I am a woman with multiple years of experience in the coding industry , while in most of my jobs I have been the only woman in the team and I do agree there is a need for more women in the coding industry , however I really do believe workshops like shecodes are an absolute scam , the inclusiveness to bridge the gender divide in tech needs to start from the employers , all resources to learn to code are completely gender neutral and unbiased. I also find it quite hypocritical that shecodes was founded by a man and is taught by a man . Can anyone please shine some different opinions about this or does anyone else believe a similar thing ?

Unless we're talking about certain non-Western countries, there is no gender pay gap, no glass walls, and nothing keeping women from entering tech.

And yeah, online courses for women are useless because on the internet, you can even be a dog, and nobody will know.

The reason why relatively few women are in tech is just that they don't want to be in tech. That's their freedom of decision.

By contrast, women who do want to enter tech can do that with as much ease or difficulty as men. That's equality of opportunity.

In those other countries however, a tech career is the least of the issues women face, compared to struggling with basics like physical integrity.

Anyone/anything trying to push to hard in one way doesn't deserve anything good. So yes, I agree with you

Edit: @Fast-Nop Well summarised

As a man... * prepares for the virtual beating but hear me out *

I don't care.

I really don't care if you're a gnome, a dwarf, a women, a ginger, a leprechaun, a muppet, hell you can be an Apache helicopter for all I care (LGBTQ ... I think that's right).

Welcome to the programmer life. 🍻

I agree, women should be apart of this industry, but what I don't agree with is the "girls who code" groups and mantra, since women want inclusion, yet go out of their way to be exclusive to make a point that men aren't inclusive - pot calling the kettle black to me 🤷‍♂️

oh boi, I shouldn't have said that!
RIP @C0D4.

Honestly though, some men do get offended by women in this industry, and so they should, they are usually already incompetent ass hats who should have taken a job at a supermarket instead who are afraid a women can do their job - fuck em, take their job, it's one less greybeard to deal with.

Ps: good to see another women in the crowd!

It is not a need. Do your job and stop caring about people's dick or cunt ?

@C0D4 "Gnomes? Dwarves? We are not so lucky in our friends as you. The old alliances are dead!"

@Jilano maybe not the gnome part - haven't had the luxury of befriending one, but respect the dwarf!

One of my tasks is to support the application process at a university of applied sciences in the middle of Europe for one Bachelor and two Master degrees (media informatics, human-computer interaction). While the gender of young people with an appropriate school degree is divided very equally only 25%-30% females apply for a place in one of our informatics study programs.

So at the end of the program 70% of our graduates are male. I don’t see a way how employers could fix this.

@Fast-Nop unfortunately its not quite so.

There are still bosses around that have old opinions and thee is still a difference in treatment even in western “equal” countries.

While many startups and younger companies are better or even equal bigger companies often have problems still.

And combined with fewer women in the business lets them get away with it to often.

Pay might be more equal, but treatment is many times a big problem, as is promotions.

But all women groups are not necessarily the right way as to those with a problem this will just cement their opinions.

What we need is more evenly mixed groups so that both sides learn to treat each other as equals.

We are mostly getting there but the old guard is entrenched and stubborn ;)

@Voxera The problem with promotions is that women often don't do what's necessary. It's the same for men who don't aggressively use their elbows - these won't get promoted either, it's just that nobody talks about them.

If you are a nice team player, that's all good, but you'll stay a team member because the virtues of a subordinate are the vices of a boss.

I don't see why that should become an issue now just because of women when nobody has ever cared about the 90% of the men who have been facing that in all their life, and women have never come to their support.

@Voxera Another factor is motivation. You just won't get into a boss position with a 9-to-5 mentality. According to numerous studies, women appreciate work-life-balance more than men, which is a convoluted way to say that they don't put as much effort into their career. With less work, you'll get fewer results (but more out of life).

Now I myself have the same behaviour because I see that a boss job would be a lot more stress not only to get there, but also to be there. The additional money isn't worth it IMO.

So yeah, that's why I'm not making career, but I don't attribute it to my sex. Instead, I minimise the work stress for a given income range, that's my optimisation.

@Fast-Nop Surprisingly in non-Western countries you might be speaking of (perhaps Iran,India,etc.) Women make up a higher percentage of tech employees than in the US.

