Women in IT

[Travis B.]

They can be sort of hurtful in their own ways. Tech isn't generally very friendly to women. I noticed a trend of women quitting more than men; I don't know exactly what happened of course (but I have a pretty good idea.)

My current employer proportionately has the most women out of all the tech jobs I have worked at (it really does have many women), but one thing I have noticed is that a large proportion of those women work in non-software engineering roles. Of those who do work in software engineering roles, a minority are White; my two immediate superiors are women who are Chinese-American and Indian-American.

This raises the question of why do White women not want to do software engineering? What I have observed at my current job is that it cannot be the company, since there are many White women who work at the company.

[bradrn]

I think it’s just that software development is heavily dominated by men in general. (Why, I won’t speculate; people have argued about this endlessly.)

[alice]

I think it’s just that software development is heavily dominated by men in general. (Why, I won’t speculate; people have argued about this endlessly.)

I remember reading that originally, around the 1950s I think, programming was considered a woman's job, sort of on a par with secretarial work in general, and the men muscled in and took over when it was recognised that it needed actual thinking. (Don't flame me for saying this; that was what they thought back then.)

Interestingly, I once worked for a company which localised, rather than developed, software, and the proportion of female staff was much higher than in any other IT company I've worked for; indeed, the women may have been in the majority.

[Travis B.]

I think it’s just that software development is heavily dominated by men in general. (Why, I won’t speculate; people have argued about this endlessly.)

I remember reading that originally, around the 1950s I think, programming was considered a woman's job, sort of on a par with secretarial work in general, and the men muscled in and took over when it was recognised that it needed actual thinking. (Don't flame me for saying this; that was what they thought back then.)

Interestingly, I once worked for a company which localised, rather than developed, software, and the proportion of female staff was much higher than in any other IT company I've worked for; indeed, the women may have been in the majority.

What I read really pushed women out of programming here in the US was that, during the late 70's and 80's, home computers were marketed as toys for boys to play games on, which resulted in the association by many young girls that computers were "toys for boys", which dissuaded them from entering computing professionally when they got older. Since then this has had a recursive effect, where a lack of women in computing resulted in girls not being attracted to becoming programmers, which in turn further resulted in a lack of women in computing, and so on. However, this apparently is not true in other places such as India and China, where software engineering has been pushed as a lucrative career for women to enter, and lacks the associations in many womens' minds that it has here in the US.

(I think I just answered my own question.)

[Ares Land]

There's a combination of factors leading to less women in IT. For French people my age, it was a combination of boys being pushed into STEM fields a lot more and computers as a male hobby. Things are probably somewhat different for other countries and age groups.

One thing I noted though is that some IT companies / employers have a knack for driving women out.
It's little things like sexist comments, minor cases of harassment being ignored. Not all companies of course -- but I've worked for a few of these in my career.

I haven't checked the statistics, but I was a told this is a general trend in IT and that women are disproportionately leaving the field. So generally, there aren't a lot of women in IT and those that enter the field tend to leave it more than men do.

[Travis B.]

There's a combination of factors leading to less women in IT. For French people my age, it was a combination of boys being pushed into STEM fields a lot more and computers as a male hobby. Things are probably somewhat different for other countries and age groups.

One thing I noted though is that some IT companies / employers have a knack for driving women out.
It's little things like sexist comments, minor cases of harassment being ignored. Not all companies of course -- but I've worked for a few of these in my career.

I haven't checked the statistics, but I was a told this is a general trend in IT and that women are disproportionately leaving the field. So generally, there aren't a lot of women in IT and those that enter the field tend to leave it more than men do.

This raises another question though - why are there more cases of sexist comments, minor harassment, etc. in IT? I have not heard an adequate explanation for this, but if I had to guess, it would be that being more male-dominated today in and of itself lends itself to this, vis-a-vis less male-dominated fields. I might be wrong though.

[Linguoboy]

This raises another question though - why are there more cases of sexist comments, minor harassment, etc. in IT? I have not heard an adequate explanation for this, but if I had to guess, it would be that being more male-dominated today in and of itself lends itself to this, vis-a-vis less male-dominated fields. I might be wrong though.

