Walk a Mile in my Shoes

Lost User

This was in the CP Newsletter today so most of you will have seen it. Women in Technology[^]

It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it’s because we do not dare that things are difficult. ~Seneca

Henry Minute

No thanks. I find those high heels strain my calf muscles.

Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” Why do programmers often confuse Halloween and Christmas? - Because 31 Oct = 25 Dec. Business Myths of the Geek #4 'What you think matters.'

Joe Simes

So that makes it a repost! :-D

Ennis Ray Lynch Jr

I am a big fan of more women in software development but there has to be more to the lack of women than subtle discrimination. The handful of women I have met that consider themselves programmers were not overly competent by any measure and all but one bore a chip on her shoulder that suggested, "No man will help me". All in all software development is taught via mentorship and camaraderie. If you want more good female developers then more women will have to be open to the concept that receiving help from a developer who just so happens to be a man is not discrimination or gender bias but the way that every man learned how to master the craft.

Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. I also do Android Programming as I find it a refreshing break from the MS. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost

Lost User

Your point?

hammerstein05

I agree 100% and have similar experience. Although computing in general has been a male oriented world, I don't care about anything other than your ability to do your job and do your job well. You could be a little green martian, as long as you can write decent code, work well with others and follow process I don't care.

Lost User

Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:

All in all software development is taught via mentorship and camaraderie.

Well, that's an interesting take on it. I did have an amazing mentor (male) when I was 21 and fresh out of college and I soaked up all he had to teach me - he was close to retiring. But I think that I mostly learned by all the usual ways: experience, making mistakes, reading, trying things out and hard work. Also I love what I do and have a passion for it.

It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it’s because we do not dare that things are difficult. ~Seneca

Roger Wright

I have no idea why there are so few women in technical fields. When I was in college, there were 800 engineering students - 793 men, 7 women. Those seven were every bit as capable as the men, and kept things interesting to say the least. A couple could outdrink us, most got straight A grades, and the feminine version of the raunchy joke is every bit as raunchy as the male. In the workplace I have seen exactly one instance of discrimination - an arsehat at General Dynamics in the '70s who considered female coders to be presumptious. But in the 35 years since I've never seen any case of a woman being treated as less valuable than her male counterparts. Still, there were damned few of them, and that's a shame.

"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"

Maximilien

The inertia of the male "geek-dom" (nerd, computer sciences, engineering, ...) makes it hard for women to get on board.

Watched code never compiles.

Lost User

I don't really have a point on my own account as I can't say that I have experienced much discrimination myself and I've worked in many different countries (including Holland) as a software professional. What I do notice is that so few women appear to be here on CP. In the industry in general the proportion is supposedly 10% but I can't see many women here. :((

It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it’s because we do not dare that things are difficult. ~Seneca

Lost User

AndyInUK (I believe that was his name?) managed to find some here. Maybe women actually do their job, instead of goofing off in the Lounge. Btw, how was the situation in Holland - better/worse/same as elsewhere?

Single Step Debugger

Also In certain company and dressed like this you could have another body parts strained as well.

The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.

SimulationofSai

It's actually much much more open in India. We almost have a 60-40 ratio. And women here are enjoying it. After having been suppressed and discriminated against for centuries, now they have every bit of opportunity males have in this field. When I was in my final year college, and when companies visit campuses to recruit, most positions were grabbed by our female counterparts. That'll miff us off to no extent, as most would work for a year or two, get married and quit. Of those who continue after marriage, they mostly quit after having a kid. Us guys will be left wondering, if only that job had gone to a guy, he'd have fed a whole family. (Not that women here don't support families, our marriage institution is such that once a woman marries, she's generally expected to be more dedicated to the husband's family) We have a mix of both brilliant as well as dumb female colleagues, just like how it's with the men. But somehow, if a female employee is dumb (or brilliant) it's exaggerated more than if it's a guy. But one common behavior is that the females whom I work with, talk a whole mot more than me. Some of them talk in a day what I'd talk in a whole week. I'll always be amazed at that ability.

SG Aham Brahmasmi!

