Discussion on:

IT gender gap: Where are the female programmers?

There are plenty of other professions where gender gap is far bigger, yet, nobody is complaining about lack of men in nursing or teaching in kindergarten, for example. So, why worry about lack of women in IT? The only reasonable motive behind the "lack of women in IT" hulabaloo is, that women are considered to be better unemployed IT professionals than men. They can be conveniently parked into the kitchen, where they happily wait until they are needed again by the IT industry. They don't escape from the resource tank... errr... pool, flee into other professions that is, and they are also more manageable. Well, at least, that's what I imagine the big shots of the IT industry might be thinking when they commission these IT gender gap media campaigns.

Here's another theory about IT gender gap: IT (especially programming) is a young men's (whoops... person's) game.

http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.217131.40

As a programmer you reach your end level in about four years. After about four years you are at your top in a specific development environment. When you have 20 years experience as a programmer, you are no super experienced top gun, you are just an old farth.Your problem solving capacities are not bigger then after 5 years experience. You will not grow anymore. In most organisations your salary will not grow either. None of the programmers I've met had a career plan.

And that goes for most of the IT, not just programming.

Call me politically incorrect, but I think women are far more inclined towards planning their careers than men. And so, they are avoiding the IT for the same reasons men should avoid it, but for some reasons don't.

"As a programmer you reach your end level in about four years. After about four years you are at your top in a specific development environment. When you have 20 years experience as a programmer, you are no super experienced top gun, you are just an old farth.Your problem solving capacities are not bigger then after 5 years experience. You will not grow anymore. In most organisations your salary will not grow either. None of the programmers I've met had a career plan."

I think thats the silliest thing I've ever heard.

Someone with 20 yrs experience in the game IS a top gun, provided they have "kept up to date". Now, some pimply faced kid with 4 yrs experience in one specific environment is not all that experienced. Someone with 10 yrs expereince in 4 different environments is someone of value.

I have 8 yrs expereince working with databases and some programming, and I am learning new things each and every day, and upgrading my skills to the new versions.
Honestly, if some little **** with 4 years expereince thinks he/she/it is the bees knees because they've been at it for 4 years..well..then all the power to them.
This type of attitude is why some of these young ones just entering the game are laughed at so much, because they think they are so much better than the old fats..

I am going to say something so very un-PC .. a lot of women just don't give a darn about computers or what makes them tick..same as they don't give a hoot about cars and what makes them run, hence there are less female mechanics.

... you sure sound like an old fart here


FYI, I have almost 30 years experience in programming. Started in high school with punch cards & Fortran, currently in C#. And no, I had no career plan back then.

Well, I'm not..yet...just at that stage where I'm old enough to know better, but young enough to do it again

I've never had a career plan really..well, I knew I DIDN'T want to be a DBA ... and look where I ended up..

My only career plan is to retire

Ditto. We gotta get out of this place!

But, My first IT job after a career change into IT at age 44, was at a credit card processing company that employed a lot of women mainframe programmers (Assembler, Cobol), and very few Client Server (Windows platform languages, C++, Java, ASP.net, Cold Fusion). I cannot see why that stat was skewed like that, but it might be related to the differences in the culture and age bias of the two programming diciplines. The mainframe house employed a lot of older, more civil, and socially adjusted programmers and managers, and the PC/Server side was made up of younger personnel.

Once again, a culture thing. The geek culture vs acedemia.

I never had a career plan either. I "fell" into programming and found that I had a knack for it and could learn new languages quite easily. Consulted for many years just so I would be exposed to different environments, industries, and technologies to keep my skills sharp...BTW, I can work on a car too! This female is multi-capable

although my husband wasn't too happy when the tire exploded in the driveway. LOL. He was sure there was a driveby shooting. Hehe.

But I am "lady coder" as well. I'll admit that when I was teaching, I found myself pushing the gals harder. I can't answer why more women aren't programmers (I know some really hotshot lady coders).

Personally, I think everyone should learn to do a bit of coding. Will those not interested in programming ever use the knowledge? I think so...at some point. I can't tell you the number of overnighters I've written for friends and familiy members who have very simple requirements but have no idea how to implement a solution.