I think that, in itself, is a sufficient explanation.

But I think one reason why IT in particular can be so toxic is due to the type of men it attracts. It's not entirely populated by intense, insecure, socially-awkward nerds, of course, but those with less-developed interpersonal skills (such as people on the spectrum and other neurodiverse individuals) do tend to thrive more in IT than in other fields and, as a result, are disproportionately represented in it. This leads to some workplaces developing a "geek culture" which devalues interpersonal skills, instead favouring a bluntness which can easily cross the line into abuse. (I'm thinking of Linus Torvalds, for example, who tried--and for years succeeded--in valorising his abusive behaviour as superior to the "fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords" present in traditional office environments.) When there is a culture of casual abusiveness, women (and other historical marginalised groups) suffer from it more than straight white cis males and, hence, tend to be more keen to leave.

I think this situation has definitely improved over time, but the impression persists and puts women off of entering the field even though they could probably find workplaces without a particularly toxic culture to work in.

[Ares Land]

There definitely is a culture of tolerating rudeness and obnoxious behavior.

Now I don't know about Linus Torvalds... but, to add insult to injury, rude people in IT are, as a rule, not Linus Torvalds; dealing with rudeness on top of incompetence can be a little too much.

One reason why this is is that what we do can be baffling to outsiders; even to our direct managers. Getting a reputation for being an irreplaceable genius that must be kept happy at all costs is not too difficult sometimes.

[Travis B.]

This raises another question though - why are there more cases of sexist comments, minor harassment, etc. in IT? I have not heard an adequate explanation for this, but if I had to guess, it would be that being more male-dominated today in and of itself lends itself to this, vis-a-vis less male-dominated fields. I might be wrong though.

I think that, in itself, is a sufficient explanation.

But I think one reason why IT in particular can be so toxic is due to the type of men it attracts. It's not entirely populated by intense, insecure, socially-awkward nerds, of course, but those with less-developed interpersonal skills (such as people on the spectrum and other neurodiverse individuals) do tend to thrive more in IT than in other fields and, as a result, are disproportionately represented in it. This leads to some workplaces developing a "geek culture" which devalues interpersonal skills, instead favouring a bluntness which can easily cross the line into abuse. (I'm thinking of Linus Torvalds, for example, who tried--and for years succeeded--in valorising his abusive behaviour as superior to the "fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords" present in traditional office environments.) When there is a culture of casual abusiveness, women (and other historical marginalised groups) suffer from it more than straight white cis males and, hence, tend to be more keen to leave.

I think this situation has definitely improved over time, but the impression persists and puts women off of entering the field even though they could probably find workplaces without a particularly toxic culture to work in.

My issue with this (note: I am definitely a "computer geek"), though, is that it places blame on "computer geeks" for driving women away from computing even without any actual sexism necessarily. Should we drive neurodiverse people out of IT then, when it is one of the few areas that are really accepting of them, just for the sake of attracting more women? Should we seek to "de-geekify" computing in the name of equality, based on the premise that more women would be attracted to computing were it not for the existence of "computer geeks"? And would this even accomplish such objectives?

[Linguoboy]

My issue with this (note: I am definitely a "computer geek"), though, is that it places blame on "computer geeks" for driving women away from computing even without any actual sexism necessarily. Should we drive neurodiverse people out of IT then, when it is one of the few areas that are really accepting of them, just for the sake of attracting more women? Should we seek to "de-geekify" computing in the name of equality, based on the premise that more women would be attracted to computing were it not for the existence of "computer geeks"? And would this even accomplish such objectives?

I think you've created a false dichotomy here. After all, aren't women neurodiverse, too? As I took pains to point out, even though neurodivergent people are overrepresented in IT, not every IT workplace develops a "geek culture" which amplifies the most toxic antisocial traits found in that workforce. Sexism is deeply rooted in our society; if you don't take positive steps to stamp it out, it will flourish and infect the work culture. I think it is perfectly possible to create a work culture that is accommodating of a neurodiverse population while also not tolerating forms of bigotry. It's not geeks per se that are driving women away from these companies; it's what they're allowed to get away with. That's really an issue of management setting standards and enforcing them effectively.

