[natvod]

Ok so I'm a girl who codes/programs and I'm my take on the issues she raised:

Stereotypes about STEM fields putting girls off

I can only talk about my own experience but I saw very few negative stereotypes about STEM fields growing up. Definitely not enough to put off girls.

However, while I did start coding at a young age, I didn't apply my skill to a work/business purpose until my twenties.

Why? I think this issue affects both genders actually. I was simply never exposed to people or situations that showed me you could built really cool projects/businesses with code. I never encountered anyone/anything until ~20 that inspired me to take it seriously.

Maybe it has something to do with my gender but I think a lot of people these days are being forced way too early to commit to an education/work track without being given to chance to explore what their options are.

It's hard to discover you like a topic by learning it a classroom. I think co-ed / internship programs at a much younger age will help a lot. It definitely would have helped me discovered my true passions younger.

About being feminine

I don't feel un-feminine in any environment where there are more guys than girls. Rather, I think the problem is, the professional/business world as a whole rewards and values masculine traits (competitiveness, talking highly of yourself and accomplishments, etc.) much more than feminine ones.

Even in dress, women are encouraged to dress like a man (power suits, solid colors, etc.) in professional settings to be taken seriously.

Thus as a girl, you're forced to act more masculine to achieve business goals. But it's hard to suppress your natural state of being. Additionally girls are still expected to (and want to) act feminine in their personal relationships so women "who want to have it all" have to toggle back and forth between being masculine and feminine. It can be exhausting.

[icanhackit]

Great post though I'd like to add some thoughts to this bit: the professional/business world as a whole rewards and values masculine traits (competitiveness, talking highly of yourself and accomplishments, etc.)

I'd argue those are better classified as extroverted traits rather than masculine traits. Believe me, there are more than a few males that suffer from this being the dominant culture in business (or anywhere). Of course it makes sense though - introverted culture is more introspective thus not as dominating by nature. If there was ever going to be a winner, especially if the business has a focus on sales, it was going to be the one that rewards competitiveness and confidence.

I'd say the next big battle in workplace equality is going to focus on treating introversion fairly. I've seen MBTI's, a kind of personality test, used to define who a business hires and fires despite them claiming otherwise (forgetting that MBTI tests are pseudoscience). You can guess which personality types they prefer, regardless of gender. They want "rockstars".

[rewqfdsa]

> I'd say the next big battle in workplace equality is going to focus on treating introversion fairly.

What do you think such an effort would look like? One problem is that in big companies, it's frequently not enough to do good work. To get recognition, you have to _advertise_ that you're doing good work.

[icanhackit]

> What do you think such an effort would look like?

Good question. I see two simple avenues - organizations having a better understanding of human psychology, certainly at the human resources level but ideally org-wide. And better metrics, such as mapping human networks from email exchanges so you can find who is really driving the strong relationships with clients or stakeholders.

I guess the condensed version would be: understand humans better.

[rewqfdsa]

> And better metrics, such as mapping human networks from email exchanges

I don't think this metric survives Goodhart's Law. It's too easy to game.

> I guess the condensed version would be: understand humans better.

It's not that simple.

[ap22213]

Interesting thoughts.

I've been working in and managing software development teams for a while. The most striking thing about the female developers that I've worked with is how quiet they are (I wouldn't say 'introverted').

Ever see those studies that show that the most vocal person in a meeting is considered the most knowledgeable by the group (even if they're the least knowledgeable)? Yeah - software development has this to the extreme.

[jgroszko]

> Ever see those studies that show that the most vocal person in a meeting is considered the most knowledgeable by the group (even if they're the least knowledgeable)? Yeah - software development has this to the extreme.

I think this happens a lot online too. It's super easy now to become an 'expert' on a particular technology just by writing a few blog posts about it, tweeting a bunch, or self-publishing a quick ebook. I suspect a lot of people feel like they aren't 'expert' enough to do these things despite them being done by relatively inexperienced people all the time.

[collyw]

Some professions shouldn't treat introversion equally. Software engineering is probably one where it doesn't matter so much but sales and marketing are probably the opposite. (Though interestingly when looking for an appartment a couple of years back, I found the less pushy people far easier to deal with).

[xerophyte12932]

This is a sort of culture (in geographic terms) thing to be honest. There was a very nice article somewhere that compared the values of the East and the West. Talking highly of yourself actually comes off as negative in the East. In the East, humility is considered far more respectable, where as the same comes off as weak in the west.

[lagadu]

That's not as much a "east vs west" thing as it is an "US vs rest of the world" thing in my experience; as someone who lives on northern Europe.

