Why aren't there more women in tech?

[MrsJamin]

I work in tech. Most men assume women just aren't into tech and that's why we're in the minority. Is that really the case? It frustrates me that more women aren't welcomed into tech, so why do you think it is?

I do remember reading a while ago that a survey had been carried out and the results showed that the younger generation had a more "traditional" view of marriage and who should stay home with children and so on. I'm not sure how big the sample was... I'll see if I can find a link as I think it was over a year ago that I read about it and I may be getting it wrong!

Not sure why social pressure puts girls off physics, maths, IT and engineering but not chemistry and biology

I can only speak about my school, but the head of physics made no secret of not wanting girls in his a-level class, and did his best to hound out any that tried (including me - I was much less stubborn back then!)

Similarly CDT at GCSE - I'd come from a girls school straight into the GCSE year and didn't know that the CDT teachers didn't like having girls in the classes and discouraged them so much for the first 3 years that no other girls took CDT at all.

This was only 20 years ago.

This is an interesting thing. I studied a science subject for degree and after that it was a recession and I ended up in Industry A where I have worked for years now.

I've never really found much issue with the stuff that I read about online so much, and that people I know talk about - men talking over you, shutting you up, expecting you to be seen and not heard, repeating things you say and they get applause etc.

Anyway in Industry A after a few moves around I find myself in an IT role with strong links to our hardcore IT partners who are nothing to do with Industry A and only do IT. The difference is very big. All of a sudden I'm on calls where they say "hello gentlemen.... Oh and lady", and meetings are like these macho dick comparing exercises which seem to have very little to do with working out how to do the work and more to do with men vying for wins in some kind of pecking order game. And when I talk I get shut up,shut down, etc.

The thing is this does not happen in Industry A. So I'm not imagining, I can say that, for my experience here, it is a striking difference.

Not very female friendly unless you have very thick skin.

Oh and also they do meetings outside of normal working hours / do these sort of macho "we were at it till 11 last night" things, which for many women with children is just not going to work (seems a bit different still for men with children as many of them do have young kids but apparently still manage total flexibility on when they can work / unexpected late nights etc).

That's my experience :)

Within IT though there seem to be a couple of disciplines that are female heavy. It would be interesting to see how the "female" ones are in terms of pay, respect etc compared to the ones with more men.

I think that kudos and dosh are given on the basis who who is doing the job a lot of the time rather than what the job is - coming much more round to that as I get older. There's automatic respect for male effort and time that is often not given to women when they are working.

What disciplines are those QueenOfSardines?

Ah right I'm pretty new to "IT world" but from the courses I've been on and also the set - up I've noticed and talking to a couple of IT mates, ie limited experience so don't jump on me if it's not the case more generally - BA roles and testing seem to be more female.

In my secondary school we were ranked according to test scores. I was in the top three in the school for maths and science. My careers advisor told me I should be a librarian

After we had a career session at school, one my suggested roles was hair stylist. I can't even do a basic plait. I can barely tie my shoelaces.

I was also in the top three for science in my school. Not maths though I was in the top set and got an A so wasn't bad at it.

I think this is the study I was talking about earlier. This isn't the article I read but am pretty sure it refers to the same study. Not about Stem but about millennials view towards gender roles.

"In 1976, less than 30 percent of high school seniors disagreed with the statement that “it is usually better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.” The map of teen attitudes and flipped almost completely by 1994, when 58 percent of high school seniors rejected the same assertion. As Pepin and Cotter write, “By 2014, however, it had fallen back to 42 percent—a decline of 16 percentage points since its peak in 1994.” Millennial teens are also split over whether “the husband should make all the important decisions in the family,” with 63 percent disagreeing, as opposed to 71 percent in 1994 and 59 percent in 1976."

www.google.co.uk/amp/amp.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/03/31/millennials_want_more_traditional_gender_roles_per_council_on_contemporary.html

user1497742718, tech is a man's profession according to who? It's not 100% a man's profession so how do women get the impression that it is?
Did any of you see recently? The comments on their Facebook post sharing it were just awful. Just proves the point, women say that men who work in tech are sexist and the men don't agree!

QueenOfTheSardines No jumping on you here - I was just curious about which ones you'd name! I'd agree that if you put a BA, a tester, a developer, and a sysadmin in a room, the former two are more likely to be female.

In terms of respect, it depends who you ask - they're both seen as less technical or even non-technical roles (not necessarily accurately). BA roles IME are often better paid and respected. Test - tends to fall into two halves, commodity testers (warm bums on seats - unskilled, low paid), and skilled testers, but they both get called the same name. The former is low paid, the latter in the UK market is often paid roughly the same as a developer in companies that value skilled testing, but respect and understanding on average does tend to be lower than for the developer roles, and a young female developer will often see more likelihood of being guided towards testing than her male counterpart.

After we had a career session at school, one my suggested roles was hair stylist. I can't even do a basic plait. I can barely tie my shoelaces.

I was told florist - and I was at a girls school. I was also near the top for the sciences, maths etc.

I agree Queen - BA, PM are more likely to be women - basically I generally see women shuffled into more paperwork roles, and a lot of that is to get away from the willy waving/because they don't join in the willy waving.

