“I don’t agree that the reason there aren’t many women in tech is because of toxicity”
When I studied comp sci not that long ago, I shared most classes with a female friend. One of her professors literally told her that women had no place in tech. This was a woman who did my machine learning course homework for me, implementing a reinforced learning algorithm from scratch for me because I was too dumb to get it, so yeah, she definitely had a place in tech.
This was not an isolated incident. FIrst semester, there were about 20% women in my class, about 40 women in total. By the end, four women graduated, and about 100 men. This wasn’t because these women weren’t interested, or weren’t qualified. It’s because they were treated terribly.
I’ve just last month had to fire a software engineer who flat-out refused to work for a female tech lead, and aggressively attacked her leadership and technical skills in a very personal, gendered manner (think: “I will not work for an emotional woman, she will not tell me what to do!”). This is a guy who has worked in tech for over a decade, and still thought this was okay. He was genuinely surprised when I fired him, instead of promoting him to this woman’s position. Apparently, this is the first time this approach had not worked for him. In every other company he worked before this one, his behavior was accepted, and, apparently, rewarded.
These topics are obviously complex, and there are many different reasons why there are so few women in tech. But the claim that toxicity against women isn’t one of these reasons is false.
“I’ve simply never met anyone who says they didn’t work in tech because of its culture”
I know about a dozen women who have left tech because of how they were treated. I think one thing to do here is to just reflect on why you’ve never met anyone who told you that this happened to them.
“Constantly going on about how tech is toxic, and refusing to let people say that their experiences were actually quite positive seems like a sure-fire way to discourage women from working there.”
Sure. But that’s an odd argument. If there is a problem, it won’t be solved unless people talk about that problem. Given that toxicity against women is a problem that actual women actually experience every day, the logical conclusion from your point would be that we should lie to women in order to get more women into tech, which doesn’t seem like a sound approach.
“Only a minority of companies have toxic cultures”
How do you know that? It’s kind of difficult to even ascertain that, because there is no clear definition for what a “toxic culture” is, but in my experience, once companies reach a certain size, they inevitably end up with a rule-driven, dehumanizing culture, and before they reach that size, company culture often depends on a single person’s whims. So there is probably at least one measure of toxicity by which a majority of companies qualify.
But the claim that toxicity against women isn’t one of these reasons is false.
In context, I don’t think saying “toxicity isn’t the reason there aren’t more women in tech” is the same thing as saying “no women have ever not entered tech because of toxicity”.
Of course, if any woman ever didn’t enter into tech because of toxicity, it would literally mean that toxicity was the reason there aren’t more women in tech, that doesn’t seem to be what the author is saying.
I guess it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what the author is saying. The exact quote is:
I don’t agree that the reason there aren’t many women in tech is because of toxicity
Let’s get rid of the “I don’t agree” portion of the sentence, since it is redundant: the author is clearly stating his position. So the sentence actually says
The reason there aren’t many women in tech is not toxicity.
This could be interpreted in multiple different ways, the two primary ones being:
Toxicity does not factor into the number of women in tech at all
Toxicity is a reason why there aren’t many women in tech, but it is either completely irrelevant, or only marginally relevant, compared to other reasons
The sentence literally says 1., but I do agree that it is likely that the author intended to say 2. However, I also think that 2. is false, since in my experience, women’s actual experience in the tech sector is the most prominent reason they state for leaving the tech sector, when they leave the tech sector. Additionally, again, in my experience, women are much more likely to leave the tech sector than men.
Furthermore, the actual reason the author gives for the small number of women in the tech sector (women land in a different spot on the people-things dimension) does not seem particularly compelling to me, since software engineering is a highly social undertaking, so should, by the author’s logic, skew towards women. What’s more, historically, there have been much more women in software engineering. It seems that the gender distribution only started to shift towards men once software engineering started to become a lucrative career.
