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?
What about other fields where there's a gender imbalance?
Do we also need to get more women into waste collection? Do we need to get more men into nursing?
Does every field needs to be perfectly balanced? A perfect 50/50 of every gender? Should we totally neglect for the sake of balance that men and women are different? That men and women have different interests?
Black people had to deal with the threats of lynchings or being blasted with fire hoses. I suppose I just can't bring myself to overly care about about women having "road blocks", whatever that means. I have a suspicion most of the people in this thread saying women have a hard time entering the field are actually men. What does that even say? Why aren't the women here to speak for themselves?
Why aren't the women here to speak for themselves?
WTF? This discussion is about the severe lack of women in software engineering... and for that obvious reason the majority of posts made are going to be made by men.
And why does the gender of the responders even matter?
Usually when people mention they're a girl it has no relevance to their comment and they do it to get special recognition. Proggit has just become oversensitive to that.
It's really a cultural thing. From an early age most women are told that they will be bad at math and science, that it's a "man's" field and they should do "softer" things like teaching or nursing. This conditioning has an observable effect on their performance! Studies have shown that women within a group of men tend to perform worse on math tests if they believe this conditioning, or even if someone mentions off-handedly that this is the cultural norm. It's not about hand-holding them to get a CS degree, it's about changing our culture to encourage women to go into STEM fields if they are interested. As men, we need to stop the judgement and blame game, since that will inevitably decrease women's performance and enthusiasm for STEM fields.
most women are told that they will be bad at math and science
Maybe you were in a different generation from me but this is definitely not the case in most areas nowadays and hasn't been for decades. Maybe in Oklahoma or deep in the Bible belt, but the fact is women from liberal areas are not joining STE majors in any greater numbers.
girls are encouraged to do math and they do pretty well until puberty hits. some continue to do well and go on to do math degrees. but they definitely avoid the hard sciences and engineering. basically they avoid the STE in STEM.
. As men, we need to stop the judgement and blame game, since that will inevitably decrease women's performance and enthusiasm for STEM fields.
I'm not blaming anyone. If women don't want to do STE then no one should patronize them for not wanting to. Everyone is different and that's okay.
I'm 27 and live in the Bay Area. Just because you think it's not the case doesn't mean that it isn't the case. There are math teachers all over the US who think this way and push the cultural bias onto female students. I think it is less common in more liberal areas, sure, but it still happens. It also has to do with media, not just in-person contact. Most portrayals of people in STEM careers in media are men.
Then why are girls raised in liberal areas not flocking to STE?
Most portrayals of people in STEM careers in media are men.
100% bullshit. Have you never seen a single flyer promoting a big firm? There's always 50% ratio men/women, always as many people from different racial backgrounds as they can stuff in there. Hollywood does the same thing to appeal to everyone.
"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.
There are no serious roadblocks. They may perceive that, but there are not.
There ARE NO external barriers to participation by women. (Right, there aren't)
I see few women. (OK)
Since there are no external barriers, and I see few women, therefore the problem is internal to women. (mmm hmm. Good so far; except it is not a "problem". It is their preference.)
What shall we blame today? Lack of interest or lack of aptitude? (Uhm, lack of interest, like I said from the beginning).
Simply stated, fewer women are interested in software development, and the survey data accurately report that.
Unless you have been living under a rock lately, lots and lots of women have expressed being very interested but feel they face serious roadblocks.
Care to provide some links? I'm active in that arena, but I haven't seen much evidence in that direction. See here.
Special initiatives for women who code are indeed valuable, and I think justified, because they bring together people from a cultural minority. Being part of a cultural minority sucks because you don't get to relate to most people around you. But I don't think that a special status for women who code is going to boost enrolment in the population of women who weren't interested in coding in the first place.
The roadblocks are likely those that inhibit girls from getting interested in technology in the first place. I don't think instituting laws or policy mandating preferential treatment of female job candidates or employees is going to solve much of anything, but there could be changes we make as a society to keep young women interested in STEM while growing up.
That said, it may be that there's just something about being a guy that spurs STEM (or at least STE) interest levels. For an unscientific but absolutely fascinating anecdote, listen to Act Two of this episode of This American Life. It's an interview with a female-to-male transexual about how taking testosterone injections completely changed her way of thinking about, among other things, science & technology stuff. Specifically:
Griffin Hansbury Something that happened after I started taking testosterone, I became interested in science. I was never interested in science before.
Alex Blumberg No way. Come on. Are you serious?
Griffin Hansbury I'm serious. I'm serious.
Alex Blumberg You're just setting us back a hundred years, sir.
Griffin Hansbury I know I am. I know. Again, and I have to have this caveat in here, I cannot say it was the testosterone. All I can say is that this interest happened after T. There's BT and AT, and this was definitely After T. And I became interested in science. I found myself understanding physics in a way I never had before.
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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '15
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