Why Women Devs Are Hard To Recruit and Even Harder To Keep (windowsitpro.com) 608
An anonymous reader writes: The results of a recent survey conducted by GitHub sheds light on the issue of why women developers are hard to recruit and keep in the business of tech. Windows IT Pro reports: "The 2017 Open Source Survey 'collected responses from 5,500 randomly sampled respondents sourced from over 3,800 open source repositories on GitHub.com, and over 500 responses from a non-random sample of communities that work on other platforms.' Although the survey focused on open source and asked 50 questions on a wide range of topics that were in no way focused on gender issues alone, some of the data collected offers insight into why the developer industry as a whole has trouble recruiting and keeping female devs. Indeed, the severity of the gender gap in open source is substantial. In the survey, 95 percent of respondents were men, with the response rate from women at only 3 percent -- a degree of under-representation that's not seen elsewhere in this study. Other groups show numbers that are more proportionate to their numbers in the general population, with 'ethnic or national minorities' representing 16 percent of the respondents, immigrants at 26 percent, and 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, or another minority sexual orientation' at 7 percent. The problems that women in tech face are pretty much what you might expect. Twenty-five percent of the women surveyed report 'encountering language or content that makes them feel unwelcome,' compared with 15 percent of men. Women are six times more likely to encounter stereotyping than men (12 versus 2 percent), and twice as likely to be subjected to unsolicited sexual advances (6 vs 3 percent)."
how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more likely (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never heard anyone concerning male nurse and babysitters.
Re:how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more like (Score:5, Informative)
Re:how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more like (Score:5, Insightful)
New York has a law preventing male daycare workers from changing diapers.
However in my work environment and my department it is nearly 50/50 male vs female in IT. The difference is the following.
1. I am on the east coast. There seems to be less gender discrimination there.
2. I work in IT but not in a tech company. I have found for the most part woman seem to gravitate towards IT jobs with the focus on supporting the greater good vs trying to be the greater good.
3. I work with an older workforce. This has a few differences.
A. Less horny young men trying to hit on woman.
B. Woman who get hired have already had and raised their kids to a point they are self reliant and they feel comfortable on maintaining their career.
C. Experience is the driving force not looks.
4. A work culture that takes diversity and sensitivity seriously. Harassment just isn't tolerated
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How is that law not gender discrimination?
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Who says it isn't? Remember, discriminating against (white) males is always OK.
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Reverse discrimination is like unicorns. Often spoken about but never seen.
And that was in a thread that started with
New York has a law preventing male daycare workers from changing diapers. [wsj.com]
Jesus H Fucking Christ you're dense. Did your head crack the concrete floor you were dropped on when born? Does your skull bend light?
Re: how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more lik (Score:5, Insightful)
Reverse discrimination is like unicorns. Often spoken about but never seen.
Actually, more like air. Spoken about, but so pervasive you stop even noticing it.
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for generations
The generations that were born and died before me? Yes, I'm well aware that I'm being made to pay for things that people who died 100 years ago supposedly did.
Re:how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more like (Score:4, Interesting)
No, discriminating against white males is never OK. Some people want it ignored. Some people want it ensrhined. But the discrimination is never OK.
Discrimination doesnt get any more "systemic" then when it is actually illegal not to do it.
A century ago discrimination against both sexes was still the law of the land.
Two landmarks in American history cases came up in 1919-1920.
The first was a landmark supreme court ruling in 1919 on the constitutionality of the gender-specific draft. The supreme court ruled that the gender-specific draft was constitutional on the grounds that it was a reciprocal responsibility of that gender because that gender was afforded the right to vote. If you were allowed to vote, they said, then you are also subject to the draft.
The second was a landmark because there have been so few of them: amendments to our constitution. In 1920 we gave women the right to vote, but we still have not subjected even a single solitary woman to the draft.
All this worry over speculative-sexism while there is still literally systemic-sexism on the books as the law of the land... I have just one thing to say to feminists... go fuck yourselves. I will never give one rats ass about any of your speculative-sexism while you continue to defend existing systemic-sexism with your solution being more systemic-sexism. Seriously, go fuck yourselves feminists, and the next time I hear of a talk about male suicide being shut down by feminists I'm going to punch one. Go. Fuck. Yourselves.
Re:how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more like (Score:5, Interesting)
A century ago discrimination against both sexes was still the law of the land.
It is fascinating how things have changed isn't it? For anyone who is really interested, look up the history of child custody laws over the past century or so. What you find is that once upon a time, custody of kids in a divorce was actually automatically awarded to the father believe it or not. Then towards the middle of the 20th century the laws were completely changed such that by default custody was automatically awarded to the mother. Today, we are finally starting to define a way to evaluate who the more appropriate custodial parent is for the benefit of the children but up until recently it was a black and white decision, father or mother by default in all cases regardless of situation. What perpetuates sexism again? Yeah...
Re:how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more like (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more lik (Score:4, Informative)
Were the draft to actually be instituted, and applied to women, I suspect you would hear these brave justice warriors singing a much different tune.
