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MusingsonWomenandIt

I read two articles this week. The first, http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/11954951.htm Women's share of IT jobs plunges (free, but registration required) says:

Women held 32.4 percent of IT jobs in 2004, down from 41 percent eight years earlier, despite holding steady in the overall workforce.

The second article http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5753934.html?tag=search# (make sure you page down) asks the question Is IT unfriendly to women?

I have a bunch of reactions about these articles. The first is that I agree that it's unfortunate for our field that fewer women understand math and science (because of their teachers' assumptions and inappropriate teaching), so the barriers at the college-level seem insurmountable, even if a woman even considered taking a computer science class. (I know a bit about teaching girls math and science, because my daughters are both in the public schools, and have stories about their teachers that are hard to believe and sadly true. Many of their teachers were remarkably similar to mine.) It's unfortunate because in my experience, the most diverse teams create the best (as in most successful) products. Teams where people appear to be clones of one another can easily fall prey to group-think.

My second reaction is the only good thing about losing women in the field is that maybe those women were related to the men who left the field. In the 80's boom we had a bunch of people enter the field because they could spell "komputer" and wanted to make real money but didn't have the interest or aptitude to perform. As far as I can tell, any boom will entice people who don't have aptitude or interest to a field because they want to make money.

My next reaction is: the professors who treat their students like human beings and the companies who manage their technical staff like human beings will win over the long term. Treating people like human beings means you hire and retain people based on their abilities to perform the work and get along with other people, not what they look like. Treating people like human beings also means managers must make the effort to create an environment in which people can do good work.

I see this as a positive feedback loop. Here's what I tried to say with this loop: As girls are encouraged to study math and science in middle school and high school, the number of women who study math and science at the university level goes up. As there are more women who study math and science at the university level goes up, more women are available to teach other women and to work in the field. The more women who work in the fields, the more girls there are to study math and science in middle school. (I would like feedback on this diagram. I usually screw them up.)

What's your opinion? -- JohannaRothman 2005.06.25

I appreciate you posting this. In 1980 when I started working, our engineering division (50 people) had zero female engineers. Today, our engineering division has four female engineers (computer, systems, electrical). Our group chief, one level of management up, is a woman. I find this encouraging.

Question for you. I would like to see these ladies meet regularly and discuss issues like the one you have raised. Would you feel patronized as a woman if a man suggested something like this to you? Is your reaction, "I want to be treated as an engineer - not a female engineer?"

I'd appreciate your thoughts as well as those of other ladies in the wiki.

DwaynePhillips 25 June 2005

Apple developer conferences used to have a significant number of women attending, because graphic-artists, human-interface designers, and educators would attend (populations that were not mostly male). As the Unix influence in MacOS X gets stronger, it seems the conference is becoming more and more male-dominated.

KeithRay 2005.06.25

I have some difficulties with the TechRepublic article. It has some interesting perspectives, but also shows a number of stereotypes that I'm not certain are true. Curiously, it proposes one of the same questions that got Harvard's Summers in trouble. Finally, it asks the questions in a more negative fashion that Johanna does above. For example, rather than ask "Why are there fewer women in IT?", it asks "What is wrong with IT that there are fewer women?" I don't think it is best to lead with the conclusion and then go looking for evidence.

Perhaps our secondary education was different, but my experience -- from 1964-1967 -- was that young women in my class outperformed the young men in math and science. I know that is anecdotal information.

MikeMelendez 2005.06.25

It was my experience in primary and secondary education that women consistently got the best grades in the quantitative areas. So I was expecting a lot of them in college. They weren't there. I suspect that this effect was a combination of selecting out and the way society viewed women at the time (This was in 1973). Which was the greater effect I don't know.

This was the era that Barbara Walters was considered a novelty as a news person

Have there been any studies of the differences between women and men in eliciting requirments? -- CharlesAdams 2005.06.27

Jerry, in your early days, (before any degrees were required, let alone CS degrees) were there more women in IT as a percentage of the whole?

As to the college math/science filter, someone will have to fill me in. How is the subject taught in college that favors young men? Why math/science but not other subjects? If my and Charles secondary education anecdotes hold, what changes between high school and college? Johanna, I'm wide open to your anecodotes and those of your daughters. Rereading the original post, Johanna mentions public schools. Are your daughters yet in high school and encountering the filter?

Does one need Calculus to program? Probably not. Does one even need a college degree? Mmmmm.... I've had a number of individual colleagues without a bachelor's degree who excelled, including at least one women. More anecdotal evidence. Perhaps part of the problem is credentialism? Which leads us back to the math/science filter, if women, in general, are getting more college degrees than men these days, though not in math/science.

Clearly, I need to learn more about the college math/science filter. I think cracking that would be easier than cracking credentialism. Johanna, can you help me out?

MikeMelendez 2005-06-27

" Jerry, are you suggesting that the dotcom bubble bursting may have lead to an IT job scarcity that caused those filters to kick back in?" Yes, in some managers' minds (small as they might be).

"Jerry, in your early days, (before any degrees were required, let alone CS degrees) were there more women in IT as a percentage of the whole?" I don't know about "as a whole," but in the places I worked, yes.

" How is the subject taught in college that favors young men? Why math/science but not other subjects? " I don't think it's necessarily in the classes, but in the counseling--both formal and informal. Girls get lots of messages about what they should and shouldn't do, and what happens, or doesn't happen, to girls who are seen to be geeky, or smarter than boys. - JerryWeinberg 2005.06.27

1) IT doesn’t have a lot of cachet in the popular imagination. It might have had some briefly, when the dot com boys (and they were mostly, if not all, boys) were making the media swoon with their millions. But now? If you were a bright young woman, what would you rather aspire to – shining in one of the traditional professions like law or medicine, going into business and joining the managerial classes, or going to be one with a bevy of lonely, ill-washed wankers? We may know that the vast majority of people in IT have quite reasonable social and – er , other – relationships (at least when they move away from Silicon Valley and learn to get a life) but does the rest of the world?

