[fooballs]

You don't beat sexism by creating a sexist organisation.

It's amazing how people think that there are all these barriers to programming for certain groups of people which must be overcome. There aren't. Sit down, grab a computer and a book, and learn to code. If you're good at it, you'll get a job, and people will respect you.

If you can't learn to code on your own, you probably don't have the mental skills necessary to be a good coder. (Critical thinking, drive, determination etc).

[indubitably]

Ah yes, the convenient argument that the world is truly a meritocracy, and that those in positions of power, who evaluate merit, have no biases.

I do not know whether you are in a position of power, but I note that this argument is often advanced by people in positions of power.

[sfk]

Where are the 50% of open source projects that should have been started by women?

Or are they deleted from the Internet by those in power?

[bayesianhorse]

It's a BS argument. A lot less than 50% of programmers are women, so there is no way 50% of open source projects (as a sign of merit, as I understand you) could be started by women.

[fooballs]

And the reason there are less women programmers, is because less women want to be programmers. Just as less men want to become fashion designers.

There is nothing to "solve" here. Let people do what they want to do.

[bayesianhorse]

Obviously, women do want to be programmers, unless they are told by society that they shouldn't or couldn't. If that weren't the case, movements like DjangoGirls would be far less successful.

The comparison with fashion design is also BS. For one thing, there are lots of male designers (especially the famous ones) and then the number of fashion designers is a lot lower than the number of programmers.

And this is not as irrelevant a choice as whether to play with dolls or lego: Programming is a skill which allows for social upwards mobility like nothing else. Just assuming women (and minorities) don't want that, is a bit too easy.

[ryannevius]

I think you've completely misunderstood what @indubitably was trying to say...

[pron]

There is a problem with your argument: evidence points to the contrary. As a (very) gentle introduction, here are some facts:

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...

http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...

[thoughtmonkey]

There are actually some really interesting numbers coming out of that study, they can be found here:

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/pdf/tab33.pdf

The first thing to note, is that both the number of men and women getting CS degrees dropped: the entire field went from ~42k BS degrees to ~24k degrees. There were about 10k less men, and about 8k less women graduating in 1996 compared to 1986. The number eventually rebounded for men, but didn't recover for women until 2003. So something drove men and women out of the field, and women stayed out of it longer.

The next interesting thing is the number of masters and PhDs per gender. Neither of them dropped (so the percentage of BS graduates getting MS and PhD actually increased!). So it was still desirable for men and women in the field to get their masters and doctorates.

So the question isn't why the number of women plunged, it's what drove both men and women out of CS, and what caused it to grow for men? I would probably hypothesis that CS was seen as a risky degree, so while men are generally less adverse to risk (see all the dangerous jobs they do) and got a degree, women choose more stable degrees (though those interested remained, as I think the number of PhD and Master degrees show). Now that CS is now seen as a stable career, we can see there is more interest to join. Of course, that is only looking at the data cited by what you linked, there could definitely be other circumstances.

[pron]

> I would probably hypothesis that CS was seen as a risky degree, so while men are generally less adverse to risk

I don't know about that. Men consistently study fields with higher income potential than women. The current theory is that when CS started gaining prestige and power, the same thing happened as with all professions that carry power and prestige -- women were pushed out (and by that I don't mean that there was some conspiracy, but society simply started directing women away from CS).

[thoughtmonkey]

I could definitely be wrong about the risk factor for girls/guys. It was just another possible issue that could be extrapolated from the data

I still feel that saying "women were pushed out" is the wrong way to phrase it. We can see from the data, that both men and women were "pushed out" of the field, with men recovering from the drop earlier. After reading a bit more, it could be that marketing in the 80's (as suggested by the NPR article) negatively effecting both women and men (which was left out of the NPR article) entering the field, but women ended up more effected.

Side note: drops like this have occurred in other fields at different times. Psychology actually ended up losing a lot of men in the 70s, while women increased. I am sure we could find a few other examples as well.

[pron]

> Side note: drops like this have occurred in other fields at different times. Psychology actually ended up losing a lot of men in the 70s, while women increased. I am sure we could find a few other examples as well.

Absolutely. Many researchers compare those shifts with changing attitudes towards certain professions (say, by counting certain words when they're described in the media etc.), with women participation usually correlated negatively with prestige.

In any case, much of the distinction between masculine and feminine professions is traced back to Victorian times. Of course, similar differences have existed much longer than that and in many cultures, but the Victorians elevated the distinction between gender roles into an elaborate system of social codes (e.g. they had certain rooms in the house more appropriate for men to spend time in, and other for women).

[fooballs]

I'm not sure what college has to do with learning to code. If you're waiting until school/college to learn to code, you're probably not going to make a very good coder.

[pron]

First, college is used as a proxy. The significant drop coincides with the drop in participation in industry, the data is just cleaner.

Second (and unrelated to the discussion, really), I don't know where you get your assumption that learning to code in college is too late. I've been in this business for twenty years and some of the very best developers I know only learned to program in college. If anything, I'd say that not going to school at all and having a weak background in algorithms/mathematics is a much greater stumbling block for some software achievements than not programming before school, but even that is probably a bad generalization. Excellent developers come from all backgrounds.

[wvh]

I feel it's not about sexism or men versus women.

IT simply attracts too many people of one kind and interest, and it's detrimental to the industry's output. For instance, we can't attract or keep people with creative design or artistic skills in the industry because of the mono-culture in many workplaces. It doesn't matter if those people are men or women; there are a lot of men who also get tired of working in a hardcore IT environment.

I have a friend who's a nurse; that sector simply can't attract men, even though there's a clear need for male power in some of the more physical demanding jobs. It's not about "equality" or "political correctness"; we need their skills.

I have no problem finding Python developers; but I can't find anybody who can do the design, usable interface and graphics while still having enough coding skills to support the project. We need more diverse skill sets and hence, a more diverse group of people. Not because they are women or black or gay or loopy artists; but simply because we could produce something better.

Projects like these might attract a more diverse group of people than stereotypical coders.

[bayesianhorse]

You should research feminism in general and diversity movements in technology some more. Also Lynn Root's talk at EuroPython was a good recapitulation of current diversity trends.

There is evidence which prooves discrimination and unfavorable bias against women in technology. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with creating organisations for women.

Fact is, several DjangoGirls "graduates" who have never done any programming have gotten programming jobs within a year. So apparently, there is some benefit to their on-boarding and motivational efforts.

[fooballs]

I have looked at feminism. It's not about equality, and not something I think of as a good thing. It's about closing down mens clubs and opening up women only clubs. It's hypocritical at its core.

People who have never done any programming? Attending some course and then getting programming jobs? I don't think this is a great idea.

There is absolutely no barrier to entry here. Learn to code, at home, on your own, like everyone else does. Make an OS. Make games. Publish them. Make open source projects.

If you're not already doing all of the above, chances are you'll make a terrible programmer, and the industry will get more bad programmers - as if it needs more.

[meric]

In the 1800's, segregation of workers by sex was a common phenomenon. Society changes, and yet in some ways it stays still. As long as it allows anyone to access opportunities as well as everyone else, and that they feel they can do so, I'm okay with it. (And personally I wish there are as many social spaces that are men-only as there are ones that are women-only. There are plenty of women-only gyms, but it's hard for the rare men-only gyms to stay open. e.g. http://www.smh.com.au/national/menonly-clubs-win-right-to-co...)

[throwaway2048]

ah yes, separate but equal...

[meric]

Hey, not my idea to start Django Girls. If segregating by sex does provide more equal opportunities, then why not?