Yeah, I'll never forget the day when my step-father and I had a blowout in our rental car while on vacation and I discovered that I was much better at changing tires than he was. I assumed that because he was male and older than I was that he'd handle it. But his incompetency quickly drove me to take over and do it myself. Which actually describes my career plan as well - do it myself when others' incompetencies drive me nuts! That's how I got into IT in the first place and it's driven me forward from tech support into general IT management to BI to data warehousing and into all other interesting areas.

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up!

Me Too!

The SO has been a programmer since Series/1. There are precious few "programmers" out there today who are as capable of looking holistically at large complex corporate problems that touch myriad systems and not many who do it as well as he does.

Someone with a whole four years of experience which, implies that it is current experience, has little to no knowledge of how legacy systems integrate with the current environment. It might be argued that legacy systems don't matter much but I personally know of large corporations that are still dependent on systems implemented over 20 years ago. The reality is that those corporations have not seen a solid rationale for sunsetting those systems.

The kid fresh out of school doesn't want to learn those legacy systems because they are not current and, from a growth perspective, are not a good way to go. But the 20+ year veteran had a significant hand in BUILDING those systems and knows them intimately.

As a woman who can still write code, I will say that I moved away from it years ago because I had other talents that were better utilized in an IT shop. In other words, I made a choice to hang it up. I don't regret that choice.

The SO has retired now but still chooses to spend his time building useful applications. In retirement, he chose to teach himself Java because he was bored. I can't think of many corporate environments that wouldn't love to have him around.

And just because I don't actively write code any longer doesn't mean that I can't be a credible sounding board when he is developing something new. I understand how the logic works, even if I don't care to spend my days coding it.

Men think logically while women think artistically.

I am female programmer and artist. I can actually use both sides of my brain, thank you.
I've been programming for 25+ years, because I like to create useful applications that solve a business problem. But the change I've seen over that time is a shift to the "science" of programming, and loosing to focus on the actual solution. Programming has been taken over by engineers who like nothing better than breaking everything down to its smallest components, and then assembling them in the most complex pattern possible. If all problem solving were approached this way, we would never solve a one! I do think that women are not as caught up in the how, but in the what, and the current development environments are not attuned to that goal. In fact, I sometimes feel like I'm invading some secret boys club, and need to know all the passwords and handshakes just to participate. I just don't think any non-geek is going to willingly tolorate this, even though they are totally capable developers...

Do you have scientific proof of that reycat?? It would seem to me that logically speaking, before making a statement as broad as that, I would have a lot of scientific proof to back up my statement. But then, I'm "just" a woman.

http://www.mastersofhealthcare.com/blog/2009/10-big-differences-between-mens-and-womens-brains/

Mathematical abilities.

An area of the brain called the inferior-parietal lobule (IPL) is typically significantly larger in men, especially on the left side, than in women. This section of the brain is thought to control mental mathematical ability, and probably explains why men frequently perform higher in mathematical tasks than do women. Interestingly, this is the same area of Einstein?s brain that was discovered to be abnormally large. The IPL also processes sensory information, and the larger right side in women allows them to focus on, "specific stimuli, such as a baby crying in the night."

If men are more left-brained...that would imply that great male artists and musicians are more rare. I hardly think that is the case. Are they implying that a left-handed male uses his right brain less and his left brain more?

Good thing I didn't read your "online degree" article before I took my calculus courses. I might not aced them and been at the top of all my math classes (*gasp* ahead of male students! God forbid..). I'm left-handed AND female by the way...a double whammy of right-brained dominance. (Oddly enough, when I click the link to the 'experts' cited in this article - I get a listing of people who provide online degrees.)

Sure there are differences in our brains. Viva la difference! I don't doubt that we process information in different ways. If there were only one way to solve a problem - it might matter. Together we have greater problem solving power.

You can't apply that to everyone, and being artistic is actually a good characteristic in this field. I am female, and I think logically. Also, commonsense is a close relative to logic, which almost every women possesses. I am somewhat "artistic", but I wouldn't characterize myself as being particularly "artistic". I was the top student in my Logic class back in the 80s. I can be creative, if in the right mindset, but I definitely think logically. I pretty much depend on logic to get through the day.