2) Popular culture is profoundly anti-intellectual. Not that it’s ever been anything else, but arguably it’s now more pervasive than ever and it’s harder for parents to shield their kids from its influences.

3) I don’t know how much credence to give to what I read in the papers, but if it’s true, then there is not much that has really changed in how girls are taught to think of themselves in relation to boys. There was an article recently claiming there’s a trend where young kids, 12 or so, are getting into oral sex. Apart from the age group, there were two really disturbing claims. One was that the girls don’t believe it’s “real” sex, so they see no need for condoms. The other was that this isn’t about kids enjoying or experimenting with sex equally, it’s about girls “servicing” boys, which they believe they need to do to keep boys interested.

4) There are always going to be some kids who can’t learn math, or English, or geography with the ways most people teach and learn those subjects. Do teachers know how to teach when the methods they use for the mainstream don’t work with some kids? Do they have the time or the capacity even if they know how, or know they should teach differently? They didn’t when I went to school, and I don’t see any evidence that they do now.

I had a math block all through school. I don’t know how much it was down to bad – or wrongly directed – teaching. More likely, I just couldn’t learn the way it was traditionally taught. But I don’t think that was necessarily because I was a girl, though I do think it’s likely that my cultural conditioning as a girl played a big role in how I dealt with my failure to learn. There were girls who excelled in the same classes where I failed, and also there were some boys who did badly and some who did well.

There was a really bright kid in my year at school who killed himself the week before we were due to start Grade 13. He was way ahead in math & science, but he had failed Grade 12 English. The teacher, for a reason known only to herself, didn’t just give him a failing mark overall – she actually gave him minus marks on one of his essays. I doubt she made any attempt to understand why an obviously bright young man couldn’t learn her subject. He needed English to graduate, and it was going to hold him back. There must have been other factors contributing to his suicide, but school couldn’t have helped.

Well, I said this was random. I'm not sure it has anything to do with the subject. But I think there’s more going wrong in the schools than just failing to teach math in a way that works for girls. And likewise I think there are many factors contributing to the gender imbalance in IT. --FionaCharles 27-Jun-2005

I asked my wife, Diane, about her experiences in high school (1970-1973) and college (1973-1977). She was one of those young women who excelled in math and science in high school competing only with another woman. IOW, her experiences match mine and Charles: mine in Los Angeles; hers in New York state. She remembers one outspoken bigoted teacher (Social Studies) in high school, though he was more concerned with race than gender. She remembers one misogynist professor (Biology, her major) in college, but also remembers that he was considered a joke by the students at large. Other than those, she remembers nothing about her teachers that discouraged her.

I think Jerry is onto something in what counselors contribute. Diane was discouraged from pursuing science by her father, who thought business administration made more sense. He paid her first two years and turned over responsibility in the Junior year. She figured she was paying so she changed Biology from her minor to her major. That said, I think her father's direction had more to do with the Depression than with anything about roles. He had been turned over to distant relatives with a farm in his teenage years, so his mother knew he would eat even if they worked him hard. Clerks are always needed; scientists are not.

I'd still like to hear from Johanna and her daughters. We now have four personal data points for schooling. I also intend to ask my own daughters (16 & 23).

MikeMelendez 2005-06-28 (almost forgot to sign again)

This view quoted by Jerry with the wonderfully appropriate comment is the type of view that is consonant with the view of believing pay between men and women should be different. I assume that the amount of time in the work world and the types of jobs are roughly equal in scope.

I asked the rhetorical question to the husband of a two earner family who believes this, "You must be very comfortable with your family having less capital to invest or to use?"

It was fun to watch his reaction. CharlesAdams 2005.06.28

In high shool (graduated in '73), my guidance counselor told me I was too "stupid" to become a doctor; I should look into nursing. (Her words.) When she saw my SAT scores, she accused me of cheating. Unfortunately, the world hasn't changed enough. My older daughter will be applying to college in the fall and her guidance counselor keeps telling her to to aim too high. For a kid with a 3.6 and mid-600's SATs, I have no idea why she shouldn't aim reasonably high. Over dinner one night, we compared the wording of her guidance counselor and mine. They were almost exactly the same.

As to the math/science problem in the public schools, I only have three data points: me and my two daughters. All of us have had trouble being called on in class (now a big part of the grade that screens for extroverts). Daughter #2 has had to regularly explain to the math teacher how he or she is wrong. But that didn't stop one of the teachers from trying to give her a B in math. (I fixed that problem.)

I believe that there are good and bad teachers in each subject. But my experience with math teachers is that fewer of them know how to teach the subject. Good teachers have multiple techniques to explain the problems and solutions. Almost all the math teachers I've met had only one technique to explain anything. And, if that technique applies to NTs, or people who have more NT preferences, the NTs will get it, and the SJs will be lost. If the technique applies to the SJs, the NTs could be lost. (The first math class I really liked was geometry because I could stop doing arithmetic. Big-time NT here.) You can change this to fill in your preference blank.

And, if the teacher prefers to call on the boys with questions rather than the girls, the boys who don't understand get their questions answered. But the girls are still in the dark.

I have a BS in CS (from 1977). In my first job, even though I had experience with assembly language programming (as a paid developer), I was paid almost 25% less than any of the men. They gave me a huge raise at the end of the first year, because I had proven myself and to try to bring me to parity. I was still making only about 85% of what the men got as raises so I left. I was honest, and told them if they hadn't paid me so much less in the beginning, or if they had matched my salary at the end of the first year I wouldn't have been disgusted enough to look for another job. Their reasoning (illegal in 1977): I wasn't married so didn't need the money as much as a man would. As Jerry said, Bull. Salary isn't about need, it's about value to the organization.

Dwayne, I have no idea how I would react to your proposal. I'd like to think that I'd want to discuss the problem. But I've removed myself from the day-to-day problems of being inside an organization. I don't know how I'd react.

