The (un)importance of gender in programming

http://www.lorettahe.org/1/post/2012/02/the-unimportance-of-gender-in-programming.html

by lorettahe • 14 years ago

44 69 14 years ago

lorettahe.org

klaut2• 14 years ago

Completely agree what the author says.

klaut2• 14 years ago

seriously? down-vote because I agree with the article? .. oh, well.

icebraining2• 14 years ago

I'm pretty sure the downvotes are because your post added nothing to the discussion. If you find the article interesting, you should just upvote it.

apricot13• 14 years ago

finally an article about female developers that doesn't make me want to strangle my own kind!!

Definitely agree

lorettahe8• 14 years ago

It's precisely because I got so wound up with these 'female developer' articles I had to rant in that blog.

mbesto• 14 years ago

Thank you girls! If we are to uphold our so-called meritocracy then gender shouldn't be considered.

'Know your shit' - yes this goes for everyone!

noodly• 14 years ago

Great article. Thats the hackers spirit in there :)

DanBC• 14 years ago

> in a job, it really doesn't matter whether you are a man or a woman, as long as you do good work, that is enough to get you blended in.

Try telling this to the women doing the same work as men but being paid less; and not getting promotions; and not even getting the jobs in the first place - all just because they are women.

> To not feel like an outsider in a place, is to precisely NOT do what these articles seem to be suggesting - singling yourselves out.

Strongly agree with this.

yummyfajitas4• 14 years ago

Try telling this to the women...

There is very little evidence suggesting that the problems you describe are a serious problem in coding, so bringing up these hypothetical problems is a bit confusing.

ontIgnoreRealit• 14 years ago

Of course it's not a serious problem that a group of people are being paid less if you're in the group that's being paid more than them.

Maybe it's easier to understand the issue if you replace women with another group of people. Imagine if black people, jewish people or LGBT as a group were paid 90% of their counterparts. Does that make it easier to grasp why this is a serious problem.

Lets make it even easier. Would you still feel that it's not a serious problem if white men as a group were discriminated against, were getting less promotions and were paid less than their colleges.

Coding and programming is not a vacuum that exists outside of society.

lorettahe8• 14 years ago

Perhaps I have been really fortunate, as I haven't really seen/noticed women not getting promoted/paid less just because they are women. Maybe it's because I'm in the UK where we don't have much of those issues. I do apologise if I have been rather ignorant and appearing cold-blooded when it comes to the unfortunate female workers who do come across gender inequalities caused by bad management and company culture.

mjwalshe• 14 years ago

Its endemic in big companies I know one big tech employer which has major problems compounded by older males at the top of the scale who joined when there where regular increments and women where forced to resign when they got married.

hythloday11• 14 years ago

We do indeed have these issues in the UK; men were paid more than women in almost every sector, and around 20% more in technology in 2011. [0]

[0] http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/08/internat...

JackdawX• 14 years ago

"Perhaps I have been really fortunate, as I haven't really seen/noticed women not getting promoted/paid less just because they are women."

Well, you can't see it. The only people who know someones salary (generally speaking) are the bosses doing the paying, and the employee herself. You must be another employee, because otherwise you'd know for certain.

It seems obvious to say it, but these problems persist because they're largely hidden from view, unless you are the target.

The sad thing is, I can't really do anything about it. I don't know the salaries of any of the women at my work, and even if I did I can't request more money on their behalf, only stand behind them if they are the instigator and they're unfairly refused.

Instead, I decided to just drop my salary amount into conversations sometimes (it's probably middle of the road for developers at my company), so anyone can compare and make their own evaluations based on that. I don't know if thats good idea or not at the moment.

tempacct001• 14 years ago

"same work as men ... but paid less" ??? Sounds like you should start a firm of women engineers. You should be able to under cut the competition.

