I manage a software engineering organization at an aerospace company and if I had to rank all my folks, the women would be disproportionately high on the list. It boggles my mind that anyone would discount someone’s programming ability because of their gender.
“This paper presents the largest study to date on gender bias, where we compare acceptance rates of contributions from men versus women in an open source software community. Surprisingly, our results show that women’s contributions tend to be accepted more often than men’s. However, women’s acceptance rates are higher only when they are not identifiable as women. Our results suggest that although women on GitHub may be more competent overall, bias against them exists” nonetheless.https://peerj.com/preprints/1733/
Half? How? I work at an aerospace electronics company and the male to female ratio is ridiculously high. I never understood why. It would be refreshing to work at a place with a more even ratio. The few women I work with are really smart and have moved up the management chain quickly.
Depending on the culture in your country bias can sit pretty deep. I live and work in a country that’s very egalitarian on the surface. But people here have a strong and sometimes subconscious belief that:
A women aren’t really intelligent but rather diligent and B women aren’t good in math/logic.
When you grow up with these biases as a girl you don’t have much interest in even trying to take up a hobby or even try to study something that is said to be only achievable by intelligent and highly logical people.
When you try it regardless people basically put you under a microscope and you have to proof constantly that you are somehow not what they believe is in your biology. It will surely show up someday when you make a mistake or don’t know about something.
The company I work at makes rocket engines (e.g., the ones on SLS/Artemis). When I go to university job fairs, the number of women who come to our booth is miniscule. The women interested in tech tend to be much more clustered around the very socially conscious companies, like for green energy. Sometimes there’s more interest couching it as supporting human space flight, but we do a lot of defense work, too.
I’m not in the tech field, but most of the people in my office are women and, as a man, it’s so refreshing not having to deal with other guys’ loud macho bullshit. I never liked it, it always made me feel uncomfortable.
Where I am? Possibly, but I think it’s also possible that we have an environment that appreciates diversity, so talented people who have had to put up with crap other places tend to stick around here. People who don’t face any sort of discrimination might be as likely to leave as they would anywhere. Several years ago, we had a few consecutive years of downsizing, so the people who remained were all pretty sharp.
I really love the environment where I work. Brilliant people doing some very cool stuff, and most are really nice to deal with. I would enjoy having dinner with every single one of my employees.
I don’t think it’s mostly gender… Programmers aren’t usually those that have won the genetic lottery, I can count on one hand the amount of drop dead women engineers I’ve met in my field, they definitely exist, but they are super rare.
If we leave out fields that revolve around beauty and adjust for intelligence required in the specific field of work i am not sure, if beauty is actually negatively correlated with engineering.
I don’t see a higher rate of beautiful people on the train to work, than i see at work. I just see more on the train, because there is more people overall.
It may have more to do with her being a model than with her gender. I’m not saying it didn’t influence the comments, just that being a model probably had more weight
I manage a software engineering organization at an aerospace company and if I had to rank all my folks, the women would be disproportionately high on the list. It boggles my mind that anyone would discount someone’s programming ability because of their gender.
“This paper presents the largest study to date on gender bias, where we compare acceptance rates of contributions from men versus women in an open source software community. Surprisingly, our results show that women’s contributions tend to be accepted more often than men’s. However, women’s acceptance rates are higher only when they are not identifiable as women. Our results suggest that although women on GitHub may be more competent overall, bias against them exists” nonetheless.https://peerj.com/preprints/1733/
Oh, I remember reading that one (or an article about it). Frustrating.
I don’t get it either. I work with many, many really smart engineers. About half are women.
Half? How? I work at an aerospace electronics company and the male to female ratio is ridiculously high. I never understood why. It would be refreshing to work at a place with a more even ratio. The few women I work with are really smart and have moved up the management chain quickly.
I havent looked into it much but one reason seems to be stereotypes driving girls and women away from stem: Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability emerge early and influence children’s interests
A study on American kids but Im sure the same happens elsewhere. Its annotated and a great read just for the methods they used.
Since these stereotypes wont disappear soon we should let our kids know such ideas are made up and stuff so they wont buy them when exposed.
Depending on the culture in your country bias can sit pretty deep. I live and work in a country that’s very egalitarian on the surface. But people here have a strong and sometimes subconscious belief that: A women aren’t really intelligent but rather diligent and B women aren’t good in math/logic.
When you grow up with these biases as a girl you don’t have much interest in even trying to take up a hobby or even try to study something that is said to be only achievable by intelligent and highly logical people.
When you try it regardless people basically put you under a microscope and you have to proof constantly that you are somehow not what they believe is in your biology. It will surely show up someday when you make a mistake or don’t know about something.
The company I work at makes rocket engines (e.g., the ones on SLS/Artemis). When I go to university job fairs, the number of women who come to our booth is miniscule. The women interested in tech tend to be much more clustered around the very socially conscious companies, like for green energy. Sometimes there’s more interest couching it as supporting human space flight, but we do a lot of defense work, too.
I’m not in the tech field, but most of the people in my office are women and, as a man, it’s so refreshing not having to deal with other guys’ loud macho bullshit. I never liked it, it always made me feel uncomfortable.
Last time I checked, I didn’t type with my penis. But to be honest, I didn’t try yet. Maybe I’d be able to increase my performance.
I wonder if that’s the underdog effect at work
Sure. I’ve known several crappy women programmers, but they get pushed out of the industry. The guys are more likely to fail upward.
Same in aviation
Where I am? Possibly, but I think it’s also possible that we have an environment that appreciates diversity, so talented people who have had to put up with crap other places tend to stick around here. People who don’t face any sort of discrimination might be as likely to leave as they would anywhere. Several years ago, we had a few consecutive years of downsizing, so the people who remained were all pretty sharp.
I really love the environment where I work. Brilliant people doing some very cool stuff, and most are really nice to deal with. I would enjoy having dinner with every single one of my employees.
I don’t think it’s mostly gender… Programmers aren’t usually those that have won the genetic lottery, I can count on one hand the amount of drop dead women engineers I’ve met in my field, they definitely exist, but they are super rare.
If we leave out fields that revolve around beauty and adjust for intelligence required in the specific field of work i am not sure, if beauty is actually negatively correlated with engineering.
I don’t see a higher rate of beautiful people on the train to work, than i see at work. I just see more on the train, because there is more people overall.
It may have more to do with her being a model than with her gender. I’m not saying it didn’t influence the comments, just that being a model probably had more weight
You can’t change the looneys mind with reason. Don’t try
Not on a site that is just a shittier version of reddit, anyway.
Anyone not hating a random woman they’ve never met is clearly mentally deranged /s
Or maybe I meant this isn’t about gender and a male model would get similar comments. But yeah say whatever suits your propaganda 😂
Except for the fact that everyone in this thread knows that’s an insanely false claim
What?