I don't know enough about how math/science/cs are taught in college to know why women aren't selecting it as a field. I will tell you this: I was disgusted by the men (boys?) in college who wouldn't consider dating me because I might be smarter than they were. That included the boys in my engineering, math, and cs classes. Hormones run amuck in late teens/early twenties, and it's possible that for many people, the need to find a temporary mate is more important than education. Girls might not want to try CS and boys might not want to date women in technical majors. I'm pretty sure hormones trump brains at that age. Maybe many other ages too :-) -- JohannaRothman 2005.06.28

The uneven math teachers rang a memory bell with me. When my older daughter first took Algebra back in the 9th grade, over 8 years ago, she had a teacher who failed to teach any of them much and covered it by giving everybody unreasonably high grades. She had trouble in all subsequent math classes because she didn't have the foundation. I'm sure that affected all of the students though. I need to ask her about any role playing.

As an aside, my older daughter, Kara, leads a small Girls, Inc program in Lowell, MA called NetGirls, which exposes middle school girls to technology, especially the Internet, in an environment designed to help them view it as fun. These girls would otherwise have little exposure to technology. I'll have to ask Kara what her girls think.

Equal pay for equal work makes so much sense to me, I've had trouble believing it's a major issue today, especially with the long standing laws Johanna noted, even back in 1977. I had assumed the remaining pay differential (measured on the average) though still substantial was attributable mainly to seniority, a secondary effect. My eyes are being opened.

MikeMelendez 2005.06.28

Johanna, you're right about hormones. But wrong about the boys who wouldn't date you because you were smarter. Why in the hell would you want to go out with them (unless it was your own hormones doing the thinking)? - JerryWeinberg 2005.06.28

Of course it was my hormones! -- Johanna

So I can’t comment on the quality of math teaching compared with other teaching. When you’re as baffled by a subject as I was by math you can’t formulate questions, and there are only so many times you try putting up your hand to say, "I don't understand." You just get further and further behind, and more and more miserable (especially if you’re not used to failing), till you give up.

I am very conscious of how difficult it was to be a girl and a young woman with a forceful personality in a school and working world that didn’t like or approve of female bulldozers. (It would be difficult now, if I cared enough to let it.) That hasn’t changed at all, if the experiences of my friends’ daughters are any indication. And they certainly don’t like you to be smarter. I'm often the only woman in a meeting. I can’t count the times I’ve said something that’s immediately been attributed to a man (by a man). They don't even notice they've done it. --FionaCharles 28-Jun-2005

She recently investigated become a public school teacher, but doing so would require either getting an education degree or a $10,000 "training" course. There are no "training" courses for music education, and she isn't allowed to go into teaching computer programming without a computer science degree. So she's going to continue teaching piano because spending $10K for training or $20K(?) for another degree isn't worth the beginning-teacher's salary of $35K.

And if she wanted to get into programming again, she would be blocked by lack of a computer science degree, as well as her unusual resume.

KeithRay 2005.06.27

Hello to all, I am Karol Gray and I have just retired from teaching HS Mathematics for 30 years in the public school system. I would like to comment on the statement below as well as the other similar statements.

“I have a bunch of reactions about these articles. The first is that I agree that it's unfortunate for our field that fewer women understand math and science (because of their teachers' assumptions and inappropriate teaching), so the barriers at the college-level seem insurmountable, even if a woman even considered taking a computer science class.”

I taught HS Algebra 2 and Advanced Placement Calculus for the past 20 years of my career. It is my observation that young women are just as capable as young men in the classroom. I believe that their career choices are more cultural than educational as in the idea that women will get married, have children and take care of the family. I think this comes from the home environment more than the educational environment. I am not sure what you are referencing when you say “inappropriate teaching” …I find teaching both sexes upper level math concepts comparable. I have read a lot of research addressing how teachers teach, but many of them were more anecdotal than fact oriented. Understanding mathematics is academic, not gender related. Some of my best students have been women and they truly understand what is going on behind the calculations, the “whys and the hows.” In AP Calculus students are required to do calculations both with and without calculators and to be able to write about the reasoning behind their calculations….women do this quite well. As with any student, they must have an aptitude for math and a desire to understand the concepts. This is not to say we cannot teach slower students, we certainly can/do but in my opinion it is not at all gender related. Again, I think it is society who fosters the idea of “boys are better in technical fields than girls”, not the educational system….all learning must begin in the home environment…ask any elementary teacher (who will be honest with you) and they will tell you that for the most part they can already tell at a young age, which children will be successful in life and and which ones will struggle. Not that they will not try to change that, they will, but there still must be support outside of school. There are of course exceptions with the correct interventions.

Here is another interesting article about Women and Success in Mathematics.

http://www.mathsci.appstate.edu/~sjg/class/1010/mathematician/kenschaft.html

DonGray 2005.06.29

As a side note, I am leery of the "correct" anything being aware of our shared humanity and the innumerable possibilities. Did you mean "successful" rather than "correct"?

MikeMelendez 2005.06.30

I also observe the unfortunate lack of women who are strong (super grandmaster) chess players. I hope a lady can grab the world championship someday. That would shake things up a lot for the better.

Chess is most certainly a passion first, rather than something that one can make any living at. I have played against the strongest player in Nebraska, I got a good dose of humility going 0-2. I dislike that my skill wasn't enough to pose him any problems. He told me he makes his money by gambling, not by playing chess. CharlesAdams 2005.07.01

This, notice, is the day the first woman appointed to the US Supreme Court resigned. I'm willing to bet that Bush doesn't appoint another woman. Revolution is always followed by some form of counter-revolution. Every culture. - JerryWeinberg 2005.07.01

I want to explore, to gather information. If equality existed at the beginning, before degrees were required, what changed? Just degree requirements? If women excelled in high school math and science at points in the 60's and 70's, has something changed? Or are our sample points distorted by something else?

If it is a stream, I can help build dams. If it is an ocean, I can join the changing tide, recognizing I'm but a particle, rather than be caught up in a rip current that ends as suddenly as it starts or a whirlpool that turns inward on itself.

Jerry, you appear to forget that Reagan nominated Justice O'Connor. Sometimes changes come in the most unexpected places.

Charles, the world chess championship is dead for a time. Too many competing interests appear to have killed it. Still, from what I read, women are slowly making progress in chess. Maybe a woman will restore the championship?