I have 4 kids, 2 boys, 2 girls. Out of the 4, 1 is an artist. She is a teenager obsessed with web design & web programming, and she does it far better than I could ever imagine. Why? Because there is also an art to programming (esp web programming). Having creativity actually helps in this area. I envy her, she was gifted with an artistic flair which makes her better at what she does than someone with pure logic.

I believe a blend of the two characteristics is ideal for the programming field. Having language skills is another component which helps in this field (and women tend to excel in the Language area).

I would say that I am a blend of logic & language, with a touch of creativity. My daughter, is very strong in language & art, & she possess a lot of commonsense. My other daughter, also a teen interested in IT, is so logical she's like Spock. She's got some creativity, and is very strong in language & science. She's built her own PC for a class project, & I'm betting that she would make a pretty good programmer if she went into the field. But, it's my artistic daughter who shows incredible promise in the field, and she does "program" now.

Over the years I noticed that there are actually a lot of programmers (guys & gals) who were also either artists or musicians. Another group were English majors. Some were Mathemetician sorts, but I found it interesting to see so many artistic types in the field. The best programmers I knew were a mix of the characteristcs above, particularly, Music and Art. I think the artistic factor brings the creativity into programming, and allows you to better "think outside the box" when faced with a dilemma.

Compare that observation to my children's dad: an Aerospace engineer who can't carry a tune, play an instrument, & can only draw stick figures. But he's a top-notch engineer & can perform complex mathematical calculations in his head and is very logical. He also does not understand the first thing about computers, & disconnects the cable at night so "viruses can't get in". He's seen me program when I was a mainframer in the 80s, & it just boggled his mind...

I happen to be a woman who is both logical and artistic. Generalizations like your comment only fuel bitterness.

I'm a man who weilds both sides of the force (I'm Black too). What's with this dated stereotyping?

Got ya beat. I'm a black-lady-coder! For a while, at my last company, I was the ONLY black face in the IT department, and 1 of 5 women (only one other woman was a programmer).

That was a treat for me. I love nothing more than to stand out in a crowd...Woohoo!

You must be a manager.

Hmmm.. then why are girls outscoring boys consistently on secondary school math tests?
This is a very old stereotype. I have been in IT since 1985 starting with programming and then quickly moving into design, project management, IT management, and now CIO (for ten years). I wonder if men are more content to stay in programming positions and women are less so and tend to move into management.

I'm a nurse (male) working in a recovery room where all the others are female. There were some males but they all went on to become managers and department heads. Couldn't handle life in the trenches, I guess... to be a good recovery nurse, you need good assessment skills, patience with people at their worst, and empathy. And patience with management. Sounds like what it takes to be a good mum, too.

It has always been my experience that as most men cannot multitask, they tend to break things down to individual components, meaning that they are usually good at a singular peice of code, but tend to have trouble looking at the problem as a whole.
Women on the other hand are able to see the whole picture and can fit everything together a lot better, which in my opinion makes them much more effective programmers.
Again, This is just my opinion, and I think that blanket statements like the one above really should be explained a bit better AND supported by evidence to prove your point. Otherwise you just end up sounding foolish.

I recently read about a study done in the UK that showed that regardless of gender, those that thought they were good multitaskers were usuall the worst at it. I'm not sure what you mean by mulitask, but physioligically speaking humanse aren't very good a true multitasking. Other than autotomic funnctions the human brain just can't concentrate on more that one thing at a time. Precisely why driving while talking on the phone isn't a good idea, for example.

Hey loved your comments, I am an old fart looking for work. I am currently taking CIS from Devry and love old cars, worked on a few and love computers... I have always wanted to figure out what made things tick. I have been using computer since they were room size and had an email address as long as they have been available. My point is what should I do, since losing my job in Dec of 08, I have lost more than 1/2 of my retirement and must make some jack to recover... what should I learn to do in CIS field where they won't care how old I am and that I am a woman? thx for all who help... just another old lady...

