And what is this kind of announcements/programs doing to change that?

I believe the idea is counterbalancing negative with positive discrimination until the culture starts to change (which is more likely to happen if there are more women in the profession).

Like icebraining said, the biggest way to influence the industry is to get more women into it. The more women, the weaker the current we must row against.

Change is much more likely to happen if there is a substantial population of women participating in the industry.

I'm pretty sure there are significant movements around attracting "everybody" to programming already, btw. This is "computer science week" in the USA, for crying out loud. If you want to join a discussion, try reading hacker news to get major announcements like "president of USA says everyone should learn to code", or to hear about the"programmer bootcamp" options that are trying to attract non-programmers to the profession. There are also lots of programs starting in elementary school aiming to attract kids, for instance.

Perhaps a change you could make personally, as a step to making it more broadly attractive, would be to stop advertising it as something only introverts with no social skills would like? (What percentage of people are in that group? Less than 50?)

It's not something only introverts with no social skills like, it's one of the rare high-paying jobs where you can succeed even if you are an introvert with no social skills.

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