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My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet)Posted Sep 26, 2007 0:45 UTC (Wed) by djabsolut (guest, #12799)In reply to: My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) by NightMonkey Parent article: My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) It is a shame that F/OSS (and computing in general) has such low participation rates of women (and girls). This problem has *nothing* to do with gifts given to us by biology (body parts, hormone levels, etc.), but with socialization of both sexes. Sorry, but as a scientist I do not buy this argument. Before I go on, let me state that I have two successful sisters of whom I am very proud. Yes, one of the barriers to women in computing (and engineering) is the rather male-oriented culture, but removing this will not magically change the participation levels of either gender to 50%. The inconvenient fact (with apologies to a certain ex-vice-president) is that a large proportion of women are simply not interested in computing or engineering due to the nature of the work. Without being derogatory, their tendency is towards professions with more person-to-person contact. This in the end does have genetic overtones (for a detailed discussion see Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature"). I am not saying that women are are not good at computing -- far from it (as the above wikipedia links demonstrate). What I am saying is that one shouldn't be surprised that more women do not join in.
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My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 26, 2007 1:16 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] You're arguing with a straw man. The claim isn't that ideally there should be 50% women in the field. The claim, backed by extensive evidence, is that experienced, competent, capable and willing women have been driven out of the field, and your appeals to sociobiology don't change that. You are offering no evidence that 1% should be the natural number.Whether an attribute has a statistically significant gender difference is meaningless. Men are, on average, taller than women, but many women are tall, and many men are short. Differences between the genders on standardized tests tend to be smaller than the difference in height. Also, you're being unfair to Pinker by associating him with your views. While he does argue for gender differences, he also says As with many issues in psychology, there are three broad ways to explain this phenomenon [of underrepresentation of women in the hard sciences]. One can imagine an extreme "nature" position: that males but not females have the talents and temperaments necessary for science. Needless to say, only a madman could take that view. The extreme nature position has no serious proponents.as well as Again for the benefit of the Martians in this room: This isn't just any old issue in empirical psychology. There are obvious political colorings to it, and I want to begin with a confession of my own politics. I am a feminist. I believe that women have been oppressed, discriminated against, and harassed for thousands of years. I believe that the two waves of the feminist movement in the 20th century are among the proudest achievements of our species, and I am proud to have lived through one of them, including the effort to increase the representation of women in the sciences.even though he argues that gender differences probably have an effect on representation.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 26, 2007 2:04 UTC (Wed) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link] As I largely agree with the above two quotations from Pinker, I am not sure how I am unfair to him. Furthermore, nowhere did I state that "1% should be the natural number". I sincerely doubt that the current participation of women is that low. Lastly, it may very well be that "capable and willing women have been driven out of the field" (which I am sorry to see) but this does not change the central notion of my argument: a large proportion of women are not interested in computing or engineering due to the nature of the work.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 26, 2007 2:28 UTC (Wed) by jordanb (subscriber, #45668) [Link]
> a large proportion of women are not interested in computing or engineering
I agree with the previous poster that the low percentage of women in Computers (far lower, by my reckoning, than even the hard sciences) can't entirely be explained by 'the nature of the work.'
But I also don't buy the feminist argument in all these articles that it's caused by an overly 'male' culture in computing. As others have said in response to several of the previous articles in this series, if the problem is that the computer field is too aggressive, or too 'male,' or has too many 'assholes' in it, then why don't you see similar aversion by women to medicine or law, where the aggressive 'maleness' can't be any better---and in fact probably is far worse given that those fields are more attractive to Type A sorts.
I suspect that (as has been said before) the real problem in computers, is the lack of social reinforcement. More women than men need social reinforcement and encouragement to be drawn to a field so many woman (and probably quite a few men, but nevertheless fewer) are prone to aversion from *our* field. The question we should probably be asking is why our field carries so little respect in society. Bad portrayal by the media? Not enough professionalism? Something different entirely? I think we can attract more woman to the field but it'll have to come about by improving our image.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 26, 2007 5:02 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] >Furthermore, nowhere did I state that "1% should be the natural number". I sincerely doubt that the current participation of women is that low.
It's starkly accurate, actually -- all the measurements I've seen have been in the 0.5% to 2% range. For instance, the EU-funded FLOSSPOLS project calculated 1.5% -- as compared to 28% of proprietary software developers. Basically, it's about as near zero as we could get it if we tried. Their results also accord with numbers from various large FOSS projects that have official "maintainer" statuses, my personal experience, etc.
>my argument: a large proportion of women are not interested in computing or engineering due to the nature of the work.
This argument, alas, is completely untenable when the percentage for FOSS is more than *ten times* lower than for otherwise similar proprietary programming jobs.
