Prediction: The sexism in IT problem will never end.
Here's my hypothesis:
1. Women and men are different. We see this played out all around us, all the time, both sides happily make and laugh at jokes about it, and no one has a problem acknowledging this fact during discussion of other topics, but when certain subjects are being discussed, these very same people will assure you, with total sincerity, that there is no difference between men and women.
2. IT is a male dominated field, and it is distinctly different from other "professional" fields. There is something about IT that either appeals especially to males, or males are particularly skilled at. I have no idea why. And, a significant portion of these men have very high technical skills, but relatively undeveloped social skills, which shouldn't be surprising. Other professions require social skills in addition to the skills dedicated to the profession. IT does not.
I'm not saying this is righteous, or the ways things should be, but that people continuously seem to be amaaaaaazed that this stuff still happens is getting a bit ridiculous.
Here is an interesting data point. When you look across the sciences, there is an interesting correlation. The more mathematical a subject is, the higher the portion of people in it who are men.
With a glaring exception. Pure math is about 40% women. And based on the ones that I've known, many would be competent at, and happy in, other mathematically inclined areas but they gravitate towards math because mathematicians tend to be clueless enough to avoid being offensive.
There are known differences in ability between the genders. But they are small. Until we get past the obvious social barriers to women in IT, we'll have absolutely no way of telling whether women could be interested in it. (Not that long ago women were thought to be unsuited to subjects like medicine as well...and now take a look at the graduating class of a random med school...)
"With a glaring exception. Pure math is about 40% women. And based on the ones that I've known, many would be competent at, and happy in, other mathematically inclined areas but they gravitate towards math..."
Yes, I've noticed that too.
"because mathematicians tend to be clueless enough to avoid being offensive."
Are you sure about that reasoning? Are mathematicians really that different from from scientists? I'd like to see some solid study on why math is more popular to women than sciences.
It's been many years since I worked in undergraduate recruiting, but last I heard this was less and less true every year. (Economics, astronomy and biology related fields like biophys and biochem having already inflected.)
1. Men and women being different does not make sexism ok. Flippant comments like that are unhelpful (at best) and downright malicious (at worst).
2. Exceptionalism ('it is distinctly different from other "professional" fields') is a "code smell" that you're way off base. Civil engineering, for example, is a male dominated profession that has made huge strides in both standards, ethical behaviour, inclusiveness and direct action toward encourage more females considering it as a career from a young age. Women simply don't get treated nearly as poorly at a (for example) roading engineering conference than an IT security conference.
> "...that people continuously seem to be amaaaaaazed that this stuff still happens is getting a bit ridiculous."
Whereas you just roll your eyes and tell people to Lighten Up? The only way it will change is if you start treating the issue as something that shouldn't happen. Until you are shocked that it happens, you're part of the problem.
I teach sections of introductory computer science classes at a certain California university with an excellent CS department, and the profs have gender data on CS classes / major declarations going back decades. Back in the 80s, when CS was still emerging in popularity, CS had the highest proportion of female enrollees of any engineering undergraduate discipline.
The gender gap and sexism that we see in IT, CS, and related fields isn't inherent to the field. It's a relatively recent cultural phenomenon
>"There is something about IT that either appeals especially to males, or males are particularly skilled at."
Oh please, have a look outside North America and Europe. And at history. Chineese hackers and 'IT professionals' are of all genders. Hell, even in backwards US&Europe women are and has been computer heroes. Grace Hopper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper) and Ada Lovelace (http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace) for instance.
Just because European and American coulture is one way doesnt make it universally true.
Please. Yes, there are some very skilled female programmers. But they are very much the minority, as the fact that you had to go back 150 years to find a good example shows.
I completely agree with this - and if you look at open source software that shines through. The projects with the better documentation, the thought through engagement process for new developers, the appropriate oversight, good delegation, etc, etc win over the 'better coding' ones.
Your perspective is over simplified. People are unique individuals, and as a group we fit distributions. Certainly there are trends within genders, but we can find examples of any gender at any point along any metric of measurement you like.
The point is to stop generalizing and start relating to the real person standing in front of you, no matter what organs or identity they're equipped with.
You also have a trivialized view of success in our industry. Social skills matter. Software development is a team process.