MikeMelendez 2005.07.02

When I was a faculty member, I watched in horror while the (mostly white male) faculty decide to set different entry criteria for males and females so there would be "balance." If they hadn't done this, the entering freshman (freshwoman?) class would have been 2/3 female. So, if we went on "merit" as measured by high school grades and SAT scores, maybe we'd start making up with "imbalance" in other areas that depend on degrees. What it showed me is that white males are perfectly capable of setting the rules to get whatever "balance" they want. They just aren't doing it. - JerryWeinberg 2005.07.02

Now if Judit Polgar could get the brass ring...

And do not forget the meritocrcay fad in California that allowed Asians to dominate in the class room. Things changed when that was observed.

Throughout the world, those with the power are a little sensitive when challenged.

CharlesAdams 2005.07.02

"...Now a new study from AAAS has concluded that recruitment of "non-traditional" students into computer science studies and jobs will be critical in keeping the U.S. workforce strong. And yet, the report says, this growing pool of students often is overlooked and underserved by higher education, government and industry.

"...They're older. They may have children. While working full-time, they're seeking new skills or advancement. And many are women and minorities."

"...traditional four-year schools often are not structured to meet their needs. Instructors are not always sensitive. And the financial aid system gives advantages to traditional students. One result: For-profit schools such as Strayer University and DeVry Institute of Technology were the top U.S. producers of computer science bachelor's degrees in 2001."

"... the proportion of women who thought that they might major in computer science has fallen to levels unseen since the early 1970s..."

Jerry,

I am surprised to hear about Justice O'Connor being considered a token. I have heard far right complaints about "Reagan's First Mistake", but that pertained more to her political positioning than her gender. And that's in reaction to (and in agreement with) mainstream Republicans' comments on "Reagan's Mistake", i.e. Justice Kennedy.

OTOH, I have known tokenism first hand. It is surprising the way people who make a token of you tend to think you owe them something for the "favor".

Charles,

Would you have learned as much about yourself if you had not played the chess champion?

What happened in California to try to end the Asian academic dominance?

Don,

Back to the topic at hand, I would really like to hear Karol's first-hand insights into the cultural changes regarding high school, women, and math/science over her thirty years experience. The opportunity to hear such insight is rare.

Mike Melendez 2005.07.04

I have also read (though of course I can't locate the source right now) that women leave IT because they prefer work that involves more interaction and collaboration with other people.

Esther 07.05.2005

With pair programming, there are now fewer areas that are solitary.

CharlesAdams 2005.07.05

Karol and I are kayaking and hiking in SW Colorado. Pictures at 11. ;{). We'll catch up with this topic early next week. DonGray 2005.07.05

And, of course, most schools don't teach IT in a collaborative manner (because that's called "cheating," so perhaps that's why women get discourged about IT in school.

- JerryWeinberg 2005.07.05

See the lyrics to the Tom Lehrer Song, "Lobachevsky" on the album: "Tom Lehrer Revisited":

http://www.lyricstime.com/lehrer-tom-lobachevsky-lyrics.html

CharlesAdams 2005.07.06

People on the wiki seem to have a lot of energy about this topic. That seems fitting to me.

I found many ideas that intrigued me in this thread. I've tried to capture them into initiatives that people can act upon, if they choose.

• Support girls and women with access to education (to gain their passport)
• Support women to pass through immigraion
• Support women during their career (prevent erosion)
• Publicize the problem that the percentage of women in IT is unacceptably small (with the hope of gaining more supporters)
• Support initiatives that change the passport requirements (change the roles to attract people with diverse skills rather than those with purely technical skills)
  
  
  
  
  

I chose the word "passport" rather than credentials or degrees because it only gets you in the door but doesn't keep you there.

As I was creating the following diagram of effects, I realized that unconscious cultural bias wins in the near-term but people who consciously work together are a force that is difficult to stop in the long-term.

Note, the red circular zones are meant to emphasize that two non-linear forces are grinding against each other: 1) support for aspiring females (girls and women) and 2) cultural bias for men in IT roles.

SteveSmith 2005.07.06

• Publicize the problem that the pct of women in IT is unacceptably small (with the hope of gaining more supporters)

from "unacceptably" to "unreasonably". "Unacceptable" is fighting words and might lead to a "Yes, it is" -- "No, it isn't" dichotomy. What I think is needed is persuasion. Hopefully, "unreasonable" or something similar might lead to the all important question "Why?" and an openess to answers not yet considered. Those in the "Cultural Bias for Men in IT" cloud might start to see the cloud.

Put another way, I think the Helpful principle applies, though we Americans do have a cultural bias for clearly defined Good guys and Bad guys. As my wife, Diane, summed it all up, "Mufasa!", sending shivers down my spine ;^).

MikeMelendez 2005.07.06

"Unacceptable" is fighting words and might lead to a "Yes, it is" -- "No, it isn't" dichotomy.

I doubt whether there is a word that wouldn't offend someone. If the audience consists of reasonable people, then, by all means, use unreasonable.

SteveSmith 2005.07.07

And yet, we don't want to get too wrapped up in schooling, which as I said above is a big part of the problem. For a terrific website on what's wrong with schooling, see http://learninfreedom.org/ - JerryWeinberg 2005.07.07

Thinking about this on my own, I find I can even claim a minor success. A friend I met when I was in college had her bachelors but worked as an admin assistant. We talked alot back then. She loved wild birds and would talk about them. I spoke about how I would most like to change jobs every few years to always be learning something new and how, if she loved birds, she should do something about it. We lost touch. Ten years later we reconnected. She had pursued and completed a Master's doing a sizeable amount of field work with raptors. She's now works as a paralegal, not the fill-in-the-blanks kind, but doing the investigatory footwork on environmental suits that her law firm is involved in. She credited me for giving her the courage to take the risks. I didn't know what to say. You know, I haven't seen her in several years. I should pay her a visit.

