Could a Grace Hopper Get Hired In Today's Silicon Valley? 608
theodp writes "There has been lots of heated discussion on the topic of where-the-girls-aren't, both in the tech and larger business world. Dave Winer broached the subject of 'Why are there so few women programmers?', prompting a mix of flame, venom and insight. Over at Valleywag, Nitasha Tiku pegs 'Culture Fit' as an insidious excuse used to marginalize women in tech. Completing the trilogy is an HBR article, 'Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?', in which Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic concludes the problem is that manifestations of hubris, which occur much more frequently in men than women, are commonly mistaken for leadership potential. So, with a gender and age strike against her, would a Grace Hopper in her prime even land an interview in today's Silicon Valley?"
Why so few women sanitation engineers? (Score:5, Interesting)
You never see women hanging off the back of a garbage truck. Is this a problem? Why is it a problem that women don't want to be programmers but not a problem that women don't want to be "garbage persons?"
Admiral Grace Hopper (Score:5, Interesting)
What are they on about now? (Score:5, Interesting)
Women don't often choose tech as a career. But those that do get paid more and find jobs easier then comparably qualified men.
Every company that does any business with government is always looking to hire females/minorities. They are required to. Don't pretend that doesn't have an effect.
Re:Female programmers (Score:5, Interesting)
There weren't very many female CS students at college with me, and they ranged between worthless (few) to okayish (most) to exeptional (very few). In other words, pretty much followed the same patterns as the male students, albeit being far fewer in numbers.
That said, I gradumicated thirteen years ago. So YMMV.
Re:Why so few women sanitation engineers? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Female programmers (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly the problem. The pipeline is bled dry waaaay before actual companies try and hire women programmers. There is quite possibly some sexism involved in hiring practices, but the bigger issue is why are there so few women in a position to be hired in the first place? Why aren't many women choosing to study these subjects. Are they being discouraged from studying computer science? Are they graded more harshly? Is it social pressure?
I've been wondering recently if it isn't more to do with expectations. Men are judged very harshly on their career. A man with a crappy job is often unfairly seen as a crappy man. Women are given much more space and encouragement to "find themselves" I find (anecdotal I know....) and can work "lowly" jobs without judgement. This is likely due to the fact that they encounter more obstacles than your average man, so people generally cut them more slack (reasonably). But I can't help but wonder if the lowered expectations isn't also preventing some women from finding their true potential. A more insidious form of sexism since it's based on good intentions.
Re:Admiral Grace Hopper (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Female programmers (Score:5, Interesting)
There are plenty of "women in science and engineering" type programs to try and attract more females- but the girls aren't interested.
Even if classes become 50-50 from now on ( and I'm not seeing any evidence of this) , it would take decades for the numbers in industry to equalise.
Women are better than men when they act like men (Score:5, Interesting)
There have been lots of studies about this, and one of the most telling related self-employed/small business owners based on gender lines, where men and women had relatively equal qualifications. As self-employed individuals, this avoids the potential bias of a glass ceiling or other unfair discrimination. As you'd expect in today's environment, men outperformed women on average.
However, that's not all. The study included a metric to determine the goals of the individuals; money, etc and if you split it up your comparisons based on their goal focus, you found something interesting; men tended to focus on making money, and would sacrifice vacation, schedule, family, etc to do it, while women placed higher priority on a short commute, flexible schedules, family (including child-rearing), and so on. This is all expected stereotype, not at all interesting.
What was interesting is when matched to those women who made money their motivation, men were beaten handily. In fact, once paired with same-motivation/goal, women out performed men almost across the board, achieving a higher success rate, and in general, a higher level of subjective happiness across those metrics. The averages are just skewed because more men choose money than women, and we tend to use money as an objective measure of success.
The salient point to take from this is: Men and women have different goals and motivations, and that can affect both their career choice and their apparent success in a given field to an uninvolved observer. Trying to artificially adjust this rate will probably end badly, unless you change the definition of success. However, few businesses willing to hold an employee up as 'very successful' when their primary goals include child rearing and vacation time.
As an aside, this is also why there are so few female CEOs, especially of larger, higher dollar businesses. Many of those CEO's have unbroken strings of management reaching 30-40 or more years. On the other hand, many female managers have taken time off for children, family, etc. They're not being penalized, but simply put, one individual shows a greater dedication towards advancing the business than the other. ... I'd like to link to the article, but it was in a business magazine, and I couldn't find a reference to it online
Re:Female programmers (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a 1st grade teacher who was "very concerned" with my math skills. She told my single, working mother, who was also earning a degree in civil engineering, "You know, there are even some girls doing better in math than him."