I will say these two things:
There are some very vocal women who have had extremely bad experiences in the tech field. These experiences clearly do not represent all women’s experiences.
I don’t think that toxictiy is the primary reason for the current gender distribution in the tech sector. When I started studying comp sci, the gender distribution was already heavily skewed towards men; the toxicity these women experienced did make the situation much worse, though.
Well, moving on from the point of my root comment...
I will say that I would not be surprised if we were to ascertain with some amount of certainty that toxicity is the or one of the main drivers of gender disparity in tech.
That being said, it would also surprise me if women leaving tech even came close to accounting for the gender disparity and because of that I’m kind of up in the air about how much weight to put on the explanations women give for leaving as an explanation for women never having entered.
It’s certainly possible that tech-is-a-toxic-place-for-women (which I agree it is in many?/most?/all? places) has entered the zeitgeist so thoroughly that women have not entered because of it, I’m just not sure that this is the case.
What’s more, historically, there have been much more women in software engineering. It seems that the gender distribution only started to shift towards men once software engineering started to become a lucrative career.
Do you have any good evidence of this? Like, I’m aware of the fact that historically there were many women doing impressive things in software engineering, but there are also many women doing that today. I would be interested in seeing some sort of data here.
I will say that I would not be surprised if we were to ascertain with some amount of certainty that toxicity is the or one of the main drivers of gender disparity in tech.
Part of the problem with this post and discussion is that “toxic” isn’t specific enough to measure or address. Even just the subset of toxicity which is “pervasive attitudes and comments that demean and dehumanize everyone, but women more so than men”, I’ll be surprised if it’s not a major contributor to the disparity. The other problem is that “tech” isn’t a single thing—it’s a loose cluster with a whole lot of individual variance.
That being said, it would also surprise me if women leaving tech even came close to accounting for the gender disparity and because of that I’m kind of up in the air about how much weight to put on the explanations women give for leaving as an explanation for women never having entered.
When a middle-school girl is teased for asking questions about algebra, I don’t much care whether it’s leaving or never entering.
Even just the subset of toxicity which is “pervasive attitudes and comments that demean and dehumanize everyone, but women more so than men”, I’ll be surprised if it’s not a major contributor to the disparity.
Agreed.
When a middle-school girl is teased for asking questions about algebra, I don’t much care whether it’s leaving or never entering.
Agreed, but I’m not sure how to read the point of you bringing it up as it doesn’t seem exactly relevant to my point?
Earl E. Bird said that he thinks the reasons for gender disparity are the same as the reasons women leave tech. I’m saying that does not necessarily hold true unless the number of women leaving accounts for the gender disparity.
When I studied comp sci not that long ago, I shared most classes with a female friend. One of her professors literally told her that women had no place in tech. This was a woman who did my machine learning course homework for me, implementing a reinforced learning algorithm from scratch for me because I was too dumb to get it, so yeah, she definitely had a place in tech.
This was not an isolated incident. FIrst semester, there were about 20% women in my class, about 40 women in total. By the end, four women graduated, and about 100 men. This wasn’t because these women weren’t interested, or weren’t qualified. It’s because they were treated terribly.
I’ve just last month had to fire a software engineer who flat-out refused to work for a female tech lead, and aggressively attacked her leadership and technical skills in a very personal, gendered manner (think: “I will not work for an emotional woman, she will not tell me what to do!”). This is a guy who has worked in tech for over a decade, and still thought this was okay. He was genuinely surprised when I fired him, instead of promoting him to this woman’s position. Apparently, this is the first time this approach had not worked for him. In every other company he worked before this one, his behavior was accepted, and, apparently, rewarded.
These topics are obviously complex, and there are many different reasons why there are so few women in tech. But the claim that toxicity against women isn’t one of these reasons is false.
I know about a dozen women who have left tech because of how they were treated. I think one thing to do here is to just reflect on why you’ve never met anyone who told you that this happened to them.