There are men and women in the cultural bias cloud, not just "bad guys" who need to be scolded. MikeMelendez 2005.07.08

There are men and women in the cultural bias cloud,

I thought of the people in the cultural bias cloud as people; I hope I didn't imply that they were men. I certainly didn't mean to.

...not just "bad guys" who need to be scolded.

I didn't think of them that way and I wasn't trying to scold anyone. But I can see why you might have interpreted it that way.

The reasonable ones are the only ones you are going to be able to persuade.

Perhaps. I feel that people who follow their hearts are better candidates to lead a movement because they have more energy about it than people who reason to a conclusion but don't do anything. I realize that's an NF perspective on the world.

My thought was that it was a fundamental to make people aware of the problem and share the facts with them so they can come to their own conclusion. The "unacceptable" part was my heart's response to my interpretation of the facts as I see them in the IT world. Perhaps other people think their way to the same response. If so, I think that's terrific.

Mike, you have made many responses to this thread. I interpret that you have considerable energy about this topic. What is the source of that energy?

Let me share with you the source of my energy -- experiences with the talent and skills of my mother, wife and daughter.

SteveSmith 2005.07.08

Be careful with the "following your heart" approach, it can be used to justify anything. But then, we may be saying the same thing, if you substitute my "persuaded" for your phrase. We seem to agree that more than "cold logic" is needed.

My energy on the issue comes from my two grandmothers, both very independent women. My mother's mother, Marguerite, was a teenage mother and spent the rest of her life insisting on who she was. She was successful. She passed away recently in her early nineties. My father's mother, Paula, was a full-blooded Spanish Mexican who married a Yaqui Indian (my grandfather). She saw Pancho Villa enter Mexico City at the end of the Revolution while at college, though she dropped out and returned home due to home-sickness. Her father disowned her after her marriage, though she continued to love him until she passed away in the 1970's. When the Federales cracked down on the independent Yaquis after the Revolution she stayed with her husband's family who made it to Los Angeles. I still remember my last visit with her in the mid-70's. Her will was as strong as my other grandmother's. To me, as a child, this was how women were, my own mother, Marie, and my Aunts Emma and Yolanda. My sisters, Paula, Cathy, Marie, and Annie grew up the same. None of my mother or my grandmothers graduated college, but then neither did my father or grandfather. Two of my sisters are RNs with bachelor equivalents. For one of them, I served in loco parentis for a year, getting her through high school. My sister, Paula's, oldest daughter, Marie, finished Harvard some years back, and is now an M.D. back in California. My wife, Diane, and I were her crashpad when she needed a break here in Boston. I am still surprised at the suggestion that women are somehow less than or subservient to men, whether the idea comes from a man or woman. To me, it makes no sense. So, I want to know why when I encounter the suggestion direct or indirect.

This is in addition to what I've noted above, having been pigeonholed due to my last name on more than one occasion. To coin a slogan, "Pigeon's belong in pigeonholes, not people," but I don't care much for slogans.

Why here and now? I heard the same things proposed in college 30 years ago to solve this problem that makes no sense to me. MIT was pushing hard to up the percentage of women in that majority male college. The school has claimed various successes. If I am to understand from the contributions in this thread, that little has changed, I find that jangling, and I am drawn to that. Most important, this (AYE Wiki) is a forum that invites inquiry and provides answers from many deeply thinking individuals, unlike the blogs and newspapers I read where the views are frequently canned and predictable.

MikeMelendez 2005.07.11

Be careful with the "following your heart" approach, it can be used to justify anything. But then, we may be saying the same thing, if you substitute my "persuaded" for your phrase. We seem to agree that more than "cold logic" is needed.

Agreed. Both faculities are fallible: I can think my way to a stupid repsonse as well as feel my way to a stupid response.

I make my best choices when I use both my heart and head. Those choices are still fallible but less so than when one faculty dominates the other.

My energy on the issue comes from my two grandmothers, both very independent women.

Great story. Thank you for sharing it. It helps me connect more with your previous responses.

Most important, this (AYE Wiki) is a forum that invites inquiry and provides answers from many deeply thinking individuals, unlike the blogs and newspapers I read where the views are frequently canned and predictable.

Agreed.

I appreciate you for sharing your views with me.

SteveSmith 2005.07.11

"Ben Rosen, a professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School in North Carolina who has done research on the topic, says that many women bail out of corporate life to become self-employed consultants and entrepeneurs, roles where they can have greater freedom and autonomy to manage the rest of their lives."

MikeMelendez 2005.07.25

Secondly, let me remind you what I predicted three weeks ago:

This, notice, is the day the first woman appointed to the US Supreme Court resigned. I'm willing to bet that Bush doesn't appoint another woman. Revolution is always followed by some form of counter-revolution. Every culture. - JerryWeinberg 2005.07.01

You seemed to think I was wrong about this. I thought you didn't understand tokenism. Notice what's happening now. - JerryWeinberg 2005.07.25

BTW, where's the revolution on the Supreme Court? Each political party has only nominated one woman. In each case, the party selected a nominee whose political beliefs paralleled that of the party. I don't find that surprising, just to be expected. Perhaps both are part of the counterrevolution?

Are there qualified women out there? Absolutely. Are there qualified women who happen to be conservative? Again, yes. Would a qualified conservative woman find the nomination process easy? No, way. But I don't have to be Kreskin to predict that. It's already happened.

The talking heads who think Roberts' nomination has more to do with the threat of filibuster than women's equality, those are the ones I find somewhat persuasive. But again, I do not know.

If Justice O'Connor was intended to be a token, someone made a big mistake. Justice O'Connor has had a greater impact on national jurisprudence during her tenure than all 8 of the other justices combined, including Justice Bader-Ginsberg. As I tried to point out, perhaps too indirectly, only the far right consistently complains about her. I particularly admire her approach to retirement, utterly ignoring the political certainties of either of the parties. I think we need more of her kind, whether or not they are women.

I'm continuing to read the Economist's report. Apparently, progress for women in the business world to the "C" level (CEO, COO, CFO) is glacial. And, in spite of the major setback for woman in IT noted in Johanna's articles, IT still has a much higher percentage of women than the top ranks in business in general.