I remember the way she taught math was explaining a problem, then assigning a few pages of problems in our workbook, and offering candy (Smarties) for pages turned in. Math was right after recess, and the school wasn't air conditioned so she kept the lights off most of the day. Turns out, that at 6 years old I was just more interested in sleeping in a warm dark room after running around than earning candy by doing a bunch of adding and subtracting. Meanwhile, the girls who were talking during workbook time were given a pass, but boys who talked "were unfocused."
That would have been '85 or '86.
Re:Why aren't more women in science fields? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the 80's, women made up most of CS programs around the country. When I went in 2000 - they made up a handful of the entire class. But, engineering was the same (for all engineering majors). There isn't some evil conspiracy to prevent women from entering tech (some of the best innovators in tech I know are women). They simply, for whatever reason, aren't interested in it.
My stepmother was a programmer in the 80's. She quit and decided to be a homemaker because of rampant sexism in the workplace. Among the things she's told me about that, the one that stands out is that the office would throw incentive parties at strip clubs in order to exclude her from being rewarded for her work. She's a smart lady.. but they would give her the most menial of tasks (mainly testing other programmer's code, and having to very thoroughly document problems or else they would be dismissed as her error).
/. my guess is that lots of things going on in the workplace make it a male-dominated workforce, least of which would be the capability and interest of smart women in doing the work. Instead, you'll find them in the more gender-neutral fields of medicine, chemistry and biological sciences.
One would hope that the same things aren't going on today, but from reading
I was shocked and thrilled that in my first industry job our staff programmer is a woman in her late fifties. That gives me hope that maybe it wasn't this bad everywhere. She's brilliant at her work and has a very strong work ethic. I truly didn't expect to see any women in my workplace after my experience in college.
Re:Women are better than men when they act like me (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a 'feminine dude'. I wouldn't even say I'm a feminist, insofar as I expect that men and women should be treated the same, not given special treatment in order to play catch up, or whatever. However, that's not what I was pointing out.
The raw numbers say women outperform men in many cases where the stereotype and common knowledge AND anti-male politicking says they don't, but only when they are aligned with the same goals we use to measure success, primarily money.
This is actually a common trend; more women graduate college, they tend to be promoted faster, they do better in male-dominated fields such as stock trading and mathematics, make better managers, business owners, etc.
Really, all this leads up to a single inescapable fact: Since women are better than men in general at white-collar tasks, they should be the primary wage earners, and men should be required to lounge at home watching tv and taking care of the kids. It's a more efficient solution.
Career Paths (Score:4, Interesting)
A hundred years ago, with very rare exceptions, a woman's career was her marriage. The man was expected to participate in the money economy, and provide for her retirement, while the woman engaged in arguably harder and more important work (raising children) that happened to not be part of the money economy.
That, however, was a hundred years ago. Both sexes have to adapt to contemporary realities. It's both a systemic issue of opportunities (which both men and women are responsible for) and initiative on the part of the women to pursue certain careers.
Re:If you really care about this issue... (Score:5, Interesting)
In a real way, the issue is not just why are women underrepresented in various technical/scientific fields, but also why are they over represented in others. More women are going to college after all.
The real issue is why does it matter so much? Do we really have to get an exact 50/50 gender split in every discipline before people will stop banging on about it? We should strive to make sure everyone has an equal opportunity regardless of gender (or race, or whatever else) but that is as far as our collective responsibility needs to go. After that you leave it to the individuals, and if fewer women show an interest in a particular area, so be it. Study that, if you find it interesting, but don't assume something must be amiss (or amister).
Re:Why aren't more women in science fields? (Score:2, Interesting)
The idea that men are "naturally" more interested in programming is something that's possible but should be treated with appropriate skepticism. It's not like there were programming contests a million years ago that were evolved into us, and it's not like obvious different circumstances like pregnancy go particularly well with a lot of other currently-female-dominated jobs (e.g. nursing). So either there's some very indirect inherent cause, or there's some cultural motivation.
For at least a few million years up until about 12000 years ago, all humans and proto-humans lived as hunter-gatherers and men did most the hunting which is pretty much all about results, if you fail you go hungry and it's all about means to a goal. Gathering on the other hand is more tedious hard labor with fruits, nuts, berries and so on that is relatively stationary with little need to be quiet, much better suited for caring for the young and socializing. For a hunter who killed the deer is huge, while two gathers probably both picked a decent basket. I think that still lives on, making a computer do what you want is more like planning the steps to chase a deer into the trap while trying to play the social game with a computer just doesn't work. You just can't wipe out a million years of evolutionary pressure with a pen.
A similar debate recently showed up in the local media over the n'th article showing that apart from the pregnancy leave which is rather biologically determined women work less overtime, take more part-time work, leave early to pick up more often from daycare, stay more at home with sick children, pick lesser challenging jobs that are more easily combined with family life and so lag behind in career and wage development. And then some cry for lack of equality, well my opinion is simple: Equal work for equal pay, if you want equal career and wage development then chase dad home to take care of the kid 50% of the time. You be the one working late, he the one picking up at daycare and so on, I'm not going to blame you if you choose family first but then accept that you put career and wages second.