Developers (I'm a developer.. well.. I describe myself that way, and I do do some dev because I'm in a startup right now, but in a bigger company I'd be a lot higher up) are often a right lot. They all think they know the right way to do things and other people don't (and it only gets worse as they get older generally) - it's just so wearing, and I completely understand women wanting to just wash their hands of it. I deal by being pragmatic, and not caring as long as what's written works - even if it's not how I would have done it. And very occasionally putting my foot down and telling my devs how it's going to be because that's what I say (which works because I'm older, very experienced, and very, very sure of myself)

This is an interesting blog about that QueenOfSardines marlenacompton.com/?p=4432

"Today, I consider testing (along with support) as the space I’ve been allowed to occupy in the power structure of tech."

(In the US, skilled test roles are usually paid significantly less than developer roles.)

The schools career advice is actually really interesting. My school was high performing and everyone that was good was pushed to medicine. I wasn't that good (although as a mature student it's turns out I am that good) so they adviced law.

There wasn't thought to be anything else "science" based. And I think, prepared to be corrected, that the gender balance in medicine is much much better.

I love engineering, I would have loved it at 18. Don't know why I don't look into it but for sure no body suggested it.

In my experience even skilled testers don't get paid anywhere near developer's wages. It is sad but I've even heard testers referred to as "people who wanted to be a developer, but weren't good enough". So I think there's a lost less respect there for that job role, even for men in that role.

I have read many times about how women were the first coders, as it was seen as a repetitive, fairly unskilled role. Then men got hold of it, pushed women out and the respect and £££ went through the roof.

With BA & testing being women's things - BA is seen by many as some kind of glorified secretary, and testing is like mum checking the work. certainly the kudos and pay is for the coders who IME as well often see themselves as akin to god, do not see the need to even attempt to engage with others in a reasonable way preferring instead to bamboozle with terminology and also be distressingly pedantic, picking at trivial semantic points all the time. This is part of a semi-deliberate "mystification" of the job in order to maintain their position.
Also loads of dick comparison sessions, they have an almost pathological desire to constantly establish their superiority (not all coders are like that).

Anyway -
I think it's to do with who does it.
If it were the other way around you could quite easily imagine:
BA - essential role requiring a rare combination of analysis, tenacity, getting to heart of matter and without them nothing else is possible. The men who do this are vital and should be heavily rewarded

Dev - women doing this are simply taking all the hard work of the BA and translating it so the machine can understand

Testing - the men who check that everything is working. Without these the whole thing can be a disaster. Clearly the work of the devs needs checking as the devs can often misunderstand what they are supposed to be doing. As a whole cycle, the BA and testing roles are the ones that contribute most to the success of the exercise, with their ingenuity and single minded drive for quality. Coders are the step between the vision of the customer as captured by the BA and delivery of high quality output as determined by the testers.....

Nicely put Queen, makes you think when the genders are reversed!

BA is seen by many as some kind of glorified secretary, and testing is like mum checking the work.

This is it - they're missing the point. A good BA is worth their weight in gold - they'll have done the work to figure out exactly what needs to be done, what needs to be thought about, what's affected by any project or change - the architects if you were building a house I'd say.

The dev implements that (and if the dev needs to think beyond dev, that's because your BAs aren't doing a good job). The builders - they have expertise, but their main job is using that expertise to follow the BA's plans

The tester doesn't (well, shouldn't) care about the dev, they make sure what the BA specified, happens. They are both diligent, and creative (my DP started out a tester, he is absolutely devilish in his ability to think of things the BA and Dev missed). They are the safety inspectors, the customer, the ones making sure they've got what they expected.

Unfortunately, in a lot of companies, the BAs just write down what the business says, without thinking it through, the developers develop what they want will only minor reference to common sense or what is specified, and the testers stick to the rule of what's written in front of them without thinking about any side effects, alternative routes, or what's best for the business. We could all do better.

I had to Google what you meant by BA. I'm a product manager so I think it's a pretty similar role?

BA - Business Analyst - the one that talks to the people in the business, hears what they want, and figures out what that means - eg. I want to accept pay-pal payments means I need a paypal account, I need to add it to this screen, to this helpfile, I need to do this integration which requires these credentials etc. -

A good product manager could fulfill that role - although in a big business a change might cross multiple products, so it would depend on your setup.

In my mind, BA is where Business meets IT.

Ah, got it, I have only ever worked where there's been product managers rather than business analysts. I've definitely known a lot of female product managers as well as myself.

In my industry, product managers tend to be relatively useless - more where marketing meets an idiot who stomps his feet about what he wants and ignores your questions about what that practically means (only slightly exaggerating) - and I've only ever known male Product Managers (generally got there through the old boy/new boy network of drinking buddies).

BAs and Project managers I've known a mix, and I can't say that I've seen a sex bias on competence.

Basically, I want to work in the West Wing - where everyone is good at their job, takes honest criticism, and gets on with their lives doing the what they can. But in reality, I work more in 'In the Thick of It' or that one about the olympics, with occasionally competent people surrounded by idiots who still think they're doing a good job, and lazy toads who know they aren't but want to be paid anyway.

I'm an ex techie. I came into it sideways rather than Uni progression Bottom line is that young males talk a load of old crap half the time about what they know, and they usually know fuck all but they do it confidently. Young women are generally not like that and are a bit put off. Plus the gamer thing is very misogynistic and any 'feminist' talk is slapped down v quickly.