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0 pointsjonesb610y ago0 comments

Being a software engineer I've been involved in this discussion for several years now. And I don't think it ever clicked with me so much as with this comment. Guys do find groups that are supportive, be it something like an MMO community, card game community, robotics clubs etc. While girls also exist in these domains they are pretty consistently outsiders. At older ages they will receive a ton of attention, much of which I would describe as predatory, and it is constantly brought up that they are attention-seeking if they actually embrace the space (stream on Twitch or what have you). I believe at younger ages they are just simply viewed as odd-balls who are tolerated rather then truly accepted.

Previously when viewing a thread like this I would take a perspective of "It's not discrimination, they just don't want to do it". Now I want to think about it some more in the context of what I just said.

As a corollary however, is it really a good thing to push a gender towards a particular field? Anecdotally in the case of SE there seems to be a huge amount of anxiety, depression, and various social issues, that comes with the work load. I often wonder if my life would be better had I never taken to computers. Interesting food for thought, do any of us really know what's "best for us" on a societal level?

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mpweiher10y ago

> Previously when viewing a thread like this I would take

> a perspective of "It's not discrimination, they just

> don't want to do it".

Well, maybe that wasn't exactly wrong. Or rather, there are different motivations for entering the profession. For males "love of technology" is a much stronger motivating factor, whereas for females it is "job security", "ease of entry" and "flexible working hours" [1]. All other factors surveyed were not different.

When it comes to experience in the job, the only difference found was that women received greater support and mentoring from their superiors.[2].

This is from a study published in the Communications of the ACM as "Women and men in the IT profession"[3]. Although not as interesting an anecdote as the NY Times article, and not fitting the current narrative, the study does have actual data. It concludes that women and men in tech are more alike than different, that the primary difference coming in is "love of tech" vs "good benefits" and that the biggest difference when in the field is that women get slightly better support from their bosses.

Come on in, the water is fine!

[1] http://deliveryimages.acm.org/10.1145/1320000/1314229/figs/t...

[2] http://deliveryimages.acm.org/10.1145/1320000/1314229/figs/t...

[3] http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2008/2/5453-women-and-men-in-t...

jkyle10y ago

> As a corollary however, is it really a good thing to push a gender towards a particular field?

I don't think the suggestion is being made to push genders toward a particular field. I believe the case being made is that the status quo is that genders are pushed towards certain careers due to cultural biases and antagonistic or hostile group behavior that goes unchecked by the larger communities in certain groups.

The question being asked is how we, as a society, can stop pushing genders into certain roles. In particular, regarding the field of computer science and engineering.

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