Re:Female programmers (Score:2, Interesting)
Why aren't many women choosing to study these subjects. Are they being discouraged from studying computer science?
I think it's exactly the opposite. There has been such a large push to get more girls into STEM-related fields that a lot of women who are undecided on a major course of study are declaring CS as a default, where in the past they'd tend to declare something like "general studies". This gives us an abnormally high first-year attrition rate among women who declared CS first year. This in turn leads to accusations of bias and/or institutional problems when dealing with women.
Here's the deal- men and women are not the same. Anybody who tries to tell you that needs to go study biology. Our brains don't work exactly the same, and we don't have the same levels of the same kinds of hormones in the mix either. I fail to see how it's a "problem" that there are fewer women in STEM related fields, any more than it's a "problem" that fewer men are involved in child care industries.
If we stop looking at absolute numbers, and instead look at percentages by gender, we can see that once women start looking for jobs they have a far, far higher success rate than men do. Another way of looking at the issue is this: Why is it that we push men towards STEM fields? Perhaps the real problem is that we have far too many males who are mediocre being pressured to enter such industries, males who would be better off doing other things, and it's skewing the numbers.
Re:Female programmers (Score:0, Interesting)
So why in the hell do we have to treat little Sally like she is just Jimmy without a penis? Why?
Because people want to believe that there really is such a thing as "transgender", and if a woman isn't just a man without a dick it kind of ruins that whole idea.
Ya, it's a little snarky, but it's the truth- in our modern politically correct craziness, the idea that mean and woman are not 100% identical other than sex organs is considered Blasphemy and anyone who suggest otherwise is hate-filled bigot... and Fuck Biology and any facts which might indicate otherwise.
Re:Female programmers (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd argue that it's related to quality of life. First of all, I generally find Asians in general to be a lot more pragmatic than Americans. Men and women alike in America are more about following their hearts; about a vague sense of fulfillment. This is reinforced by popular culture which teaches Americans that most work represents boredom and defeatism. We're only leading fulfilling lives when we're engaged in hedonistic activities like climbing mountains, seeing the world and partying every weekend. Think Eat, Pray Love and don't mind the unrealistic and impractical nature of such an enterprise.
Asians, however, generally see a career as a source of financial stability which ensures a comfortable life for themselves and their children. So they inevitably gravitate towards careers that are more likely to ensure that success, finance currently being one of the more popular fields. The specialties individuals choose is often driven by the respective cultures but generally there is a lot of overlap. So, presumably in a relationship if one individual in a fruitful career is a good then, then both doing the same kind of work is better. Also, if like east Asian cultures there's a growing trend towards individuals remaining single longer then it's inevitable that women see the need to sustain themselves. But as I mentioned, pragmatism is going to drive the choice of career. I've worked with or interacted with quite a few Indian women over the years who all were in very technical fields.
Now, the interesting thing I've observed with Chinese is that the belief persists that they can marry into stability. For many, that's the dream, to find a wealthy man to marry. So you see a lot of relationships where the wife is in her early 20s and the husband is in his 40s or 50s. Love isn't driving the decision making process quite to an extend you'd find in the West. Again, it's pragmatism. The problem is that it isn't terribly realistic either. The girls who generally marry into that kind of arrangement come from wealthy families themselves. It makes sense, as the only way they'd ever interact is to mingle in related circles and it certainly helps when families are pushing them to be together.
In my own experience I've found that Chinese women are less likely to get into hard sciences, although the likelihood is still higher than you'd find in the US. But what I have observed is a distinct entrepreneurial spirit. American women might be content with the 9-to-5 job and won't invest any more effort than they need to. Chinese women seem keen on starting their own businesses or at least thinking to the future. It's something I've seen many a time amongst friends.
Re:Female programmers (Score:4, Interesting)
I work with about 1/3 of a company being female programmers, some didn't even get a college degree when they started (which started to be required after we were sold off to a large company). It also was started and run by a woman for many years before eventually sold off multiple times and now run by a man, though he was recently forced out and will be "retiring" at the end of the year with no replacement announced yet.
That said, I work with a lot of outsourced employees in India and China. In those countries, the ratio is almost 50-50 for male and female programmers that I work with. In my generation in America, it was nerdy to be a computer programmer, so women avoided it. I think that taboo is slowly ending, but it will be a few years before tech-savvy women that grew up in this generation get to college.
Re:Female programmers (Score:4, Interesting)
And no, Grace Hopper would not get hired in SV.
She was a woman, and she was already in her late 40's when she started making significant contributions. SV is a haven of ageism.