[collyw]

Thats exactly what I was thinkng. I have read on here that Sweden is a very humble country in term of bragging about achivements in job intervews. It would be interesting to see some data on numbers of women in tech there.

[andor]

Eastern United States? Asia?

[xerophyte12932]

Asia

[nether]

> Thus as a girl, you're forced to act more masculine to achieve business goals. But it's hard to suppress your natural state of being. Additionally girls are still expected to (and want to) act feminine in their personal relationships so women "who want to have it all" have to toggle back and forth between being masculine and feminine. It can be exhausting.

It's exhausting for men too to switch from exact equals professionally, and then being dominant romantically. Sheryl Sandberg says more women should ask out men, given that equality in romance carries over into the workplace, but that seems pretty low on feminist concerns.

[somberi]

Thank you and a great post.

Icanhackit suggested that these present traits are "extrovert" in nature, however there are traits that are feminine that are extrovert as well - communication, team-building, etc.

My wife who is an extrovert and holds a position of corporate importance half-jests about putting a poster in her office that says "I am your manager, not your mom".

Here is an article (well shared by now) that suggests that boards with women members may be good for the business, exactly because they provide a good counter-point to "masculine" traits of aggression and risk-seeking behaviour.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/01/the-effect-o...

[icanhackit]

I'm not really qualified to be talking about psychology, but I'm a reductionist and a bit of a loud-mouth so let's get started...

Icanhackit suggested that these present traits are "extrovert" in nature, however there are traits that are feminine that are extrovert as well - communication, team-building, etc.

I'd argue that if a male or female can have good communication or team building skills, we should really do away with any gender connotations and just focus on the fact that it's an extroverted skill. I've worked for a female who possessed what you might call masculine behavioral traits, but from what I know about her she'd been that way her whole life.

I suspect that because she and I both lived and grew up in a secular environment there wasn't as much of an emphasis placed on gender roles. Now with that massive sample size of 1 person we can, perhaps haphazardly, deduce that some gender roles aren't innate to a persons gender. Of course men and women are different and do react differently to various forms of stress and stimuli, but a good portion of behavior stems from culture.

So what do we gain by not forcing gender-specificity upon certain behaviors? We can see people as independent from their appearance and treat them in a way that doesn't pigeonhole them with certain expectations.

[Lost_BiomedE]

Good post. As a male, I have the same issues that you have in your last three paragraphs. I am masculine but do not feel the need or desire to spray alpha maleness constantly. When the pendulum swings back to sales reps having to perform to eat, I think much of that will settle down a bit.

[ronjouch]

For non-native speakers wondering like me, urbandictionary says STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Math

[userium]

Thanks for your post, sounds familiar. We have (http://keepwomen.com/) talked to lots of women, who left or were thinking about leaving tech, and many of them mentioned how hard it is to "fit in". Many of whom ended up changing jobs eventually found a better cultural fit in another tech company and enjoyed their job more.

[jokoon]

> Rather, I think the problem is, the professional/business world as a whole rewards and values masculine traits (competitiveness, talking highly of yourself and accomplishments, etc.) much more than feminine ones.

Exactly. Masculinity is all about taking risks. Capitalism is about risk. So of course men lead the way.

[astrange]

The inside of a business is a socialist command economy. Capitalism only exists outside the office.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm

[peterjmag]

Related to your second point, here's a piece that really got me thinking: https://medium.com/@urchkin/leveling-both-sides-of-the-playi....

I'd love to see the industry become less masculine, rather than the onus being on women to act more masculine.

[galtwho]

the more equal a society the less likely women will opt for hard sciences

as evidenced by this doco on the "Gender Equality" paradox https://vimeo.com/19707588

[omginternets]

I'm on a long train ride without headphones. would you be so kind as to summarize the argument from your video?

[galtwho]

basically a comedian asked question on why women were still choosing non-hard sciences in scandinavian countries inspite of the overt and covert equality measures. it ends up pitting one side against other. My reading is only one side had evidence and the other side used lots of emotion. Google threw up these references

1. http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/a_funny_thing_happe...

2. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1vuho8/the_docu...

[omginternets]

At the risk of going off on a tangent, I think it's interesting to note that a large segment of moderate feminists would take issue with the essentialist notion that there are masculine and feminine traits.

I think this matters because it's very difficult to make any sort of meaningful progress when people seek to invalidate the experience and opinion of those they claim to represent. This is by no means unique to feminist discourse, but it's particularly evident in this case.

A problem with feminism as it currently stands is that too often it's less about improving the life of women than advancing a sociological ideology.