Which brings us back to the quote from The Economist. Do you think Professor Rosen's research is biased? Perhaps he doesn't include a control group of men in his studies? Both are possible. I don't know. I haven't read his research. I only have the quote. To me, it's a matter of, "What does it mean?" I doubt you've read the research either. So, why do you seem to dismiss the quote out of hand?

Jerry, I find your certainty on some things here disconcerting. But, lest you think I'm in complete disagreement with you, I find your explanation of the IT setback persuasive, if very surprising. I trust you enough and believe your work in the industry is such that you are in position to know.

MikeMelendez 2005.07.26

"Institutions Hinder Female Academics, Panel Says" By CORNELIA DEAN in the NYT

NYT article: <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/18/science/19womencnd.html?ex=1158811200&en=ec73dced22786628&ei=5070>

NAS Report Page: <http://www.nationalacademies.org/morenews/20060918.html>

I am certainly concerned with the mismatch between the number of women who have doctorates and their representation in the academic structure.

But I am much more concerned with gender inequality in the hard sciences. As I said above, in my math and physics classes in high school, the young ladies were running rings around the young men. Then I got to a techincal college, and there were very few women. What happened and what is continuing to happen?--CharlesAdams 2006.09.19

Johanna says, "Daughter #2 has had to regularly explain to the math teacher how he or she is wrong. But that didn't stop one of the teachers from trying to give her a B in math."

I had a similar problem with my chemistry teacher in high school. I don't think this is a smoking gun for gender issues. Perhaps it is for inadequate teachers. Certainly I had always done quite well in math and science, but an English teacher I had in high school was a major influence in my being an English major. He was excellent and I took the challenge.

I have to agree with Dani, "It's the culture, stupid." Certainly things are improved (according to my value system) than they used to be. My mother only went to college for one year, and that was a present from her father, because "women didn't need education."

And the song, a Peggy Seeger classic I first heard from some folksingers in 1975, I'm Gonna Be An Engineer.

I listened to my mother and I joined a typing pool

I listened to my lover and I put him through his school

But if I listen to the boss, I'm just a bloody fool

And an underpaid engineer

(full lyrics at http://mysongbook.de/msb/songs/i/imgonnab.html)

-- GeorgeDinwiddie (2006.09.20)

Here in the US, we seem to have a culture of making money, but not by developing products. Hmm, that seems to be tarring lots of people. Maybe I want to reframe that, but I'm not sure how. We certainly have a culture where we respect people going into accounting, insurance, stockbrokering, etc., but not product development. Why is that? -- JohannaRothman 2006.09.25

In http://dirtsimple.org/2006/12/real-reasons-there-are-few-women-in-it.html

Blogger Phillip J. Eby writes "Well, as it happened, I hired an equal number of men and women over the years, but NOT through a quota or some kind of 'affirmative action'. It simply worked out that, on average, half of the qualified candidates we got were women.

"That's probably because part of our definition of 'qualified' was whether the person would get along with the group... which means there was a social element as well as mere technical competence. So, we usually ended up rejecting more male candidates than females for 'fit' problems."

[...]

"The real problems are: 1. Women don't apply for the jobs, 2. When they do, they aren't hired (or at least not for the best positions), and 3. When they are hired, they're sometimes driven out by having to deal with a**holes of whatever variety.

"The way you fix problem #3, however, is by not hiring a**holes. [...] Meanwhile, the way that you fix problem #2 is also by not hiring a**holes. [...] Now, as for the way you fix #1, I haven't a clue. My wife's rant on this subject as she left for work this morning implied that there are issues in education, culture, etc., that are relevant here, but she didn't have time to get into any detail [...]"

Interesting. Also there's quite a bit of conversation at:

http://www.mechanicalcat.net/richard/log/Python/Why_there_s_few_women_in_IT

including a mention by Pia Waugh that in Malaysia, up to 60% of the IT population are women.

-- Keith Ray 2006.12.25

I think if you fix problems 2 and 3, over time problem 1 will become less of an issue. But that won't be a silver bullet. It takes time for word to get out and there are other problems in IT. SherryHeinze 2006.12.25

"CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For decades, undergraduate women have been moving in ever greater numbers into science and engineering departments at American universities. Yet even as they approach or exceed enrollment parity in mathematics, biology and other fields, there is one area in which their presence relative to men is static or even shrinking: computer science."

This is very surprising to me. I thought the number of women in CS would be highly correlated to the number of women in mathematics.

In physics I found something heartening and surprising to me.

<http://www.aip.org/fyi/2005/035.html>

From the AIP:

"The percentage of women holding faculty positions in physics and astronomy is consistent with the percentage of women who earned degrees in those fields in the past, according to a new report by the Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics."

Now if we can get more young ladies interested in Physics and IT. We need all the brain power we can muster for the future. The quantatative fields will be ever more important.

CharlesAdams 2007.04.17

EstherDerby 2007.14.18

My tendency is to isolate this type of misogyny to a few deranged individuals. I suppose it's a way for me to cope.

Esther, I'm left wondering about how to interpret, "I wonder if there's some connection..." Is there a connection for you?

SteveSmith 2007.04.18

Steve,

I wonder if there's some connection between the number of women in IT and the recent treatment of Kathy Sierra.

It's a puzzle for me. I wouldn't read more into than that.

EstherDerby 2007.04.18

I suggest starting here.

SteveSmith 2007.06.22

More

eWeek: Women in Technology: At Lunch with the Sisterhood.

1. How have the demographics of IT workers changed over your career? Any idea why?
   
   
2. Perhaps women are (on average) motivated by different things than men (on average). If that's so, what are the characteristics of IT work that motivate or demotivate people, and how do they affect men and women differently?
   
   
3. What is it about US culture that makes the situation here different from Malaysia? (For example, more than half the doctors in Russia are women, and I used to think that was because a good sign for the culture. then I discovered that doctoring is a low-paying profession in Russia. [Dani's cousin was a doctor in Odessa, and she basically lived below the poverty line.])
   