I suspect you're completely wrong, in fact I'm quite sure of it. "Vocal feminists" may not often be the same sort of women who voluntarily join the military, but they absolutely are the sort of women who would despise any woman who tried to use her gender to avoid being drafted. Many of them would probably argue against the draft, but they'd argue against it for both men and women.
In any case, the draft is irrelevant. Not only haven't we used it in 40 years (since before you were even born, most likely), it's very unlikely we'll ever use it again. Conscription isn't compatible with the needs of a high-tech military.
Re: how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more li (Score:3, Insightful)
Many of them would probably argue against the draft, but they'd argue against it for both men and women.
In any case, the draft is irrelevant ... conscription isn't compatible with the needs of a high-tech military.
Yes, precisely; they don't mind saying they're in favour of an "equal draft" because they know it's unlikely to be used, and they know that in the case that any government were thinking about using it they could just protest it in it's entirety. And having women registered for the draft would make it even more difficult for a future government to actually put it into effect.
We can look at other inequality metrics though. How often have you heard feminists bemoan the lack of female coal miners? How vocal
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Re:how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more like (Score:5, Informative)
How is that law not gender discrimination?
It is not gender discrimination because the "law" doesn't actually exist. Men can legally change diapers in NY. The only reference I could find was a daycare that had a policy that the male teachers would not change diapers, but that was not a legal requirement.
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Less horny young men
So young men, and horny, but less so? ;)
Re:how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more like (Score:5, Insightful)
Please cite the New York law. I believe some daycares might have that policy, and it's probably illegal because it's sex discrimination.
Re: how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more lik (Score:4, Funny)
You may be on to something here. I was accused of being sexist (through a third party) by a former coworker because I "avoided" her.
I avoid all my co-workers.
Of course if I had heard this directly we could have resolved the misunderstanding. "There is no bigotry here, you are all equally worthless."
Though perhaps I subconsciously did avoid the feminist one more to avoid that exact awkward conversation. Same reason I avoid my extremely left or right wing coworkers.
Re: how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more li (Score:3, Funny)
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A glaring spelling/grammar mistake in a post making fun of a math mistake is worthy of ridicule.
Re: how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more li (Score:3, Interesting)
The typo eliminates the possibility of discussing the actual facts that support the writer's assertion.
Is it 6x more likely or 15% v. 20%? The author claimed both were true, which logically can't be true, so the reader is left to dismiss the report entirely or choose from the catalog of conflicting statement the one they want to agree with.
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I looked for "jibberish" in the dictinary. It doesn't exist.
Re: how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more lik (Score:5, Funny)
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"since it became fashionable to be gay"
I suppose the numbers went up when it stopped being considered criminal, and when it got less likely to get beaten up for being gay.
Answer me this: Could you become gay if it become really, really, fashionable? I couldn't. So the percentage of gay people who admit to it may be going up, but that is all.
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Are you seriously this fucking stupid?
It isn't like gayness was decriminalized and suddenly everyone in the US was like "oh, it's cool that people are gay even though previously I hated them and think they are abominations in the eyes of god and would fucking kill my kid if he was to come out as a fag".
It was decriminalized, and some protections were put in place, but there are still people who HATE gay folk (many of them in politics, at least one of them is the Vice Fucking President).
Gee, do you think tha
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What it suggests, to me, is that the community is far more welcoming than credited for.
It's much more welcoming. I don't understand all the accusations against tech people for discrimination. If you want to see real sexism, look at salespeople or doctors or bankers. They create truly hostile environments, it is well documented, and yet no one focuses on them. Instead, it's all on tech. Why?
Another way to put it? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The problems that women in tech face are pretty much what you might expect. Twenty-five percent of the women surveyed report 'encountering language or content that makes them feel unwelcome,' compared with 15 percent of men. Women are six times more likely to encounter stereotyping than men (25 versus 15 percent), and twice as likely to be subjected to unsolicited sexual advances (6 vs 3 percent)."
So basically males are 0.88 times as likely to not be stereotyped or made feel unwelcome and 0.97 times as likely to be not hit on and that is supposed to be the crucial difference in recruiting and keeping employees of both sexes? By the way...
six times more likely ... 25 versus 15 percent
...what?
Re:Another way to put it? (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA is much more coherent and accurate than the summary.
The most important thing seems to be this:
"Negative experiences have real consequences for project health. 21% of people who experienced or witnessed a negative behavior said they stopped contributing to a project because of it"
In other words being a dick is a great way to kill your open source project.
Re:Another way to put it? (Score:5, Funny)
Linus could've fooled me...
Re:Another way to put it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux is one of the few exceptions that has got big enough for it not to matter. And a lot of contributors are paid, it's their job to take Linus's shit. Plus there are layers of insulation between him and most contributors.
Your little Javascript framework or Arduino project is not Linux. Even fairly large OS projects have died because the community became toxic and key developers left.
Re:Another way to put it? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Linus may be a dick but all of his flame wars are based on code and otherwise technical-related.
I don't remember him bitching about women or disabled people or on looks. He always bitch about the project and factual things.
This is very different even though I would never work under his care because of it.
