Think women in tech is just a pipeline problem?

Anyhow, I'll quote an excerpt from one of the comments:

> A married man is considered (in the sociology findings) to bring "more than" one person to work with him, because it is assumed he has someoone feeding/dressing/cruise directing him. This frees up his brain space for ... work. On the other hand, a married woman is considered to bring less than a whole person to work. Because she is assumed to be feeding/dressing/cruise directing at least one other human. And possibly incubating another. This is taking up valuable brain space that could be devoted to work.

So, there's a conscious or unconscious bias against women in working life, due to the assumption that they'll be doing more than their fair share of unpaid, generally undervalued labor outside of the workplace. Oh so plausible. This would be a rational reason for a workplace to discriminate against women, given the existing context of structural unfairness and bias in the rest of society. "Hurray!"

[1] http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emo...

[2] ...unless you are very uncomfortable with reading criticism of men, and you cannot stomach discomfort. in that case, it's probably best for everyone involved if you don't follow the link.

I suspect excessive hours also contributes to unintentional harassment [1], mostly against single women.

Most people are heterosexual. Most of them want to find partners to have relationships with ranging from casual flings to long term romantic relationships.

If people are expected to work long and hard hours they will be left without the time and/or energy for activities outside of work where they can seek out sexual and romantic partners. Since people are not going to give up on seeking out sexual and romantic partners inevitably some of that activity will shift to the office. If that office has significantly more single men than single women it is going to get particularly annoying for the women.

[1] By "unintentional harassment" I mean actions that are takes as harassment by the person they are directed to, but are not intended as harassment by the person taking the action.

> both men and women were significantly more likely to hire a male applicant than a female applicant with an identical record.

And from the linked studies: "Men only penalized female candidates for attempting to negotiate whereas women penalized both male and female candidates."

And the pay rates, and drops, from here http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf+html are both worse from female faculty - with sale offered from men 30K -> 29K vs 27K -> 25K for female faculty, and male faculty scored women higher in all categories than the female faculty.

What does it mean to "leave the field"? Does that mean to no longer practice low-level work or to leave the industry entirely for another industry? If it is the former, does moving into management or another complementary area (like moving from engineering to product management) qualify as leaving the field?

So what I've always been curious about is what percentage of women leave other fields? It would be nice to have numbers to compare it to there.

Also, what percentage of men leave the field? If "leaving the field" is defined as no longer actively practicing software engineering and instead doing more human contact work (like managing), then I would expect a significant number of men to leave the field at all.

I'm not trying to dismiss the number out of hand, but merely demonstrate that it's a useless figure to bandy about with context or comparison.

If the work environment is not to women' liking and has no bearing on outcome, where are all the successful companies formed by women who want a more friendly environment?

"This is a huge, unnecessary, and expensive loss of talent in a field facing a supposed talent shortage."

Again, if true, some enterprising person should have found a way to tap all the amazing talent.

This seems to be such a spectacularly good result that I wonder why they haven't tried it sooner.

1. It is a pipeline problem (I never got as much women applications as I wanted, even with targeting a women audience)

2. It is a problem of not enough role models for women (so women do not see themselves in tech and do not aspire for tech careers or for becoming CTOs - women CTOs go a long way here).

3. It is a problem of the vile and toxicity of the tech community in general (just see all the fights over programming languages, about being right vs. understanding each other). And the bro culture in some places.

4. It is a problem of women in general being more risk averse (so they gamble less with salaries or risk to push for promotion)

5. It is a problem of job ads (male focused, where males might say 'Ah I can do all those things' and women might say 'I don't know all the things they want') and the recruiting process in general.

There is no such thing as equally qualified for a promotion. To pretend that performance is a simple formula with two inputs is being disingenuous.

It is a pipeline problem, because I have interviewed zero females and 100 males. I've never even received a woman's resume.

Any study related to people being more likely to hire, or pay more, involving names being switched on a resume, doesn't make sense. Nobody hires a resume, they call you in for an interview.

VCs investing disproportionately in male CEOs is hardly surprising because even if they have no bias, they know their money is on the line for someone who will be up against the rest of the tech and business world, with all of its bias.

Diversity quotas are harmful. Great, now nobody takes you seriously not just because they're biased to begin with but also because you only got the job over more qualified applicants to fill a quota. That isn't helping anybody. A much better option is to get more women to apply.

I have actually taken bias training and yes, I'm biased as hell. I don't like this fact and try to correct it. I also point it out to my male peers. But it's really hard to overcome when nobody has non-junk data and nobody is showing up to interview.

And are we allowed to be open to the fact that maybe, on average, women are weaker performers in tech? It seems like that is not allowed to be an option. It should also be a possibility that they're actually stronger performers in tech (I bet you reached for the down arrow before getting to that sentence). Pretending everyone must have equal ability and 50% of executives and 50% of programmers should be women doesn't get us anywhere.

