Women rise through the ranks of IT more rapidly than men

http://www.i-cio.com/profession/cio-profiles/item/women-it-professionals-on-a-faster-track-than-men

by hrgeek • 10 years ago

146 292 10 years ago

i-cio.com

guard-of-terra2• 10 years ago

As if getting into management was an universal desire.

mhurron• 10 years ago

Well climbing the corporate ladder is going to be the measure of corporate success.

ryanmarsh• 10 years ago

And at the prison the measure of success is being the warden, but who wants that?

guard-of-terra2• 10 years ago

More like used to by. Why climb ladders when you can change jobs going up every time?

mc32• 10 years ago

But still, it remains a measure of both success and opportunity (presence or absence of ceilings).

romanovcode• 10 years ago

Yep. Every woman developer I've talked to wants to be a manager someday.

Some even go for junior manager (a lot lower pay) even thought they have the degree and skills to be mid developers without any problems.

nostrebored12• 10 years ago

This is ridiculous. Not every woman I know wants to be a manager, and despite their proficiencies, they are seen as "more personable" and implicitly, less technical. Women being pushed into management and out of technical lead roles is a very well known phenomenon in the field, and people here pretending like this is "success" seem to be very happy to ignore that this fits very nicely with the status quo of sexism.

danbolt2• 10 years ago

Interesting. I've found the opposite, to be honest. Or, the ones I've met that work in big companies seem to be interested in just coding or doing technical work.

I guess it's all pretty anecdotal, though.

BigJeffeRonaldo2• 10 years ago

My wife was offended the first time her manager told her that she should think about management as a career path :)

danharaj3• 10 years ago

The study of more than 4,000 UK IT professionals, published to mark International Women’s Day, reveals women typically reach management level three years faster than men (in nine rather than 12 years) and they are appointed CTO/CIO two and a half years faster (in 13 versus 15.5 years for men).
However, the survey also reveals a colossal gap between the numbers of men and women working in top IT roles. Of the senior developers who responded to the survey, only 6% were women; with IT managers the figure was 8%, and of those heading up IT only 7% were female.

These statistics are weird together. How can this be?

Speculation: There is a bias against average/underperforming women relative to men entering and staying in tech. This means that the women who do stay in are from the upper end of the distribution. It's as if you took a normal distribution (as skill often is distributed) and truncated some segment of the lower half. This would explain why there are much fewer women reaching managerial positions but why the ones that do reach it do so very quickly.

Is there any data on how qualified and performant female engineers are relative to male engineers who occupy the same position? A result that would support this hypothesis would be something like women in the same position as men in tech have beefier academic credentials or more awards.

CapitalistCartr• 10 years ago

Maybe women are, on average, treated worse at university and entry-level, so the majority that continue aren't a random distribution but predominately represent those more determined and aggressive.

danharaj3• 10 years ago

Well yes, there could be such a bias at every stage in the development of an IT career and this would skew the skill/ambition distribution of female engineers towards the high end.

I know plenty of male engineers who, to put it nicely, are underperformers. All of the female engineers I know, and there are much fewer of them, are what I would call exceptional engineers. Because I know so many more male software engineers, I still know more exceptional male engineers than female. However anecdotes don't matter for scientific inference which is why I asked if anyone had such data.

gnarbarian4• 10 years ago

That's one explanation that fits a narrative. (and ignores the fact there are far fewer women who even attempt to enter the tech industry).

The gender gap in tech starts with children, is seen in STEM enrollment rates and continues in the job market where a multitude of diversity initiatives exist to promote underrepresented groups in tech.

So, an alternative speculation for the abnormally high promotion rate for women is there are fewer women interested in IT in the first place and companies are scrambling to compete for women because it makes them look better (via diversity initiatives).

There is a great documentary examining actual science on the subject and interviewing both scientific researchers and social scientists on opposite sides of the issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70

Should we attempt to combat the gender gap in the nursing industry with the same vigor that we are focused on tech? How about the gender gap we see with garbage workers or psychology?

edit: clarity.

danharaj3• 10 years ago

Every explanation """fits a narrative""", including your alternative.

Programmatic2• 10 years ago

> This means that the women who do stay in are from the upper end of the distribution.
Another explanation is there are fewer women interested in IT in the first place and companies are scrambling to compete for women because it makes them look better.

Those aren't even mutually exclusive explanations. It seems likely that both are true as the people that go into it despite the lack of interest from the rest of their cadre will be better candidates vs. borderline candidates.

tajen10• 10 years ago

I've had 2 examples around me where the woman was incompetent in programming and she was promoted because she was better with Excel spreadsheets. Plus the prejudice that men are supposed to be worse at communication than women, so managers promote women.

It's sad because it reinforces the mistake where women are allowed to be incompetent, whereas we should keep them in a programmer job until they gain skills, like young men do, instead of promoting them too quickly. As opposed to the article, I witnessed a mean-time-to-promotion to the job of Team Lead of 3 years for women instead of 7 years for males – but that could be because the article considers "management" as a higher job than Team Lead.

heisenbit• 10 years ago

Easy to explain.

Field is male dominated.

Women enter and the ones that enter raise faster than men. One can speculate whether there is a promotion bias or the ones that enter have an above average pioneering spirit but...

...it takes time and experience to raise to the top. And not that many women have 15+ years relevant tech experience.

The only mystery is why journalist not see that. In any case it is good to see some hard data at least on the engineering and first management level dispelling the myth that women are discriminated against.

dismantlethesun2• 10 years ago

I'd suspect both.