Re:Another way to put it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't remember him bitching about women or disabled people or on looks
Can't help but notice that TFA doesn't point to any examples of that, either. They just say "felt unwelcome". They didn't say "felt unwelcome, but for technical reasons, so it was understandable."
Re:Another way to put it? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Negative experiences have real consequences for project health. 21% of people who experienced or witnessed a negative behavior said they stopped contributing to a project because of it"
Sounds like a circular definition. Of course if you perceive something as negative, you'll treat it as negative. Or vice versa, if you didn't stop contributing to a project, you presumably didn't perceive anything about the project as sufficiently negative for you to stop contributing. Plus that's already the selected group of people who perceived something as negative. It doesn't even cover the negativity thresholds or their actual presence in projects.
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Coal mining is yuuuuugely trendy, believe me folks.
Why make this into yet another gender thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problems people experience with open source projects are very broadly felt. Just as one example, 70% of people reported a problem with rudeness and name-calling. That dwarfs the issues with stereotyping, which was reported by only 10%. What's up with that? We should let the data guide us to what needs to be focused upon. Sure, issues with women in OSS need to be fixed, but I bet if we get better with the 70% issues it'll go a long way towards fixing the 10%, too.
Re:Why make this into yet another gender thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
The problems people experience with open source projects are very broadly felt. Just as one example, 70% of people reported a problem with rudeness and name-calling. That dwarfs the issues with stereotyping, which was reported by only 10%. What's up with that? We should let the data guide us to what needs to be focused upon. Sure, issues with women in OSS need to be fixed, but I bet if we get better with the 70% issues it'll go a long way towards fixing the 10%, too.
What issue? Not enough women in OSS?
If so, do you think we also need to solve the problem of not enough men in college, which is now 60% women? And that is a huge number compared to the number of people working OSS.
Just because a field isn't close to being 50/50 between men and women doesn't mean the cause is sexism.
Because men and women ARE different.
Re:Why make this into yet another gender thing? (Score:5, Informative)
Women say that they want to be involved but there are reasons not to be. That seems unfair and bad for everyone because their potentially useful contributions are lost.
The question of course, is what would have to happen to get that 1:1 presumptive requirement.
In my experience in a University environment, which perhaps comes closest to the mythical fairness desired to engender gender equality demands, we still had issues filling female positions. Even affirmative action - like me giving up several promotions so that departmental women could be fast-tracked were not all that successful. Keeping in mind that this was a workplace where a man could be terminated very easily. And if a University environment largely run by feminists isn't enough to satisfy the women, this is going to be a tough nut to crack.
If my personal experience from over 30 years in such an environment is of any worth, I see some of the following problems.
My career involved non-traditional work hours, and travel. That means that I sometimes had to come in early, or stay late. I also had travel, but two weeks away was the upper limit, and most were a few days in duration.
The ladies in my position simply wouldn't do that. Now people might argue about whether such a career was worth it, but if you choose that work, it isn't unreasonable to do that work.
Next up is that I tended to finish their work when they "couldn't" stay past 5:00 p.m. Fortunately I was more interested in getting the work finished. We had one who even confided that she went into a carpool so she had a excuse not to work extra.
So how do I achieve a equal mix in a position that ends up having two standards? One for myself and another couple males, and another one for females who could pick and choose what they do?
And all at the same time that the women could get any of us in trouble. And we did get complaints, mostly about my pay, which was substantially higher than theirs. Fortunately, due to my keeping meticulous records, and my own boss understanding the situation, they were told that if they wanted my pay, they would have to do the same work I did. I also explained that I wouldn't come in early or stay late to finish their work. And when there was a downturn in work, which happens about every 5 years, they were let go, based on seniority or work production.
Now as to the issue of college attendance. This delves into societal issues. The university environment is very unfriendly to men, especially those in the bloom of youth. You get to attend mandatory sexual harassment courses, and at any moment you can find yourself kicked out. I get sexual assault messages as required by law, and they end up being like weird creepy porn. Regardless, for all of the postings, we almost never see anything make it to court.
But in the aggregate, the University environment is toxic to young males, and males being males, they tend to avoid toxic environments.
Re:Why make this into yet another gender thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I'm evaluating someone, say for a job, it's not enough to merely be technically brilliant. They have to have interpersonal skills. That's particularly important for engineers who often have to simply complex ideas and then convince laypeople of their merits, or explain why a request is ill-advised in a way that doesn't lose customers or create animosity.
I've see products suffer from technical problems because the engineer who designed the thing is such an asshat when dealing with the technicians who build and test the thing. They technicians stopped asking him about failures and just came up with their own fixes or work-arounds.
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The summary is clickbait. TFA is much more balanced.
Re:Why make this into yet another gender thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somewhat supportive anecdote here.
I ran a software team for years where 1/4 of my developers were women. But originally the team leader reported to me; my role was supposed to be more big picture stuff. The problem was the team was delivering total crap, and when I looked into it I discovered that the lead developer, while technically knowledgeable, was a narcissistic bully.
The reason the team wasn't performing was that the lead developer was dumping all kinds of stupid interpersonal bullshit on everyone. The form that it happened to take with the women was sexist condescension. So I demoted him -- in retrospect I should have fired him -- and took over the team myself. Immediately the problems went away, not because I'm a brilliant leader, but because the people on the team were good and I wasn't an asshole -- or at least I didn't act like one. Not acting like an asshole is half the battle when you're boss.