RyanMcGreal• 14 years ago

It depends on whether you're considering the problem from the perspective of an individual programmer or from an industry-wide perspective. There are strategies that an individual female programmer can adopt that will mitigate the issue of gender for her, but those actions will not collectively add up to a solution that adequately addresses the system-wide problem.

gorgoroth6662• 14 years ago

"Why do men dominate the fields of science, engineering and mathematics?"

"Are intrinsic differences between the sexes responsible for the underrepresentation of women in mathematical and scientific disciplines ?"

I think so.

lorettahe8• 14 years ago

There are many good female scientists/engineers/mathematicians. Back in Cambridge University, to start off with, there are many female mathematics students. Considering achievement by people such as Grace Hopper, I don't think we can blame the domination of men down to sex differences. I would rather girls stand up and bravely join the science community regardless whether these communities are male dominated or not.

gorgoroth6662• 14 years ago

Let's count the heads and the achievements and see how Grace Hopper is irrelevant.

But you should have thinked about that by yourself; another example of woman logic I guess.

lmm• 14 years ago

I studied mathematics at Cambridge University. While there were some very good female students on the course, it's worth recording that the better colleges had smaller proportions of women; New Hall (all-female) had possibly the worst academic reputation, while Trinity (probably best academically) had two girls among my year of 42.

Symmetry• 14 years ago

The scientific consensus is that while men and women might have different distributions of personality traits, their mental abilities are more or less identical. Seriously, the difference in math test scores between male and female students in different countries tracks sexual discrimination so well you could almost use it as a diagnostic.

yummyfajitas4• 14 years ago

...their mental abilities are more or less identical.

No. The evidence suggests that Larry Summers was right, namely that men have a higher variance than women, though means are close to equal.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5888/494.summary

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2889145

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21038941

Seriously, the difference in math test scores between male and female students in different countries tracks sexual discrimination...

Yes - the more gender equity you have, the better boys do relative to girls. (The scores of both genders improve with gender equity, but boy's scores improve more.)

http://www.ams.org/notices/201201/rtx120100010p.pdf

This document also shows that the greater male variance is mostly invariant across cultures.

kahawe2• 14 years ago

> They are mostly very nice guys, as far as I've observed.

This right here. An overwhelming majority of hackers, geeks and guys working in IT are so absolutely alright and wonderful to deal and hang out with and I cannot reconcile the average hacker with discriminating against women, this simply doesn't fit. On top of that most hackers will be so happy to have a chance to have girls around in an industry that seems to draw more than 90% men... look, it's not like we try to keep you gals out or anything, it's just that so many girls aren't even remotely interested in the strange things we do and of the ones who are interested still quite many don't make it through the programming courses in university then - or at least this has been my experience. The image of the hacker and our profession is definitely changing to the better nowadays, so there is something to look forward to. In my experience the average office full of true hackers is a wonderful place to work, no back-stabbing, friendly positive atmosphere and lots of fun to be had.

And I never had the impression that hacker gals actually get paid less for the same position, at least not in the IT industry? Or is it just as common a problem as in other industries?

calibraxis• 14 years ago

Sexists/racists/homophobes are typically perfectly nice people; they just don't notice they're doing anything wrong.

Like the guy who calls everything "gay" when he finds something insufficiently male or good. And the last time I invited a female into my workplace, my male coworkers thought it was perfectly normal and funny to put down women's achievements. (And by mainstream standards, I guess it was.) She was fuming afterwards.

To be not-quite-so-sexist takes active work, because we are embedded in a sexist society. Being sexist is the neutral default. I think I'm sexist. Maybe every man I've met is.

kahawe2• 14 years ago

Never seen this around any of the true hackers I've met or worked with...

bermanoid• 14 years ago

And I never had the impression that hacker gals actually get paid less for the same position, at least not in the IT industry? Or is it just as common a problem as in other industries?

It's better than in most fields, see http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-251007.html, for instance. From what I remember when I looked into this last, you'll find very different actual numbers from each source, but generally speaking, there is a very real gap (at least amongst older workers), but it's smaller in tech than most places.

