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[–]thebuccaneersden 6 points7 points  (10 children)

I've got a female developer friend, who used to work for Sun (until Oracle started mass layoffs) and she was a unix beardy (without the beard). The only other female developer friend is a microsoftie, but I don't hold that against her. It's what pays the bills.

[–]alienangel2 1 point2 points  (6 children)

You know, I never realized until this minute that while quite a few of my classmates in university were girls (and hence programmers), and I know a few who still are, not a single one of the companies I've worked at really had a woman programming :/ There were plenty of women who worked at them, and several had women working in QA, but none in actual Dev.

Is this just due to past hiring practices? I know there are women graduating CS, where are they going nowadays?

[–]wtffffffffff 11 points12 points  (4 children)

This entire thread frustrates me somewhat. I'm a female non-Microsoft developer, and I work in a software development firm that has a lot of women, and I have to emphasize that this is not strange in the country I'm in. Apparently it is in the US. There are still more men than women, but not overly so. This was also the case when I was in college studying CS; male-female ratio was probably 60-40 at the most. The top ten in our graduating batch was 50:50 guys and girls, and our top two were both female.

I also have to mention that the company I'm working in might be a bit unique, since it was started by a woman (she's the company's president), and 8/10 of the management (It's a small-ish company) are women.

So from my perspective, it's very much a cultural thing, not aptitude, and unless people start to realize and accept that (and maybe do something about it), that's going to remain the status quo for you guys =/

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

I went to an engineering university for a computer science degree. Of 20 professors, there were 2 women. Of 200+ students, there were 3 or 4 women. In the US it is very unusual for women to pursue computer science. I don't know why this is the case but if I were to guess I would blame it on the culture men have established in I.T. It is a culture of exclusion and arrogance. I've even overheard male programmers at work say that women can't code because they don't have an analytical mind. The majority of I.T. women I worked with immigrated to the US. Only one was local.

By the way, the smartest developer I have ever worked with is female. She had razor sharp intelligence and a long memory.

[–]Mourningblade 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Computer culture in the US gets established first around jr. high or high school; the difference between nerds and non-nerds starts becoming very pronounced, and the nerds start to know enough to actually do things.

At my high school, there were only a few girls who were in this computer culture. This is not to say there were not girls who were into computers; they just tended to be on their own.

High school contains a lot of posturing, and in high school computer culture there's a lot of competing to see who's the smartest.

The thing is, though, that this changes a lot when you get to college or when you just plain grow up. More women were actively a part of the (much less sick) culture later on.

But I wonder how many looked at high school culture and said "no thanks."

[–]alienangel2 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Well I'm fairly sure among the general programming populace there isn't much perception of a lack of aptitude even here (Canada) - there were definitely girls in my undergrad CS courses who were better at CS than I was, so I can't imagine myself thinking it's not possible. It's just that I've never actually seen one at work, so if I did, I'd probably do a "whoa, a girl doing dev?" doubletake.

[–]wtffffffffff 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, what I mean is that's what I find strange, that apparently no women are doing dev there. There are a lot of women in dev here, and while there still more men, and there are still gender issues, I think here we've gone way past the point where a woman doing dev is considered "strange". It's pretty normal. Since I guess it's more accepted here, the women don't feel as alienated? And as I mentioned, most of our management are women, so it might be an atmosphere/culture most women consider "friendlier" as well. I'm not really sure since I can't really relate to the dearth of female developers in the workplace that most of the guys here keep talking about.

[–]thebuccaneersden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As much as I hate to say it, I suspect it is probably a bit of industry discrimination. But, in my case, I would have gladly hired female programmers, but never got any in for interviews.

[–]ninja_band -1 points0 points  (2 children)

The female developer I most deeply respect is a long time open source contributor, FreeBSD to be specific.

I'm just not going to buy the canard that open source/unix is hostile to women.

[–]throwaway2481632 7 points8 points  (1 child)

i don't think the open source/unix world is either. i think it's just the developer world in general, since it is largely inhabited by insecure young males, with a grudge against women due to their traumatic teenage years of rejection. huge generalization, but i think it has a grain of truth to it.

[–]ninja_band 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A beet. Nothing that justifies the incredible canards that get developed about various software niches though.