[subjectsigma]

It seems odd to me that there's such a fervent obsession with women in technology, often times coming from men in technology. Why do I not see endless articles about female lawyers or female doctors or even really female engineers, and how we as a society treat them? There's probably a few reasons (I read Hacker News, not Lawyer News, for one), but allow me to offer a different explanation: there's just too many damn nerds. Tech is inherently more asocial than other fields, combine that with the unique (counter-)culture and you have a veritable melting pot of people who are awkward communicators with unconventional views who are slightly detached from reality.

What this means is that a) male-female gaps in communication skills are exacerbated, b) gender disparities are felt more and c) everyone, male and female, is more likely to respond anxiously (e.g. with negative internal feelings) to perceived slights. This leads to a self defeating obsession - the more we lose our collective shit over the gender gap, the more it will widen. I feel like in other industries there's flirting and office affairs and platonic relationships and power struggles and lots of other human messes, but tech people have a unique kind of anxiety surrounding male-female interactions.

Maybe I'm just projecting because I have had very few female friends and approaching women romantically turns me into spaghetti but it really seems plausible. Also note that the office that I work in has a pretty good ratio and thus I can say with confidence that the women are as much dweebs as the men are. And of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything to recruit women. But I think the best way is if everyone just calmed down for like 2-5 years.