Henry Minute

Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:

The handful of women I have met that consider themselves programmers were not overly competent by any measure

My experience is pretty much the opposite of yours. Of 8 or so really good coders I have worked with 3 were women and two of those would have been in the top half. One thing that these 3 had in common was their ability to accept and practice whatever the coding standards of the particular workplace. For example one place I worked used JSP and one of these women was the best at this.

Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” Why do programmers often confuse Halloween and Christmas? - Because 31 Oct = 25 Dec. Business Myths of the Geek #4 'What you think matters.'

Chris Losinger

Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:

All in all software development is taught via mentorship and camaraderie

for some, maybe. definitely not for all. and, i've worked with female programmers of all skill levels.

image processing toolkits | batch image processing

Pete OHanlon

I've said this before - my wife used to be a developer. She went to a company where she was treated like shit by some dipshit bumcuddler who was less qualified and less experienced than she was, yet he considered that suitable work for her was typing up letters. He and I, how shall I put it, had a full and frank exchange on a night out one night where he discovered that it's not wise to get the back up of the husband, especially when he used to do Muay Thai.

"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith

As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.

My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Onyx

Keith Barrow

"I believe it is these tangential code-cowboy qualities women are unable or unwilling to emulate, and not their skill or capacity for abstraction, problem solving, creative thinking, or communication — All of which actually make them better developers". Isn't this just a trifle sexist in itself? I'd accept this as a polemic position, but I doubt the writer has the subtlety to do this. She actually undermines her own argument in a later response: "CS education also focuses a lot of effort on puzzles and very abstract concepts when practical applications where you can see the why and how might work better for women (and a hell of a lot of men)....." I'd also highlight this as a telling statement "I had a manager tell me I should stop writing code and focus on powerpoint and management, areas he found to be more in line with my talents. Was it because I’m a woman?". Possibly it was, but equally possibly he might have been correct. My hunch is, if she didn't like the idea of coding as a rigorous discipline, and the manager was a good developer, he probably had a point. Computational theory is after, all abstract, we abstract real-world problem into code, therefore coding itself is an abstract process. If you can't get your head around that, or at least understand the basics of the theory behind programming, you are never going to be a great dev IMO, and "stubbornella" sounds like she falls into that category. I'm not saying sexism doesn't exist (plainly it does), but I really didn't like the tenor of her argument. Most of the companies I have worked at have had problems hiring enough female staff. I was discussing a female candidate with an ex-boss of mine after her interview finished, I still remember what he said: "I was really hopeful to hire her, out [male to female] ratios are way too low, but when we asked the technical questions she wasn't up to scratch at all". I've actually heard similar statements at most of the companies I've worked at. The fundamental problem IMO is that there are too few women at the intake (university / post 16) level. For some reason women in the west don't want to take IT/Comp.Sci. Contrary to most people's expectations, in the Middle East, (where I'm currently lecturing) the situation is much better. At my university in the UK there were few female students (~10%), and the ability range went from excellent down to pretty bad (just like the chaps). Bursaries / awards were available to "encourage women into the industry" which meant that fe

Pete OHanlon

You're right. Elaine is really a MMA trucker called Harold. The good Anna Jayne is actually Englebert Humperdink, and Chris' disproportionate number of lady team members are all Transformers. Let's not forget Ali P - she's really Dalek Dave. On the other side, JSOP is really Cindy Crawford.

"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith

As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.

My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Onyx

Jim Crafton

"These days, bright, thoughtful, enlightened people assume that the absence of women in certain fields results from women being unable to compete on merit. " No, someone of us (or at least myself) consider the reason that there are so few women in the field is because women simply aren't that interested in it. Nowhere on this entry is there any mention of stats or figures or anything to back up the contention that there is discrimination based on gender going on. I don't doubt that it happens, but unless someone puts up some stats it's impossible to know how serious it is, and it's difficult to take the rest too seriously. Maybe I missed something? //edit Apparently I did miss something, http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html[^] Helps to read closer next time. :(

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modified on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 4:02 PM

Lost User

As I said earlier, I have never had many problems with discrimination - it was more that I had to learn to survive in a very male-orientated world. In my very first job I was seconded to the Navy with not another woman in sight except for the cook. Holland was great - I worked with a lot of women but they were all administrative etc and I was the only female IT person. BTW I worked in Purmerend and lived in Marken.

It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it’s because we do not dare that things are difficult. ~Seneca