It would be nice if the percentage were higher, and explainable by the kinds of factors you cite -- such a world would not demand we ask ourselves uncomfortable questions and face difficult facts. But it is not the world we live in.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 26, 2007 9:45 UTC (Wed) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] 28% in the proprietary software industry is a bit conter to my experince. But it is also influenced by the higher job security. Being a free software developer is not a very promising career.
So the natre of the work is indeed rather different.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 26, 2007 23:14 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] About the 28%, I've unfortunately never worked in the proprietary software world, so I don't have anecdotes; I have to fall back on data.As for job security, I have no idea what you're talking about. My experience was, play around with free software some in high school, somewhat more in college, and then when I got my first job -- aged 20-21, with no degree or even relevant classes -- that record let me start at $60k/year, working from home and with no imposed schedule. I'm not the only one to have noticed that free software hacking pays off pretty good. But I don't have real data here, unfortunately -- of course, neither do you. (Is there even reason to believe that purported job security is a major factor in attracting FOSS hackers, male *or* female?) That's the real point, isn't it? Your post isn't about job security; that's just an excuse you made up so you could stop thinking about whether women are being discriminated against, and go back to the comfortable status quo. (Note I haven't claimed that women actually *are* discriminated against; but I would like to know one way or the other. You just seem to want to make the question go away. That so many people are popping up in these threads with this goal only makes me more inclined to believe that the discrimination is real.)
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 27, 2007 0:35 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] Unfortunetly I am unable to find that specific data point of 28% women in the proprietary software industry. I do find some general data regarding the employment "Mathematical and Computer Scientists". I suspect that those also include people in the Academia.
And if you don't have real data, then where is thi data point of 1.5 % from?
It is from a different research.
I just don't assume in advance that there is something that needs correcting. Is there something that needs correcting? please demonstrate.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 27, 2007 19:14 UTC (Thu) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] >Unfortunetly I am unable to find that specific data point of 28% women in the proprietary software industry. I do find some general data regarding the employment "Mathematical and Computer Scientists".
Yes, it seems to be from table H-1 on page 177, "Computer and mathematical occupations". Page 180 puts female participation in "Engineering occupations" at 10.9%, lower but still dramatically higher than in FOSS.
>I suspect that those also include people in the Academia.
page 181: "Science and engineering occupations do not include postsecondary teachers." Not that it matters; the same report also states in table H-23, page 247, that the US has only 1030 female PhDs working at universities as "computer and information scientists", as compared to the >400,000 in the 28% number. (Also, why the heck do you care if it includes people in academia, presumably people in academia would be good candidates for FOSS participation too?)
It may include occupations other than computer programmer per se; it's possible the FLOSSPOLs people were a little hasty in calling that 28% the same as programmers per se, and I can't immediately find any way to get a more accurate number other than downloading the full US Census datasets and crunching them myself. However, note that page 180 puts female participation in "Engineering occupations" at 10.9% -- these are non-computer engineers, who I doubt have substantially *more* female participation than computer engineers (and this certainly does not include anything like graphic designers or what-have-you). Note that while lower than 28%, it is still dramatically larger than any numbers anyone gets for FOSS.
>And if you don't have real data, then where is thi data point of 1.5 % from?
I said I didn't have real data on job security. The 1.5% comes from... real data.
>It is from a different research.
Yes -- research performed in the EU, also replicated at Stanford (Stanford found 1.6%): http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/report/FLOSS-US-Re...
If one is worried about bias from surveys (maybe women hate responding to them or something, not that there's any reason to think that), we can also look at the demographics of existing well-defined groups of FOSS developers.
Gentoo developers: "Less than 1% are female" (http://project.repogirl.net/doku.php) (IIRC they have 3, one of whom is transgendered and was male at the time he became a developer?)
Ubuntu seems to be ahead of the game with 2.4% (i.e., 7 total): http://www.eskar.dk/andreas/output/PersonalProfile.HTM
The Google Summer of Code mentors meeting for 2006 had approximately 100 attendees, of which 2 were female.
I'll also note that as far as I know, there are exactly zero women working on any of the FOSS projects I work on, out of some dozens of participants.
The 1-2% finding seems to be very robust.
>I just don't assume in advance that there is something that needs correcting. Is there something that needs correcting? please demonstrate.
Some of us find it pretty obvious without any numbers -- we find the blatant sexism displayed by many of the posters in this forum, for instance, to be a problem all by itself (or if you want numbers, note the in FLOSSPOLS ~75% of women respondents have observed discrimination against women -- though only ~20% of the men have, presumably because there were no women around for them to see being discriminated against). The implicit sexism in the posters who continually find new excuses each time their previous one is knocked down is also rather grating. But I've shown a whole pile of numbers now too, and every piece of data I can find gives percentages that are a factor of 10 lower than any comparable groups I can think of.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 26, 2007 21:35 UTC (Wed) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] I wonder how did they got that 28% number - in my experience it's around 10%, maybe 15%. Did they count the secretaries (I mean assistants) too? Actually the male:female ratio was around 10% at the university too, so I can't imagine how it would be any better in the industry.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 26, 2007 23:36 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] The 28% number is from the US National Science Foundation; the report is freely available, if you want to track down details of how they counted: http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf0...
