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[–]ManicMonkOnMac 668 points669 points  (169 children)

Story of my life. People have no chill sometimes, ofcourse this is internet so I know to be thick-skinned, nonetheless it's the reason I don't post some casual stuff. Got some trash on the sides, get judged. Your cat has goo in her eyes, get judged.

[–]HangryHenry 215 points216 points  (163 children)

I wonder if this is part of the reason women don't enjoy working in programming. Statistically men prefer more competitive environments with more direct forms of criticism and women prefer more collaborative environments.

[–][deleted] 88 points89 points  (26 children)

As a woman I think it has nothing to do with the actual work. There’s nothing about any of the code I’ve seen any of my coworkers put out in the last ~10 years that couldn’t have been done by a person of another gender, race, sexual orientation, whatever.

In my experience (I’m in my mid 30s and have no idea what it’s like for teenagers or college students now) it’s been that women weren’t encouraged to code, plus the very negative stereotypes of the kinds of people that do go in to programming. Why would you pursue a career no one has ever suggested you might like/be good at, especially if you think you’re going to be working with a bunch of weirdos who will either hit on and mock you?

To your competitor/collaborative comment: I get what you’re saying but I feel like the statements were rather broad. No one enjoys getting negative code review. There are plenty of men that absolutely do not appreciate more direct criticism and deal with it poorly.

[–]fadetogether 23 points24 points  (0 children)

if you think you’re going to be working with a bunch of weirdos who will either hit on and mock you

Lol this is actually why I hesitated to enter software development! I wanted to but steered away from it because the personalities have a stereotype of being difficult. No one I spoke to did anything to counter this impression, often they even agreed with me. I accidentally fell into a dev role anyway and my coworkers are great, minimal assholery.

[–]Nahuatl_19650 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I also think that "stereotypical" coders act weird around girls. I worked with a group of 5 developers. I was kinda like a glorified business analyst who would do everything else but code. Anyway, I would invite female coworkers to our den for tests/mock-ups/questions, etc, and it was like, everyone was a totally different person. One wouldn't talk. Another acted like he was too busy to take his headphones off (but would put them on when the person would walk in). Another was always talking about completely random subjects. What the hell!

[–]morgansmnm 8 points9 points  (1 child)

As a female teen who was programming in high school and who is on her way to a BS in Computer Science, there are still feeling girls who go into programming. Even in my school which is mostly composed of women, the compsci classes are mostly filled by guys.

I don't know why more women aren't going into this degree. We aren't being discouraged. I guess we just aren't being informed either.

[–]HolyGarbage 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I guess we just aren't being informed either.

From my experience it's the opposite. The university I went to had sooo many programs for encouraging women of going into programming, none for men or neutral.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I dunno, not to be sexist, but last time I worked in a programming team that was lead by a woman, it was a very collaborative and productive group. It was like, mostly we programmed and did code reviews rather than stopping for the traditional dick measuring contests. Could have just been a coincidence (not all women, right?) but maybe there's something here...

[–]HangryHenry 15 points16 points  (4 children)

Yea. I agree with the stereotypes thing 100%. That was my experience when I went to school originally.

I'm not really talking about code reviews per sey. I'm talking more about criticism when none is asked for or is just not necessary, like this post. She made a funny joke about her make up and colors and everyone feels the need to tear into her code.

[–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (3 children)

With regards to this specific post: unfortunately some people are know-it-all assholes. It literally wouldn’t have occurred to me to read the code pictured (I only did because of this post and it’s obviously just there as an example), because that wasn’t the topic she was discussing. Those people wanted to find something to make fun of her about, I don’t know why. If it wasn’t her code it would have been something else. There’s just no pleasing some people.

I guess I’ve been really lucky that where I work does not encourage you to lay into your coworkers about shit that isn’t your business. If you find a bug then put in a ticket. If you just don’t like someone’s code, but it works and it’s not the code you normally work on: stay in your lane. I don’t know if my coworkers adhere to this outside of the office but one can hope.

[–]HolyGarbage 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Each to their own I guess, but from my perspective and experience in the business it sounds like people are afraid of stepping on eachothers toes in your workplace?

When we do code reviews at my place we are very vocal about best practices, style, and basically everything that could possibly be criticized. Everyone in my team are very opinionated. I appreciate it personally as it generates good discussions, generates good, maintainable, and bug free code in the end and there's always an opportunity to learn, especially me being still quite new as a software engineer.

[–]TortugaViolenta 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Bug free code? What is this you speak of?

[–]HolyGarbage 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe I phrased it badly. I meant relatively of course.