But, yeah, if you've been told clearly that your behaviour is sexist, abusive, or otherwise inappropriate and you refuse to correct it, then that's on you and I don't have an issue with you being pushed out and replaced by someone who's both a good coder (or whatever) and a decent human being. Companies which don't do this won't attract the best talent (which, unfortunately, doesn't mean that they'll necessarily wither since there are so many factors besides the quality of the work which determine a company's success).

[Travis B.]

My issue with this (note: I am definitely a "computer geek"), though, is that it places blame on "computer geeks" for driving women away from computing even without any actual sexism necessarily. Should we drive neurodiverse people out of IT then, when it is one of the few areas that are really accepting of them, just for the sake of attracting more women? Should we seek to "de-geekify" computing in the name of equality, based on the premise that more women would be attracted to computing were it not for the existence of "computer geeks"? And would this even accomplish such objectives?

I think you've created a false dichotomy here. As I took pains to point out, even though neurodivergent people are overrepresented in IT, not every IT workplace develops a "geek culture" which amplifies the most toxic antisocial traits found in that workforce. Sexism is deeply rooted in our society; if you don't take positive steps to stamp it out, it will flourish and infect the work culture. I think it is perfectly possible to create a work culture that is accommodating of a neurodiverse population while also not tolerating forms of bigotry. It's not geeks per se that are driving women away from these companies; it's what they're allowed to get away with. That's really an issue of management setting standards and enforcing them effectively.

Oh, I agree. I was in part responding to the BBC article you linked, where the very perception of "geekiness", even without any sexism, dissuades girls from wanting to become programmers, a suggestion that I personally dislike due to its unfortunate implication that including neurodivergent people and women are mutually exclusive.

[Travis B.]

But, yeah, if you've been told clearly that your behaviour is sexist, abusive, or otherwise inappropriate and you refuse to correct it, then that's on you and I don't have an issue with you being pushed out and replaced by someone who's both a good coder (or whatever) and a decent human being. Companies which don't do this won't attract the best talent (which, unfortunately, doesn't mean that they'll necessarily wither since there are so many factors besides the quality of the work which determine a company's success).

Definitely agreed; I don't think that being a "geek" and a good programmer is mutually exclusive with being a decent human being at all. And encouraging a good work environment lends itself to retaining good programmers, because if the work environment is not good, a good programmer is more likely to move on to other workplaces, leaving more mediocre programmers who are more likely to stick around simply due to having fewer opportunities elsewhere.

[Linguoboy]

Oh, I agree. I was in part responding to the BBC article you linked, where the very perception of "geekiness", even without any sexism, dissuades girls from wanting to become programmers, a suggestion that I personally dislike due to its unfortunate implication that including neurodivergent people and women are mutually exclusive.

I think it's useful to break down what that "geekiness" consists of. According to the article, it was that computer programmers were seen as "male, socially awkward and intense".

The "male" part is quite accurate: over 90% of computer programmers identify as "male". Since most women are not misandrists, it isn't the simple fact of their maleness that puts them off, it's their negative experiences of male-dominated spaces and the sexist behaviours which are allowed to flourish in them. All things being equal, I don't think I'd want to work in a workplace that was 90+% male either.

The "intense" part is interesting. The article doesn't go into detail on what that means, but I have a guess: Research shows that women value work/life balance in their employment more than men do (since they are still expected to take on more of the burden of maintaining a household and performing emotional labour than men are). But "techbro" culture romanticises the grind, producing the impression that this would be hard to achieve in an IT position[*].