   
4. Could we get more women in IT if we lowered salaries, as we have done in teaching, for example? - JerryWeinberg 2008.08.17

On demographics, in engineering when I graduated in engineering in 1980 there was one woman per 50 men at work. Now I see 3 or 4 women per 50 men at work. Not a high percentage, but an increase of 200% or 300%.

DwaynePhillips 19 August 2007

Fast forward to 2007. I see more women in the groups with whom I work as a consultant. But few tend to be developers. (Maybe the same percentage as before.) Now, the men have to fight for raises and help too. Sigh.

I don't know that the demographics have changed or not (because I don't think I work with a real cross-function of all kinds of groups). I see people who care about the hours they work make choices other than development--except at the agile organizations, because a sustainable pace is so important to agile.

My off-the-cuff estimate for the people in my sessions at the agile conference was roughly 50-50 for the formal sessions (half women, half men), and maybe 20-40% women in my informal sessions. I thought that was great!

Lowering salaries won't make the jobs more attractive to women--it's not a cause; it's an effect of having more women in the job.

I do think one of the causes of fewer women is that more women realized earlier than their male colleagues in school that the job could take all your energy, and women didn't want that. That's what several women a couple of years behind me said back in the mid-70s. -- JohannaRothman 2007.08.20

You really want to keep this thread going! See your last post "JerryWeinberg 2008.08.17"--CharlesAdams 2007.08.20

You can reverse this logic and see the situation you've observed in agile organizations. Women are more likely (I believe) to stay away from dysfunctional (death march) organizations. So, the percentage of women in the organization may be an indicator of a healthier organization (for several reasons). - JerryWeinberg 2008.09.20

I hadn't thought women consciously stayed away from dysfunctional organizations; I thought people who were more self-aware did. I wonder if women, who tend to have more outside-work obligations, are more self-aware? (I am recent convert to the self-aware folks :-) -- JohannaRothman 2007.08.21

And some of us will take lower pay if it means we can set hours, have more vacation time (because the schools have time off, etc.), or whatever reasons are important to us.

That makes sense. For me the combination of pay, hours at work, vacation, and other items is of more importance than straight pay. CharlesAdams 2007.08.21

Maybe she'll chime in.

EstherDerby 2008.08.21

Johanna - I am puzzled by your statement "I am recent convert to the self-aware folks"

Do you mean, you are more self-aware than you used to be?

Do you mean, you have recently joined a group of people who advocate self-awareness?

Do you mean, something else?

DwaynePhillips 22 August 2007

I should have said "I am a recent convert to the self-aware folks" . I don't know if that "a" makes a difference or not, but it's a bit clearer. -- JohannaRothman 2007.08.22

Thank you Johanna, I understand better now.

DwaynePhillips 26 August 2007

I didn't say lower salary would attract more women. What I mean was lower salaries in a field means that fewer men are attracted to that field, which means more chances for women. And, since the average salaries for women in most fields are lower than those for men, even a lower salary will seem "high" to more women than men. So, a lower salaried field will tend to have more women than if the salaries are raised. (The same would be true for any group that is paid lower salaries on the average.) - JerryWeinberg 2007.08.26

I don't know what I would have chosen in school if I'd known/thought my salary would be lower on graduation. I didn't think much about that in school. I did make a choice between being a disc jockey on the radio and being a developer based partially on my starting salary :-) But I really made the decision because I knew as a dj I would be bored sometime soon, and as a developer I was unlikely to be bored. -- JohannaRothman 2007.08.27

From J. Phys. Tchr. Educ. Online, 4(3), Summer 2007,

Beginning of abstract: "Gender differences in physics: A focus on motivation Gita Taasoobshirazi, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Pkwy, Las Vegas, NV 89154 gitashirazi@yahoo.com

In order to better understand the gender differences in motivation that exist in physics, 129 college students from an introductory level calculus-based physics course were surveyed using the Physics Motivation Questionnaire (PMQ). Results indicated that overall, the women had lower motivation that the men. In order to better explore these differences, gender differences in the six components of the PMQ were examined.....""

I again wonder if their results are caused by nature or nurture, or is it a combination that causes the lack of motivation or, can I say, demotivation?

The full report can be found here:

<http://www.phy.ilstu.edu/jpteo/issues/jpteo4(3)sum07.pdf> on page 7

CharlesAdams 2007.09.27

Link:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9039718&source=rss_news10

DwaynePhillips 2007.10.02

1. The types of jobs and organizations are different, statistically, in SV from large East Coast cities. - JerryWeinberg 2007.10.02
2. The expectations of how much time people will spend at work are different in SV. SherryHeinze 2007.10.03

Below is a link to an article that basically says "Women Don't Go Into IT because they are too smart." I don't agree with all the examples and math in the article, but it presents another take on the subject.

http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science?dupe=with_honor

DwaynePhillips 2007.10.31

Women wrote 32.4 percent of lines, down from 41 percent in the top third, despite holding steady in the overall wiki.

I wonder why that would be?

FrankGorhamengard 2007.11.2

<http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2007/tc2007123_368568.htm>

"Girls Dominate the Siemens Competition

For the first time in the prestigious national math and science contest's nine-year history, girls were awarded both grand prizes...."

Now this is my experience in high school, the ladies were the best in math and science. This did not happen in undergraduate or graduate work. I am still puzzled to this day why there weren't more women in the hard sciences in college when they kicked ass in the quantitative fields in high school.

Even though it has been hard for women to gain visibility (I am specifically thinking of the pulsar controversy of Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Antony Hewish's graduate student, not being given credit for being the individual who noticed pulsars in the first place) The truth will out--eventually, but not necessarily in one's lifetime. CharlesAdams 2007.12.05

I noticed a blog on O'Reilly radar http://radar.oreilly.com/ about a Scientific American report on boys, girls, and math. I found it interesting. It seems that boys have a wider distribution in math ability than girls. So while there are many many girls better at math than boys, the majority of girls are better at math than boys.

See http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/12/sex_math_and_sc.html

DwaynePhillips 2007.12.22

Found this on the net today. It seems that more teenage girls actually create content on the Internet than teenage boys.