Biomedical Informatics will explode pretty soon, since the US government will be funding the initiative. Go back to school and take a few classes. Health IT is the next wave. The industry would need a lot of people. Health IT will go a long way to reduce the prevailing hight cost of medical treatment.

Moreover, you can learn some Web programming, by taken classes in PHP. Java or .NET (C#) are a little bit challenging.

Good luck!

Hi Jeanne,

I had a friend that I helped coach through college and getting a job. I remember her saying that "nobody wants to hire an old lady like me" (though she says she said "fat, old lady"). She was in her mid or late forties at the time.

I told her it was about attitude and gave her some pointers. (Of course, knowledge, skill, and experience also come into play.) She got an offer after her second job interview, and she has been happily employed for 3+ years.

DeVry is an expensive place to learn. If you are unemployed, i think teaching yourself Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (LAMP) would be a more cost-effective way to go, but that depends on what you are really passionate about learning. Do you not have a degree already? Also, are you willing to relocate to an area where there are more opportunities for software developers or programmers?

I will look into this info on teaching myself those programs. Thing is here in Ohio I'm finding that without the degree they don't want to hire you for anything. I have an associate degree in Graphics, it helped me get better jobs than I had prior but not the job of my dreams, I love to create - I was hoping that web development or something with Creativity would be a dream job for me. I am another fat old (54) lady... yippee!

From a female in IT - your last paragraph hits it home. If we don't like it, we aren't going to do it, or stay, no matter what the pay.....

So women aren't getting into IT? Great! Probably because they are getting into something more useful to humanity. I've been in the IT industry for over 50 years and I can out-program any kid (boy/girl) programmer out there. 4 years experience, ha hah hah. I wouldn't hire ya. People watch me code or upgrade a computer or network and they gasp... 'howdaya learn ta do that??!??" Gee... I repeat 50 years in the industry. Think I stopped learning with mainframes? hardee har har. C, C++, VB, SGML, Java, C#, SAP, QAD, EOne, Sybase, PeopleSoft...macs, pcs, transparent to me. Certifications? More than you can count on two hands. Certified ScrumMaster (meaningless except to idiots), CQM, CSSMBB, CISA, PMP, MCSD, etc. Whenever I get sick of working someplace (I'm a geographic gypsy) I just post my resume.... bam! my phone starts ringing off the hook. Yup, about 50% of the calls are from baby-idiot recruiters who don't grok what I do. Open Source... hmmm, can you make $110/hour doing open source coding. NOT. So there's another reason women aren't into open source. It's for boy toys, not for intelligent women. Oh, so you don't work for moola, but for intellectual freedom? Crock! Tell that to my friends as I ferry them to Las Vegas in my twin-engine. I work for MONEY, and the hubris of believing that I will still code circles around 20-somethings when I am 90, if I still choose to work, given I haven't had to work (for money) in 27 years.
Face it men, women are just smarter and tend to do better things with their lives. I am still in I.T. because, well, I'm like a man in some ways... terribly self-centered, after all.

Love it

I love it!

That's awesome. I hope I feel that way once I have 50 years in! Keep it up!

All the comments have been given me food for thought. I've been looking into taking web programming classes. Would love to go for a degree but can't afford it nor does it seem worthwhile to invest a lot of money as I'm 53 and who knows whether anyone will hire me anyway. I'm considered a "creative" and ignored when development, research, and testing opportunities arise. Instead I come in at the tail end to document what everyone else has come up with on the Oracle ERP team. It's at that point I get to test and make changes to what they've come up with, which seems to irritate the powers that be, but a girl has to have some fun. I'm interested in the web programming because to me it is creative. I can do simple scripts right now and I find it to be a fun puzzle. I love seeing how a website ends up coming together. So I hope to pursue PHP, SQL, Java, and C through books and online community college classes and hope it leads to a job change, even if changing jobs in the current economy and at my age is a bit risky.

I am not concerned about the lack of male nurses in hospitals, so lack of women in IT is not a problem.
I believe that women's brain is not suitable for coding.
It is necessary to think simple and step by step for coding but a woman's brain is so complex that it is not capable of thinking step by step.
They mostly consider all steps for solution of a problem and they stuck in those multi-steps.
Probably some may think that I am an anti-feminist but that is not true. There is no superirity men over women or vice versa. I just think that they are not created for coding.