You can look up the statistics, don't just trust me.

The fact that there are so many gender locked opportunities and pushes to diversify the field indicate a desire to introduce women into tech.

In fact I would say the opposite, that being female is an advantage in the CS job market, provided you take upon the opportunities available.

Anecdotal but I know someone who got hired to a fairly competitive dev role who was NOT good at coding. They nearly flunked college and had their boyfriend help or do a large amount of many of their assignments. Yet they still got the job. And they've been promoted since.

There's no difference in gender when it comes to capability, talent, or potential. But there is a difference in opportunity. It's a bit of a catch-22, women in general are less likely to be involved in tech and that makes it a less desirable field, but I wouldn't say there's net unfair disadvantage.

But what others are saying is true. Many off my companies offshore tech roles are women, at least a similar proportion as men. I think it's more of a US thing. There's actually more women in my team than men believe it or not.

@justamuslimguy Iran is... very complicated. So is India, just in a totally different way. ^^

@CoffeeSnake I don't agree to the premise that women don't go into tech because there are few women. It's not like women would have to stick together against men there - that would be quite a sexist perspective.

Instead, they can look at what's common - love for tech and code. Bamm, instead of being alone, they're surrounded by others who understand.

@Fast-Nop I know that. People aren't usually aware of this though. The reason for gender disparity and the reason for why it exists some places and not others aren't as easy as either side would have you believe.

@Fast-Nop I'd say it's more a matter of perception. Tech careers are perceived as male roles because it's mostly men working them. I imagine that would reduces overall interest from would-be women lead roles. It's a feedback loop.

The same could be said about men in nursing. I don't think there's any actual differences, it's just how the industry is perceived by society and the effect that has on the perception of people considering career options.

@F1973 there are less women in tech jobs in every country but in India women are a larger percentage than in US/UK for example. Stats show something like 35% of tech workers in India are women while 24% of tech workers in US are women.

That is all I meant. Agree that Indian women are more into homemaking etc. That is cultural. But it also proves wrong the narrative in the West that familial duties hamper one's opportunities for success in the workplace. Actually balance in all spheres is best, my humble opinion.

@CoffeeSnake I still don't agree to that logic because what that means is that women aren't capable of making their own decisions about their career. Sounds harsh, but follows logically.

My take is that men and women are equal, but different because the bio machines underneath aren't quite the same with regard to hormonal balance. Ask any F2M trans who has undergone testo treatment what the difference is (it's pretty radical).

I think it's a wrong approach to the problem.

Society needs to change.

Change needs to start in childhood - most of the problems start there.

And usually the children aren't at fault, but rather school or bad parenting.

You cannot expect people to stand up for their beliefs and their own values when they are taught in a way that fosters obedience and punishes anything else....

I don't want anarchy - but one of our large faults in society is that the quiet ones are kept quiet and the loud ones can go berserk as much as they want (I mean this in general, not genderspecific).

Most argue at that point that it's the weak vs the strong - but that's primitive as most of our jobs are based on intelligence.

Yet the whole process / workflow / management / education stuff is built upon the concept that those who speak will win. Those who don't get worser grades and suck.

It's pretty primitive. Since sometimes the quiet ones have the best ideas, yet they won't open their mouth - simply because they expect noone to listen.

@Fast-Nop
It's rather more complicated than all that. It may be different in Germany, but in the US, leadership qualities are generally synonymous with male qualities. When men represent those qualities they are "leadership material." When a woman adopts the same posture, she's regarded as a "bitch," or as not knowing her place. This is an insidious trend in our culture that is perpetuated by "traditional" mindsets of both men and women. The fact Merkel is your president is proof of how many decades beyond us you are socially in that regard.

There's other problems, but the "traditional" values in our culture are the root of most of them. It is impossible to overstate the regressivism prevalent in the baptist-root protestantism that controls a large portion of the voting population. The only reason women have the right to vote here is the Klan saw white women as a vote they could control in the battle against integration*. Sufferage efforts prior to that moment were largely ineffectual. Even states where we were given the right to vote, it was for reasons unrelated to our competency to do so**.

