[illumin8]

I can appreciate that you had a great environment with an older brother and father that encouraged you to participate in technical activities with them, but not everyone has the same environment.

I think the sentiment the author is sharing is that a lot of women feel social pressures to appear outwardly successful, popular, etc, and this creates a very difficult situation where its perceived that asking a question that might make you sound stupid causes you to lose social status.

This seems like a very tangible fear that a lot of women face, and I admire how she has conditioned herself to overcome this fear and it has helped her increase her knowledge and abilities.

It's awesome that you've had a better experience, but I'm positive that many women have dropped out of CS curriculum because of some of these social factors. Recognizing this and trying to improve the state of things is a great goal to have.

[Tobani]

> I think the sentiment the author is sharing is that a lot of women feel social pressures to appear outwardly successful, popular, etc, and this creates a very difficult situation where its perceived that asking a question that might make you sound stupid causes you to lose social status.

This is something i see my wife have constantly forced upon her by her mother. My wife wasn't allowed to do her own hair until senior year of High School, because she "Didn't do it right." My mother-in-law(MIL) would re-do homework that wasn't perfect. Essays that expressed opinions not 100% in-line with her opinion were re-written.

My wife is smart in her own right. She's smarter than me. She has her MS in Statistics. She's really good at what she does, but she has a hard time with confidence and asserting herself. She's been told she's not doing it right her whole life. I think some of the stress and lack of enjoyment at work stems from this. She should probably push back more often than she does. To be fair she has also had a few interactions customers who were outright sexist and make me want to punch somebody in the face.

Now, we let my daughter dress herself most days (She understands there times my wife picks her clothes and doesn't fight it). She may be wearing a purple, shirt, striped pants, and a polka dot skirt (honestly most of the time things don't clash THAT much). My MIL is horrified. "All of the other kids will laugh at her." No they won't, they're in preschool. All of the girls love whatever she is wearing. The boys don't even notice. We were talking her preschool teacher the other day and she told us "She'll be princesses with the girls one minute, and rough-housing playing ninja turtles with the boys the next." I couldn't be more proud.

Now that's not to rant against my MIL. My mother and father are crazy too in their own ways. As is everybody my family and that makes everything fun.

[whatever_dude]

Great story. My partner had a similar upbringing and I still see the effect it had. And I have my own quirks due to my parents' lack of supervision. We're definitely a product of our parents.

[Abraln]

As a mechanical engineer who has worked with software engineers on projects, I believe that the nature of the job can cause us to be more blunt than most. When the guys in the shop weld something poorly they don't get points for effort, they redo the work. Likewise, when one of my designs has a flaw I WANT people to point it out bluntly and immediately to save me hours of work, the company money and reputation, an possibly even lives if the equipment fails at the wrong moment. My dad is in the field as well and we both have to put effort into not being overly critical of others outside of work. I can certainly see how someone who seeks approval from others could be beaten down by this. Learning to separate your failures from your self esteem, as long as you learn from them, is a tough skill. I honestly think that "girl culture", at least what was at my high school, makes this much more difficult.

[nucleardog]

> As a mechanical engineer who has worked with software engineers on projects, I believe that the nature of the job can cause us to be more blunt than most.

To theorize as to why this is such an issue... I think it's because IT and Engineering is an area where, while still being a creative pursuit, there's still a right and wrong answer.

We have jobs that are entirely based around a right and wrong answer. If I work in an office and my job is to take forms and enter them into a computer, then I've either done it correctly or incorrectly. If someone's criticizing my work, it's because I've objectively done it incorrectly. It's really tough for someone to take it personally.

We have jobs that are entirely based around a creative solution. If I work in marketing my job is to come up with creative ideas. For the most part, no one will ever (or can ever) tell me my idea is "wrong", because it's entirely subjective. Someone might like a different idea better, but it's easy not to take it too personally since it's all a matter of taste.

But in engineering and IT we have an intersection of the two. We're tasked with coming up with solutions to problems which is a fundamentally creative endeavour, but at the same time at the end of it all there's no couching in friendly terms or subjective evaluations... either the solution meets the criteria or it doesn't.

