To lol at the feminism threads....

[Hannah4banana]

Seriously are people constantly looking out for a way to be offended first world problems!

Men working with children are as suspected of paedophilia as women.

This is not true. Women are rarely suspected of paedophilia for wanting to work with kids.

And whilst it is of course exactly the same as the battle women fight for traditional male roles the POINT is that there has to be a switch so both sexes can equally do any role. Unless men can do traditional female roles, those roles will still be considered female. It isn't a tit-for-tat thing it is a widening of experience for everyone thing.

Devi

I have worked in the industry for over 20 years, so thanks for telling mi I have no clue. I knew you would throw up that study and use it to tell me my own experiences are irrelevant.

Lweji

Men working with children are as suspected of paedophilia as women.

Sorry, this is absolutely not true. Feminists often remind us how gendered sexual crimes are.

Agree JoeJoe80

girl I think the issues with women and STEM careers happen early on in their education as girls. I see girls not choosing subjects like Computer Science at GCSE and not choosing STEM a levels, and then not doing those subjects at degree level.

I knew you would throw up that study and use it to tell me my own experiences are irrelevant

A study tells more about an issue than a single person's experience. Or is your experience better than a study?

If you are trying to use that study as evidence to show that either there are hundreds of female coders not getting jobs because they are girls, or because the findings of the study are so well known that girls don't even bother pursuing their interest in software, then you are talking shit. And I say that from a position of experience, what experience of software or the way the industry treats females do you have exactly ?

Experience is what we live with. Fgs it's more shaping to us than a study. Which often when you look into them have caveats, drawbacks and are sometimes plain wrong.

I think, from my own experience, there are barriers that stop girls from pursuing CS and other STEM subjects at school. I think there are complex social reasons as to why that is. I don't believe it's just because girls aren't any good at those subjects by dint of being a girl, or that they are innately not interested in those subjects.

I wasn't saying your experience is irrelevant. I was saying that your opinion that there are no systemic barriers to women being software developers is demonstrably wrong.
Fwiw I have worked in STEM/tech for 20 years too. Big wow. I don't think that means my opinions should be Gospel

And I say that from a position of experience, what experience of software or the way the industry treats females do you have exactly

So what's your experience of how women in the tech industry experience career progression, networking opportunities, being treated as equals by male colleagues, being offered promotion and being judged purely on their coding skills at work and not being affected by sexism in the tech industry?

Do you think there is sexism within the tech industry and that the tech environment takes women within it seriously? Is it easy for women to be taken seriously in an industry that has a reputation for seeing women as objects?

It's actually quite telling. I would say that software is a great career for women and the industry is keen to recruit more females. There are wide networks for females in the industry. A feminist pops up to say well I read a study and that proves to me that actually it's pretty shit. What a great outlook.

When your only explanation for gender imbalance is systemic oppression or devaluation then I suppose this is how you end up, bitter.

girl do you have any thoughts on why girls don't choose computer science and other STEM subjects at school?

I think, from my own experience, there are barriers that stop girls from pursuing CS and other STEM subjects at school

The tech industry and women...This was only 4 years ago. Booth babes have been 'banned' from such shows now but what attitudes does it say and how easy does this attitude make it for women in tech

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16533289

And if you bothered to read the link I posted earlier it tells you how women are already over represented in management positions.

It's actually quite telling. I would say that software is a great career for women and the industry is keen to recruit more females

It's a great career. So what barriers do you think there are? Do you think the attitudes towards women coders out there might be an issue?

girl

Only 20% of people taking GCSE Computer Science are female. Why do YOU think that's so low?

Experience is what we live with. Fgs it's more shaping to us than a study

To yourself individually, yes. It's called anecdote. Or it can be part of data.
Studies can have problems, but individual experiences taken separately have more.

I can speak for my experience. I can't speak for all women in science.

Hannah4banana

how is life as a 14 year old boy going? tough times with the spots, nocturnal emission and that squeaky voice hey!

Enjoy your holidays son

I would say that software is a great career for women I would say that there is a lot of pressure for women to move out of tech into related roles like project management, that sexism is rife and women are regularly talked down to, talked over and belittled. Based on experience not a study.
Who's opinion is more valid, yours or mine? If you believe it's yours, why? Because I'm a "bitter feminist" which is socially acceptable short hand for female? We have the same length of experience after all. My position is backed up by lots of research, but that apparently doesn't count.

There's loads of theories out there about why women aren't represented in computer science, how they have more difficulties on a course compared to their male counterparts. Just like for STEM subjects.

"Experience is what we live with. Fgs it's more shaping to us than a study"

Well, in this brave new post truth world, possibly.

Keep on with the superior patronising style..

I will remain the champion a mosaic of interesting anecdotes over a social science study of un known worth. It's what I like MN for.

I am an engineer. We is thick!

It's interesting how some people when confronted with alternative points of view, start complaining about style and tone.

We certainly need to encourage women into higher paid roles. It is the same in all kinds of industries even those with mostly women at the bottom - get to the top and those owning the advertising agencies, those who are equity partners on £1m a year at the law firms and accountancy practices who are female make up only about 20%, not 50%.

My daughter did science A levels but is now a lawyer and as I've worked with a lot of programmers and scientists over the years who are not happy with their pay and lawyers who like their pay levels I have no problems with her career choice actually. My other daughter has a school friend (female) who flies planes for a living but again there is another career where there are more men than women, whereas go to the lower paid cabin staff roles or Heathrow air port cleaners and you get a lot of women (although I am not saying there are no male cleaners at air ports).

Anyway we certainly need to keep fighting to ensure women get the higher paid roles and positions of power as well as those at lower pay levels not suffering discrimination more generally both at home and in work.

Some words are used against women but not men. Bitter is one.
The other one I don't like is driven although one of my teenage boys is very sure men are called driven in a negative way but I tend to see it used against women much more often.

Being a female student in a room full of men must be challenging - there's lots of issues at school about how girls learn - the arguments for single sex schools are well known. A class environment like that must be challenging. Attitudes towards women - sexism and harassment - (see Gamergate) are probably going to be present in such a class. Unconscious bias from lecturers towards women on courses.