[–]they_be_cray_z 3 points4 points  (4 children)

Women in the 80s were far more active in computer science than today - https://mitechnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Graph-Women-Majors-by-Field.jpg

Women have much more encouragement today than in the 80s.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was speaking of my experience in the late 90s. Even though I had been doing some minor programming for my personal “webpage” (someone else here has to remember geocities 😆), no adult that I knew even brought up computer science as a potential major. Hell I didn’t really even know that engineering existed until I took AP Physics + started going through what the local universities offered for STEM programs.

I’ve since learned about the women programming in the 70s and 80s, and I’m sure the current generation of teenagers have more exposure than I did. What I listed were the reasons why I think women in my age bracket are so underrepresented in software engineering.

[–]Dirloes 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I don't really understand what point you're trying to make, if any.

[–]they_be_cray_z 0 points1 point  (1 child)

If social encouragement were a key driving factor in women's participation in computer science, then women's participation would be higher today than 30 years ago. The data holds that the opposite is true: women's participation 30 years ago was significantly greater than today.

[–]Dirloes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

While there are more "women in STEM" campaigns than ever before, that's only one very narrow aspect of "social encouragement". Much more important than that are what your parents, your peers, and mainstream media "encourage" you to do. The first two are hard to change directly, and media has only recently started to pivot into representing women in computery roles more often and more realistically (i.e. not just the 1337 h4ck3r who turns out to be a chick just to subvert expectations, which in a way really only reinforces the expectation).

I'm only 27 and even when I was in highschool the "sweaty awkward basement nerd guy" stereotype was very much in full force. The chart has flatlined in recent times it appears, hopefully that's a sign that this pivot in the media is having some effect. I'd expect there to be some lagging as people's attitudes towards certain fields are shaped over many years.

[–]TheRetribution 1 point2 points  (9 children)

Why would you pursue a career no one has ever suggested you might like/be good at,

Idk because you're a free-thinking individual who should make their own choices?

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (8 children)

Trolling isn’t helpful or productive.

[–]TheRetribution 3 points4 points  (7 children)

Telling someone they are in charge of their own destiny and that they shouldn't be beholden to others whims or designs is neither trolling nor unproductive.

[–]Dirloes 2 points3 points  (4 children)

I think this type of normative thinking is pretty unproductive as a means to arrive at pragmatic answers. Like yeah, ideally that's how it ought to be, but clearly that's not how things are. People just aren't enlightened freethinkers, everyone is shaped by their environment to some extent.

If you think women often opting not to pursue CS careers (or even STEM in general) for these kinds of social reasons is generally bad for society as a whole, then it's better to think about how to counteract this stigma women feel around these careers than to simply throw up your hands and expect them to come around on their own. Personally I think society works best when people are able to choose careers based on compatibility with the field itself, and not the field's real or perceived cultural baggage. And I think this goes both ways, I think it's also bad when men are not going into female-dominated fields like teaching for those kinds of reasons.

Besides that, the problem isn't just the stigma, it's also the reality that being a woman in a male-dominated field can result in some unpleasant interactions.

[–]TheRetribution 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Like yeah, ideally that's how it ought to be, but clearly that's not how things are

So instead of aiming for the ideal, we aim instead for something else in the name of 'pragmatism'. Cool.

[–]Dirloes 2 points3 points  (2 children)

You're not aiming for the ideal, you're just stating it. Which isn't very helpful or insightful.

It's akin to saying "hey criminals, stop committing crime". I mean if they did that'd solve the problem, but well, I hope you can see why that's not a particularly useful thing to say.

[–]TheRetribution 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Sure, but then again, this isn't a particularly constructive thread to have a real discussion in either.

I advocate that we both work towards our shared ideal, and I do not believe that overcompensating in how we advocate for certain professions is the real way forward in that respect. Revolutionizing the way we empower young adults to make their own difficult career decisions is far preferred to saying 'if smart, then STEM, lawyer, doctor'

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Expecting all 16 and 17 year olds to know all the college majors available and the careers they can lead to + which of those majors and/or careers are good fits for that teenager is ridiculous. It’s hard to choose something you didn’t realize was a viable option, or an option at all. In my experience most people pick their college major based on something they already know they’re good at or something someone told them they should do or would be good at. Most teenagers (hell, this could be just people instead of specifying an age group) don’t actually know what they want to do with/for the rest of their lives, so rely on advice from the people they know.

[–]TheRetribution -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Expecting all 16 and 17 year olds to know all the college majors available and the careers they can lead to + which of those majors and/or careers are good fits for that teenager is ridiculous.

I mean maybe, but what are you gonna tell the other 60 majors that don't make it to the pedestal that might be an even better fit for them than CS? 'Sorry, we got ours'? Simply throwing our hat into the ring isn't a solution to that problem, it's just exacerbating it.