The absence of a disproportionate pay gap would seem to cast a bit of doubt on the idea that this field is so much more misogynistic than most, though that certainly doesn't mean there's nothing to be concerned about. Those numbers also don't (I think) account for people moving "up and out" of engineering and into management, and I suspect those stats might make things more lopsided.

georgieporgie2• 14 years ago

Can we please stop referring to adult women (in a professional context, no less) as girls?

lorettahe8• 14 years ago

Sorry, I'll bear that in mind next time :P

deathwarmedover3• 14 years ago

Could you elaborate on why you are against this? I use boy/girl interchangeably with man/woman and don't attach any meaning beyond stating gender. Do you feel strongly that it belittles adults to refer to them as boys or girls?

chalst• 14 years ago

It depends on context, but when we are talking about the competence of people to do a professional's job, then yes, girl might suggest that any competence they have is precocity, they are not mature and well-rounded, and they are not generally what you want the pay grade above where they are.

And girl/boy are not quite analogous. "Boy" can be used in a belittling way, but it more often used in phrases like "one of the boys" to mean easy-going and fun: a positive statement about someone's ability to work in groups.

It's not an easy point: there's a few women I know who think that not using "girl" means that you think they are too old to be attractive. I think that often holds in both the US and the UK; it used to be true here in Germany, but I think calling a woman "Maedchen" in her workplace today is positively offensive.

I advise you not to call female colleagues girls in the office, and be sensitive outside the office. It's a good topic to raise in conversation.

untog• 14 years ago

Absolutely. Well, as a male, if someone calls me a boy I consider it belittling. I'm pushing 30 now, so it doesn't bother me so much, but when I was in my early 20's it definitely seemed like code for "inexperienced idiot".

clarkevans4• 14 years ago

She didn't use boy/girl interchangeably. She used girl/man.

hythloday11• 14 years ago

God, yes please. Talking about "men and girls" as the article did sets my teeth on edge.

Jun85• 14 years ago

Can we please please stop being hypersensitive about "sexist language", which pronoun to use, etc and leave this to English majors. The words "boy" and "girl" are usually used for endearment, as they are here. Many female hacker groups have the word "girl"are in their title. Of course these terms terms have been used in a deragotary sense until recently, e.g. watch any episode of Mad Men. That doesn't mean that they should ne banned.

hythloday11• 14 years ago

No-one is talking about "banning", it's a bit weird you'd use that word. But that you missed that the article doesn't have the word "boy" is the reason people object to the word "girl" in that context.

georgieporgie2• 14 years ago

I'll not allow you to invalidate my statement by dismissing me as hypersensitive. That's a lousy tactic you're trying to use.

Addressing an adult human using a child's label is condescending, period. I certainly don't appreciate being called a boy, and I haven't referred to a female colleague as a girl since I was in my teens. Further, if you haven't noticed the consistent way in which comments here have used the words men and girls then I think you're not reading very closely.

clarkevans4• 14 years ago

Yes, _but_ I think her article properly frames her mind-set, she is young (early/mid 20's) and may yet experience what PyLadies and other related groups seek to discuss:

1) She doesn't have much corporate experience yet, and is drawing conclusions based on her limited experience.

2) She's not in a position of authority... sexism really shows its ugly face when there are power differentials where the woman is on top.

3) She's not yet of an age where child bearing is typically discussed, once she hits her 30's she'll have to deal with this regardless if she wants to have children.

4) Just because you're female doesn't mean you arn't sexist.

As others have pointed out, it is a very small minority of problem people. However, they can have a very adverse affect on an individual woman and her career. Sexism is something we should all be actively aware of and do our best to counter when we see it. It only takes a few corrections (by a male colleagues) to address some of the more prevalent issues -- but you have to do it or the sexism will persist.

lorettahe8• 14 years ago

Perhaps I will understand things a better as things move along. It is true that I have only had three jobs so far, which isn't many, compared to many of the people here.

