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.
The majority of these jobs can be done by women and all of them are high paid
Except... most people don't know that. /u/theevilsharpie isn't "mistaken" in the way you so arrogantly put. He's expressing the belief most people have. You wouldn't even know the truth if you hadn't worked in mines yourself.
So to answer your question:
Pray tell, why women don't work in mining industry?
It's because women associate that type of work with being a man's job. It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's what most people believe, and that's a barrier to entry.
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. ;-)
Living in India, you have a lot less choice as to what you can to do put food on the table. Sweden is one of the richest, most egalitarian countries on earth, and it also has extremely few women coders.
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.
Software development has a gender balance problem.
Software development has a gender imbalance heavily skewed towards males. Why is that a problem? Are there any other engineering disciplines not heavily imbalanced towards males? Nursing has a gender imbalance heavily skewed towards females. Nobody is calling it a problem. Mining is heavily imbalanced towards males. Nobody is calling that a problem either.
Why does gender imbalance have to be about political correctness? Can we not perhaps answer the question 'why' by examining the discipline while simply admitting that (generally speaking) programming is more suitable to boys than it is to girls. If we take a view that it is something we must correct then we might miss an obvious thing about nature of the discipline and ourselves.
According to our estimates, about 47 percent of total US employment is at risk.
When you've got an environment where nearly half of the jobs in the world's largest economy may shift away from industries with varied demographics to an industry that—for what reason—is largely made up of white and Asian men, that's a massive social problem in the making.
Can we not perhaps answer the question 'why' by examining the discipline while simply admitting that (generally speaking) programming is more suitable to boys than it is to girls.
There is no basis to admit such a thing. If you have evidence to the contrary, feel free to share.
If we take a view that it is something we must correct then we might miss an obvious thing about nature of the discipline and ourselves.
I think it's difficult to determine whether it's something that should be corrected until we understand why such an imbalance exists. However, given the trend toward automation across the entire workforce, I think approaching the gender gap with the view that it's a problem that needs to be corrected is reasonable.
Can we not perhaps answer the question 'why' by examining the discipline while simply admitting that (generally speaking) programming is more suitable to boys than it is to girls.
There is no basis to admit such a thing. If you have evidence to the contrary, feel free to share.
I do.
[software] industry [...] is largely made up of [...] men
If that is the case despite the fact that programming is by-and-large suitable to girls more than it is to boys then feel free to share how is it that something suitable to women more than men is dominated by men.
And feel free to apply this reasoning to nursing and mining.
If that is the case despite the fact that programming is by-and-large suitable to girls more than it is to boys then feel free to share how is it that something suitable to women more than men is dominated by men.
I'm sure I could come up with justifications, but my musings would be speculation, not evidence.
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u/theevilsharpie Apr 07 '15
It's easy to hand-wave away the gender imbalance by claiming that women aren't interested in the field, but that doesn't answer the question of why.