Sexism and bigotry have a way of becoming facets of any bad situation. When things are going well they're just meaningless bits of attitude that people keep to themselves. But when the shit hits the fan those attitudes mean there's a lot more shit getting flung around.
The answer to sexism in the workplace isn't to cure sexism in the world; it's to cut out the stupid workplace drama. But when things are going bad, you have to come down hard on that bullshit. When you're trying to set things right you can't have any tolerance for anything that undermines what you're trying to do.
Women developers aren't particularly hard to retain if you maintain an atmosphere of professionalism in your workplace. They want the same thing other developers want: interesting assignments, and a chance to advance their technical skills. Give any developer those things and he'll be reluctant to leave.
Re:Why make this into yet another gender thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Harassment can't be done without intent. At least not until mind reading is invented.
"Good morning. Oh, new shoes, I like them"
Is that harassment? I'll tell you my HR department's persective, "That depends how it makes her feel"
Well how the fuck do I build a rapport and relationship with my colleagues without being a fucking mind reader, if harassment is possible when you're trying to give someone a genuine compliment?
Fuck this modern interpretation of harassment. If I want you to feel uncomfortable, trust me, you'll fucking realise. Until then assume I'm just being nice and if you don't like it, fucking tell me.
Re:Why make this into yet another gender thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll tell you my HR department's persective, "That depends how it makes her feel"
Wow, was that really what the HR department replied to you? What where the sanctions?
In a better workplace you don't need mind reading skills not to get into trouble, since there are common decency rules. For example, if you say to a coworker “Oooh, nice tits!”, that is commonly interpreted as harassment. “Nice shoes” will probably not get you into trouble, but if that particular coworker feels uncomfortable with such remarks, there is no good reason continuing making them.
If I want you to feel uncomfortable, trust me, you'll fucking realise.
On the other hand, reading this line made me realise that perhaps you do lack human decency and you see yourself as a better person than you really are. If you get angry fast not only online, I would not be surprised that your coworkers would rather talk with HR than with you in person.
I looked at who did the study... (Score:5, Insightful)
The lead researcher (Anna Filippova) just completed a PhD on the role of conflict expression in shaping distributed teams. She has also studied the collective user experience with privacy management strategies on Facebook, how to crowdsource history, and Twitter brand sentiment following crisis communication campaigns.
I'm too lazy to dig further, since the last time slashdot did a puff piece on women and minorities in tech, it wasn't even by scientists and ... I just don't care enough anymore to try to stop being jaded.
Re:I looked at who did the study... (Score:5, Insightful)
These stories always turn into dumpster fires in the comments. A burning pile of ad-hominems, old tyres, a metric tonne of denials and dismissals, with the whole conflagration accelerated by complaints that the story shouldn't have been posted.
Its an old story. And can usually be cured by sliding that old mod level bar to the left.
I try to participate honestly, based on a career working in STEM, and working that career in the most female friendly environment around, where they received preferential hiring, preferential treatment, and the males were stifled. And still it didn't work.
I spent a fair bit of time working to try to get young ladies to get into STEM careers. That one got pretty sad in the end, when questions regarding males not being involved were raised, they allowed boy, but it was painfully obvious that all the attention was given to the girls.
In the end, I came to the conclusion that STEM was a career that the person has to be interested and dedicated, and they know it, not something that they see a video of STEM work, and suddenly think "Yeah - I want to do that!" My lady friends who are in STEM all knew from an early age they wanted to enter this field. Just like me.
Is it sexist to believe that there are some differences in thinking between men and women in the group sense?
My wife, who is roughly as intelligent as myself, and pretty brilliant, is not interested in the same things that I am. She chose a business career - and in of all places, the housing industry. Hardly a hotbed of gender equality. I chose science.
My lady friend Engineers and scientists and I can sit around and talk science all day long. We can joke, we can enjoy each other's company. And some have a really dirty sense of humor.
And as aside note, these successful women who are as liberated as any I have ever met, who put up with no bullshit - are hated by the third wave feminists who are busy installing a concept of the female who is utterly destroyed by any negativity, and must be protected from it at all times.
Regardless, after 30 plus years of work in the field, a fair amount spent in trying to attract and retain women in STEM, my considered opinion is that people will tend to be interested in what they are interested in, and that if the ultimate goal is equal representation by gender in STEM, we have to force males into other career paths, and force females into STEM. Hopefully we'll at least test for ability first, but that might be prejudicial in a world where children are told "You can do anything you want, you can be anything you can dream of if you only try hard enough."
Re:I looked at who did the study... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the males were stifled then many of the problems that affect women could not have been solved. It's basic feminist philosophy - the same things that affect women affect men too and vice versa. It's not a question of one side having to lose for the other to gain, it's fixing problems that make everyone lose.
I think people have trouble with this because it looks a lot like men are winning. What I'm saying is that things could be even better for men as well. That's part of why I'm a feminist, I want to fix the things that screw with me (a man) as much as help anyone else.