Women in tech are more closely scrutinized out of the sheer virtual of being a novel demographic within a company.

Upon close scrutiny it is discovered that these women are actually amazing practitioners, because all the women who were on the wrong side of the bell curve dropped out under their close scrutiny experienced in high school or university.

Thus women are promoted faster.

It's survivor bias.

Most people have a 'spotlight effect' in that they believe they are noticed more than they really are, but for a woman in tech it might actually be true.

Dzugaru2• 10 years ago

despite still being heavily outnumbered

Despite?

kazinator2• 10 years ago

Yes, that's a word; http://www.dictionary.com/browse/despite

Its use here means something like "contrary to the expectation that women face barriers in IT (as evidenced by lower numbers of women in the top positions in IT and in general), they rise through the ranks faster than men."

tomp3• 10 years ago

contrary to the expectation that women face barriers in IT

Hasn't this been debunked already? AFAIK the percentage of women in IT is about the same as the percentage of women graduating from CS.

Dzugaru2• 10 years ago

Well, I meant that being outnumbered easily can be an advantage - (ex. you're unique, noticeable etc.), that's why "despite being outnumbered" sounds really strange. "Despite facing barriers" - ok.

Not saying that those statistics can be heavily biased due to imbalanced classes - but other commenters already mentioned that multiple times.

inanutshellus2• 10 years ago

No need to be defensive about it, it's basic math. If, say, 20% of CS grads are female, they're competing against 80% of CS grads for distinction. So it's surprising when, "despite the odds", they succeed faster.

Perhaps more importantly the article does not mention confirmation bias, which is surely at play here. (e.g. "average" women are being discouraged from CS degrees before they even start, so only superstars stick it through, so of course they move faster through the ranks after graduation.)

stale20024• 10 years ago

Basically this. If you aren't a super star you'll be driven out of tech before you even graduate college. I've seen it happen to many women techies I know.

Unless you are awesome, it just isn't worth it to put up with the crap that they have to.

brassic• 10 years ago

I think your latter point is closer to the truth.

A similar example: in the UK about 20% of girls and 40% of boys study physics at A-level (the final school exam before university). Every year everybody seems surprised that the girls outperform the boys.

However, it is likely that the students who study physics are mostly the students with the greatest aptitude for the subject. If you split the students into any two arbitrary groups then the top fifth from one group are going to outperform the top two fifths from the other. This is unremarkable. Yet when the groups are boys and girls, people are surprised.

Anyway, I would be surprised if something similar isn't happening in CS. With so few women studying the subject, it's likely that those who do are fairly dedicated.

tajen10• 10 years ago

As a man, I've noticed the "women promotion difference" very importantly in companies I've been employed in: Since 2006, it's mostly women who are promoted, with configurations like my last job where both my team lead and the manager were women.

On the other hand, I've left those companies because I could notice there was no career path for me, and created my own. I identify to a generation of men who've been sacrified for women equality. I'm all for equality, as long as everyone has equal chances, which we currently don't have. I'm very happy that we now start having studies supporting that men are less promoted than women today in some context (a minima in Luxembourg, France and Australia for what I'm concerned).

It's now time we study across all countries the mean-time-to-promotion, and it's time we include talks in conferences about the difficulties of men.

And it's time we stop having differentiated education and career paths for women. Today, women are equal in the mind if most men, and have a large swathes of explicit advantages granted by laws.

nothrabannosir2• 10 years ago

I'm all for equality, as long as everyone has equal chances, which we currently don't have.

But that will keep a status quo if one group is starting out as a serious minority. That's the whole point of equality movements: you have to adjust upwards for a bit, until it's actually equal. Then you can go back to being fair.

EDIT: This thread is blowing up, so I want to clarify my comment: I'm talking about affirmative action, and I think it's a good idea in the case of women in tech, presently.

dom0• 10 years ago

Woah.

Just to clarify: That's absolutely not the "whole point of equality movements". This is a stance some people take on it. By far not all.

the8472• 10 years ago

Equal chances would also mean an equal chance to get hired if you actually apply. So why do you need extra adjustment beyond that? Simple turnover should approach an equilibrium eventually.

softawre• 10 years ago

When do you stop over-correcting?

aeharding• 10 years ago

Can you provide an example of an equality movement where overcompensating worked better than making everyone "actually equal"?

In America during the '50s, did black people demand white people to not be allowed to sit in the front of the bus until everyone was "actually equal"?

Overtonwindow• 10 years ago

At what point to we say enough promotions based on gender and race? When all of the worlds companies are 51% men, 51% minority? Serious question: Put yourselves in the shoes of a CEO. What's the proper proportion of men to women, whites to minorities? Does anyone make this calculus? When does it ever end?

mjevans• 10 years ago

When everyone stops thinking about quotas and focuses on empowering everyone and proceeding entirely based on qualifications.

leereeves• 10 years ago

In Sweden, when 60% of college students were women, they stopped affirmative action because it would benefit men, and women sued for discrimination when affirmative action worked against them. [1]

There's no point at which feminists stop looking out for women at the expense of men.

1: https://www.thelocal.se/20100112/24330

pc863• 10 years ago

Nobody does that calculus except people who want to see more $MY_GROUP and then yell that they are underrepresented.

rubicon33• 10 years ago

For my own education, would you mind elaborating on the laws which provide explicit advantages for women?

tomp3• 10 years ago

See e.g. http://thoughtcatalog.com/janet-bloomfield/2014/08/5-legal-r...