The reason we're so AAAAAAAAAMAZED this still happens is that once you've some awareness of this, it's baffling that everyone else keeps sticking to these old meaningless generalizations. On the whole we're a smart lot. We should be acting smarter than this.
> There is something about IT that either appeals especially to males, or males are particularly skilled at. I have no idea why.
Really? You have no idea? You don't think it might possibly have something to do with sexism in society and in IT culture?
From early childhood, girls are taught that the ought to be interested in princesses, dolls, and playing house, while boys are taught that they ought to be interested in LEGOs, trains, cars, building things, computers, math, science, sports, etc. When you go to McDonalds, they ask if you are a boy or a girl, and if you are a girl, they give you a Barbie, while if you are a boy, they give you a car. If for some reason you are a girl and would prefer to play with LEGOs, your peers make fun of you relentlessly. Boys get to play with LEGOs without the stigma. And don't start telling me about reverse sexism and how hard it is for boys who want to play with dolls - the media doesn't portray the gendered interests as separate but equal. It portrays the boys' activities as "cool" and the girls' activities as domestic. The grown-up version of playing with LEGOs has much higher social standing in society than the grown-up version of playing with dolls. It is not a valid comparison.
It continues from there. Teachers tend to call on boys more often than they call on girls. Boys are taught to be aggressive while girls are taught to be submissive. This leads to aggressive girls being called "bitches" while boys who behave the same way are praised for being "assertive". The list goes on and on and on, and the only way you could not notice it is if you have the privilege of not having to pay attention because it doesn't detrimentally affect you.
And then we have articles like this. Say you're a smart, college-age woman. You are really good at computer science, and you are also really good at, say, writing/things that might be pre-law. You know that if you pursue computer science, you will be one of the only women and will have to put up with the kind of behavior the article talks about, potentially for your entire career, whereas if you pursue law, you will be surrounded by a somewhat even mix of men and women, and that kind of behavior will be much less tolerated. Tell me which field it makes sense to choose, and then tell me again that sexism doesn't play a role.
> But a boy who plays with a Barbie gets the shit beaten out of him. Possibly even by his own parents.
I already pre-empted this. Read my comment again. Barbies are sex objects. LEGOs are precursors to a respectable career path. It's not a valid comparison.
> and develop stress-related problems at a higher rate, and die years younger than women.
Please, tell me more about how women are systematically oppressing men. Sure, there are some areas in which women have an advantage. The life expectancy thing is likely biological. Many other apparent examples of "reverse sexism" are in fact products of the other kind of sexism - e.g., the oft-cited statistics about divorce law and custody battles - women have an advantage here because society, and the law, tend to see women as being in the domestic sphere while men are supposed to be the ones with careers. Is it sexist? yes. Does it show that sexism isn't an issue? not in the slightest.
I don’t believe there is any high-skilled job where you can get away with no social skills in the majority of situations.
Those high-skilled jobs always require team efforts. Only rarely can a single person do something and make enough money with that. Yes, software development has probably more such opportunities than other fields (I’m thinking of the lone developer of Tiny Wings, for example†) but it’s not the normal case. You shouldn’t go into software development expecting to be able to work on your own.
As such, software development can profit from social skills just as much as any other profession. The normal case is that you will have to work together with other people to make things happen. (And even if you don’t, you still have to work together with customers.)
—
† Who is clearly an extreme outlier. He did the overall design, code, art and music of his game all by himself. There aren’t many people who are skilled in all those disciplines to be able to make such a high quality game. It’s also pretty obvious that he can’t do as much as others can as a lone developers even though he has comparable success (but he doesn’t seem to want to, so all the better for him).
Here's my hypothesis:
1. Women and men are different. We see this played out all around us, all the time, both sides happily make and laugh at jokes about it, and no one has a problem acknowledging this fact during discussion of other topics, but when certain subjects are being discussed, these very same people will assure you, with total sincerity, that there is no difference between men and women.
2. IT is a male dominated field, and it is distinctly different from other "professional" fields. There is something about IT that either appeals especially to males, or males are particularly skilled at. I have no idea why. And, a significant portion of these men have very high technical skills, but relatively undeveloped social skills, which shouldn't be surprising. Other professions require social skills in addition to the skills dedicated to the profession. IT does not.
I'm not saying this is righteous, or the ways things should be, but that people continuously seem to be amaaaaaazed that this stuff still happens is getting a bit ridiculous.