You've got people putting themselves out there with their creativity and effort, but being judged by a harsh and unforgiving system. Some people thrive on that decidedness and the opportunity to make use of their creativity in a place where fickle humans don't get a say. Other people get their self esteem wrapped up in their work, and a blunt "this is wrong", which can and should be acceptable, destroys them.

To me trying to make these fields friendly to these sorts of people (regardless of gender) makes about as much sense as telling gallery owners they can't tell painters they don't like their work because it discourages people from painting.

Your work either works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't then no amount of feelings are going to override the reality of the situation.

[splintercell]

> I can appreciate that you had a great environment with an older brother and father that encouraged you to participate in technical activities with them, but not everyone has the same environment. <

What women need to understand is that just by solving this problem of "encourage women to do X" won't do anything. Why not? Because that's not the real problem.

What you miss about AlyssaRowan's post is that she is telling you that she never cared about other people's validation. What you read there is as 'her brother and father encouraged her'.

Try ignoring what other people expect out of you and you will find that suddenly everybody is rallying behind you.

[tremon]

The two are very much related. The way you learn to ignore other (random) people's validation, is by having enough validation early on from the people that really matter. If you've missed that early validation, it becomes a lot harder to build your inner validation.

[splintercell]

> If you've missed that early validation, it becomes a lot harder to build your inner validation.

That is not true at all. It's a choice, always. Even after not caring for other people's validation or their value judgment, more 'validation' is what you need in order for you to start caring about their validation.

Tell me which one would have a stronger effect upon you to live up to other people's values:

a) tremon I've always seen you happy, and I hope you will keep my daughter always happy

b) tremon you're a loser, you will never be successful in life. My daughter will be so unhappy with you.

If you think the first statement is what will make you not care about your in law's opinions, then you're totally wrong, and it tells me that you have never 'not-cared' for other people's opinion about you.

It's the second statement which makes me wanna work towards my own happiness with my future wife. The first statement pushes me to deny my own feelings because it's only in first case you could disappoint someone else.

[mynewtb]

Nothing you wrote is different for men.

[cableshaft]

Yep. Part of the reason I dropped out of Comp Sci the first time around is because I was struggling and thought I must be in the wrong major, because if it was the right major, it should be easy for me. (Note: throughout high school, most classwork was easy for me, or if it wasn't, I wasn't too interested in the subject, so it was a shock to actually encounter subjects I had a hard time grasping in a field I was actively interested in)

I did ask for help during office hours, though, and one of my professors actually said "If you didn't learn it in the lectures there's nothing more I can teach you."

Back then there was very few articles online, and no Stack Overflow, not even Experts Exchange, so my only real resources were two ancient textbooks in the school library and my professor.

But asking questions isn't easy, and in fact it's actively discouraged by your peers in high school, who mostly have nothing better to do with their time at school except judge and gossip about people in their classes.

[smt88]

I think the implication is that the pressure is amplified for women in male-dominated situations and/or that the game is rigged. As a man, there's almost nothing you can do in your career where you gender works against you. Society's bias is that men are more competent, and it's been demonstrated in experiments many times (even among women!)

I've heard many men express vocal shock upon hearing that a good PR (or whole project) was written by a woman. The game is definitely still rigged to varying degrees in programming.

[pbhjpbhj]

>Society's bias is that men are more competent, and it's been demonstrated in experiments many times (even among women!) //

I'll have to read your citations to be sure [hint, hint; ie citations please] but presumably this is context sensitive.

I've been mocked for being able to make a hot drink by a group of women ("Wow, a man who can make their own cup of tea!") and I've also been discriminated against at work ("Can we have the lady please" - I'm the one with the greater experience but it's in an area related to child care and so I'm assumed to be here to help my female colleague). Doesn't bother me, it's pretty petty after all, but it happens and it doesn't look like people assuming I'm more competent because of my sex; perhaps I'm mislead.