TL;DR: genital integrity (no circumcision), no draft, parental rights, privileged in courts. Differs by country, of course (e.g. in some EU countries, men have to work longer to retire).

reitanqild3• 10 years ago

Around here, just top of the mind:

Extra points for higher education, even in studies traditionally dominated by women like nurse and chemistry.

tajen10• 10 years ago

Yes:

- In France, the last law about gender equality: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12688339

- In France, organizations which support only women, by statute (see last link). In USA, "Girlz In Web" and all similar ventures.

- In France, aid and support that is only dedicated to women (excluding child-bearing support, which is deserved), where there's no mirror support for male problems.

WildUtah2• 10 years ago

Women are promoted preferentially in large companies with HR departments that enforce affirmative action policies and produce reports detailing compliance with national goals for minority participation.

That leads men to leave such companies and start their own businesses. Small companies are often more agile and innovative and far more likely to make founders and skilled employees rich.

So the programs to promote women (and underrepresented minorities) that are intended to achieve equality just promote even more unfair advantages for men. It's a common pattern: even the best designed policies need to be constantly expanded so that unfair advantages for men can be mitigated.

But no one can say that the proliferation of small innovative companies is bad for society. New innovative ideas make all our lives better, and some of that is owed to big corporate HR departments encouraging more entrepreneurship by limiting promotion opportunities for men.

cryptarch• 10 years ago

How is not having the option of a stable career with promotions an unfair advantage?

Women who decide they want to join a high risk, high gain startup and have the skills to do so, are free to and do just that.

Men who decide they want to be treated equally have to leave their stable jobs for startups.

edit: formating

yummyfajitas2• 10 years ago

How is men losing a career path due to discrimination and choosing to enter a different one an "unfair advantage for men"?

Were the discriminatory practices that led Jews to start their own business also an "unfair advantage for the Jews"?

tptacek• 10 years ago

I have worked in and around startups for my entire career and never once met a founder who told me that they had left their previous job because women were being promoted at it. Never even once. And I've collaborated with some politically colorful founders.

Someone, I'm sure, will rebut this comment with an example of a successful founder who started their company due to oppressive affirmative action policies. But you worded your comment as if this was some kind of obvious industry norm. It is not; you should reword.

DanBC• 10 years ago

nd have a large swathes of explicit advantages granted by laws.

Could you name some of those advantages, and link to the relevant laws? I'm interested to see what you're talking about.

tajen10• 10 years ago

Name those advantages

I'm French, so unfortunately I'll quote the French law. On the upside this law was an election promise of the current government (left-wing, socialist), so you're really reading the outcome of a current debate: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFT...

- First, let's note overall that there's no law that reserves something to men. It would be illegal. Obviously.

- Let's also drop that women have a 10% longer life. It means their retirement is 6 years longer than men's average of 18 years.

- Point #5 says "Fight against the poverty of women". What about the poverty of men? There are twice more homeless men than women. There are 30 times more men in prison than women. I see what they mean when they think about the poverty of women, but men need specific help that's attached to their gender. Failing their education and dealing drugs falls in that bucket.

- Point #8 says "Equality of women headcount in politics". It's great, I like it, I'm all for equality of women in all areas including politics. But what about sectors where men are less frequent? One argument I often hear about women equality is "We're also fighting for a men, look at male nurse for example", where, in fact, those laws about "equality" don't fight for the equality of men in the nurse area.

- Point #10 says "Make studies known about the social construction of gendered roles." One very actual gendered construct is that, as a woman, you'll get much more help. First because you naturally inspire kindness and solidarity, thanks to your body, gender and image. Second because there are big budgets allocated to women equality (e.g. benefits for creating a company[1], organizations that support you while you create your company[2]). And last, the social construct of genders is built upon years of communicating to women that they need help, and the government especially participates to this when they have http://femmes.gouv.fr but don't have http://hommes.gouv.fr .

All in all, this law only cares about equality when women are impacted. If it were for men, you would see sections like "Fighting against the men-related prejudices", "Fighting for male dropouts", "Fighting for dad custody", "Fighting against street violence" (which mostly impacts men), "Fighting for kids who don't like football" (as a gay man, I can tell you it's really tough to feel abandoned when all your schoolmates play ball in so many occasions).

Anyway, I don't feel like we're trying to close the gap: We're rather generating more hate both ways by increasing the care about one gender and not the other [3]. If you want peace, don't tease the losers.

[1] Benefits reserved for women: http://www.familles-enfance-droitsdesfemmes.gouv.fr/dossiers...

[2] Organizations that support women only: http://www.ellesentreprennent.fr/pid14416/les-reseaux-au-ser...

[3] Common-life example of increasing the resent between men and women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhB3l1gCz2E

DanielleMolloy2• 10 years ago

with configurations like my last job where both my team lead and the manager were women.

I guess you have to get used to such "configurations", given that in a fully equal world having both a female team lead and manager is entirely possible. Or how does this confirm your claim that women are unfairly promoted more frequently?

The reason for quicker promotions is probably a skewed distribution of personalities, as also mentioned further below. Men of all personalities are more likely to start science and engineering degrees because they are nurtured into it by society anyway. Women have to be the kind of person that does not care about such biases, and develops and follows interests.

DanielleMolloy2• 10 years ago

I got downvoted for this comment multiple times. Could somebody explain why? Just curious.

wott• 10 years ago

I my former company, it was simple: people who sucked at technical stuff were promoted to managerial positions, hoping that they would show some qualities there, and making sure they would at least not any more harm the projects they were part of.

