[codev]

A lot of the early programmers were women all the way back to Lovelace [1]. People seem to have thought of the hardware as masculine and the software as secretarial and therefore feminine. Then when it turned out there was money it men took over programming.

People seem very bad at recognising cultural programming, friends tell me their 3 year old boy just prefers train sets and their girl prefers to pretend to cook without recognising the millions of cultural signals they've received by that point. Actually cooking is another good example - look at the top chefs and how male skewed they are. A lot of it is about telling boys it's ok to be aggressive and acquisitive while telling girls it's better to stay in the background and adopt a supporting role.

[1] http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/...

[mjfl]

It is actually well documented that males, independent of environmental influences, prefer "masculine" toys, such as trucks, while girls prefer dolls. While it's nice to think about nurture instead of nature, there are innate traits of each gender. Don't make the huge mistake in thinking that lead to David Reimer's suicide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

Here is an article citing several studies: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/homo-consumericus/201212...

[frogpelt]

If women really aren't naturally more comfortable in settings that society has dictated to them, why were those positions dictated to them in the first place?

If men aren't naturally disposed to be stronger and more aggressive then how were they able to develop that position?

Just curious.

[dragonwriter]

> If women really aren't naturally more comfortable in settings that society has dictated to them, why were those positions dictated to them in the first place?

The context in which women live now is not the same as when the roles emerged; so, even if one assumes that there was a very good reason for the roles in the context in which they emerged, that doesn't imply that one must believe that reason continues to hold in the present context.

[kaitai]

Are you implying that it takes an aggressive man who can deadlift 400 lbs to write an iOS app?

[frogpelt]

I don't think so.

[kaitai]

So why is computer programming such a male profession today, seeing as it requires attention to detail, language skills, and ability to sit and type rather than strength or aggression?