Ask HN: How many females do you work with?

[HackerLemon]

Hi All,

I work in the UK as a developer in an office with just over 100 employees. This covers Development, QA, Support, Product and Office Staff.

There are a total of 2 female employees, both of them have non-technical roles. And I really feel like this is a shame. I went to university with people of all genders and I feel like gender diversity is great for a team/office.

It's just a stark difference from my previous workplace which was very much evenly split.

I just wanted to get a little insight, how many females do you work with?

[blaser-waffle]

Fortune 500 multinational, based in the South.

Call it maybe 30-35% XX vs ~70% XY, with most of the XX concentrated mostly in QA, Finance, and Project Mgmt roles. Actual Infrastructure, Ops, and Dev roles are mostly men, and are mostly offshore'd at this point.

In fact, all of the women on the "technical side" (Dev/Ops/whatever) are entirely offshore resources, with 2-3 notable exceptions. None of the exceptions are American, either, for that matter (Indian/Russian/German).

[mytailorisrich]

Women do not tend to choose to study IT and engineering subjects and thus end up being relatively 'rare' in these types of roles.

It's not down to companies.

Changing that requires a long term plan focusing on primary and secondary education. University is too late. In the UK many schools encourage pupils to develop interests in all subjects these days and to teach them that they can be whatever they want, so that girls may find that they like engineering and boys that they like nursing (for example). I think it's the right way forward but obviously it is a slow evolution.

[dllthomas]

It's my understanding that, within a given cohort, we see more gender equality at graduation than later points in time.

If that's the case, and especially if it's more so than other industries, then companies are likely to blame for at least a portion of the difference, although not necessarily at hiring.

[mytailorisrich]

In engineering subjects, in Europe, men are the overwhelming majority in university.

After graduation they may choose jobs differently than men.

Then women are more likely to stop working when they have children, or to choose a job with a schedule mores suited to looking after a family.

To me it still boils down to early education and to change the view of both genders on jobs and industries that are seen as "for boys" or "for girls".

[dllthomas]

> In engineering subjects, in Europe, men are the overwhelming majority in university.

In the US as well. But that doesn't tell us much about why. It's clear that it's not a first-order result of the behavior of companies; it could be a higher-order effect - for instance, students often choose a major based in part on the expected career to follow. If women expect to have a harder time in an industry that will impact their decisions, no matter how much we encourage them to like it.

So it might be "down to companies"; what you are presenting as evidence to the contrary isn't persuasive.

> After graduation they may choose jobs differently than men.

And they choose those jobs based, in part, on how they expect to be treated. Making sure they can expect to be treated fairly, can expect to find a job, and can expect good working conditions, is something that's within the purview of companies employing people in these roles.

> Then women are more likely to stop working when they have children,

This matches my understanding, but I don't think it makes up the bulk of the drop-off, much less the entirety. This is one part of why I suggested comparing attrition to other industries.

> or to choose a job with a schedule mores suited to looking after a family.

Schedules are within the control of a company. There are many engineering roles perfectly compatible with a light or flexible schedule. Meanwhile, nursing - the example you picked up-thread as stereotypically female - isn't known for either of those.

----

I'm not saying that there's nothing to be done "upstream", in areas where individual companies have no influence. I am saying that present day companies do have things they can do to improve the situation; and that, insofar as we want to place blame, yesterday's and today's companies probably deserve some portion of it.

[lewisj489]

Yes it's not down to companies at all, the best fit should always get the job.

I guess in cities the ratios would be better. All the women in tech I know work in London.

I would say the UK is quite good at not gender shaming roles (Except nursing for males unfortunately)

[nonines]

None in my team. About 3-4 in my open plan (I guess about 100 coworkers in it). Same numbers in Uni.Similar numbers to all the companies I've been so far (best one was about 80-20).

SW Dev seems to be male dominated for as long as I remember myself in it. Made a motto out of it that I hope I'm gonna pass to my kids: "steer away from any environment where the gender stats are skewed beyond 60-40. This is just not normal."

[chuck9302]

Presumably then you are also teaching your kids to not become hair dressers, beauticians, child minders, social workers, care workers, psychologists or teachers? Because those fields are also "just not normal" by your standards.

[J-dawg]

I wonder how long before a self-appointed member of the language police tells you off for using the word "females"

[LandR]

I can't keep up with what words you should and shouldn't use but "females" in this context does sound a bit odd.

I wouldn't ask how many males do you work with, I would just way "how many men do you work with."

Similarly, I would say "How many women do you work with?"

But maybe that's an issue as well. I don't know. This language policing is mostly a minefield I don't care to navigate. The OP clearly wasn't trying to be offensive or anything like that, so i think (and hope) it's fine.

[lewisj489]

I am sorry to anyone that finds the word "female" offensive. I just wanted to start an open dialogue, not offend anyone.

Sorry.

[J-dawg]

Personally, I find it offensive to pander to these people ;-)

[gshdg]

I work on an engineering team of 15 with 5 women.

None of whom would find it acceptable to be called “females”.

That’s not “language policing” as described elsewhere in the thread.

You don’t see men in the workplace being called “males”. “Female” and “male” as nouns are used to describe animals. It’s dehumanizing. Don’t do it.

[J-dawg]

> Don’t do it

Ha, it's amazing how you people always talk in the same way. Literally ordering other people what to do. Yet you object to being called the "language police". It's priceless.

[lewisj489]

So gender ratios aren't a thing?

https://i.imgur.com/lk7GPDB.png

[gshdg]

I’m not sure I understand what point you’re trying to make with the graphic and terse question. Could you please expand on that?

[dragonwriter]

It absolutely is language policing.

That's orthogonal to whether it is correct information backing a warranted suggestion.

[remux]

There are only men in my IT department. In the whole company (food production, over 900 employees) about 350 women work.

[photonios]

I work in Romania as a developer, in an office with a little more than 40 people.

In terms of women in the office:

- 2 developers

- 1 project manager

- 1 QA manager

- 1 HR

- 1 office manager

It's a little low for this city and country. In most larger companies, the ratio is 60-40. Sometimes higher, sometimes lower.

Romania is a former communist country and the state did not make a difference between male/female. It didn't matter. You had to work. This kind of thinking has kind of continued.

It's starting to change though. Romania has extremely favorable laws for women. Pregnant women work 6 hours / day till 32 weeks at 100% pay. After giving birth, they can stay home for up to two years at 85% pay. Fortunately, most of them return to work after two years.

[LandR]

One. But she isn't in a technical role.

[lewisj489]

If you don't mind me asking, how many employees?

[LandR]

10