can more developers fill out the developer economics survey? https://www.developereconomics.net i'm finding it hard to believe the stats, how can onlly 6% of devs be female https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/...

Maybe most stereotypes actually have some truth in them..

6% that's way more than I expected.

That 6% is more than I see around me.

Because the media and Internet hype is a lie.

@TheCommoner282 I will call bullshit on that. But whatever.

maybe devrant should just post a stats page?

@TheCommoner282 and... Yes. It's bullshit. Not the study (well it has at least a problem, see below) but the proposed interpretation. There's no suggestion that programming would be tied to tasks mentioned in the paper like spatial orientation, so it makes very little sense to suppose that men have an advantage working with computers.
The study has also a terrible problem.
The production of post-natal hormones is influenced by social context and activity.
This means that it cannot possibly differentiate between the training of the neural network and the production of testosterone.
E.g. if I make a girl play orienteering for all her life she will be very fit, have a lot of testosterone and also be great at spatial tasks.
It would be more significant if introducing/removing testosterone changed proficiency without a change of activities (yes that means that not only hormone therapy but also constraining admitted behaviour). It does not seem that easy.
TL DR: correlation != implication

@TheCommoner282 I just find very iffy that interests are shaped by that. The interests are measured after that pre-natal period. And while it makes sense that you like to run more if you have a greater hormone production and thus a better musculature this is because you're good at it and so doing it offers to you approval.
What does the article reports about tasks related to being a programmer (communication, structuring your thoughts in a comprehensible manner) in the first months? That females are better at it. It would look that the correlation in this case is not positive so it makes little sense to see a confirmation in those early months. After that the sociological component cannot be disjointed from the physical one and this is a great issue not only for this paper but also for many others in this field. That is why I think that your conclusions from it are not reliable.
In my opinion interest in programming is not (significatively) shaped by hormones.

@TheCommoner282 my objection is that it's impossible for us to know if those interests are caused by a physical difference or if there's something in the conformation of our society that compounds other interests with programming.
For example programming is also a social activity, it requires not only to study the math and logic of programming languages but also to understand what other people wrote which is a significant verbal and para-verbal task. The fact that women show less interest than men in programming is obvious.
But the fact that it depends on hormones is really not and it seems to me a huge leap in reasoning.

@TheCommoner282 I don't know... Social pressure is mainly the expectations that your family and friends have on you. I think they define a lot of what people desire too (we instinctively seek approval from people we care about). Rewards are also pressure because they use your desires as a lever to change your behaviour.
If we remove social pressure of any kind probably none would program as a job simply because without reward people would do it as a hobby instead. At that point it could be interesting to see how many of the women and men who program for a living program as an hobby without sharing the results, just for fun (because open source still offers notoriety and approval from peers).