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And as aside note, these successful women who are as liberated as any I have ever met, who put up with no bullshit - are hated by the third wave feminists who are busy installing a concept of the female who is utterly destroyed by any negativity, and must be protected from it at all times.
My sister is one of those liberated women; she didn't marry until very late in the game because her career meant everything to her, and she rose to the top echelons of a major financial corp. She's a tough-as-nails winner. She's also a Republican, which I didn't understand until I started seeing the second group of people you describe, the fragile who cannot tolerate any negativity. At least in the business world, it's not so much men vs women as it is the tough vs the sheltered. The women who need cons
Biggest difference (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest gap is here: "In the survey, 95 percent of respondents were men", even though an on-line open source collaboration is the perfect place for a female developer to be judged purely on the quality of the code rather than gender. Just pick a gender neutral alias and start coding.
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Women shouldn't have to pick a gender neutral name and profile photo. Many guys in Github use selfies on their profiles, and often their real names. It can help get job offers, aside from anything else.
It's like people used to tell gay people to just "act straight" and avoid showing affection for their partners in public, to avoid any discrimination. People shouldn't have to hide their nature just to be treated fairly.
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Of course, they "shouldn't have to", but it's an easy solution that works today. Or, you can wait forever for the rest of the world to change.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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You could make up a fake name but at that point the fact that they have to do that, when men don't, is already inherently hostile.
Sure, but at least you're coding. And after you've become famous as an excellent developer, you can reveal your true name.
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Give me a break. Nothing your suggesting would make any difference and has nothing to do with the "problem" of women not being interested in coding
Of course it would make a difference. If nobody knows your gender, you won't be treated any differently. Problem solved.
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Your implicit and sexist assumption there is that the only way women can participate in open source is through joining projects created by men. If there is a large population of capable female developers whose only problem is that evil misogynist male project leaders are keeping them down, they are free to create their own open source projects. Heck, they are even free to exclude all males from their projects. Obviously, that's not happening.
Re:Biggest difference (Score:4, Funny)
Nevermind that. There was a story in the news just now about someone named "Reality".
Can you guess their sex, or their gender?
Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
This may seem a bit sexist, but still...
Nobody on the internet knows you have a penis. Nobody knows you have a vagina. You only reveal that when you blab about it.
Pretty much all FOSS work is done in such impersonal settings, over the internet. Unless the developer uses an alias that is super female sounding, like "KittenLove_xoxo" or something, there is nothing to suggest that she does not have a penis. If she can roll with that, and can work in a male dominated environment, there is nothing to prevent her from being just as successful in the group as any other member, assuming her code quality is good.
Nobody sees your tits through IRC, Email, or the like. You might get outed by teamspeak or something, but impersonal digital communications that are the norm for programmer communication? Not so much.
Even if you need to use a real name when doing development work, you dont need to say your name is "Tiffany McCoder", you can use "T. McCoder" instead. Nobody knows if that is "Tim McCoder", or "Tyrone McCoder" or "Tristan McCoder".... or any other name starting with T. There is no reason to out yourself and get the flood of "OMG! A WOMAN! UNPOSSIBLE!" that is sure to happen.
Why is it better not to out yourself? Is it because I think you should just buck it up and accept abuse? NO-- it is because I think you should not set yourself up for abuse. If you happen to be a very rare magical unicorn, outing yourself in front of a bunch of naturalists is a good way to get collected as a type specimen. (note, that means you get killed, and collected for science. Probably something you dont want.) Similar things will happen if you out yourself as a woman in a very male dominated profession, because you are so damned rare. Now, if more women did this, and did it stealthfully, and ended up becoming a more normal demographic, the "Magical unicorn! WOW! AMAZING!!" thing would not happen, and it would be safe to say, "Yes, I am a female developer."
That is to say, if magical unicorns were as common as grasshoppers or normal horses, scientists would not really be all that excited about them, and showing off your magical rainbow unicorn farts in public would not be an issue. Nobody would care, nobody would notice, because rainbow unicorn farts would be everywhere. It is only when magical unicorns are rare that the "OMG! ITS REAL!!" phenomenon happens.
Female developers are rare. Outing yourself as one will cause you only misfortune in this environment. It has nothing to do with sexism. It has everything to do with novelty and rarity. Avoid the temptation to out yourself. Just be another programmer. Make it or break it on the quality of your code. That's all you need to do.
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Like I said-- T. McCoder vs Tiffany McCoder.
The former is still accurate, but does not out your gender.
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You can sign a legal document as "Mickey Mouse" if you want.
Also, Legal aliases are a thing. People who work at / own collections agencies use them all the time.
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Lets just see:
So the summary has the wrong numbers in it. But, what the hell, blame a female developer who, apparently can't code.
Yup. Sure to make this into a welcoming site.
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Most of them are anonymous coward internet trolls too. I think it is better to classify them as such (trolls), rather than as valid respondents.
That's like trying to use Youtube Comments as a statistical demographic for anything other than research on troll populations.
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But that's my point.
