[jaywunder]

>Truth is you can't find a good woman programmer.

This is disconcerting to hear, and certainly not appropriate. It's not okay to talk about women in that way. As a student in uni, women do just as week and are given just as difficult material as men.

Your comment is off color and mildly mysogenistic.

[arnioxux]

OP's hyperbole took it too far by saying "good programmer". But if you change it just "top one percent programmer", it might not be too much of an exaggeration. Before I also get banned, I want to clarify that there's a difference between:

- "it's hard to find a woman programmer in the top 1%" because women can't be good programmers due to their biology

- "it's hard to find a woman programmer in the top 1%" because our society failed to train and produce them

The second statement isn't inherently sexist, it's just an observation of the poor state of our world.

If you're familiar with programming/math competitions you'll know that there are not many female represented there even after taking into account their smaller population: http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=AlgoRank. There are probably 500 "red" coders (which is roughly the top 1%) but with probably less than a handful who are female. All you need is a username to compete so it's pretty objective and gender-blinded.

So it seems exceptional female programmers are simply not being produced even as early as high school and college level. Google interviews are very similar to those competition so I assume their data will also uncomfortably show this.

[Mz]

I am the top ranked woman (in terms of karma) on HN. I was one of the top 3 students of my graduating high school class and one of the best high school students in my entire state. I was the state alternate for a gifted enrichment program one summer. That means only two students in the state outperformed me and I would have gone had one of them been unable to participate for some reason. I won a National Merit Scholarship based on having the highest SAT score in my graduating class.

Any time I try to tell people that I kick ass at anything at all, even just as an excellent mom, it is a total fucking beat down. It simply isn't okay for a woman to admit she is that good at anything at all. Ever. For any damn reason.

This means if you are a highly competent woman and you want to survive in this world, you learn to shut the fuck up about it. It also means that you are routinely denied the same opportunities as the men who are, in fact, allowed to say "Yup, I am that damn good" without it being a total fucking beat down.

Furthermore, breaking into a male dominated field tends to be a shit show where a woman has to put up with endless harassment by men who would hit that because Oh My God, It's a Girl! And she is interested in the same thing I am!!! The price of admission is just vastly higher than for men. You need far more than to just be as technically competent as the guys. You also need to be incredibly savvy about handling the endless social BS, incredibly thick skinned and so on. And then you still need to not brag lest it turn into a shit show and beat down for that reason.

[jacques_chester]

It's hard to find women programmers of any level because sexist valleymenschen deter them from from, or drive them out of, our profession.

[gambiting]

While I disagree with the wording of OPs comment, I think it's easy to see that the problem here is that there is not enough women programmers - but I think we can both see how this in turn leads to difficulty in finding good ones?

For example - my MSc course in computer science had 30 people total, and out of them 3 were women. Of course, it's outrageous that only 10% of the students in that course were women, but that's a deeper problem that needs to be addressed far earlier than MSc level.

However, put yourself in shoes of a company recruiting programmers - you need to hire 1-2 programmers out of those 30 graduates. If you say that you only want to look at exam results and nothing else(completely blind choice) what is the chance that they will end up with a woman programmer? Very low, but it's not because women are any less skilled - it's just that there's fewer of them.

That's the problem that needs to be addressed first.

(For the sake of argument, I would say that if we looked for some predominantly female roles, like a nanny, the same would apply - "you just can't find a good male nanny" seems true, but it's not because men are any worse at it, it's just that there's so few of them in this profession)

[cbanek]

Not only finding, but retaining. When there are very few women, organizations get... interesting. If women are pushed out of those organizations before there's a critical mass to have change happen, then hiring a few women here or there doesn't really help. If anything it just makes the women crazy.

The more balanced your team is, the more balanced your team culture is, and therefore the better chance you will have of retaining good people and the good balance.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> Truth is you can't find a good woman programmer.

Wanna bet?

[jacquesm]

I'll take that bet. I know several excellent women who program. Some of them in their 50's. They'd probably outclass the vast majority of the hacker wanna-be's but they have one aspect that is totally different from their male counterparts: they try very hard not to attract attention and to let on how good they are whereas any male who can hold a keyboard is off to the races bragging about their mad skills. There just seems to be much less ego involved.

[merb]

well the problem is that less woman want to be programmers. (At least where I live) Which actually means that men are more present so if you have 50 programmers where 5 are good you only will have a pool of 5 woman programmers where maybe 1 is good. that actually leads to the data, which actually not says that woman can't program better or worse, it just says it's harder to find a good woman, because there are overall less woman in tech.

actually I also think that not only in germany near freiburg are less woman programmers, I'm pretty sure that MINT is still "not that cool" for woman. the number was raised the last years and still climbs but it's nowhere near a 50:50 sadly

[ubernostrum]

well the problem is that less woman want to be programmers

Would you like to explain why you think that happened? And why it's such a drastic turnaround from how things used to be?

(remember: in earlier days a much higher percentage of programmers and other computer-adjacent technical people were women, compared to today. The demographics we see today are a change from that, which cries out for explanation)

[merb]

Well hard questions. I think why more woman did computing in the early days, was because men did actually do war. so woman actually fulfilled many roles that men could not do because they either were far away or came back with injuries or maybe one leg, whatever and early computing probably did not have features for disabled people. fast forward a few years the war actually started to calm down, technology began to rise. and many more men seeked for a job, while there was a dramactic shift in jobs and that now woman did more work, it still was in a lot of men's brain that this is not typical so men did start to do the engineering jobs again and seen woman still as somebody who should do the household. this probably also meant that the whole parenting did raise their children in stereotypes (we still can see a lot of that today), which favored the social aspect of the woman and the engineering of the men. (Lego vs. Barbie, etc.) I think that is why now men do more mint jobs as of now and a shift in that is hardly seen, a lot of people still raise their kids as back in the days, girls get barbies and puppets and boys gets lego and other stuff that favors different aspects of life.

That's why I also think that the young life of children should be way more non stereotypical. we should stop giving our children different colors and different toys because of gender, that would start to stop thinking in genders.

From my personal standpoint, I have a niche (5 years old) and she actually wished herself a friend book, and I wanted to have one that is as neutral as possible. And I can tell, that this is not that easy. a lot of them sub 60%-70% do actually favor a gender, either with their art cover __or__ worse with their question. I think such a thing is definitv one of the reason why there was a shift and why there still is a shift/difference between what man do and what woman do. it's good that my niche does not get raised this way since my sister also helps her grow with other stuff (and she likes that stuff), like a workbench.

P.S.: I'm a guy and I hate it that a lot of people still think that girls needs to be raised with different toys. That is probably the starting point of discrimination and job inequality.

Edit: Well I think there are many more aspects why things are like they are, but this is probably one of the starting points and a big point that should be somewhat addressed.

[ubernostrum]

was because men did actually do war

The times when women were much more likely to be in computing were not only times when the western world was at war.

[merb]

well I think computing as we now of today started between 194x till 1990 and the internet grown at something like 96. and war including cold war was until the 80s and I came from germany and my father was at the army ("bundeswehr") in the 90s where they still seen the russians as an enemy. in our country woman did a lot from 54 to something like 70s they even rebuilt whole cities. while men still needed to find their way back into regular life. i'm not sure but after the 90s computing and engineering was already done by way more men.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> that actually leads to the data, which actually not says that woman can't program better or worse, it just says it's harder to find a good woman, because there are overall less woman in tech.

What data are you talking about?

[merb]

that many people think "can't find a good woman programmer". well it's wrong but as said from a bigger pool it's more likely to find the good ones.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

"Many people think" is not data.

[dboreham]

Ugh. FEWER.