[jorgemf]

was it harder before? Are you sure? I think your response doesn't change his argument, before tech was less relevant for the economy, so it was less stressful and had less status. That is why it wasn't interesting for men to get into it and preferred other jobs with more status and stress (and bigger salaries). But now the top companies are tech companies.

[mcphage]

Less status, absolutely. But much harder. We work at such a high level of abstraction,we don't need to care about our resource usage much, we don't need to care much about what the machine is doing, we don't have to write everything ourselves because there are thousands of powerful libraries available for free.

So yes. Before, programming was hard, and low status. Now it's easy and high status, and men think that women aren't there because it's too hard. No, they were there when it was hard.

[Ygg2]

I don't think that's completely fair.

Before the list of software contractor was smaller, so the few places you could work in was NASA and Military.

Now the variance of jobs is much greater, so not all jobs are NASA level hard.

[jorgemf]

> men think that women aren't there because it's too hard

Who thinks that? Hard is something relative. The author says that men could be more prepared to tech because a biological predisposition that makes tech easier positions for them (better abstract thinking and more tolerance for stress, for example), while women are more prepared for other things likes taking care of others (because they are better in socializing and empathy). As tech became more competitive the women just left it for other things while men get into to get more status.

[mcphage]

If you think that programming is a more stressful job than traditionally female jobs like nurse, teacher, or childrearing, then I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

[jorgemf]

Yes I think so. I have been a teacher and CS engineer so for me it is clear that CS is more stressful. Nurse is something I couldn't do and when I always ask them why are they nurses they say they feel great when they help people and they know they cannot help everybody. I don't know anyone in CS who feels great when writting software.

You can keep the bridge you bought in brooklyn.

[CuriousCosmic]

I might have to disagree with you on two things.

I know plenty of people who are in CS for the challenge. They absolutely love writing software.

Also, nurses do what they do because they feel great helping people but in no way is that easy. Working in terminal care is extremely mentally taxing as many to all of the people they work with are preparing to/going to die. In the same way, nurses in the ER/ICU have to deal with people dying that are in no way prepared to die and that is also extremely mentally taxing. In regard to being physically taxing, much in the same way that people in CS have to deal with deadlines and long stressful working hours, nurses can often end up with up to 18-20 hour shifts with their off-hours and off-days classified as on call hours that they will usually get called in to work for.

Nurses definitely are in the field because they enjoy helping people but that in no way means that they have an easier job than people in the CS field.

[jorgemf]

I don't think nurses have an easy job. I don't think I could do it. I am saying people have different skills, for some of them is easier to be a nurse for others to be a CS engineer. I wouldn't enjoy to be a nurse the same way another person wouldn't enjoy to be an engineer. What I am saying that there could be biological reason why some people suits more for one job or another. And gender is only one expression of the ADN and can be linked with those biological reasons.

We should respect all the jobs and understand that all of them required different skills and also that different people have different skills. And we should try not to force people into jobs or discrimine (either negative or positive) because of the gender or height or race or whatever. We should evaluate the skills and give them something they will enjoy doing and will do great.

[Pulcinella]

What kind of teacher? What did you teach?

[geebee]

Would playing piano be harder if you had to make your own piano? If the level of playing expected of you remains unchanged then yes, certainly.

That to me sums up the difference. It is now vastly easier to write and run a program. But that doesn't tell the whole story. Programming careers realty do have a red queen race quality to them.

I really couldn't compare it to fields I haven't worked in. But I do think that programming certainly can reach hellacious levels of stress and complexity.