Sure. But that’s an odd argument. If there is a problem, it won’t be solved unless people talk about that problem. Given that toxicity against women is a problem that actual women actually experience every day, the logical conclusion from your point would be that we should lie to women in order to get more women into tech, which doesn’t seem like a sound approach.
How do you know that? It’s kind of difficult to even ascertain that, because there is no clear definition for what a “toxic culture” is, but in my experience, once companies reach a certain size, they inevitably end up with a rule-driven, dehumanizing culture, and before they reach that size, company culture often depends on a single person’s whims. So there is probably at least one measure of toxicity by which a majority of companies qualify.
In context, I don’t think saying “toxicity isn’t the reason there aren’t more women in tech” is the same thing as saying “no women have ever not entered tech because of toxicity”.
Of course, if any woman ever didn’t enter into tech because of toxicity, it would literally mean that toxicity was the reason there aren’t more women in tech, that doesn’t seem to be what the author is saying.
I guess it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what the author is saying. The exact quote is:
Let’s get rid of the “I don’t agree” portion of the sentence, since it is redundant: the author is clearly stating his position. So the sentence actually says
This could be interpreted in multiple different ways, the two primary ones being:
Toxicity does not factor into the number of women in tech at all
Toxicity is a reason why there aren’t many women in tech, but it is either completely irrelevant, or only marginally relevant, compared to other reasons
The sentence literally says 1., but I do agree that it is likely that the author intended to say 2. However, I also think that 2. is false, since in my experience, women’s actual experience in the tech sector is the most prominent reason they state for leaving the tech sector, when they leave the tech sector. Additionally, again, in my experience, women are much more likely to leave the tech sector than men.
Furthermore, the actual reason the author gives for the small number of women in the tech sector (women land in a different spot on the people-things dimension) does not seem particularly compelling to me, since software engineering is a highly social undertaking, so should, by the author’s logic, skew towards women. What’s more, historically, there have been much more women in software engineering. It seems that the gender distribution only started to shift towards men once software engineering started to become a lucrative career.
I will say these two things:
There are some very vocal women who have had extremely bad experiences in the tech field. These experiences clearly do not represent all women’s experiences.
I don’t think that toxictiy is the primary reason for the current gender distribution in the tech sector. When I started studying comp sci, the gender distribution was already heavily skewed towards men; the toxicity these women experienced did make the situation much worse, though.
Well, moving on from the point of my root comment...
I will say that I would not be surprised if we were to ascertain with some amount of certainty that toxicity is the or one of the main drivers of gender disparity in tech.
That being said, it would also surprise me if women leaving tech even came close to accounting for the gender disparity and because of that I’m kind of up in the air about how much weight to put on the explanations women give for leaving as an explanation for women never having entered.
It’s certainly possible that tech-is-a-toxic-place-for-women (which I agree it is in many?/most?/all? places) has entered the zeitgeist so thoroughly that women have not entered because of it, I’m just not sure that this is the case.
Do you have any good evidence of this? Like, I’m aware of the fact that historically there were many women doing impressive things in software engineering, but there are also many women doing that today. I would be interested in seeing some sort of data here.
Part of the problem with this post and discussion is that “toxic” isn’t specific enough to measure or address. Even just the subset of toxicity which is “pervasive attitudes and comments that demean and dehumanize everyone, but women more so than men”, I’ll be surprised if it’s not a major contributor to the disparity. The other problem is that “tech” isn’t a single thing—it’s a loose cluster with a whole lot of individual variance.
When a middle-school girl is teased for asking questions about algebra, I don’t much care whether it’s leaving or never entering.
Agreed.
Agreed, but I’m not sure how to read the point of you bringing it up as it doesn’t seem exactly relevant to my point?
Earl E. Bird said that he thinks the reasons for gender disparity are the same as the reasons women leave tech. I’m saying that does not necessarily hold true unless the number of women leaving accounts for the gender disparity.
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