As a father I also get remarks like "do you know where his mum is" when the baby is crying ... (and no it's not because they know the baby needs feeding).

[smt88]

Citations below. It's very, very easy to Google these, by the way. There are literally decades of research that, all things equal, women are perceived as less competent, less hire-able, and less intelligent than men.

I agree that there is bias against men when it comes to domestic and caretaking tasks. The point that people are trying to make is that the discrimination against men is far less painful.

Your examples are actually perfect. They're small issues that didn't bother you. But what if you're a single mother trying to get a promotion? That bias could affect where your kids go to school, how much you save for retirement, and other vitally important parts of your life.

A really important note: we'd rarely discuss inequality in STEM fields if those weren't some of the best-paying and most sought-after jobs at the moment. Context and circumstances do matter here. There are certainly issues of discrimination against men that are important (men are less likely to seek mental health care because it's not "manly" to have feelings or be "weak"). But those things are also caused by men, aren't they? Are women the drivers of any seriously harmful discrimination against men? (I'm genuinely asking here.)

The overall point I'm trying to make is that bias against women happens in ways that have a huge impact on their lives, and bias against men (while still a problem!) happens in ways that harm us far less.

That's all moot, though: if we move toward gender equality, all of the discrimination should diminish. Men and women will be affected positively.

Copious citations:

1a. (writeup) http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/02/11/male-biology-stude...

1b. (study) http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

2. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474

3a. (writeup) http://www.amazon.com/Blindspot-Hidden-Biases-Good-People/dp...

3b. (video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL9__gD88xk

3c. (study) http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~banaji/research/publicati...

3d. (study) http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~banaji/research/publicati...

3e. (many more studies) http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~banaji/research/publicati...

4a. (writeup) http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/stu...

4b. (study) http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109

5. (research done by my incredibly smart friend showing that the gender wage gap is about $.10 on the dollar when controlling all possible variables) https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2013/04/0...

[pbhjpbhj]

>I agree that there is bias against men when it comes to domestic and caretaking tasks. //

That was the point that needed citations, that there are biases in both directions. What also comes through in your cited studies is that in science the biases are across sexes and other demographics (see eg 4b. where neither faculty, tenure, sex, nor age was correlated for the person exhibiting the bias against [fake] female applicants). This conflicts with the rhetoric that it's a male vs. female problem.

There are biases against people that aren't perceived as belonging to a group naturally predisposed to a particular activity and these biases are inherent to all people? But you take from this "women are perceived as less competent" which is sexism; you've taken half of the result - people are prejudiced against others from groups they expect to be less competent. By re-couching the result you're just going to introduce a whole new load of biases, how does that help us towards equality of opportunity.

>The overall point I'm trying to make is that bias against women happens in ways that have a huge impact on their lives, and bias against men (while still a problem!) happens in ways that harm us far less. //

Bias against some men, bias against some women. Bias against people based on irrelevant factors isn't useful; completely accepted. It's not helpful in particular to say - we must focus on biases that appear to affect women because men [in general] get an easy ride of things; much of the time that's not going to help an individual fighting against bias.

You say biases against women are more harmful. Tell that to a primary teacher who's regarded with extreme distrust based on his sex alone to the point of being assumed to be a paedophile. Maybe it's worse if someone thinks you can't program.

In short, the idea that adding further discrimination will somehow reduce naturally occurring biases is completely unconvincing to me. But then I don't think we need more of $sex in $profession but instead that all people should be provided with equal educational opportunities and opportunities to enter all professions.

Looking at law in the UK (https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/Law-careers/Becoming-a-solicit...) we see more women being accepted on university courses, more women entering the profession at a slightly younger age than men. Overall there are 51% male and 49% female registered as qualified solicitors; in Scotland 64% entering the profession in 2015 were women [ethnic minorities being over-represented wrt the general population]. Does the legal profession need to start discrimination in favour of [indigenous] men ... I don't think so, I can't see how discrimination leads to a level playing field at all.