At the time I wrote the above there were 35 posts. Based on the numbers in the survey, one of them would have been from a woman. But 10% of them were openly derogatory to women, another 10% of the "it's your own fault"
It it any wonder if that lone woman decides to give up and go somewhere else.
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No the point is not reasonable. As a guy there is no downside to having my real identity on github and plenty of career upsides. For women if they want the career upside, they are also much more likely to get harassment than men, which is a significant penalty.
That's bad for women and had nothing to do with merit, only genitals.
COED (Score:2, Insightful)
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does bullshit like this get published? It's a non-random survey. It provides no useful scientific evidence. It doesn't even bother to compare the numbers with other industries. But you can be damned sure people with an agenda link to it.
Lemme guess (Score:2)
Without reading the "study": Because they keep wasting time doing surveys nobody gives a fuck about instead of writing code?
You have made a misstep. (Score:2)
.. on the issue of why women developers are hard to recruit and keep in the business of tech.
Without any statistical information to as the rate at which and reason why both men and women have chosen to leave their positions at a multitude of "tech" businesses, the very premise of this article is based on a judgement without merit. Literally speaking, it's prejudice, specifically sexist.
Now that's interesting, and maybe the answer (Score:4, Informative)
The answer to the question why people might prefer men to women when it comes to working on a code project.
May I refer you to figure 3 of the article. Yes, I know, RTFA is not very Slashdott-y, but bear with me. Could you? Thank you. We see the differences in men and women when it comes to what's important to them in a project they want to participate in. What we can see in the figure is that values like Responsive Maintainers, License or Development progress are pretty much on par with both sexes when it comes to importance.
Looking at values like "welcoming community", "contribution guide" or "code of conduct", you will see a distinct difference in the value men and women attribute to them, with women putting considerably more emphasis on these things.
In other words, at least this is my interpretation and please, I would very much enjoy hearing yours, women want to "feel good" while working on a project, while men don't give a fuck about that and just want to get shit done.
Re:Now that's interesting, and maybe the answer (Score:4, Insightful)
But you're assuming that women are picking those things because they want to be made to feel good.
But if they already perceive the environment as hostile, anti woman, sexist, misogynistic, etc, then what they might be looking for is evidence that it won't be tolerated rather than an environment that makes them feel good.
I can't see there's any way to distinguish which, if any, interpretation is correct based on the data in the survey.
women just aren't interested (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no gender barrier to starting open source projects on GitHub. There is no barrier to recruiting talented women into your feminist collective femputer software project. If women are just as interested and productive in open source as men, they wouldn't need the munificence of men in order to have them work on male-dominated open source projects, there would be lots of open source projects run by women where women could go to feel welcome.
The lack of women-run open source projects, female developers, etc. is a simple consequence of straight women being statistically much less interested in starting or participating in such projects. (Note that, despite facing discrimination and prejudice, gays actually are overrepresented among GitHub open source developers.)
Re:women just aren't interested (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. And so have others.
Not at all. But I think that if you're passionate about something, you can make it happen.
I don't think there is a problem, so I don't think a solution is needed.
And I assure you, I'm not going to change my behavior towards others because you are unhappy about population statistics.
(Un)solicited sexual advances (Score:3)
How do solicited sexual advances work? If one were to go up to someone and "solicit" such that when they make a sexual advance it is deemed "solicited" what prevents the act of soliciting itself from being construed as an unsolicited advance?
Who really sees a difference between the following phrases?
"Hey babe lets hang out"
"Hey babe is it ok if I ask you to hang out?"
Is there a practical difference between "sexual advance" and "unsolicited sexual advance" or do people just throw in the word "unsolicited" so their position superficially seems more nuanced and reasonable?
Re: (Score:2)
The study was done by Github. You can download the data for yourself. They don't list everyone involved, but none of the people named for assistance are in women's studies.
The article is a bit crap but the study is really very good.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Look at who did the study before you write comments that make you look dumb.
Did you look? It's an unscientific "study" performed by a gender studies major.
Honestly, the major alone should be an indicator that the result is probably garbage
Re:Thanks BeauHD! (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't know who it was performed by. It just says, "this survey was designed by GitHub." That you assume it is a womens studies major (which by the way would not prevent it from being rigorous) reflects your bias.
Actually, yes - the fact that a study is performed by a women's studies major does indeed mean that it would not be rigorous, in much the same way that an "IQ study" performed by the KKK would also not be rigorous.
FCOL - Women's studies make no attempt to hide the fact that they are for the advancement of women, in much the same way that the KKK make no attempt to hide the fact that they are for the advancement of caucasians. A study by a group for the advancement of women that produces a "women are victims" conclusion would get the same skepticism from normal people that a study produced by the KKK that concludes "whites are victims".
Btw: Who do you think is objectively (measurably) the best of demographic in the world? Who do you think is the worst?
Re: (Score:3)
Who do YOU think is objectively (measurably) the best of demographic in the world? Who do you think is the worst?
What does this question even mean? There is no such thing as a "best" demographic. The concept makes no sense.
Re:Thanks BeauHD! (Score:5, Interesting)
Who do YOU think is objectively (measurably) the best of demographic in the world? Who do you think is the worst?