I actually disagree, most women would be quite good at it, IF they had an interest.

What you see as a flaw, I see as a MUST have.
The one thing that really annoys be about a lot of programmers I know is that they think only about the step they are on. I think about the current step, the next step, and the conseguences of that step which leads to the next step.

Any programmer who thinks simply, and only about 1 step at a time is not a very good programmer.

When I write a query, I have to keep in mind whats happening before the query is run, what will happen during the query, and the consequences of those 2 steps.. (and how it is likely to affect any steps in any other applications.

are large enough that there is a need for both types of thinking; step by step vs multi-step. Your multi-step analogy makes me think of the "big picture" thinking. As to women vs. men thinking out step by step I couldn't tell you.

I believe that women's brain is not suitable for coding.

The best coders I've met are women. If you're looking for a code monkey then basic linear thinking is fine. The moment you're looking at larger systems you need to be able to think out of the box, think homogeneously, consider the over all architecture and not just lines of code.

You're using stereotyping as your argument and by doing so have become a stereotype in yourself. That of the misogynist who's ideas about gender roles come from the 50s, the 1850s!

I am not a misogynist and I would really like to see more women around, because I am really bored to work with all men colleagues, and male classmates for so many years.
The problem is, women are not interested in programming. And the topic was about the lack of women as programmers in IT.
Women can see the big picture and they are better than men about the 'big picture'.
So, I think that women are really better than men in following subjects:
- Whole system design
- User interface design
- Understanding of customer requirements (because they are superior talents about empathy)

I also met a few women that interested in coding and deveop codes as a poem, however they were 'few' and can be considered as exception.

Just as an example, I am not good at playing soccer, and I do not like soccer. I am not interested in soccer because I am not good at it.

Most women do not interest in coding, because they are not good at coding.

They can see the big picture, they can see and understand all problems (including sub-problems of problems) and customer requirements, but they can't decide for the suitable steps to solve problems and get stucked in problems.

Well it should be better if more women around (is there anybody here who don't want to work with Megan Fox as a colleague [dude, did I tell you that the 'exceptional' super female coders were so far from Megan Fox? Err... they were simply female geeks]), but I still think that lack of women programmers is not a problem at all.

Being able to see "the big picture" means being able to hold a vision of an infinite number of "little pictures" in their places in order to see how they fit in.

Think of it as being able to hold an n-dimensional array in memory, and access all data within that array accordingly.

If you're looking for Megan Fox, go to Hollywood - if you're looking for talented female programmers, stop propagating an environment that would generate frustration and resentment in any intelligent human being.

Mustafa, you begin by saying that you are not a misogynist, then proceed to salivate over the thought of a Megan Fox lookalike as a programmer? So, as a woman in the Tech field, am I allowed to decry the fact that none of the geeks I work with look like Brad Pitt?
That aside, I'm not a programmer, but a PC tech with an IT degree who is currently studying for my CCNA.
I suspect that I have benefited from the fact that my father was a mechanical engineer and my mother was a woodworker. I was always encouraged to be curious, do well in school and go to college. I was also the kind of kid who took things apart to see how they work... and I continue to void warranties today.
All said, though, I think it is largely due to lack of encouragement and the larger societal expectations of house and home that keeps more women from the tech fields.

"Mustafa, you begin by saying that you are not a misogynist, then proceed to salivate over the thought of a Megan Fox lookalike as a programmer?"

I think you have twisted the guys point. Bad example from him, but still.

"So, as a woman in the Tech field, am I allowed to decry the fact that none of the geeks I work with look like Brad Pitt?"

Sure, of course you can. The difference is that men won't get nearly as bent out of shape when you do compared to women hearing a similar thing.

"That aside, I'm not a programmer, but a PC tech with an IT degree who is currently studying for my CCNA."

Thus, not qualified to speak on the topic really.
This is about real programmers.

"All said, though, I think it is largely due to lack of encouragement and the larger societal expectations of house and home that keeps more women from the tech fields."