This article is really about talking to males at work about geeky stuff and that we don't have to feel so special. Regarding childbearing, all women in other industries have to do it too, and there doesn't seem to be MathTeacherLadies or groups talking about this kind of things. We are sitting in front of a computer all day long, like many other office jobs, and those other industries have male and female workers working in the same office too, why is IT so strange and special?

Sexism is a problem in workplaces across all industries, and I do, as most others, hope the occurrences of such horrid incidents will gradually disappear over time.

All I wanted to say in the article was, in IT, being male or female does not, and should not matter. At work, as a female, one CAN join in nice conversations with males. A female geek does not have to talk to a female geek about geeky things. That's the only thing. I did not intend to refer to sexism. It was not the original intent of the article. If I have offended you with my article, I sincerely apologise.

Jun85• 14 years ago

To adapt a well-known quote by Irving Kristol: Being prejudiced is to preconceive reality. This is why sexism, racism, etc. are bad, they load prior probabilities to our minds that may not be applicable to the person that we're dealing with.

In your comment, you've painted a picture of the OP as a naive (if somewhat dimwitted, for not understanding life's basics) girl who doesn't have a child, not in a position of authority, etc. whereas in reality you don't know if these are true of her. The only thing she mentions in her post is that she's been in the "IT industry for a few years". For all I know, she may be married with two kids, leading a small project.

So, in chastising her for the sexism you perceived, you commit the same basic sin, your comment is very condescending. I would rather have a well-meaning colleague call me a girl, rather than having someone write this comment about me.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is not uncommon on HN, people react to certain thing in such a way that on a more basic level invalidates their point. A recent example was the debate on reddit's removal of certain subreddits, where people, who normally are against censorship, SOPA, etc., were very pleased that some "pedos" now cannot get their fix. In many cases I think this happens (I'm not saying this applies to you, too) because people hold a bunch of attitudes without analyzing them to arrive at an axiomatic set of beliefs. The unexamined belief is not worth having.

Volscio• 14 years ago

I'm a student at NYU-ITP and our coding classes have a good mix of males and females learning Open Frameworks, Ruby, Python, etc. We barely ever refer to gender. A future generation of female coders is coming, and they'll be building awesome, important stuff.

These blog articles seem pointless in comparison.

hythloday11• 14 years ago

I've never seen a discussion on Hacker News where the substantive point was "ZOMG girls can program" or "we feel out of place because there are so many men around". The discussions tend to be around experiences in the workplace that men don't have and that (some) women do; different treatment during pay negotiations, sexualized presentations at conferences, co-worker passivity about sexual harassment. Please don't argue against the straw-man that women can "blend in" (I'm not going to analyse the language there, but the whole tone of the article was a bit of a red flag) as long as they don't encounter any of this problematic behaviour, because no-one disputes that.

Equally it's probably not very helpful if the distillation of your point is "women ('girls'): have you even tried talking to your peers?". Of course they have, it's the most obvious thing to try. To re-iterate, the problem is not that geeky men and women have strong social cues not to interact at all (like some sort of really weird Victorian tea-party), it's that there is a minority of men are actively and aggressively misogynist and the majority of men who aren't refuse to call them on it. Unfortunately there isn't much that women can directly do to change this (hence the perpetuating problem), they can only highlight this behaviour and expect to be treated with professionalism and decency.

lorettahe8• 14 years ago

There does appear to be something new I learn every day. " it's that there is a minority of men are actively and aggressively misogynist and the majority of men who aren't refuse to call them on it" I really have seen none around, to be honest. As other guys on this post have been saying, they really would rather women bothering to talk to them. Speaking from a personal experience, I have not found any misogynists in the IT industry, but I have however worked with females who simply do not utter a word in the office, and these females have generated comments from my males colleagues to me, including 'She just does not like us'. I'm not trying to make a generalisation here. But I do think, in the IT industry, just like any other industries (such as teaching or even the finance industry), men and women can get along, because at the basics, developer roles and what they do aren't really that different to the other jobs.