As someone who has faced situations where a gender microagression has caused workplace conflict, the above quote cannot be stressed enough. Just because you didn't have the intention to be biased or discriminate does not mean it did not happen. For some reason this concept eludes even the sharpest people.

We all have our biases. It's about time we owned up to them and put effort into mitigating them.

I think this is the big thing that should be rallied around. This is prevalent, obvious, and hurts companies in more ways than just discrimination (not to marginalize that aspect).

Focusing on self-nominations means the most successful people aren't going to be your people best able to do the job, but people best able to 'play the game'. This is in fact not independent, but negatively correlated with skill. (Citation needed)

Let's do a thought experiment.

Lets say a man and a women in tech both moved here 5 years ago and each got small rent-controlled studio apartments for about $1000/month. Let's say they met and started dating two years ago. They decide they want to move in together. They can forego one dwelling and share a studio apartment, or they can look on the market. They look around for a one-bedroom. Two years ago, a one bedroom is probably going for $2500 a month. Fast forward to today and they decide to have a kid. Everything is great for the first 1-2 years, but by 2017, they feel like they need a 2-bedroom. They start looking around and see that the only options cost about $5000 to $6000 month. That's a huge cost of living increase before the cost of child-rearing and is far more likely to drive people (men and women) out of the industry than unfavorable maternity leave policies.

In the thought experiment above, both a man and a woman both leave tech in SF together once they are forced out of the area by the conflict between housing prices and raising a family. The different is that the age distribution for men is likely to much broader than for women because of the biological clock. A man marrying and having a kid could likely be anywhere from 27 or so to past 40, where the range for women is likely to have approximately the same lower bound, but a much lower higher bound. I suspect 33 or so. This would suggest that housing prices are more likely to prematurely end the careers of women in tech in San Francisco.

It would be nice to know why "especially men," with no foundation for this statement it makes it hard to believe as a scientist, and even harder to act upon.

Any revisions with this included would be greatly appreciated. :)

I am myself married to a woman who codes and as long as she has shown to her managers that her productivity and quality of work was excellent she never got discriminated. people assume everything should come to them because it came to others. a company is not some socialist everland where everyone gets paid same. people get paid what their are worth (minus/plus negotiation skills)

as for women leaving the field. knowing that most engineers in big companies or services companies are leaving the field to become PM or manager of something I see this as a sign that women are more passionate about their carreer than about IT.

"Confirm that men and women with the same qualifications are earning the same amount and that they are receiving promotions and raises at similar rates (and if not, explore why)."

Yeah, no. I have never worked for a company which pays employees based on skill, it's all in salary negotiations. If you work for a company where salaries aren't public, then this is the case for you. Also, although anecdotal, in my experience men are willing to risk more when they know they're worth more than what they're being paid.

They leave out all details on how the study was conducted. Does anyone know whether it was the same words, and they just changed the name, or if they actually composed different pitches?

That is not how it works. Tech is as pure marketplace of ideas as possible. So while we should all collaborate after the decisions are made, the process before them is by definition adversarial. We must nitpick and deconstruct each other's solutions. Because we programmers cannot work if we don't understand anything in full. To grok it.

[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract

Corporate American needs a major reform. US society need a major reform. Our culture and community need major reforms. The way boys and girls are raised need to be changed, the way they are educated and develop social skills and people skills need to change as well.

As it is Corporate America and the Tech industry has developed a certain mindset based on the power elite of Silicon Valley that controls VC and who gets on the board of directors via shareholders. Everyone has to work 80+ hours a week, and it is hostile to trying to raise a family. Corporations favor the worker who is single over one that is married and has children. They don't like it when there is responsibilities other than work that an employees has. Which is why there is no good maternity leave, or even child care services. Heck in most cases you have to drop your religion and become non-practicing so you don't attend services so you can work more hours.

When I was a young boy in the 1970s it was different, people got the weekends off and spent it with the family with family picnics and they only worked 40+ hours a week, and took off for family matters. The 1980s and 1990s changed that and the Dotcom Boom made the Startups and marathon coding that required more time per week to work. People got less sleep, worked more hours, gave up relationships and family, and put everything into working a job.

For me it got so stressful that in June 2001 I developed a mental illness from all of the stress I was under and all of the extra hours I worked. I took time off to pick up my son from a babysitter because child care was not offered and my wife worked a different shift, and I got made fun of because I was taking care of my son instead of my wife. I ended up on short term disability and when I returned I was fired for being sick. You see once you become mentally ill they don't want you, even if you were hurt in the line of duty. Which is why so many mentally ill people hide their illnesses and go untreated and then do a suicide later on. I ended up on disability in 2003.

I never made it back to work. But I know of all of the problems in the industry and can talk about them freely without worrying that I'll be fired for talking about them.

In order to make up diversity, many tech companies use the H1B Visa program to hire people from India because they are not white males and because they will work for less money. Being from India gives them a more diverse work force, and they are disposable employees. If they don't do what they are told, the Visa is canceled and they go back to their native country. Then the company hires someone else. It is a big racket.