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Over the last several months, I’ve witnessed many controversial discussions among my friends, in my San Francisco community, and on online forums about James Demore’s memorandum. People of both genders are wrestling with the fact that fewer women go into computer science and trying to find explanations that balance their experience, empathy, and ethical aspirations. I’ve heard lots of good-intentioned people consider discouraging theories of biological superiority because they can’t find any other compelling explanation (like this post on HackerNews, for example). As a woman who studied computer science, worked at some of the top tech firms, and has founded a software startup, I’d like to share my take on why fewer women go into CS and my opinion on how to address the issue.
[...] I graduated from Stanford with a BS in Mathematical & Computational Sciences in 2015, interned at Apple as a software engineer, and worked as an Associate Product Manager at Google 2015-2017. In October, I founded a video editing website called Kapwing and am working on the startup full-time. Although I’m only 25, I’ve already seen many of my female friends choose majors/careers outside of STEM and have been inside of many predominately-male classes, organizations, and teams.
This article is one person’s humble perspective, and I do not speak for every woman in tech. But hopefully having the view of someone who has “been there” can help people trying to understand why there are fewer women in tech.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday May 11 2018, @11:20PM (5 children)
I must confess that I've never asked any women for their take on my theory:
Intelligent, hard-working women have the luxury of a choice of lucrative careers.
They don't choose coding because professions other than coding are more accepting of women. At Caltech - which had a ratio of six men to one women when I was there in the early '80s - had very few female Physics majors but many female Biology majors.
I've worked with female coders throughout my career. I never saw or heard anything that seemed discriminatory against women, but even so there were very few female coders.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 12 2018, @01:21AM
Is it socially acceptable to herself and her social support structure to be involved with computers?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Saturday May 12 2018, @08:31AM
Isn't it funny how, when a woman writes something like this, it's the topic of serious discussion and analysis, but when a guy wrote it it was the trigger for mass vilification and him losing his job?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 12 2018, @02:10PM (2 children)
How about construction industries? I've known literally thousands of carpenters, pipefitter, welders, roofers, concrete workers, sheetrock men, cabinet makers, masons - on and on it goes. In all my years in construction, I've seen one team of two women who were electricians. One genuine carpenter, and two carpenter's helpers. One welder. Three different cabinet makers and finish carpenters, all of whom worked alongside their husbands. If you see a woman on a construction site, it's fairly safe to bet that she's either a secretary, or an expediter driving around in the company pickup. Not one crane operator, no cement truck drivers, no pump truck operators, not even a boom truck operator. I see a lot of women on forklifts in manufacturing, but you can't get a woman on a trackhoe, or backhoe.
I don't really think that social pressure accounts for all of that. I see many women in industry, doing most of the same jobs that men do. What I don't see, are women in maintenance. The chicks don't want to get dirty, or sweat, or get grease on them, or carry tools around, or do much of anything that requires muscle.
I have to laugh a little here. Most jobs I've held for most of my life, they ask, "Can you lift and move at least 75 pounds?" Many required that you lift 100 pounds. My job today only requires that I can lift and move 40 pounds. I'm no longer sure what my lifting capacity is, but I'm pretty sure it's still over 100 pounds. The heaviest thing I've lifted recently, that I know the actual weight, are fifty pound sacks of feed.
(Score: 2, Informative) by mmarujo on Monday May 14 2018, @11:00AM (1 child)
This right here, is why I think, at least part of the "problem" is created by greed.
"I want to be a boss" - So will complaint about the lack of women / black / whatever in corporate Administrations.
My ^personal^ experience show something very different. At my workplace there are 5 women CxO and only 2 men. And we still had the "Women cannot have a break" speech last month.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 16 2018, @04:53PM
Because in general we can't. Your post is the equivalent of saying "I just had a cheeseburger half an hour ago, world hunger is a non-problem."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...