NYT Article this weekend. Interesting look at a time when lots of women were coding software, and how gradually they left and men took over. It walks through Eniac in the 1940s and the women who developed software for it, to Grace Hopper in the 50s, several others in the 60s, to 1984 when the tide began to turn.
It discusses how some colleges (CMU, HMudd) are dealing with that today, and challenges women in CS careers face, especially as they reach management.
The reason software engineering is dominated by men (and young men) is the same as why IBs are dominated by young men (at least in trading and investment banking): devotion of time of these young men to their work to the exclusion of almost everything else. Women, and older men, generally don’t have that luxury. One of primary reasons behind the devotion is obviously money, in addition to their interest in these types of work.
Computing is much more than software engineering these days. Perhaps women will become better represented in other disciplines of computing.
It’s just too much of a time commitment for many young women, who often have other priorities to attend to in their mid 20s through their 30s. I know at least 4 women out of schools like Harvard, Yale, MIT and Columbia, each of whom with graduate degrees from those same or similar institutions, who chucked it all in their early 30s to raise a family. Each couldn’t be happier with her decision (they are considerably older now).
Hidden in this article is one thing which may distinguish women programmers from men (or may not, I’m not sure what research says). Women may be more oriented towards practical applications and actual usefulness of the code, while men may be more interested in the intrinsic qualities of code itself.
I’ve been approached by Google recruiters, but I know I’m not the type of person they’re looking for. I know their interview process and I’m not interested in going through this. My degree is not in CS, and I don’t know all the theoretical stuff they teach in CS classes. I have an understanding of basic principles, know what I need in my job, I can research and learn anything that I might need, and I have no desire to study algorithms specifically for an interview when I know I can find them online in five minutes as needed, or, better still, find a library function which does the job. The company I work for now had very different interview questions that tested general understanding and intelligence, relaxed interview atmosphere, no whiteboard coding. I’ve been working there for three years and love it. It may have something to do with this that the founders of the company are in there 60s, and the CTO is young but has a degree in a humanities field.
The toxic culture of CS in the US discourages many young women from enteri g the field. Other countries don’t have that kind of socialization, so women are much better represented.
Time commitment might be a factor, but that theory suggests the time commitment back when lots of women did code was less than it is now.
Is that so?
@roycroftmom makes a good point - is the time commitment less in other countries where this gap doesn’t exist, or are the women different in those other countries?
Interesting. If you read between the lines of the article, you will see that the early women programmers who were featured were hired on the basis of IQ tests. About Wilkes:
On the hiring process in the US and England in the 1950s and 60s generally:
And Lee:
CS is not my field, but I would guess that hiring decisions today often reflect whether the applicant survived the socialization process of middle school coding camps, high school CS competitions, and then college majors.
The rampant sexism of the field is extraordinary. The article refers to a study conducted in 2016 in which gender neutral resumes were sent out for job openings leading to a more than 50% response rate, but the same resume with a female name yielded a 5% callback rate. No wonder there are so few women. Why bother?
I’d hope any exploration of Why doesn’t easily revert to something being wrong with women. Eg, that they don’t want to work as hard or only work best with certain sorts of challenges.
Nearly all CS folks need the ‘socialization’ skills, called “collaborative.” Geting there is not limited to CS camps or competitions.
“The male-oriented video and computer gaming culture might be a factor. ”
Yep.
I’m a programmer. I have a liberal arts degree. Got hired by a public agency that used an aptitude test in its hiring process (this was in the mid 90’s).
I’m good at logical thinking and pattern recognition. I tell people that debating in high school helped me gain programming skills—by that I mean it developed my ability to think logically.
I never really liked playing with computers and I still hate messing with hardware. I’ve had some bosses who seem to expect that everyone should be into everything that even vaguely involves computers and/or technology. And if you’re not a a geek who’s into video games and sci-fi you don’t fit in.
I code business and financial software. Wanting to take my computer apart for fun and play video games have no relationship to my job skills.
Once computers and coding became cool, the men took over and in many places created a culture that wasn’t welcoming.
One of my kids applied for a job at a gaming company and they wanted his username and a whole explanation of how good he was at their games. He felt like it was open to fanboys only. And we all know how welcoming the gaming community is to women and girls! Oh yes, please join us in some friendly competition with no sexual harassment whatsoever.
This does not appear to be a published study. Instead it appears to be a based on a statement from an employee of a recruiting agency. Actual published studies often find a statistically significant difference between callback rate and gender or race, particularly in fields where there is gender/race expectation, but I’ve never seen differences anywhere near as high as the one listed in the article. I used to work with a male tech employee who had a first name that was >90% female. He thought that his female name gave him an advantage in getting interviews, although at the interview their language often suggested disappointment about his male gender. The interviewer would sometimes make a comment like, “You’re {name}?!.. okay… uh… I guess you can come in.”
In the first 1985 to 1990 decline, the number of students majoring in CS decreased for both genders, but the rate of decrease was more rapid for women than men – dropping in half from 15k to 7k. I agree with the article that one important factor in the gender difference is the home computer, particularly the Commodore 64. It was the first affordable home computer for typical families and changed CS from a field you started in college to something HS kids often studied. During this period nearly all computer and video gaming marketing targeted males, and males were far more likely to be involved in HS computing activities including programming classes. This contributed to a male CS nerd type stereotype, as popularized in movies like Revenge of the Nerds, which was released in 1984.
The same pattern that happened in 1985 also happened from 2002-7. Again CS decreased for both genders, but the rate was more rapid from women than men – dropping in half from 15k to 7k. I expect most of this decline was a delayed response to the dot com crash of 2000-02. During and shortly after the dot com crash fewer persons chose to major in CS. However, females seem to have suffered more than males. Perhaps it has something to do with females being more likely to emphasize CS career prospects than males or being more sensitive to perceived scarcity of jobs.
I agree that part of the problem is cultural but we can’t blame everything on the other sex. For instance, my S is attending a hackathon this weekend and there’re a bunch of them on college campuses across the country this long weekend. Most attendees of these events are boys. They do nothing else but coding or other challenges for 48-72 hours straight with practically no sleep (they may nap on a bare floor). No shower, or other basic types of hygiene. Some girls do attend these events but most girls probably find these conditions dreadful.
This seems like a good opportunity to plug the hackathons at the various women’s colleges! LOL
Wellesley has a big one open to everyone (I think), as does Smith, and Bryn Mawr hosts one called SisterHacks open to the 7 Sisters (yes, even the men at Vassar.) Lots of women coding on the floor.
Since the late 80’s, a lot of other fields have open up to women. Business is not nearly as much of a old boy’s club, as it was in the past.
Perhaps with more options available, programming doesn’t seem as appealing. For example, engineering has improved since the early 1980s, when only 5.8% of engineers in the U.S. were women. It’s still low, with only 14% of engineers being women, but much higher than it’s been in the past.
That is a lot of engineers, that in the past may have felt limited to programming.
This is a pipeline issue. By and large, employers want to hire CS majors for software engineering jobs and as Data10 points out, there’s a 4:1 ratio of male to female CS grads.
EU has much stricter labor laws and general culture is oriented much more towards work-life balance. However, the ratio of female programmers in larger in less developed countries like India and Iran, and within EU I believe it’s Bulgaria, one of the poorest. This may be attributed to more opportunities for women to have a decent salary and be respected in fields other than STEM in rich European countries. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/
It doesn’t mean women are less capable to go into STEM fields, or might enjoy them less. I have a friend in Paris who used to work for a French branch of a large well-known IT company, first as a programmer, then a manager. She liked her job but finally got tired of it, became an elementary school teacher and is enjoying it very much.