hythloday11• 14 years ago

I'm really glad you haven't had those experiences (and I'm glad you wrote a post about that, even though I didn't agree with your points). I do think it's something that's getting less acceptable over time, certainly I've seen it decrease over my decade or so at work, so I have high hopes that it's on the way out. I'm really glad you haven't had those experiences (and I'm glad you wrote a post about that, even though I didn't agree with your points). I do think it's something that's getting less acceptable over time, certainly I've seen it decrease over my decade or so at work, so I have high hopes that it's on the way out.

Here's an example of what I mean by misogyny: a previous manager at a company printed out an A3 picture of a woman in hotpants and a bra with the caption "Please update your Jira tickets before you go home". When I came in the next day to replace it with a picture of 4 (clothed but sexualized-I think it was a picture of a male stripper troupe) men, I received a disciplinary action from the company. The same manager, when he introduced me to the team, introduced the male programmers as "he works on ToolName" and the female programmers as "she makes things look pretty".

This is reasonable subtle stuff, but I am surprised (though happy) if you've genuinely never encountered it rather than cultivating obliviousness or growing a thick skin.

coroxout2• 14 years ago

When chatting to your male coworkers, what happens when you don't know something or accidentally say something stupid? In my experience, a man may get a brief ribbing, whereas a woman gets a long, patronising or sarcastic lecture, and their mistake gets brought up for months afterwards as evidence that woman are ditsy and don't know the things that real geeks should know.

e.g. it was a running joke at my last job how women didn't know anything about hardware, but there was a male programmer there who repeatedly used "memory" to mean hard disk space and "hard disk" to mean the case, and nobody ever said anything. And a guy can banter back - this guy's comeback when anyone corrected him was "who'd want to know boring nerd stuff like that" - but a woman quickly gets pegged as sour, bitchy or snooty if she talks back.

And after a while of every dumb slip-up being jumped on, is it any wonder that some women don't leap gleefully into the conversation?

(Plus as female coder I am always happy to talk about programming, retro computing, science fiction or other "geek" topics, but 80% of the Man Chat in my office is about cars and Top Gear, which don't interest me at all.)

Don't get me wrong: very few of the male IT professionals I've known have been openly hostile. But there have been those who have seemed slightly confused by my presence and ignored everything I said, those who regularly met up outside work without asking me and months later said "we would have asked you, but we didn't think you'd be interested", those who say nothing when someone louder insults women...

...and the ones who rush to applaud when a woman insults another woman, which to be honest I found your post rather close to with its implication that any woman who's had a harder time in IT is whiny, antisocial or doesn't "know their shit". (Apologies if this reply just seems to continue that trend. I'm grateful to you for starting this topic, which I've found interesting, at any rate.)

aklemm• 14 years ago

Having once worked in a female-dominated department of a large company and currently spending 9-5 as a stay-at-home dad, I can say it's not ideal to be surrounded almost completely by the opposite sex. Sure, we're adults and we can make it work, but it would be a relief if there were more men around at Li'l Tots French class on Wednesday morning, for example. And it would be more fun parenting during the day and I would advocate it more to other men if more men were already around during the day.

If women programmers are surrounded by men all day because 95+ percent of programmers are men, it makes sense that it's not an ideal work environment (not that it's unworkable, just not ideal). Until women reach a certain representation in the field (maybe 20-30 percent?), why not cluster together and make a point of working together? To say, "Being one in a hundred is just fine" seems to leave the problem unsolved.

mcantor• 14 years ago

Experiences differ. The same solution won't work for everyone.

thekungfuman• 14 years ago

I like the content well enough but grey text on black? Rather difficult to read.

lorettahe8• 14 years ago

Did notice that. Will get sorted when I have time over the weekend. Sorry :/

The (un)importance of gender in programming

Related Stories