Female Software Engineers May Be Even Scarcer Than We Thought

itwbennett writes "According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2012 about 22% of computer programmers, software and web developers in the United States were female. That number comes from the Current Population Survey, which is based on interviews with 60,000 households. But Tracy Chou, an engineer at Pinterest, thinks the number is actually much lower than that. And last month she created a GitHub project to collect data on how many females are employed full-time writing or architecting software. Even at this early point, the data is striking: Based on data reported for 107 companies, 438 of 3,594 engineers (12%) are female. Here's how some well-known companies stack up."

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I heard the requirements for engineering school were exactly the same across the board.

Re:And?

[amicusNYCL]

I'm more interested in the number of engineers than the percent that are female.

Apparently Reddit gets by with only 14 engineers, Khan Academy needs 24, SnapChat only 13, Flickr needs 42, but then Pinterest needs 105, Etsy needs 149, Dropbox needs 143, and Mozilla requires 500 engineers. Some of those companies are much more lean and efficient than I thought. And others are way more bloated.

14 people at Reddit can manage their entire infrastructure of servers and networking gear hosting all of their forums, in addition to the mobile version, browser extensions, buttons and widgets and whatever else, but Dropbox needs 143 people to manage file uploading, storage, and access. Not to downplay what Dropbox does, but I don't think they offer 10 times the product that Reddit does.

Re:And?

[Cederic]

I think he's referring to the rights that females have, that males lack.

In the UK those would include retirement age, parental leave, medical care (and life expectancy), equality of treatment in education and the workplace.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're wanting equal treatment, then being 'one of the guys' is what you get. If they're wanting to be treated like girls, then what that really means is being given all the additional benefits that they've come to expect from other social settings. I think the rude awakening for a lot of girls out there is the contrast between the two. They might see a guy being a jerk to them, when in reality they're probably just getting the degree of interaction/effort that any guy would expect to get in her place.

Re:And?

[epyT-R]

Ah so men should be punished for being 'crude' around women, yet they should tolerate the inappropriate emotional dramacoasters and the passive aggressive, hypergamous behavior of the stereotypical modern female office worker? Yeah, fuck that.

You want to be treated 'equally'? Fine.. Time to break out the thick skin and deal with it. (Healthy) guys don't tolerate that above mentioned behavior for a reason. It completely disrupts productivity. If you're taking every damn quip someone makes personally, you're the one who's lacking. You say guys telling crude jokes are childish boys? What about the childish girl that's always crying when the boys say something she doesn't like? Stop demanding that men walk on eggshells around your princess ass so that you don't have to change. Equality is not demanding that everyone else live up to your priorities and expectations. Equality is the opportunity to measure up in relevant ways. That's all.

If you demand that men roll out the carpet for you, many of them will, mainly because so many of them are pussy beggar manginas/white knights, but the consequence is that they will never respect you as an equal afterward.

Re:And?

[srichard25]

On average men are taller than women. Does that mean every man is taller than every woman? Obviously not. But if there is a job that requires reaching tall heights, you can bet that there will be more men working in that position than women.

http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains-differ
"Boys generally demonstrate superiority over female peers in areas of the brain involved in math and geometry. These areas of the brain mature about four years earlier in boys than in girls, according to a recent study that measured brain development in more than 500 children. Researchers concluded that when it comes to math, the brain of a 12-year-old girl resembles that of an 8-year-old boy. Conversely, the same researchers found that areas of the brain involved in language and fine motor skills (such as handwriting) mature about six years earlier in girls than in boys."