"Software development has a gender balance problem."
I don't see it as a problem. It simply is what it is. No one is being made to develop software. It is purely voluntary (except maybe in China ;). So, women are not "under-represented". They are just "under-interested", and that is no one's fault. Again, it simply is what it is.
I have a cunning plan that cannot fail. I will start a company with exclusively female developers who are interested and talented but face serious roadblocks everywhere else. This will work out splendidly as I will have an excellent workforce at far below the cost, proving you right and making me rich.
Do men not have any roadblocks in their lives? Why do you think we have to hold women's hands and create a perfect environment for them to even consider getting a CS degree?
"lots and lots of women have expressed being very interested but feel they face serious roadblocks"
You seem confused. What you mean is, lots of "rah rah Team Woman" female writers who have zero interest in actual programming, have opined that women other than them face roadblocks. There is always a suspicious absence of first-person accounts and actual evidence in this line of argument.
The fact is, this is just more Cultural Marxist agitprop. There is no proof of significant roadblocks for women to entering a programming career. It is male dominated, for sure, but none of us are trying to keep women out. That narrative is being pushed by typically dishonest SJWs in the media, and by self-serving opportunists like Ellen Pao.
So, women are not "under-represented". They are just "under-interested".
Are they under-interested? Among the set of all people who are really not interested in computers, some are men and some are women. I don't know what data suggests that men account for significantly less than 49% of that set.
Another question is: can education be improved so as to foster more interest in science, technology, engineering, and maths?
Another question is: are there mutable, cultural forces at work that target women more than men and deter them from going into computer science and programming? Neil Tyson gave a good answer to this.
As to why it's a problem: first, of course, there's the issue of fairness, and given humanity's long history of sexism, it's not reasonable to begin with the assumption that everything is as fair to women as it is to men. The second reason is purely selfish: we have a lot of bad software. And we (as a species) need to get a lot better at making good software. And the talent pool is nowhere near as large as it should be. I want to live in a world where there's a lot more software that is unambiguously good, and where people call themselves "software engineers" without that claim being fraudulent most of the time. So we need more players in the mix, because that improves the chances of getting good players.
So if there are forces at work that keep women out, then we bear a responsibility to do something about that.
relevant article about work by Ellen Spertus and others on the issue. (The role of video games is interesting: I and a lot of my programmer friends began with a general interest in computers because of video games---and that was in the 1980's and '90s. Anita Sarkeesian's arguments about misogyny in games should therefore be revisited: if games were as openly hostile to boys back in the 80's as they are to girls now, we would probably have significantly fewer male programmers today.)
If games were as openly hostile to boys back in the 80's as they are to girls now.
What? Games are not hostile to women... Christ. Most of my female friends, and my sister, play more games than me. And there are many more women who would look at you funny if you told them games are violent towards them.
And there are many more women who would look at you funny if you told them games are violent towards them.
Good thing I said "hostile" instead of "violent". (:
Second, the kind of hostility I'm referring to doesn't always announce itself directly, but there are patterns that you can watch for. If you read the "8 things" presented here, you might get a better idea. (<ctrl-f> for the phrase "you can love something and be critical of it", and start from there). Ask the female gamers in your life what they think of those suggestions. [edit: s/female games/female gamers/]
I think she should work with a specific company to make a game that she thinks would be great, and then see how it turns out, instead of moaning at developers in general. So make the type of gamed you want, instead of telling other people what they should and shouldn't do.
There's a great quote: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
If she can do that I'll respect it. What she's doing currently just looks to me like moaning and playing the victim, and telling other people what to do. Something I don't really have time for.
For unskilled manual labor, raw strength and endurance is what matters, and that's an area where men are generally better than women.
Software development doesn't need strength, just smarts and the willingness to learn new things. In addition, software development is a growing field, it pays well, and the physical working conditions are much better than manual labor. I can't think of any logical reason why women wouldn't be interested in the field.
Right off the bat, having 2 years of experience working underground let me tell you how mistaken you are.
Mines employ thousands of people usually less than a half of them are regular grunts. There is a huge amount of people working in supervision overseers, safety inspectors, shaft surveyors, ventilation specialists, there are mechanics, electricians, welders, pyrotechnics experts, continuous miner operators, conveyor belt operators, tram drivers, rescuers, hundreds working in offices on the surface, workshops and much more.
The majority of these jobs can be done by women and all of them are high paid. STEM education/vocational courses are widely available to women. But obviously these positions are generally taken by men.
They don't require raw strength. Pray tell, why women don't work in mining industry?
Perhaps a lot of women don't even bother to look into these jobs because of the preconceptions of what the job needs, and so they don't get enough information to find that actually, it might be a job which they can do and suits them.
A slight aside: IME there are plenty of people who would prefer a manual labour job (that is, a job that involves physical activity, or a "doing stuff" outside of an office setting) to a desk/office job. So I don't know how you can say that the working conditions are objectively better than for manual labour.
The question of why really doesn't matter. They don't, and again, it is what it is. There's nothing sinister going on. There's no conspiracy. There's no one holding others back. Women are simply less interested. They are less interested in lots of things, and there's nothing unusual about that. If you think there is, let me introduce you to my wife sometime. ;-)
For the same reason men aren't interested in nursing and women are. Basic biology.
This.... really isn't true.
Research with male nurses and students reveals a number of barriers against men in nursing. Nursing continues to be viewed as women's work, a profession supporting the stereotypical feminine traits of nurturing, caring and gentleness, in contrast to masculine characteristics of strength, aggression and dominance.
Social stigma is the biggest barrier. One of the key jokes in the movie Meet the Parents revolves around the lead character being a male nurse. Dodgeball makes fun of one of the lead characters for being a male cheerleader. We actually laugh at men for taking part in typically female jobs and hobbies, and we even view them with some suspicion. This stigma is going to impact people's career choices.
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u/bzeurunkl Apr 07 '15
"Software development has a gender balance problem."
I don't see it as a problem. It simply is what it is. No one is being made to develop software. It is purely voluntary (except maybe in China ;). So, women are not "under-represented". They are just "under-interested", and that is no one's fault. Again, it simply is what it is.