Programming at the time was materially different from what constitutes employment in computer tech now. It was a secretarial job, because it consisted of punching holes through cardboard cards. Were there some extremely influential women? Heck yeah. Did I imply there would be no women in the field at all? No.
Programming also got a lot more prestigious precisely at a time when it stopped being a secretarial job and started requiring background in mathematics and cybernetics. It’s still far less lucrative than psychology or pediatrics.
The relative handful of early women pioneers is completely irrelevant to the question of what field does the average student decide to go into today.
A field that is about a century old? And they faced it until women pushed into the fields, not because something changed in our biology. Biology had zilch to do with that. women made those changes, demanded them. The white men who ruled the world never gave us shit that we didn’t fight for, sometimes with our lives.
Again, women fought against that. Some men still believe we’re mentally deficient and use it as an excuse to discriminate against women in their fields. There is literally no woman on this planet who has not experienced some form of discrimination in their lives. That has jack all to do with biology.
Except of when women were the primary computer programmers, back when it was seen as the equivalent of being a secretary. Women helped to write the code that got the Apollo mission to the moon, for example. Let’s not forget the Eniac programmers. Programmers used to mean the people who inputted information into computers and that was a job dominated by women.
Because there is not social or cultural pressure in HS? Really? Are you trying to tell me that not sexism exists in HS? Really? From the beginning of our lives, we are constantly being told to be pretty, feminine, quiet, and to serve others. By our families and our societies. That has not gone away, again, ask literally any woman here and they will tell you it’s true.
But somehow it’s irrelevant to how the field looks? Really? So if a sexist person is responsible for hiring and firing, he’s going to magically stop being sexist when it comes to job hires? That really doesn’t follow.
Are you talking about random distributions due to statistical variation, or aversion to a field due to widespread harassment and/or outdated cultural values? I would agree that the first is possible. But I somehow doubt the lack of women CEOs is due to random variations.
Yeah, I know. So why didn’t they fight against it in computing?
But somehow it’s irrelevant to how the field looks?
There have to be some fields in which women are the minority. Necessarily, given gender parity in numbers. Unless every single field is exactly 50:50. 75% of women in one field must result in below-average participation in some other field.
I’m sorry, but they are. It’s not my fault that you’re too blind to see it. Women fight and struggle on a daily basis, in a number of fields against this sort of rampant discrimination. Ask the women in this thread WHO ARE LITERALLY IN THIS FIELD!
No is saying that. We’re saying that the particular field we’re discussing has a recent history of discrimination against women.
Let me see if I can explain you a thing. As a woman. This is the thing I find guys have the most trouble grasping:
The problems don’t start for women in tech when they land a job. They don’t start when you’re in college majoring in STEM. They start way the fuck back in elementary school when you don’t get called on, when you get harassed by your classmates for being “too smart”, when you’re told you’ll never get a date because guys don’t like that … all while you’re still at an age where you have no idea how to look at cultural expectations from the outside.
I am the daughter of a literal rocket scientist who probably went to his grave disappointed that I didn’t follow in his footsteps. Because instead I spent years pretending not to know the answers, deliberately mispronouncing words, hiding my test scores and lying about them, all in an attempt to prevent or at least mitigate the harassment I got because “girls don’t act smart.” I didn’t want to be homecoming queen, but it would have been nice to have more than 3 friends and not get spit on while walking home.
I learned programming in 1984. And that was all I learned because I didn’t need one MORE thing to make me an outcast. It’s not like I could hang out with the nerdy dudes, either. They were worse.
This isn’t just my anecdote. I guarantee you any woman in tech has a similar story. Of being outcast. Marginalized. Derided. When you “just want to talk” about the “differences” you lend an argument legitimacy that has none. These women “can’t handle stress” (as per the Google Memo)? The women who successfully make it through have handled more stress to get there than you can imagine.
What the FUCK do you even think is happening here other than THIS EXACT THING.
My SO is a woman who has faced discrimination in the computer field for decades; specifically, lower pay than the men despite the fact that she has been with the project longer (>2 1/2 decades), has had more experience, and knows the guts of it inside out better than anyone. She sighs and keeps with it because she loves the job (and she does like the people she works with). It’s just a continuing annoyance.