What does this question even mean? There is no such thing as a "best" demographic. The concept makes no sense.
The best-off demographic. The concept makes perfect sense: you can measure characteristics of a demographic and compare those measurements with other demographics. For example, there is a certain demographic of humans who:
Lives the longest,
Has the most college graduates,
Has the highest average income of all adults,
Are, compared to every other demographic, less likely to be the victims of violent crime,
Are less likely to be homeless,
Have fewer special-needs individuals (IQ less than 75)
Get prosecuted less often,
When prosecuted, get lighter sentences (up to 64%) for the same crime,
Has the highest employment / lowest unemployment,
...
If you guessed "white women", you're on the ball. (Yes, average income of white women exceeds avg income of just about every other demographic there is).
Re:Thanks BeauHD! (Score:4, Informative)
This survey was designed by GitHub with valuable input from the research and open source communities. We especially thank: Anna Filippova (Carnegie Mellon University), Andrea Forte (Drexel University), Edward Galvez (Wikimedia Foundation), Rebecca Weiss (Mozilla), and Laura Dabbish (Carnegie Mellon University) for conversations, research questions, and prior art that informed the questionnaire design.
Anna Filippova is not the "lead researcher". Not to mention the fact that the second person in that list is a professor at Drexel in the College of Computing and Informatics and Laura Dabbish is a faculty member at CMU with a PhD in Computer Science.
Re:As if it's a bad thing (Score:4, Insightful)
and twice as likely to be subjected to unsolicited sexual advances (6 vs 3 percent).
FFS just get over it. Men are expected to initiate relationships. It's called life. It's not a problem. If you don't like it you might as well kill yourself now.
It's not a problem *for you*. Because you're a man and don't have to deal with it every single day. And precisely what authority do you have to determine what is and isn't a problem for other people? Why is it so hard to imagine that it might be an issue to get unwanted attention from a physically larger potentially threatening person, or a person in a financial position of power over you?
Re: (Score:2)
Why is it so hard to imagine that it might be an issue to get unwanted attention from a physically larger potentially threatening person, or a person in a financial position of power over you?
That's not hard to imagine, but plenty of women do want attention from tall rich guys, and are waiting for them to make the first move. How are you going to tell the difference ?
Re:As if it's a bad thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is it so hard to imagine that it might be an issue to get unwanted attention from a physically larger potentially threatening person, or a person in a financial position of power over you?
That's not hard to imagine, but plenty of women do want attention from tall rich guys, and are waiting for them to make the first move. How are you going to tell the difference ?
You be respectful, move slowly and actually listen to the feedback. The attitude "oh these stupid women complaining about me offering my virile and high-quality sperm" doesn't gives me much confidence that that happens.
Despite the assumption of the "men's right's" contingent of slashdot, women are not in general trying to get offended, or damage your desperately fragile ego. It's not actually fun to do that. But when you're faced with this sort of 'offer' every day, when it's a common occurrence to be called a "frigid bitch" by a stranger because you don't want to be chatted-up on the bus, well you can imagine that your attitude to future encounters changes, can't you?
Re: (Score:2)
You be respectful, move slowly and actually listen to the feedback
That requires making a move. And if you're too slow, or too nice, they'll run off with the other guy.
Re: (Score:2)
You be respectful, move slowly and actually listen to the feedback
That requires making a move. And if you're too slow, or too nice, they'll run off with the other guy.
So..? For some people, not being a creep outweighs manipulating into bed every woman you have a vague chance with.
Re:As if it's a bad thing (Score:4, Insightful)
You be respectful, move slowly
Are you sure that that isnt the problem?
When you, as an IT guy, "move slowly", you become this creeper thats always hanging around but never asking her out.
This then causes an animosity that she feels towards you.
The slower you move the stronger that feeling of animus will be, and if that animus becomes too strong then your next move, asking her out, is sexual harassment under the current accepted definition.
As a young man you hopefully learned that the best way to get a date is to ask girls out. Lots and lots of girls. It doesnt matter how good looking, awesome, pathetic or ugly you are as you will always increase the probability of getting a date by asking another girl you.
Thats the nature of it. "Moving slowly" isnt natural and creates all these problems. If Bob had asked Yan out on the first day, he would have gotten either a yes or a no. If the answer was "yes" then it would have been a mistake for both of them to "move slowly" and if the answer is "no" then it was also have been a mistake for things to "move slowly." Moving slowly affords no advantage, only disadvantage, to both parties. These disadvantages accumulate into the observed "problems" that are exactly the result of what you are asking for.
Re: (Score:3)
Well it depends on your definition of 'slowly', I don't mean glacial, I mean move at a pace that means you are aware of the other person's feelings, and eventually do actually ask. Most of the time you don't *have* to ask (and put that person & yourself in an awkward position) by waiting a little, because it will become obvious that they are not interested.
It also shows that you are atleast somewhat interested in the person, rather than just the vagina-holding body. If you just ask people out "whether t
Re:As if it's a bad thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Sometimes it is a profoundly important event for one person to ask another out on a date, but most of the time it isn't.
Again, if you want to increase the probability that asking a girl out turns out to be a profoundly important event in your life, then sooner is better than later, more is better than less. Lots and lots of girls.