Therefore we had between 0% and 5% women in technical teams, and 75% in management.

scdoshi• 10 years ago

What a disappointing thread on HN, full of anecdotal evidence.

ixtli3• 10 years ago

The top-voted comment is almost literally "I agree with this because I saw many women get promoted."

csallen3• 10 years ago

As a man, I'm embarrassed that this is the top comment on HN. This talk about "a generation of men being sacrificed" is absurd. Men still dominate the IT industry at all levels. To say that we're being sacrificed en masse is hyperbolic to say the least. It reminds me of the way that the Trump campaign makes its points about the state of the world.

Furthermore, so many men in tech are quick to explain away statistics about women/minorities being hired less by saying, "There's no bias! It's because they're not as skilled!" But when stats show that women advance faster, the story flips, and suddenly it's, "This proves bias! There's no way it's due to skill!"

Come on, HN, we're better than this.

ixtli3• 10 years ago

Specifically, we're better than allowing anecdotes to masquerade as data, even when we feel vague discomfort coming from the general direction of the issue being discussed.

harlanlewis3• 10 years ago

Absolutely.

It's not a hard argument to make that women (and many other underrepresented people) are subjected to a stricter filter in the tech world, playing with a deck socially and structurally stacked against them. It's no surprise at all that people who can find success despite playing on a harder difficulty level will be among the most capable. An article like this is actually heartening, as it indicates that achievement and ability are internally recognized.

And now I've broken one of my cardinal rules (don't engage with social flamewar threads on HN), but you're exactly right - many of these comments are too embarrasing to let pass.

edit: calex just made this point far better than I in another comment in this thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687015

mhuffman6• 10 years ago

As a man, I am embarrassed that you can't see the point he was making.

It's not that "Wimmin' are takin' our jerbs!", he was just pointing out that promoting women because they have a vagina is just as bad as promoting someone because they have a penis or white skin.

Why not promote how well you do your job?

FT_intern6• 10 years ago

To be fair, women anecdotes about how they have been supposedly oppressed are frequently upvoted.

It appears that you are more opposed to his stance on the issue.

facepalm• 10 years ago

Could you link to a statistic showing women get hired less? How do you know they are not simply applying less?

bluecalm6• 10 years ago

Oh c'mon. Instead of being embarrassed at least try to understand the point. It's a fact that women are preferred for promotion in many places just because they are women because of affrimative action often called "striving for diversity". It's also a fact many men feel they are discriminated against in such settings.

It doesn't mean there aren't problems and discrimination against women but you act like his point is not valid and not even worth acknowledging. You just feel "embarrassed". You should feel that way but not because of the comment but because your attitude.

paulcole• 10 years ago

women are equal in the mind if most men

Does this include your own? Because based on the rest of your comment, I'm not so sure.

galdosdi2• 10 years ago

I'll counter your anecdotal evidence with my own anecdotal evidence, which is that I've observed either the opposite or no difference in the companies I've worked for (I'm a man in IT in NYC). Either way, anecdotal, so shrug. But "a generation of men who've been sacrificed" is definitely something I've never seen signs of in the IT industry.

A separate thread has a much more plausible explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12686822

tajen10• 10 years ago

Either way, anecdotal, so shrug

What? The article in the title just says "Women are promoted in 9 years against 12 for men", and you qualify examples as anecdotal?

Certhas2• 10 years ago

"I'm all for equality, as long as everyone has equal chances, which we currently don't have."

Yes clearly overall women have much lower chances to rise to the top. You are complaining that a tiny section of the pipeline from birth to CEO potentially favours women while obviously the vast majority of parts of the pipeline favour men. Cumulatively they do so heavily.

What you experienced is a tiny fraction of what women experienced to get to the point where you felt blocked.

Shanea932• 10 years ago

As a sidenote, the USD to GBP currency figures shown in this article really show how much the pound has slumped over the last 6 months.

Article: "£52,000 ($74,000)"

Current day: "£52,000 ($63,020)"

stcredzero3• 10 years ago

There's a common misconception, that technical excellence is a primary skill for managing a team of programmers. It's not the primary skill but a secondary one. The primary skill is managing people. One still needs to have technical competence -- far beyond just being able to code. However, the focus shouldn't be on dazzling displays of technical esoterica. The focus should be on balancing a tangle of conflicting cost/benefits and communication with the team -- logistics and tactics, not fisticuffs.

You can be a great manager with solidly average technical skills, so long as you can find a resource to advise you. (Dunning-Krueger trap: You may not know enough to understand if you truly understand the advice.) A team managed by such will usually outperform an average manager with great technical skills.

Alexander the Great would probably have conquered more of the world, if he had personally fought less.

choicewords• 10 years ago

Didn't Alexander die of poisoning, not combat wound?

philk10• 10 years ago

I think the poster was implying that if Alexander hadn't used wars for all his gains he might have made more

stcredzero3• 10 years ago

His decreased health at the end of his life was largely due to wounds from fighting. He probably would have been able to carry on his campaign longer, and would have made better decisions at the end of it, if his health were better.

Mz4• 10 years ago

Proposed causes of Alexander's death included alcoholic liver disease, fever, and strychnine poisoning, but little data support those versions.[15] According to the University of Maryland School of Medicine report of 1998, Alexander probably died of typhoid fever[16] (which, along with malaria, was common in ancient Babylon[17]). In the week before Alexander's death, historical accounts mention chills, sweats, exhaustion and high fever, typical symptoms of infectious diseases, including typhoid fever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Alexander_the_Great

flukus2• 10 years ago

Alexander the Great would probably have conquered more of the world, if he had personally fought less.

