[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