The same report has many details on diplomas at various level of university, as well; as far as I can tell, in all cases women are far above 10%. Maybe your numbers are just wrong, maybe you are in a place that is more backwards than the USA (are there such places?); no idea.
Also, though I know saying this is futile: the sexist crack about secretaries was unnecessary and vile.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 27, 2007 7:16 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] Yeah well. I work in a professional software-development company. We're in Norway, where in general female participation in IT is quite a bit higher than in the USA.
We're currently 22 people. 5 are female. Which makes 23%, more or less in the ballpark for professional software-development.
But those 4 women are 2 graphic designers, 1 assistant (manning the telephone, and doing simple menial work, no formal education) 1 woman doing cleaning and 1 programmer.
Which mean that among our *programmers* less than 10% are female.
Our graphic designers are very competent, do excellent work, have a solid education to back them and do a job that would be severly needed in free software too. But it's not a job that would lead them to post on the kernel mailing-list very often, even if they where doing it, which they don't.
When it comes to free software, I see no large difference between the sexes. 3 of our males are heavily into free software as users and have minor contributions, 2 additional have some experience with it. Among the females the percentage is similar, 1 of them knows free software well (though as a user, not a contributor), and 1 other has some experience with it.
A single example doesn't show anything. Just saying, from my POV I *do* see the problem that females are severly under-represented in technical work. But I *DONT* see any evidence whatsoever that free software is worse than proprietary software in this respect.
If anything, the female participation in the LUGs both here in Stavanger and in Bergen is *higher* than that. Not high, but higher than among the technical staff at my worksplace. Perhaps in the LUGs on the order of 20-25%.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 27, 2007 8:18 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] Maybe your numbers are just wrong, maybe you are in a place that is more backwards than the USA (are there such places?); no idea.I've worked in three different countries, visited workplaces at other three countries, even in Scandinavia which supposed to be very emancipated, still I haven't noticed that 28% percent women. I had three female bosses so far, that's more than the amount of female software developers in the current project I'm working in (~20 developers, 1 female). Also, though I know saying this is futile: the sexist crack about secretaries was unnecessary and vile. Unfortunately political correctness sometimes leads to decreasing sense of humour. Anyway, when I was 10 years old and we had a kind of computer class in the school (completely voluntary, at afternoons), I don't seem to remember many girls attending. I don't seem to remember that there were any girls at all, even though the teacher was a female math teacher. I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with the impoliteness of some developers: if it's not biology, then it's a socialization issue at a quite young age. One more note: I know a couple of people personally, who work in financial jobs. Auditors, controllers, etc. All of them are female. I don't know much about that environment, but I think it's harsher than software development, after all, they work with hard money.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 26, 2007 16:40 UTC (Wed) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] Differences between the genders on standardized tests tend to be smaller than the difference in height. Yes, but that suggest we want standard males here. Do we? If we are looking for a top 0.5% rate of a gift that's asymmetrically distributed, you are so far out of the bell curve that small asymmetries at the center mean large asymmetries there. Also, deviation patterns often are different - even when the mean value is close, the standard deviation can be quite different. You often see this on the other end of the curve as well, e.g. take the number of male violent criminals compared to female violent criminals. What I don't accept is that the testosterone-driven rudeness in this male-dominated world drives out women. How on earth do they get along well in the legal section, or as medics? All I know of this world is that it is male-dominated, very hierarchical, rude as it can get (medics not mobbed by their peers are happy - not mobbed by their boss don't exist), and still the percentage of young lawyers and medics is more than 50% female. This doesn't mean that our rudeness is ok, that it doesn't have an effect, or that we shouldn't change it, it just means there must be more important factors, as well. It could be that writing FOSS is only very indirectly rewarded - you don't immediately get tons of money for it, it just eats tons of time. It's not even sure that you'll get reputation from it, when the majority of the outside world doesn't understand what this is all about. Being a lawyer or a medic is directly rewarded by a big salary. So if we want to motivate women to come here, we need to ask: Why would a woman do that? What would motivate her to come here? I don't know, all I know is that women typically end up at places and activities I hate (e.g. going shopping for hours and even enjoying it), and the other way round. We males are here because of this itch and scratching issue, and we scratch ourselves (I have that sort of thought even in my mail signature). We have to ask the females who are here if they are here for the same reason, and those females who aren't, if there was be something itching that scratching yourself would help, or if it is more female to approach somebody else for scratching, and therefore, this scratching yourself never will happen.
My Fabulous Geek Career (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 29, 2007 16:20 UTC (Sat) by duffy (subscriber, #31787) [Link] You're telling me computing doesn't involve person-to-person contact?
Damn, you must work on some really crappy projects then.
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