Now in law a lot of the top positions are predominantly men, that seems to be an age thing, we can't expect society to change overnight. Indeed if women continue to chose to have and raise children we'd expect a slight imbalance in favour of men [vs. the proportion entering the profession as a whole] all things being equal.

Re your 5. citation the wage gap in the UK for the young favours women. In my city women in full-time employment earn 7% more than men across all age groups. The problem then is that young men in my city are nonetheless discriminated against in favour of young women because "[men have|there is] a bias against women and so we need positive discrimination to give girls a chance" (which I find offensive to the young women and young men). So we have special women only business events, girls only tech events, and the like. Locally I'd expect them to push the gap even more in favour of girls/women. Here this is largely related to the 'hard industries' having collapsed and removed the availability of jobs that boys are interested in doing. In the UK as a whole 20% more men are unemployed than women (https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotin...).

---

Some more general notes on your citations:

1a. Had a discriminatory assumption that because a result suggested a perception bias amongst biology students then the bias in classes with a greater proportion of males would then have a greater perceived bias; it may be true but it was not a claim based on the results of their study. It seemed particularly jarring when talking about bias that those performing a study would jump to a conclusion based on prejudiced stereotyping - I'm not saying it wouldn't be found to be true, but it might not be. That sort of attitude is toxic IMO.

3c. Looked at perception of whether men were more likely to be scientists and matched that with numbers of children choosing science. They assumed the match was due to stereotyping, basically begging the question (petitio principii). They appear to have got their causation wrong - they think stereotypes cause a gender imbalance in school results whilst the likelihood seems pretty high that a gender imbalance causes the stereotype. That suggestion doesn't appear in the discussion and yet seems the most likely objection.

4a. This is a good study, yet still in the Sci.Am. write up the article author demonstrates a sexist bias - "Unfortunately, too, many women are not attuned to subtle gender biases.". Yet the study shows that the bias is equal across men and women: quoting the abstract of 4b "The gender of the faculty participants did not affect responses, such that female and male faculty were equally likely to exhibit bias against the female student.". The female author has unwittingly implied that 'this is a male problem but oh some women are also to blame' whilst the study says that men and women are equally to blame.

4b. On the subject of their conclusions they don't appear to have accounted for what I'd consider the first alternate hypothesis, that neither men nor women in science like working with other women for reasons unrelated to competency. They do look at whether people "liked" the students, but people liked the female student more than the male which is subtly different to wanting to work with someone [this "likeability" bias didn't even make it to the abstract though]. (It's a pity they didn't look at gender neutral names too).

4b has interesting results that look strongly supported and that I hadn't seen ... I took the IAT test (mentioned in 1a too IIRC) and apparently slightly associated women more with science - I can't work out what in the test suggests that conclusion though presumably timing (I hope they took proper account of left-right biases; my test didn't appear to mix them enough).

Can you or anyone link me to the opposite studies for female dominated fields? Do they show the same bias against women?

[huherto]

May be we just don't understand the social clues.

I friend had a little sister in high school. And she was very happy learning programming. She thought about studying CS, but she changed her mind. She was never able to articulate a reason; she was not very excited about her chosen career. My guess is that her decision was influenced by social status.

[sridca]

What's different however is men hardly get the equivalent empathy for the said hardships.

[audleman]

> I think the sentiment the author is sharing is that a lot of women feel social pressures to appear outwardly successful, popular, etc, and this creates a very difficult situation where its perceived that asking a question that might make you sound stupid causes you to lose social status.

I think this is true of both genders and I believe her story illustrates that. She describes her experience in the lab where the TA was getting frustrated, that is until she proclaimed "I DON'T UNDERSTAND," and suddenly everyone was at ease. I think this shows how everyone, be it student or TA, is silently judging themselves for not knowing.

[mason240]

>I think the sentiment the author is sharing is that a lot of women feel social pressures to appear outwardly successful, popular, etc, and this creates a very difficult situation where its perceived that asking a question that might make you sound stupid causes you to lose social status.

This not a gender issue, it applies to everyone in every real world setting.