So that leaves the "socially-awkward" part as the only one that could truly be said to be stigmatising neurodivergence. It would be interesting to see if the research teases out exactly what traits are implicated in this. Maybe it really is certain traits that are linked to neurodivergence (such as a dislike of small talk), in which case the burden really should be these girls' educators and caretakers to teach them how to accommodate a broader range of styles of interpersonal interaction. But it's also possible that the traits are unhealthy ones (such as casual misogyny and toleration of abuse) which should be eradicated from the culture.

[*] Where this originates is an interesting question. Mark has made the point here that the development cycle caused companies to demand excessive overtime immediately before product launches, to the point where this simply became the everyday expectation. I wonder if some of it may also be due to neurodivergence, since one common trait of folks on the spectrum is an ability to focus obsessively on completing a particular task. It's easy to see how a workplace where this trait is common could go from accommodating it to normalising it and demanding it of workers who would prefer a different way of working.

[Travis B.]

Oh, I agree. I was in part responding to the BBC article you linked, where the very perception of "geekiness", even without any sexism, dissuades girls from wanting to become programmers, a suggestion that I personally dislike due to its unfortunate implication that including neurodivergent people and women are mutually exclusive.

I think it's useful to break down what that "geekiness" consists of. According to the article, it was that computer programmers were seen as "male, socially awkward and intense".

The "male" part is quite accurate: over 90% of computer programmers identify as "male". Since most women are not misandrists, it isn't the simple fact of their maleness that puts them off, it's their negative experiences of male-dominated spaces and the sexist behaviours which are allowed to flourish in them. All things being equal, I don't think I'd want to work in a workplace that was 90+% male either.

This goes back the whole male-dominated recursive catch-22 - women are dissuaded from entering software engineering my the lack of women in software engineering, and a large part of why software engineering lacks women is that women oftentimes avoid it as a career.

The "intense" part is interesting. The article doesn't go into detail on what that means, but I have a guess: Research shows that women value work/life balance in their employment more than men do (since they are still expected to take on more of the burden of maintaining a household and performing emotional labour than men are). But "techbro" culture romanticises the grind, producing the impression that this would be hard to achieve in an IT position[*].

I certainly would qualify as "intense" here, yet at the same time I personally value my work/life balance - the only thing is that when I get home I continue working, but on my own projects rather than what I do at work. While programming to me is a career, it is also something I have enjoyed since I was a little kid.

So that leaves the "socially-awkward" part as the only one that could truly be said to be stigmatising neurodivergence. It would be interesting to see if the research teases out exactly what traits are implicated in this. Maybe it really is certain traits that are linked to neurodivergence (such as a dislike of small talk), in which case the burden really should be these girls' educators and caretakers to teach them how to accommodate a broader range of styles of interpersonal interaction. But it's also possible that the traits are unhealthy ones (such as casual misogyny and toleration of abuse) which should be eradicated from the culture.

Definitely agreed.

[*] Where this originates is an interesting question. Mark has made the point here that the development cycle caused companies to demand excessive overtime immediately before product launches, to the point where this simply became the everyday expectation. I wonder if some of it may also be due to neurodivergence, since one common trait of folks on the spectrum is an ability to focus obsessively on completing a particular task. It's easy to see how a workplace where this trait is common could go from accommodating it to normalising it and demanding it of workers who would prefer a different way of working.

The thing is that excessive workloads just prior to releases does not lend itself to quality work, so is best avoided anyways, and reflects dysfunctional software development processes. Where I work now, our timelines stretch for months prior to releases, with no last-minute nose-grinds and with extensive V&V; of course, this is probably partially because my day job is on working on medical devices, where last minute rush jobs simply are not tolerated.

[Travis B.]

One thing I was reading some while back was the suggestion that "computer geeks" be intentionally kept out of Computer Science programs at universities in order to attract more women to Computer Science. That deeply bothered me, as it would be deliberately keeping the most dedicated and devoted students out in hopes that excluding their "geekiness" would indirectly increase diversity. What also bothered me was the idea that "computer geeks" were necessarily male, rather than that being an accident of young girls avoiding computing due to its perceived maleness rather than anything inherent in being a "computer geek". (I should note that I do not see being a "computer geek" as being a negative thing at all; I am very much a proud "computer geek" myself. I would very much welcome there being more female "computer geeks".) I do not have a link of where I read this; it's been a few years since.