This "move slowly" idea almost seems like a fallacious rationalization that is actually rooted in the fear of rejection.
Re:As if it's a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
The parent poster's point is legitimate, but somewhat crassly expressed.
We live in a social sphere with literally centuries of cultural tradition of men initiating intimate relationships with women. This pattern is ingrained and reinforced throughout our culture, and changing it is an evolutionary process that can take decades and more than a generation to evolve. Further, I think there's an evolutionary biology component to it that makes it resistant to change.
It also suffers from what I would call a bargaining imbalance. Usually in a negotiation, the first person to make an offer bargains from a position of weakness -- they expose their bargaining position and expose themselves to rejection. Thus it seems likely that women generally do not want to give up their default bargaining position, further ingraining the default position of men as initiators.
There's also a signaling problem, which is probably the most complex aspect of this. Should signaling be up front and literal, or should it be subtle and ambiguous? Given that women would want to retain their bargaining advantage, they have have an incentive to keep relationship signaling subtle and ambiguous because it provides them with an advantageous information asymmetry. This further weakens potential partner's bargaining ability because they are both unsure of what terms are acceptable *and* unsure if the partner is even receptive to an offer.
The last complication is the icing on the cake, the growth in general promiscuity. As a culture we've become quickly accepting of low-attachment sexual relationships.
So, why is it women get unwanted sexual advances? Men know that there is some possibility that a woman will be willing to engage in low-attachment sexual relationships. Women are ambiguous in their signaling as to their receptiveness to intimate contact. Men have internalized their role as initiators, and also know that since they are bargaining from a position of weakness, they face a high probability of failure. But since they know there is some chance of success generally, they know they have to make a lot of offers in order to achieve successful bargains. Intermittent reinforcement is a very powerful reward mechanism.
In my opinion, women just need to be more vocal in stating their unambiguous disinterest in intimacy. Don't be subtle, it only confuses the person into believing that you are engaging in bargaining somehow.
Re: (Score:3)
Even if I accept your premise as true, which I don't, you are missing the most crucial factor in what makes these sexual advances unwanted. It's the setting. In a bar, if you are by yourself you kind of expect that people might approach you. But on Github, or in the workplace, or just walking down the street...
In other words, you should wait for that person to signal that they are open to advances, e.g. by attending a social event. People wear rings to indicate that they are unavailable, but we could really
Re: (Score:3)
Your whole premise is flawed anyway. It's not "bargaining" at all, there is no winner or loser in the deal. It's mutual consent to both get what you want. There is no degree of getting what you want, it's all or nothing for both of you. If you have to negotiate how far you get to go, you are doing it wrong.
It is absolutely bargaining -- a mutual consent agreement between two or more parties as to what each party will do for the other.
You are delusional if you think men and women have completely identical interests in a relationship. They may agree in general terms on their interests, but they will assign different preferences for those interests in addition to having at least some interests which the other does not share.
Re: (Score:3)
You are delusional if you think men and women have completely identical interests in a relationship. They may agree in general terms on their interests, but they will assign different preferences for those interests in addition to having at least some interests which the other does not share.
You know a great way of not getting dates? Treat the feemales like a uniform whole, rather than dealing with the individuals as individuals. Works every time!
Re: As if it's a bad thing (Score:3)
Let's compare to other industries and the general public, across all gender ratios. I bet 6 vs 3 percent is far on the small side. Heck, an average model agency is mostly women and probably a much larger percentage of them has received "unsolicited sexual advances". Citing this as a major reason that women aren't in tech is pathetic flamebait.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Whether you're a creep or not depends solely on whether the woman you're talking to wants you to fuck them. If you're fuckable, then they like it and you're not a creep, if you're not fuckable then they are afraid and you're a creep for that. If she makes advances, you're not allowed to call her a creep, though, even if you aren't interested.
Mirroring it is if a woman doesn't warm to your advances, she's gay, and if she does, she's not. Whether or not a woman makes advances to you is not your choice, you wi
Re:"Feel uncomfortable"? (Score:4, Insightful)
If a project needs a Code of Conduct, I don't want to be part of that project.
Re:"Feel uncomfortable"? (Score:4, Funny)
I like technologies with ISO, ANSI or IEEE standards, not documents saying you can't use it if you're a meanie.
Re:"Feel uncomfortable"? (Score:5, Insightful)
> If a project needs a Code of Conduct, I don't want to be part of that project.
If you find the very existence of a Code of Conduct objectionable, then not being part of the project is probably best for both you and the project.
But no whining if there's a dearth of co-members who are actually pleasant to work with.
Didn't Vonnegut write about this? (Score:5, Informative)
It's like getting on a bus and there's a sign saying "DO NOT SHIT ON THE SEATS".
The fact that someone thinks it needs to exist is a big red flag (or possibly a brown one).
Re: (Score:2)
Really? You did care at some point?
Mind if I ask why?
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that you are calling women developers, as a group, liars is exactly the problem. This is a fact.
He didn't call them liars. He said they claimed something, which is true.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it's the other way around - men just underreport any such issues.