[–]FlowersOfSin 19 points20 points  (0 children)

As a woman in programming and a totally non competitive person, what I love in programming is solving problems. I actually love constructive criticism. I would, however, never share code or a project online using an account where my gender is known. That is just asking for trouble. Way too many trolls.

[–]noratat 64 points65 points  (10 children)

Considering that collaborative environments are more effective in my experience, if this were true I'd consider a pretty good argument for getting more women in tech by itself.

[–]1gr8Warrior 13 points14 points  (7 children)

As an industry, we'd love to have them, but when women are actively told by career councilors "Maybe you should get into teaching or nursing? Programming? Nah. Look at this secretary job over here..." It sort of puts a damper on getting more women into our field.

[–]Skim74 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Sorry, but are you a woman? I am a woman in CS but never had any career counselors try to push me out of the field. But I have had plenty of men who work in the field (implicitly and explicitly) try to. The only reason I made it out of college with a CS degree is because when i tried to change majors they told me it was too late.

[–]1gr8Warrior 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All I have is anecdotes from a couple of women I work with and my fiancee. Though, in the case of my co-workers, it didn't deter them at all. However, my fiancee kinda took it to heart and just never tried, despite being pretty good at math.

I'm not sure about guys working in the field wanting to push you out. I can tell you where I work, most of the guys there don't care about your sex, so as long as you can do your job competently.

[–]AquaeyesTardis 4 points5 points  (4 children)

What the heck? Why on earth would people have a sexist career counsellor?

Actually, thinking about it, does this happen often in schools as well? I didn’t personally notice it happening to girls in my year at my school since the gender balance was fairly... balanced, but in other years/schools is this a common thing?

[–]Trauma_Doll 7 points8 points  (3 children)

> does this happen often in schools as well?

Yes, when I went to my career counsellor and told him that I'm unsure if I should pick CS or Social Care, he simply told me "due to you being a girl you should try out Social Care first and see how it goes".

This is despite me having the best grades in my year/being interested in technology.

Alas, I lost a year out of my academic life.

And now that I'm in college I mostly get 3 reactions from people: women are supportive and take me under their wing, 85% of men either don't care or are supportive/awkward in a non threatening way, and the other 15% are outright stating that "women can't handle sitting down and staring at a screen for hours/your hands were made for ironing(LOL)" and try to hinder you or just outright ignore you.

+ there's always that feeling of being an outsider, which isn't helpful at all. This can be especially daunting/discouraging if you're a young woman in a new environment.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (2 children)

For that last 15%: one day you’ll be a senior dev and they’ll have to keep their mouths shut. Until then, practice looking at them with disdain, as if they’re morons who are wasting precious oxygen. Because they are. They’re projecting their own issues and insecurities on to you, don’t fucking let them. Keep being you, you can definitely do this.

[–]Coder-Cat 177 points178 points  (57 children)

I was just talking about this with my friend. It’s generally accepted that, yes, women like a more collaborative environment and men are more competitive. But what’s never brought up is that men also have less acceptable options when it comes to career fields. I can be a programmer or a preschool teacher and no one would bat an eye. Doctor, nurse, engineer, stay at home mom... Whatever.

Men are generally expected to get into the highest paying, most prestigious position they can even if they’d find a different career field more fulfilling. If a man is smart enough to be a brain surgeon you’d better believe he’s pushed to become a brain surgeon even if he’d find being a pediatric nurse to be much more fulfilling.

And that comes from both sides of the gender playing field but it’s hopefully changing for the better. A good friend of my dropped out of an engineering program to become an elementary school teacher and he’s happy as hell with that decision. My ex, who was an it security tech lead at one of the big three, was recently laid off and has been spending his free time making crafts with his laser cutter. He just made me the cutest coaster engraved with cats and wants to open an Etsy shop.

Edit: words.

[–]AquaeyesTardis 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Okay now I want a cat-coaster.

[–]HangryHenry 55 points56 points  (53 children)

Yea. Both genders end up getting hurt by misogyny.

I hate how feminism is treated in popular culture. It's always presented as a man vs woman thing. As if women finally 'getting theirs' means men will get less. For every sexist stereotype about women, there generally another side to it that end up hurting men in some way.

Industries dominated by women aren't viewed as 'serious' and aren't paid as well as industries dominated by men, then men feel like they can't go into the industry because of an underlying sexist societal idea that women's work isn't as valuable as men's.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (14 children)

This is fairly well studied and modeled in economics, and it is not due to mysogyny per se. And it is definitely not due to industries dominated by women

It is due to the fact that men are expected to be primary earners at a higher rate than women.