I doubt it. It's much easier to inspire people when you are in the trenches (wrong era of warfare) with them. It's not a conincicidence that many of the greatest generals in history (napoleon, Hannibal, Alexander) were known for being in the thick of the action.

colmvp• 10 years ago

It's interesting that there is a huge emphasis on the gender disparity, especially in tech, without also bringing race into the equation. When I first read the article and headline, I first thought to myself: "Are we talking about predominantly white women? Black women? Hispanic women? Asian women?"

For example, I know that Asians are generally 'over-represented' in tech yet if you look stats which compare professionals by ethnicity (https://d.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/inline...), Asians (both male and female) get promoted at a lower rate than white men and women (https://c.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/inline...). And we could look at specific company's like Intel, Yahoo, and LinkedIn to find similar patterns, namely white people have a much higher likelihood to achieve higher executive positions compared to Asians (even when controlling for difference in company demographic composition).

JamesBarney• 10 years ago

It would interesting to see that data broken up by age of immigration to the country. I've worked with a large number of incredibly intelligent Asians who immigrated here in theirs 20's-40's. And they are all too smart and hard working for their positions, and it seems like the primary reason they've been held back is because of things like visa issues, lack of fluency, lack of a college/highschool/family network to draw upon, and less cultural understanding which inhibits bonding. This has meant that many of them are 1-2 promotions behind where I think they would be if they had immigrated here in middle school.

tobyjsullivan• 10 years ago

This immediately made me think of Paul Graham's article "A Way to Detect Bias". He talks about how a hiring bias (against women in this case) results in those who are hired being above average in skill.

Just one hypothesis on this data, but that would help explain why those women who are hired then get promoted faster - because they are actually outperforming their peers.

http://www.paulgraham.com/bias.html

stale20024• 10 years ago

Yeah, women get driven out of tech in droves.

In order to even survive, the average woman has to be at the very top of their game, or else theyd be gone because it isn't worth it to put up with all the BS that they have to.

reitanqild3• 10 years ago

This differs a lot: at the last company I worked with some men were awful.

That doesn't seem to be the standard though.

I do see one issue though: women are far more likely to be sick (at least around here statistics are quite clear IIRC).

userium2• 10 years ago

>"Yeah, women get driven out of tech in droves."

True, over 40% of women leave SET (science, engineering, technology, math) mid-career (https://www.ncwit.org/sites/default/files/resources/womenint... page 9).

Interestingly, in engineering 39% leave mid-career, and in technology occupations 56%.

randyrand2• 10 years ago

I remember when this was first posted to HN the top comment was about a serious flaw in this hypothesis. Need to find the comment thread again...

Edit: Found it, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10483751

e.g. the other explanation could be that women applicants are just better than men, and that they aren't discriminated against.

WildUtah2• 10 years ago

Thank you for re-posting that.

cmdrfred• 10 years ago

I wonder if the genders in the study were reversed, how many would claim the same hypothesis?

bcoates• 10 years ago

Beware that this is almost certainly subject to Campbell's law, and trying to actually rate organizational bias by hire-to-promotion rates will result in companies gaming the metric without fixing the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law

smegel• 10 years ago

I know the reason, because I have seen it in action.

Simply put, few women work in technical IT, but end up in management, business analysis, etc. And management has a faster and higher career path to elevated positions, while techs will top out at "senior engineer/developer" after about 5 years, and will be still stuck there after 20 unless they basically give up their passion and become a manager.

Of course, there are far fewer management positions than tech roles, as the are far fewer women working in tech generally.

known• 10 years ago

It this specific to UK?

calex7• 10 years ago

Reading the comments on articles like this on hacker news always make me deeply uncomfortable to be a woman in tech.

I know it's hard to believe, but women don't usually get sent to coding summer camp as teenagers. Our parents don't usually encourage us to take AP computer science, and our best friends aren't in CS and don't refer us for sweet internships at Microsoft and Google.

If you're a woman in this industry, it's GENERALLY because it is something that you very much care about and want to do.

It's not some feminist conspiracy that women are being promoted, it's just that the women who go into tech are usually already pretty gritty people. You're comparing a very driven and passionate subset of women to a very general subset of men.

Here's a really great article I read once -- "I need terrible female engineers": https://medium.com/@amyngyn/i-need-terrible-female-engineers...

this2shallpaas7• 10 years ago

"I know it's hard to believe, but women don't usually get sent to coding summer camp as teenagers. Our parents don't usually encourage us to take AP computer science, and our best friends aren't in CS and don't refer us for sweet internships at Microsoft and Google."

Is it hard to believe most men don't do those things, too? Some do, sure. And of people that do these things, historically more have probably been men than women (don't have the stats, but it sounds reasonable). But how many men do you think do those things, vs those that don't? Some anecdata: I didn't do any of those. Of all the engineers I can think of, male and female, very very few went to coding summer camps or took AP computer science. Few had best friends in CS in university, but sure, more did this than AP computer science or coding summer camp. And few had sweet internships at tech companies.

calex7• 10 years ago

Oh great, more anecdotes in this thread. There are the cold hard facts, you know:

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/techs-g...

"It's already too late," Paul Graham, founder of the tech entrepreneur boot camp Y Combinator, said last month in a controversial interview. "What we should be doing is somehow changing the middle school computer science curriculum or something like that."
Ericson's analysis of the data shows that in 2013, 18 percent of the students who took the [AP computer science] exam were women.

Who makes high school students' schedules? Parents and teachers, at least in the US.

So let's put aside anecdotes and reactionary attitudes and just look at the facts.

pyre• 10 years ago

Is it hard to believe most men don't do those things, too? Some do, sure.