It boils down to people in our society are conditioned to have a defensive reaction to any situation that would enable a woman to assume power over a man, to an even greater degree than any racial bias (all men could vote before any woman, a woman's claim to any property even on her husband's death was questionable until the late 1800s). It's a subconscious bias that is enforced by layers of sexist social conditioning most people haven't even considered.

* https://bustle.com/p/...
** https://history.com/this-day-in-his...

@Fast-Nop It doesn't mean that. It means people in general are exposed to views and beliefs that permeate society. Nobody "has" to do anything, and nobody "can't" do anything. When speaking about perspective and subconscious bias it's meaningless to talk in terms of absolutes like that.

Sure, women CAN go into tech like men CAN go into nursing. And many do. But clearly less than the opposite. I believe this has to do with a perception of those fields.

It has nothing to do with men or women not being "able to make their own decisions". They CAN, but that doesn't mean they'll be posed to challenge a norm or common perception.

It's a matter of subconscious vs conscious. Not considering CS as a career doesn't mean you're incapable of it, it just means you didn't. And I'm confident there's a subconscious bias about the career based on how it's perceived that leads to that.

I didn't consider nursing as a career. I could have, I'm sure it'd be great. But I didn't. Never crossed my mind

@Fast-Nop and that's probably because I'm a guy. I didn't grow up seeing male nurses, when I thought of a medical career as a kid my mind would go to doctor or EMT. So I was never positioned to consider nursing. It's just the perspective we're conditioned to follow without realizing it. Has nothing to do with me or my capabilities or my capacity or the career. It's a sociological problem.

@CoffeeSnake

Puppies are for girls.

Boys play with cars. QED.

And being a male midwife is quite a stigmata.

@SortOfTested As if male leaders were not seen as assholes. Of course they are, and a certain dose of sociopathy is always part of a leader. If someone cannot put up with resistance and folds in into being put in place, that person fails the litmus test of a leader and just isn't one.

The UK had Thatcher already in the 80s, and I'd find it hard to believe that the US since 2000 has been more conservative then the UK in the 80s.

The US could have had Clinton as president if she had come up with something better than "continue like Bush and Obama, oh and btw I'm not running Arch, but I have a vagina".

For too many American voters, continuing the bipartisan consensus was not an option, that's what Trump figured out somewhere mid-campaign (and Johnson in the UK took note). Unlike Clinton, Trump is doing something different. The success remains to be seen of course. It wasn't man vs. woman, it was keeping doing things vs. altering the status quo.

@CoffeeSnake I didn't consider nursing because it's insane shifts, bad pay, and you have to work with people. I didn't like any of that.

It's also why I didn't want to become a medical doctor. The only difference is better pay, but the other two still suck.

In tech, I have nice working hours, good pay, and work with machines.

@Fast-Nop I consider doctor, programmer, lawyer and businessman when I was growing up. Mostly just things that pay well. Nursing pays well, but I didn't consider it. I didn't know how difficult it was or the downsides, I didn't know much about it at all. But all the same it didn't cross my mind.

Wasn't intentional, just didn't happen.

At the end of the day there's less women in tech than men. I think it has a lot to do with how the field is viewed in the US. It's not that women can't view the field differently or something, but unless someone sets out to actively challenge a view then tech is seen as a male dominated career, just like nursing is seen as a female dominated career. As such I think a lot women don't consider tech and men don't consider nursing.

shrug. Who cares?

ever heard about dianna huckburn? ada lovelace?

@CoffeeSnake very true.

And as an example in the other direction. A man looking for job at kindergarten will most likely be regarded with more suspicion than a woman seeking the same job, despite the fact that we generally want equal numbers there to, to early on show equality.

But

@magicMirror or Grace Hopper :)

This whole thread was a dumpster fire

@CoffeeSnake I dont think its a matter of subconscious vs conscious at all.

I dont see the sexism here. I just dont. I think its more than a bit of a stretch.

The current numbers really do come down to personal preferences and individual choices. The fact we've moved away from meritocratic hiring towards what amounts to lottery style hiring (whoever shows up and puts in enough applications) is evidence of this.

Countries like germany or india may be different.

Honestly, I feel like the whole realm of CS/programming can be toxic at times, and it sadly keeps a lot of people from being interested in it. Hopefully devs can learn to be less rude someday.

Oh, all these gender inconsistencies