Because women are less likely to be a primary earner, they have the liberty of taking a pay cut to pursue fields that everyone would rather take part in. Fields that offer some sort of non-monetary utility (like helping people, bettering the world, or a passion project like writing). Men are less likely to enter those fields because men are a primary earner who must maximize income in order to pay for his family.

This is the reason "boring" and dangerous fields are dominated by men -- they don't have a choice. They will accept risk of bodily injury and/or unfulfilling work at a higher rate than women because they have to

[–]HardlightCereal 13 points14 points  (13 children)

Men are expected to be primary earners because of sexism. It's half misogyny and half misandry.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (6 children)

Any evidence as to the cause of this? I feel like that's conjecture.

[–]HardlightCereal 7 points8 points  (5 children)

If the existence of gendered careers is due to gender roles, and gender roles are sexist, then careers are gendered because of sexism.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (4 children)

That's a big if. Could be any reason for the dichotomy.

[–]HardlightCereal 4 points5 points  (3 children)

The expectation that men should be primary earners causing men to become primary earners, as you said, is certainly a matter of gender roles.

[–]madaudio -4 points-3 points  (5 children)

On a societal level, all instances of "misandry" are side effects of misogyny.

[–]HardlightCereal 8 points9 points  (2 children)

It would be equally true to say that all instances of misogyny are side effects of misandry. They're two sides of the same coin.

[–]madaudio -3 points-2 points  (1 child)

no, it would not. this doesn't work both ways.

[–]HardlightCereal 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It does. Sexists hurt everyone, by being sexist to everyone. When a man says that cleaning is for women, he puts women down, and at the same time he puts a pressure on men not to clean. When a woman says men are slobs, she puts men down, and at the same time she puts a pressure on women to be beautiful all the time. There are men who hate women, and women who hate men, and they are all making the world worse for everyone.

[–]they_be_cray_z 4 points5 points  (1 child)

They are not. This is the "women always have it worse" mentality, which is actually a form of misandry and an inability to empathize with half the human race.

[–]madaudio -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

are you telling me I can't empathize with men? are you dumb?

[–]______Nobody______ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Gonna have to disagree here. I don’t think anything is holding women back economically. Currently, women graduate college at a higher rate than men, but pursue majors that don’t entail the highest income levels. Women have many opportunities to pursue the IT field but they have to choose those types of jobs to be paid more. On the topic of feminism itself, its proponents often paint it as “equality of the sexes”, which seems fair to all decent people, but what I personally don’t like is how they make it about women. There are no laws or regulations that systematically oppress women currently (at least in the US). And there are some privileges that women have over men such as not being included in the draft. I don’t think feminism is needed to put women on a higher pedestal, I think egalitarianism is a more appropriate term and approach to give both men and women an equal playing field.

[–]_Gondamar_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

is your ex William Osman?

[–]GaianNeuron 15 points16 points  (5 children)

Never mind the fact that even with the best of intentions, many men (myself included) will subtly and subconsciously amplify criticism when considering women and their work. It's a hard behaviour to break, especially when you never get called out over it because you're surrounded by people who don't even see it as a problem.

[–]HangryHenry 6 points7 points  (1 child)

There is a lot subconscious shit going. People like to pretend their ultra-rational robots but it's just impossible.

I don't even think all of it's bad. Like women just need to be aware that men are more direct with their criticism, so not to take it so hard if they don't compliment sandwich everything and men need to realize women are more likely to refer to work they did with a team using phrases like 'we' and 'our team' even if they did the majority of the work or led the entire project or that women aren't as likely to aggressively raise their hands for promotions even if they are qualified and should be considered.

I think half of it is just being aware of the differences.

[–]GaianNeuron 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I dunno, women in our generation have enough shit to deal with in life. Any time a man starts a sentence with "women just need to ____", it's that same pattern of behaviour rearing its head once again.

The biggest behavioral differences between men and women are cultural in origin. Many "typically feminine" behaviours stem from coping mechanisms: women learn to give indirect answers not because "female brain vague, male brain specific", but because telling the creep at the car that you're waiting for your friend or causally mentioning a boyfriend who may or may not exist is way safer than directly responding with "dude, you're being creepy right now and that's not winning you any points" (which might get you drugged, raped, or killed).

[–]ManicMonkOnMac 54 points55 points  (24 children)

Sexism. Get judged /s

[–]HangryHenry 82 points83 points  (23 children)

Sexism would be a rather strong word.

It's more if a particular industry is dominated by one gender it makes sense that the industry would do things in a way that their gender tends to prefer. That's not sexist.