I think this is more of a "of the people that get these things, most are men" than a "all men get these things."

BigJeffeRonaldo2• 10 years ago

Not all men in tech are frilly little fancy boys/AP turbogeeks. I'm a high school dropout who rose from the bottom by saving up manual labor wages to attend a community college for two years, then managed to attend my state school for two years thanks to a transfer scholarship and pell grants. I finished the school's cs and math bachelors programs in their entirety in two years by overloading every semester and ruthless scheduling, while also working part-time. That said I support women in tech greatly. My wife is rapidly outpacing men of similar or greater experience levels in her current position because she simply works longer hours, does tons of off-hours self-healing, and focuses on what really matters to the team rather than working on pet projects of little importance. I.e. she is working both harder and smarter. The men in these comments sections need to deadlift

calex7• 10 years ago

I never said anything about "all" or "most" men. I have no idea why everyone is replying as if I did. Everything I said is super general and is backed up with data.

Good for you for pulling it together. Seriously. I went the service industry to community college route myself.

pmiller2• 10 years ago

Can you expand a little more on how your wife works smarter? I'm always looking for ways to improve, so maybe her example could help me. :)

kevrone• 10 years ago

What you say rings true.

However, the only thing we really know for sure, and for which there is a mountain of evidence, is that women as a group face significantly greater challenges in this industry than men do. That may filter for various traits in women such as greater levels of grit, but I'm going to wait until this particular survey is corroborated by further study before I buy into the idea that women and men in our industry are significantly differentiated by something like personal drive. I can believe it, but I wouldn't jump to that conclusion based on this evidence alone.

Great Medium article by the way.

FT_intern6• 10 years ago

I know it's hard to believe, but women don't usually get sent to coding summer camp as teenagers. Our parents don't usually encourage us to take AP computer science,

Males aren't either. The difference in participation is caused by men engaging in nerdy hobbies more than women (trawling BB boards, playing online video games, etc.). Why this happens, no one really knows.

return05• 10 years ago

The fact that there are way too many IT people from poor immigrant backgrounds (no opportunities for anything you mention) discredits your first point.

it's GENERALLY because it is something that you very much care about and want to do.

Given that there is a higher demand for IT jobs than supply makes this impossible. You just have to be good at it.

mcv4• 10 years ago

Since when are there "way too many" IT people from poor immigrant backgrounds? As far as I can tell, programmers are more likely to be from the educated middle class.

bluecalm6• 10 years ago

I remember I made the same argument about women in chess (those already playing competitively should be better on average than men because it's harder to get into chess when you are a woman so only the most talented/driven ones make it). I was called sexist in that discussion though as chess is way more meritocratic than corporate career so the implications are that it's likely biological afterall.

>It's not some feminist conspiracy that women are being promoted

You have to admit though that "diversity" is mentioned a lot and striving for "diversity" in fact makes it easier for women to get into management position. I am not saying it's the only factor but it is one impossible to deny.

Mz4• 10 years ago

My ex husband was career army. While in the military, he double majored in CS and history. He was a socially awkward nerd. He rose though the ranks quickly. He once admitted that while excelled at the technical stuff, the fact that he was married to me was a big part of why he was a decent manager once he got promoted to the military equivalent of mid level manager.

There have been studies that indicate women think of "morality" different from men -- that their idea of morality is more about caring about people. Perhaps the same traits -- caring about others -- that help make women good mothers also help make them good managers. The paternal role is typically different from the maternal one.

jazzyk• 10 years ago

There are enough camps/programs targeted at young girls, that's not the problem.

There is no institutional conspiracy to suppress women, the problem is strictly cultural:

NONE of my daughter's female friends in high school thought it was cool to take on any of the math/physics/programming classes. They were all interested in environment, film/acting, fashion, literature...

This self-selection came predominantly from mass-media/pop-culture, and also, to some extent, from their mothers, none of whom works in tech (we are talking a wealthy suburb in the northeast US here). They never encouraged their daughters to go into tech. The fathers did, but not too convincingly, either.

parennoob• 10 years ago

NONE of my daughter's female friends in high school thought it was cool to take on any of the math/physics/programming classes. They were all interested in environment, film/acting, fashion, literature (my daughter got interested into life sciences)

Popular culture in the US massively lionizes professional sports, and shames younger people who are into programming and other non-social hobbies like nobody's business.

In my opinion, if "women in tech" programs put half of their resources into solving these problems, they'd be hugely more successful. Unfortunately, that involves taking on fields other than professional programming (like television, media, and such), which they are either not ready or equipped to do.

clifanatic4• 10 years ago

NONE of my daughter's female friends in high school thought it was cool to take on any of the math/physics/programming classes.

Neither did any of the men. Not when I was in school, and not now. Being nerdy is not cool, whether you're a boy or a girl. In fact, you're more likely to get beaten up for it as a boy than as a girl.

clifanatic4• 10 years ago

It's not some feminist conspiracy that women are being promoted, it's just that the women who go into tech are usually already pretty gritty people.

Interesting that when men statistically seem to have an advantage in any area, it's a "problem" that "needs to be corrected", but if women start to statistically dominate, it's clearly because "women are just better".

jordigh5• 10 years ago

It's not that they're better. It's that a woman in tech has to work twice as hard to get the same recognition as men. After working twice as hard, you tend to overshoot and end up becoming way better than the men.

Mediocre women in tech just aren't allowed, whereas mediocre men are accepted. Try to read the article she linked.