See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/fashion/21webgirls.html?_r=1&ex=1361336400&en=fcd27b73c75e271a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

DwaynePhillips 2008.02.21

<http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/05/18/the_freedom_to_say_no/?page=full>
"The freedom to say 'no'

Why aren't there more women in science and engineering? Controversial new research suggests: They just aren't interested....

[The Last Paragraph]
....Sorting through the various factors is extremely challenging, all the researchers agree, and the issue is as complex as the individuals making each career decision. These findings on self-selection only open new areas of inquiry. They do suggest, however, that if the hard-fought battle for gender equality has indeed brought America to a point where women have the freedom to choose their career paths, then the end result may be surprising - and an equal-opportunity workforce may look a lot less equal than some had imagined."

If these reports are true and there are no cultural factors in play that are missed, this agrees with my conceit. I can't imagine that all lines of work will have women or men represented in the same proportion as they are in the total population.

CharlesAdams 2008.05.20

Jerry, you're such a realist :-) CharlesAdams

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=319212&intsrc=hm_ts_head

Especially note the discussion of "antigens." For example:

"The most important antigen is the machismo that continues to permeate these work environments. We found that 63% of women in science, engineering and technology have experienced sexual harassment. That's a really high figure.

They talk about demeaning and condescending attitudes, lots of off-color jokes, sexual innuendo, arrogance; colleagues, particularly in the tech culture, who genuinely think women don't have what it takes -- who see them as genetically inferior. It's hard to take as a steady stream. It's predatory and demeaning. It's distressing to find this kind of data in 2008. "

We damn well better not have any of that at AYE. - JerryWeinberg 2008.06.16

It will be a long while yet before all the older ones retire and the young ones move into the power positions. SherryHeinze 2008.06.16

I do find that people who don't know my technical background are surprised by how technical I am (:-)), and that once they know, they accept me more readily.

I am also guilty of being prejudiced against people who don't understand technology and working with technology attempting to give me advice. -- JohannaRothman 2008.06.19

I say this with some hesitation, because I’m not technical. I’ve never been a professional programmer. I had an arts education, not a technical one, and I began my career as a technical writer. (Admittedly I was the kind of writer who read the code and turned systems inside out to find out how they worked. But that just made me a tester.)

But it would be hard for anyone who has worked on software development projects for almost 30 years, as I have, not to acquire some technical understanding. There are lots of technical problems I wouldn’t presume to comment on, let alone offer advice. And there are others where I may actually know more than the so-called techies – just because I’ve been around forever, and seen the problems before.

Oddly, I don’t have any difficulty getting the techie young men to take me seriously, though I make no pretense to techiehood – maybe because I don’t pretend. Earlier in my career, I used occasionally to find systems programmers patronizing. But they backed off fast when confronted, and often became friends and allies. (“You have your expertise -- which I respect -- and I have mine. I won’t patronize you, and I don’t expect you to patronize me.” That seemed to work just fine.)

Like any woman working in a primarily male world, I have sometimes had to deal with some of the lesser forms of harassment: the off-colour jokes, and so on. And I once had a manager who persisted in calling me "dear" even after I asked him to stop. I totally ignored the jokes and the man got bored with no reaction and stopped. But it was my supportive male colleagues who stepped in and got the manager to stop calling me dear. Maybe I've been lucky. I've mostly had male colleagues who behaved like civilised and grown up human beings -- not at all like those in the article Jerry cited. --FionaCharles 19-Jun-2008

Another piece of data. Now that AYE is filled for 2008, we have about 20% female registrants (can't tell exactly from names). We have 40% female hosts, of course. And our waiting list is running about 45% women? Does that mean that women sign up for conferences more slowly? We'll see.

Hey, if we get enough people on the waiting list, we'll hold a second conference, and maybe that will have a majority of women. Won't that be an interesting comparison!

Though given the women who have participated in AYE, it's always seemed to me they were the majority anyway. I suppose if you count by body mass, the men constitute about 90% of the registrants, but isn't that silly?

If we count by effectiveness (at the conference or on agile or other teams), then what's the percentage of women? - JerryWeinberg 2008.06.23

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/business/16digi.html?>

"....I spoke with Ms. Spertus last week about her thoughts about the declining percentage of undergraduate women majoring in the field. 'Women choosing not to go into computer science is fine,' she said, 'if there aren’t artificial barriers keeping them out.' She lamented the recent decision of one of her outstanding computer science students who chose to major in nursing because of what the student perceived as better prospects for finding employment...."

There seems to be no good feel why women are leaving the field. Just that they are. Some are saying the right computer game for women has not been written. Heck! I don't play computer games that much!

Others say it's the problem of "real women aren't geeks."

Neither seems right to me.

CharlesAdams 2008.11.17

Yesterday, I read the article Charles mentioned and thought about this thread here at AYE. I am puzzled as well. I came into the computer hardware and software field from Electrical Engineering school, and we always had a little skewed view of the Computer Scientists. Perhaps women are dropping CS for Computer Engineering and the many, many, many, many (yes there are a lot of them) degree paths into computer work that are not officially "Computer Science."

Computer Science graduates are the grunt programmers while "IT Management" and all the other "IT fill-in-the-blank" degree programs are the better-paid managers. ??? I don't know???

DwaynePhillips 2008.11.18

That makes sense.

I have a prejudice against the phrase, "real women/men aren't [free choice here]" Self-selecting out is OK but the societal expectation of what people should or should not be has always been distasteful to me. CharlesAdams 2008.11.19

Thanks & keep up the good work!! - Ellie Lynch 2009.07.01

A crazy 52% of women that enter these fields quit, usually after about 10 years in the field. This is not just for going off to have babies, the numbers are a lot higher then other fields. It is that the "hostile macho work cultures" turn them off and, basically, they get sick of it and leave the fields.

There's a nice write up on it in the Women In Science blog here: http://sciencewomen.blogspot.com/2008/05/macho-culture-of-science-and.html -- AbbyFichtner, 2009.07.03