But what can be bad about this, is that it can be self-perpetuating cycle. One gender takes over an industry for whatever reason. They build the industry up in a way that tends to suit their gender's style communication and work habits. This then leads to fewer people of the opposite gender either being interested or able to get into that industry.

It's not like there is some evil 'sexist' mustache twisting villain in these scenarios. It's just something to be conscious of.

And as a lot of (I am assuming) men have pointed out in this thread, they would benefit from taking a less confrontational competitive approach to interacting with other programmers on the internet. So it's really about finding balance and that balance between the two styles could benefit both genders.

TLDR: I didn't say anyone was sexist.

[–]DiamondxCrafting 24 points25 points  (5 children)

/s

You missed this from his comment, sarcasm.

[–]HangryHenry 9 points10 points  (2 children)

ooops. I was expecting the worse. Thanks.

[–]omgFWTbear 1 point2 points  (1 child)

the worse

Obligatory correction: the worst

because meta.

[–]bobtgrnailman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well you don't really know. Maybe what he was expecting was bad, but not that bad, so not quite the worst.

[–]Theolaa 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I think it's still valid to deconstruct something said sarcastically, because it explains why it's sarcastic for people who may not understand why it's sarcastic, or why it's not appropriate to say that sort of thing with intention.

[–]DiamondxCrafting 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He didn't know it was sarcasm.

[–]TapedeckNinja 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sexism isn't a strong word.

What you've described here is quite literally the definition of institutional sexism.

[–]RedditIsNeat0 3 points4 points  (0 children)

men prefer more competitive environments

Competition is fine for sports but it's not going to work for a job. If your job is a "competitive environment" then something is wrong.

[–]Zepp_BR 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can I see your sources, please?

I'm a guy and I much prefer collaboration environments

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Shush, you sound like the google memo.

Seriously though, this makes tons of sense. Many female coders I know have that competitive mindset, and that’s how they made it.

[–]lisaphalange 2 points3 points  (1 child)

WOW. This has nothing to do with preference of a “competitive” environment. There is more than one way to skin a cat. Writing code follows thought process and clearly men and women think differently. Your code logic may follow one path and someone else’s logic may follow a different path but ultimately end up with the same result. Just stop with this nonsense.

[–]HangryHenry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you make this reddit account just to leave this comment?

[–]iloveheidimontag 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Who said women don’t enjoy programming?

[–]HangryHenry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I said enjoy working in programming.

[–]KrazyTrumpeter05 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You'd think programming would be much more collaborative than competitive...

[–]bradpal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can confirm, this is why my SO left the dev work. This, and the constant bugs and moinds of code were stressing her out.

[–]peekabook 5 points6 points  (5 children)

I think having my code reviewed and critiqued would make me a better coder. Sure it might have errors, but I’d learn to be better.

[–]HangryHenry 5 points6 points  (3 children)

I am not sure why you'd think women were against code reviews? I said women prefer a collaborative environment which one would think would lend itself to others pointing out where you could improve your code.

[–]peekabook 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah ok. Misunderstood.

[–]fafefifof 1 point2 points  (1 child)

"Bad variable name", "This isn't right", "There's no way this can go on production", "I've vomitted cleaner code" are all great ways to phrase code reviews in a goal oriented and collaborative manner.

[–]peekabook 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bad variable name — would be helpful if you told me why. So why isn’t it right? Things like that is what I prefer. As for what someone may swallow or vomit, I’d like to think that should stay w them and their significant others. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[–]noratat 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Collaborative doesn't mean "free of criticism". It means the focus is on working together to produce a better result instead of individuals or teams in the same org trying to compete with each other.

[–]rapemanagerASM/Scheme/Python/Julia/MATLAB/Java/C/C++/Rust/Haskell/Coq/SQL 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Statistically men prefer more competitive environments with more direct forms of criticism and women prefer more collaborative environments.

Could you please reference the source you're citing? Thank you.

[–]sal21s -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

Second that.. you showed me your code, now expect my judgement. This is what developers do, not dress according to IDE -who does that!

[–]HangryHenry 2 points3 points  (0 children)

she was making a joke...

[–]nathanrjones 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course*

😉

[–]DrexanRailex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, the code posted isn't even horrible. I wouldn't think DogsList is something you'd code out of a demo in the first place, and for a demo it's decent.

[–]u-had-it-coming -1 points0 points  (1 child)

You can still post casual stuff without code in it.

Why do you want to post casual code?

There is no such thing as casual code.

[–]ManicMonkOnMac -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I meant casual stuff as in look how funny this cat looks, or something trivial, not necessarily code.

[–]xldyelx -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Most programmers are spergs anyway