The author is so reasonable. The one thing she unquestioningly accepts is that having fewer women in tech is a problem. Yes, the culture should be more welcoming, more friendly, less accommodating to male idiosyncrasies, but ultimately it is the result of expressed preference.
Is it a problem that there are not nearly so many white kids learning classical piano as Asian American kids? I guess you could say it is, but why not just say different families have different priorities for their children? Not every difference needs to be a "problem".
Interesting observation that men in CS tend to avoid women. Author believes it's non-malicous behavior and I agree. I'd also argue that many men in CS avoid partnering or interacting with women out of fear that those interactions could be misconstrued as sexual harassment.
There are suggestions presented about "how to address the problem"...
I have programmed for 50 years. Here's one opinion on this post, based on my experience and preferences. I enjoy working with women and I have not been afraid to talk to them. I've shared several offices with women. I've been on teams with women. I've had direct female managers. I've published papers with women. I've attended conferences with women. And all of these are in "tech" jobs. Now lets review your suggestions.
1) create communities... Nope. I never attended "offsite picnics", "friday foodfests", or any other social activity. Most of my friends have been people I met at work. But I only see them 1-on-1. The very idea of a "community" is content-free.
2) Emphasize tech's potential to impact humans and community well-being... What is this "community" of which you speak? As for "well being", just try to make each interaction as pleasant as possible. I have no idea how you can even begin to talk about an emergent property like "community well-being".
3) Invest in social events... and don't attend.
4) Offer opportunities for engineers to do user- and team-facing work... In my experience, every time I was able to talk directly to the customer I got called on the carpet by management. In one case they threatened to fire me because I pointed out that what the customer told me they wanted was NOT what we were building. The customer asked for more details and "my actions threatened the company's main source of revenue". There is a reason Dilbert never talks to customers.
5) Confront unconscious bias... look up the term "oxymoron".
6) Go befriend a girl in your class or company... 3/4 of my friends are female. Almost all of them I met on the job. Of all the women I've met in my career I can only think of 2 who were good at programming, and they rarely did it.
All of my male friends are so stunningly good at programming that I hope they never look at my code. When was the last time you spent 8 hours "talking tech nonstop" and thought that was an amazing day well spent?
The conversations, all 1-on-1 are different. My female friends never talk about code or ideas. My male friends talk almost exclusively about code and ideas, to the point where I didn't know my one male friend was married until I met his wife a year later. I enjoy both conversations but broaching tech with my female friends never gets any traction. Half of them have PhDs so they are provably smarter than me.
If you expect to play a sport at the professional level you wouldn't "create communities", "emphasize community well-being", "invest in social events, etc.... You live, eat, breath, and perfect your skills. You downplay every success and agonize over every failure, needing to be better.
If you REALLY want to play tech "at the professional level", suit up, live, eat, breath, and perfect your skills. Talk tech, know yesterdays breakthru ideas and published papers, and, especially as a professional programmer you should
... PROGRAM
Obviously you will decide I'm "part of the problem". But I assure you, if you show up with "professional level" skills and show me code you wrote that is high quality, I WILL have the utmost respect for you. I would want to learn from you. I would want to work for or with you.
Is it a problem that there are not nearly so many white kids learning classical piano as Asian American kids? I guess you could say it is, but why not just say different families have different priorities for their children? Not every difference needs to be a "problem".
I have programmed for 50 years. Here's one opinion on this post, based on my experience and preferences. I enjoy working with women and I have not been afraid to talk to them. I've shared several offices with women. I've been on teams with women. I've had direct female managers. I've published papers with women. I've attended conferences with women. And all of these are in "tech" jobs. Now lets review your suggestions.
1) create communities... Nope. I never attended "offsite picnics", "friday foodfests", or any other social activity. Most of my friends have been people I met at work. But I only see them 1-on-1. The very idea of a "community" is content-free.
2) Emphasize tech's potential to impact humans and community well-being... What is this "community" of which you speak? As for "well being", just try to make each interaction as pleasant as possible. I have no idea how you can even begin to talk about an emergent property like "community well-being".
3) Invest in social events... and don't attend.
4) Offer opportunities for engineers to do user- and team-facing work... In my experience, every time I was able to talk directly to the customer I got called on the carpet by management. In one case they threatened to fire me because I pointed out that what the customer told me they wanted was NOT what we were building. The customer asked for more details and "my actions threatened the company's main source of revenue". There is a reason Dilbert never talks to customers.
5) Confront unconscious bias... look up the term "oxymoron".
6) Go befriend a girl in your class or company... 3/4 of my friends are female. Almost all of them I met on the job. Of all the women I've met in my career I can only think of 2 who were good at programming, and they rarely did it. All of my male friends are so stunningly good at programming that I hope they never look at my code. When was the last time you spent 8 hours "talking tech nonstop" and thought that was an amazing day well spent?
The conversations, all 1-on-1 are different. My female friends never talk about code or ideas. My male friends talk almost exclusively about code and ideas, to the point where I didn't know my one male friend was married until I met his wife a year later. I enjoy both conversations but broaching tech with my female friends never gets any traction. Half of them have PhDs so they are provably smarter than me.
If you expect to play a sport at the professional level you wouldn't "create communities", "emphasize community well-being", "invest in social events, etc.... You live, eat, breath, and perfect your skills. You downplay every success and agonize over every failure, needing to be better.
If you REALLY want to play tech "at the professional level", suit up, live, eat, breath, and perfect your skills. Talk tech, know yesterdays breakthru ideas and published papers, and, especially as a professional programmer you should
... PROGRAM
Obviously you will decide I'm "part of the problem". But I assure you, if you show up with "professional level" skills and show me code you wrote that is high quality, I WILL have the utmost respect for you. I would want to learn from you. I would want to work for or with you.