[Torco]

I've worked in IT for many years (well, used to, I'm doing data analysis for surveys and shit these days, a lot more boring) and I don't think I've seen a single company in the industry that does not view crunch as a normal thing to happen (scrum masters call it "sprints", and yes, I know in theory agile methodology is not supposd to be an excuse to impose a workplace culture of extreme unpaid overtime, but it's what happens in reality anyway). and, at least what I've seen, women are less likely to take it: they'll leave the office at 6pm as if it was any other day, as opposed to caving and staying till 1am to finish the latest feature or whatever. This may be part of it, I suppose, but certainly the sexism is a part of it as well: most bosses in IT, after all, are just my local equivalent to old white rich men -i.e. for Chile they're not necessarily white, being a mostly mestizo country, and we have a different way of thinking about skin color etcetera but rather from certain highschools and universities, having certain last names and who vacation in certain beaches, etcetera. Also, I've noticed that amongst programmers in Latin America -and it may be the same in the first world, I don't know- it's much more common than amongst the general population to be a rightwing "libertarian".

[Travis B.]

I've worked in IT for many years (well, used to, I'm doing data analysis for surveys and shit these days, a lot more boring) and I don't think I've seen a single company in the industry that does not view crunch as a normal thing to happen (scrum masters call it "sprints", and yes, I know in theory agile methodology is not supposd to be an excuse to impose a workplace culture of extreme unpaid overtime, but it's what happens in reality anyway). and, at least what I've seen, women are less likely to take it: they'll leave the office at 6pm as if it was any other day, as opposed to caving and staying till 1am to finish the latest feature or whatever. This may be part of it, I suppose, but certainly the sexism is a part of it as well: most bosses in IT, after all, are just my local equivalent to old white rich men -i.e. for Chile they're not necessarily white, being a mostly mestizo country, and we have a different way of thinking about skin color etcetera but rather from certain highschools and universities, having certain last names and who vacation in certain beaches, etcetera. Also, I've noticed that amongst programmers in Latin America -and it may be the same in the first world, I don't know- it's much more common than amongst the general population to be a rightwing "libertarian".

My last job was definitely all-crunch-time-all-the-time and it definitely sucked. While the hours were not as bad as working to 1 am (they expected you to work nine hour days), they'd often get you to work on the weekend quite frequently, and their idea of "nine hour days" was "working constantly for nine hours at a time, not counting using the restroom or eating lunch", tracked using "time-tracking" tools.

[Torco]

and their idea of "nine hour days" was "working constantly for nine hours at a time, not counting using the restroom or eating lunch", tracked using "time-tracking" tools.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[alynnidalar]

given that women and men of color are perfectly capable of being neurodivergent also and yet are still wildly underrepresented in IT, I really don't think the central problem is that white neurodivergent men are being insufficiently accomodated and those mean mean neurotypical ladies just need to learn how to talk to them properly

(also, most white guys in IT aren't neurodivergent either)

[Travis B.]

given that women and men of color are perfectly capable of being neurodivergent also and yet are still wildly underrepresented in IT, I really don't think the central problem is that white neurodivergent men are being insufficiently accomodated and those mean mean neurotypical ladies just need to learn how to talk to them properly

(also, most white guys in IT aren't neurodivergent either)

I agree with the above. When you say "men of color", though, I think you mean to say "Black and Latino men", because Black and Latino men are vastly underrepresented, while South and East Asian men are not by any means, at least from my personal experience.

In the case of Black and Latino men (and women), I would presume (again based on my limited knowledge) that it is due to pervasive structural racism thoughout the entirety of society that is at fault.

In the case of women overall, as I have mentioned before, the big refrain I hear when I read about this topic is "I don't want to get into computing because there are not very many people like me in computing". And as I mentioned, this is self-perpetuating - women not getting into computing because there are not many women in it helps ensure that there will not be many women in it.