BDGC• 10 years ago

I appreciate your comment, and I second your point about the education and social structure being different for girls/women. In my experience, it can be difficult for folks to understand just how different it can be - whether by gender, race, or lower socioeconomic status - which is completely fair. There are always exceptions to generalizations, which makes making progress in these arguments difficult.

For those who still believe it's a feminist conspiracy, I encourage you to read this brief report (with links to an excellent full report) with hard numbers on the experience of women in STEM: https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-st...

And if you think you're above bias, or that it doesn't exist against women, please challenge yourself with the unconscious bias test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html Stats are available after the test. I am a woman with a PhD in a STEM field, and guess what - I have biases against my own sex.

jdietrich• 10 years ago

Not to detract from your general point, but there are serious doubts over the validity of the Implicit Association Test:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sjop.12288/abstra... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288582440_Toward_a_...

mafribe3• 10 years ago

   https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-st...

How is that a serious contribution to the discussion? The authors Hall, Phillips and Williams don't for a second reflect on their own confirmation bias.

   feminist conspiracy

The authors Hall, Phillips and Williams are self-described feminists.

throwaway921• 10 years ago

All this focus on women and minorities obscures the issue.

White males can have problems fitting in, too. Being born into a low social class is probably more damning to your future than any external quality you might have.

We need to accept that being inclusive isn't about focusing on a single group - that's singling people out again - but realize that people are being left out of whatever good thing we have as a society for any number of reasons.

Understand this, and just be more accepting of people in general.

abandonliberty2• 10 years ago

Often issues are made into gender/race issues because it drives readership and clicks. It's depressing as we miss the root cause and create more alienation and conflict between people.

e.g. "Women don't ask" - a book with concepts on salary negotiation vital to many men I know.

That said, historically there was clear gender/race discrimination. There is today in pockets, just as there is reverse discrimination.

We just have to stop the discrimination.

pikachu_is_cool• 10 years ago

If we're making generalizations here, then women generally don't like hunching over a computer monitor in isolation for 6+ hours every day. Much like how men generally don't like to put on makeup and act in plays.

abandonliberty2• 10 years ago

We all have different life experiences.

There is a low supply of female engineers, but rather than addressing the problem organizations implement various forms of affirmative action. Trying to fix discrimination with more discrimination.

My partner is in tech. My organization has a network to support women in their careers which my female coworkers view as outright anti-male discrimination.

Unfortunately, the bell curve doesn't support these policies. We have both worked with women who would have not held their position as men.

It's quite frustrating, as we now have capable women forging ahead while less competent women are riding the wave of feminism and tarnishing their reputations.

I'm curious. Have you not suffered this, or at least heard of it?

We can't make progress on this if we all continue to willfully ignore the flaws in our arguments.

return05• 10 years ago

Excellent observation, and lets not forget it's not valid only in tech. Let's not forget that every boy is encouraged (some would say indoctrinated) from early age to learn the art of cooking, and to spend the evenings preparing dinner (let alone the long-standing sexist attitude - sadly still espoused by many - that men belong in the kitchen). With such an early start it's no wonder that men dominate the field and that only 6 women have managed to earn the prized 3 michelin stars.

fishtoaster3• 10 years ago

This seems to be based this survey data: http://www.emolument.com/career_advice/women_in_it_career_ev...

fishtoaster3• 10 years ago

I suppose I could think of a number of explanations for this observed effect.

1. Selection- because so much of IT is hostile to women, the only ones who become senior in the field are the very good ones.

2. Affirmative action- companies promoting women regardless of merit to seem progressive.

3. Some sort of inate or socialized advantage– the "women are better at people stuff" philosophy. If this is the case, then you'd expect more women to be in management.

4. Methodological flaws in the survey. I can't find any detailed discussion of their process, but phrases like "Of the senior developers who responded to the survey" seem to imply there could easily be significant selection bias.

Feel free to take your pick based on what you already believe. Personally, I'm going to wait for more data before forming any solid conclusions based on this.

pc863• 10 years ago

Feel free to take your pick based on what you already believe

Probably a good TLDR for any HN discussion around gender.

FT_intern6• 10 years ago

Selection- because so much of IT is hostile to women

that's an unproven premise

fishtoaster3• 10 years ago

It's not a premise at all- I'm basing nothing on it. I'm not even claiming it's true. I'm just saying that it is one of several possible explanations for the available data.

stale20024• 10 years ago

Have you tried actually talking to any women in tech?

Certhas2• 10 years ago

Regarding selection, a lot of these selection decisions are made before people have any experience with actual real world IT.

A mother who thinks that programming isn't something for her girls in high school does damage that no amount of work at making things friendlier later on can repair.

I think it's counterproductive to associate selection exclusively or even strongly with IT culture specifically. It lets wider culture off the hook.

nostrebored12• 10 years ago

You can take a look at [1] and the data there to see that 1 is the culprit, but only a piece of it. Women are pushed into less technical roles throughout their careers. Women with the same technical qualifications are significantly more likely to be managers than in a senior technical position.

[1] http://gender.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Senior-Techni...

mpweiher8• 10 years ago

How is it that women are always "pushed", i.e. passive?

How about: women are more likely to go into less technical roles in their careers, possibly because they prefer them?

fatdog• 10 years ago

One explanation would be that women could be said to have a better instinct for power, and they recognize quickly that as a corporate survival strategy, power over people is more rewarding and sustainable than power over things. Feminism isn't about women becoming IT guys, it's about becoming bosses.

