[eyerony]

> Women I know who wrote software kept finding new roles where they'd be in management instead and then they moan that they liked writing code and miss it. Maybe that tells us that sexism in software development is prevalent and they wanted out, which is no fault of theirs, and maybe they just wanted more money - but it definitely sucks overall.

I secretly (well not in this moment but ordinarily secret) consider women in software development smarter than men, on average, due precisely to this observed tendency to spot where the social and monetary rewards are (management, other social roles "above" developers) almost immediately and start aiming for that ASAP.

[EDIT] this is in general bigcos and "startupy" places, anyway—I dunno if that trend holds in e.g. FAANG or finance or the other places where devs actually do make really, really good money rather than just good-for-not-a-manager like everywhere else.

[freshhawk]

Seems more likely that you have two groups here: one that needed to be very politically aware to get there, and one that didn't.

So yeah, the one that had to fight political fights to even end up in the industry are going to be better, on average, than the ones who got welcomed in.

If there was a concerted effort to keep men out of software you would notice that the men still in software were very aware of the political/power dynamics around them real quick. Because the rest would be somewhere else.

[lazyasciiart]

> due precisely to this observed tendency to spot where the social and monetary rewards are (management, other social roles "above" developers) almost immediately and start aiming for that ASAP.

Women are not identifying the most socially/financially rewarding positions in tech and aiming for them ASAP. Women in tech are getting told "gosh you are so good at communicating and being literate have you considered being a PM or a manager or any other non-technical role?"

[Gibbon1]

Possible for a bunch of reasons that women in the field tend to be more assertive and have better communications skills. Those are primary management skills.

[eyerony]

Yeah, I dunno why it is, but that could well be. I suspect it has something to do with whatever's resulting in women attending and completing college at a higher rate than men, but that's just a hunch.

[EDIT] jesus it's so hard to write anything about this without walking on eggshells—to be clear I'm not complaining about any of this, including the college thing.

[Gibbon1]

I agree on the eggshell thing. I rewrote what I said three times to try and block off any interpretation other than the one I meant. I have some friends that are female engineers and you a get drink in them and listen to all the bullshit they've had to deal with, you have to imagine how thick their skin is.

[dpoochieni]

Yeah agreed, IME women, in average, have better communication and social skills than men, in average, and as you say those are what middle management is mostly made of.