A stereotypical response that puts the blame for things on external forces whenever things do not go as liked. It seems that if women don't get constant encouragement then they give up sooner than men. I could tell many stories from my own life where I never got any encouragement (in fact some people attempted to be downright discouraging on numbers of occasions along the way), that did not stop me from pursuing my chosen career and talents. The problem seems to be with a lack of will to persist and endure against odds. This constant need for encouragement is just another way of pointing to low self-esteem. It is a fact that this is always due to a person's own thinking patterns, not because external forces are always against them. Life puts obstacles in everyones path, men and women. It is how you react to them that is important. University/College degree paths into STEM have be available to women for more than 50 years. Yet they still choose in general not to pursue them by their own choice. A person's career is their own choice, their own responsibility. It is not up to every person along the way to pat you on the back, say nice things, and give you a warm fuzzy feeling about the whole thing. You do it because it is what you want, else choose another path. It is really that simple.

There is actually no problem with a lack of women in IT. If women want jobs in IT, go get them. But the constant use of victim language, complaining, is just a sign of weakness of character. Who wants to be around that, let alone listen to it. There is important work to do, no time for holding hands. We programmers want to be around people of like mind. Serious about the job at hand. Emotions take a back seat and the work gets done.

I have personally worked with women programmers in software development/engineering and in other career areas. My experience, a very small sample, is that they were not really in the same mindset as the men, even though supposed to be doing the same job. And the ones I worked with did not seem to really have the whole project as a consideration, only their own little piece of work (as opposed to other comments about women seeing more I have to disagree, these ones saw less). And it was somewhat difficult to get them to cooperate on ideas that should be shared in developing architecture/design/reusing code, seemingly wanting to do things in just their own way (which later resulted in having to clean up the mess that doing it that way created).

A similar situation has occurred with another female associate in a different field, where she only sees fit to just be concerned about only the job immediately facing her, but hardly ever attends to side issues or improving skills that will have impact later on.

Not that every woman is like that, but my experience has shown that some women just do not have the same level of commitment to their job as a man in the same role. I have worked 6 and 7 days weeks on projects for months at a time, whereas on those extra weekend days working, the women on the same projects were almost never around. I took on more role and responsibilities, ones which they could have also. This raised my profile and gained me benefits. They could have done the same for themselves, but choose not to.

Ladies, please get IT jobs if you want them. But bring your 'A' game when you do because things have to get done, sooner than later, or there won't be any paychecks to get. Leave all other issues at home. Doing great work will get you further than complaining.

Well, I would say you're the problem - just be a 'man' and 'suck it up' attitude all the way. That may work for you, but it's not a requirement for actually being a good programmer. Rigidity is usually the death of productivity and creativity.

You've spent months, maybe years, working on the same programming project, perfecting it, getting it ready. Writing documentation, preparing presentations. Then some economic downturn comes and your CTO from another office enters your building to cancel the project and scrap the work.

Your only choice is to suck it up and be a man.

1) I speak only as a fellow IT professional and a female. Although, I believe that the lack of women in IT is endemic in many facets of the industry.
3) I am not in the least bent out of shape. I only felt a sense of irony over Mustafa's comment that he is not a misogynist but wants to work with a Megan Fox lookalike. Frankly, I don't give a damn about how my co-workers look, as long as they put in the same effort as I do to get the job done and done well.
4) Sounds like you got plenty bent out of shape by my comments.
5) I did not place blame. I merely pointed out that in general, girls have not historically been encouraged in school to pursue the computer sciences. Encourage is the operant term. I do not mean coddle, cajole, or handhold.
6) We all have colleagues of both sexes who do not put in the full measure. That, too, is life. I bring my "A" game every day and I do not complain, unlike some of my male colleagues.

The lack or motivation and the CLEAR sexism men in the field continue to harbour (As seen above "is there anybody here who don't want to work with Megan Fox as a colleague [dude, did I tell you that the 'exceptional' super female coders were so far from Megan Fox? Err... they were simply female geeks])"

Statements like these show the true nature of the field, the geeks just want a pretty geek-girl to harass at work.
Disgusting!