Sort of breaks with the victim narrative, but provides a more plausible story.

return05• 10 years ago

Following the logic of most mental gymnasts here, the best IT companies should be women-only companies by now. People seem automatically to turn off their brains when discussing anything that might oppose the orthodoxy of affirmative action. This is a case where a bias that first appeared in academia (http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/04/women-preferred-...) and is now bleeding to corporate life.

If men or any other subgroup are not rising through the ranks as fast, that is a clear discrimination and it is a problem, not an 'achievement'. It's this kind of ill-logic that brings pro-women policies in a bad light.

mcv4• 10 years ago

Because there are less women in tech, the best companies should be all women? That logic makes no sense. If only the best women are hired, while average men also get hired, that means there's discrimination against women, while the few women that do stay in the industry will tend to be of above average ability, and therefore rise faster.

As long as the vast majority of programmers are men, it's ludicrous to complain that men are being discriminated against. There are dozens of studies showing that men have it way easier in a multitude of ways. But it's good that there are more visible women in tech, and hopefully that will lead to even out the balance in the future.

bluecalm6• 10 years ago

>As long as the vast majority of programmers are men, it's ludicrous to complain that men are being discriminated against

Let me stop you here. This is a flawed argument. It's very possible that men gravitate to a certain field more than women but there is discrimination against men in that field (for example if companies think it's good PR to have more women at top positions). I am not arguing if that actually happens or not here. I am just pointing out that your argument is logically flawed.

I can even give you an example of discrimination against majority group: it's beneficial to be tall white man in many Asian countries. You get more respect and bring prestige to the company. Tall white men are not majority but still they are favored and their Asian counterparts are discriminated against.

clifanatic4• 10 years ago

As long as the vast majority of programmers are men, it's ludicrous to complain that men are being discriminated against.

If the majority of programmers were, say, Asian, then, would that imply that white people were being discriminated against?

return05• 10 years ago

Surely it makes sense, like everything else in these comments! If societal bias filters only high-performing women into tech, then the company that managed to snatch all the females would surely have an advantage versus all the rest. But let's not stop there with this rabbit hole: if indeed hiring bias is the cause that women rise faster in tech, and we want women to reach the highest echelons of tech industries, then logic dictates that we should keep discriminating with equal vigor, or else women will stop rising the ranks, leaving the goal unfinished. Oh, and by the way we could apply this wise reasoning to any kind of group that is disadvantaged in tech, say, the blind, the latinos, the blacks, those under 6 years old etc. They should all be rising higher in the ranks, so that soon all senior positions are filled by minority groups, leaving the "averages" in the lower ranks. simple logic.

turc16562• 10 years ago

I'm not too worried. I'm sure the feminists are going to condemn these companies and call for the resignations of the executives and stage protests over this blatant inequity. And the media will plaster this all over the news to spread awareness. And these companies will take heat from clients, end users, and advertisers, right?

bluetwo• 10 years ago

I'm totally OK with this.

Am I the only person who dated a senior analyst and is now married to an IT Director?

LordHumungous2• 10 years ago

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone given the stated goal by large companies of hiring more women, and the relatively small pool on which they are drawing from

mblack19682• 10 years ago

I've been reading HN for a few years now. The tone of the response to women in IT hasn't changed much. I kept believing that if I were good enough, smart enough, and if people liked me enough, I would get ahead.

Turns out, there's a real ceiling on where I can go. Not because I lack talent. I am very good with people. My last manager believed I would be a VP at the company someday. I maxed out at that fake "architect" role made for people that require more money but can't be promoted to management. This was a large F-50 type organization.

We found that the HR departments at very large companies definitely improve diversity up and down the ranks. But there is a blockade that eventually presents itself.

This blockade can probably be summed up mathematically: The first females to go up stream will always be white. As the number of females up the ranks increases, the less obligation white males feel to grant other minorities the same privilege. Eventually, it works out to where there will be a multitude of white women paving the way at VP level, and until they die off or retire, the blockade prevents advancement for anyone else.

I call it the "wall of white women" with a sub-wall of "white male architects" waiting for their chance. If the minority applicant is not blindingly obviously superior to the wall of white males just beneath the wall of white women, there's no chance.

Unfortunate. I find it kind of hilarious and enjoy watching it form at every single major corporation.

MollyR5• 10 years ago

I'm a first gen korean-american woman (I guess after 30 its weird to call yourself a girl). I've definitely seen this situation too, it was a little depressing.

So I've been bouncing around startups,and even started contracting under my own c-corp to make connections and money. The respect difference has been unreal. I've had to toughen up significantly, you have to really learn to read bs and move on without emotion.

That's another option you can take, I'm personally enjoying it right now.

mblack19682• 10 years ago

Thank you for responding! I like hearing solutions. Listening to my own whining is tiresome.

To your point, I left my large F-50 employer this summer and started at a smaller company. I am strongly considering contracting. Your response is encouraging.

NumberCruncher• 10 years ago

Only because women and men are equal as human beings and should be treated accordingly it does not mean they are identical. Not so long ago everybody said that we need more women in [paste a well paid white collar job]. You wanted positive discrimination. Now you have it.

Ironically nobody wanted to have more women on construction sites, in the military service or as a surgeon...

utternerd• 10 years ago

Please don't take this as flippant, it's a legitimate query. I keep seeing the call for "more women in technology", however I don't see a similar rally for say, "more men in early education". Most teachers in early to middle school tend to be females by a wide margin[0], men comprise less than 20%, yet I don't see people screaming there should be more men teaching in those roles? Why is that?

[0] http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers

Women rise through the ranks of IT more rapidly than men

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