My granny is a programmer(blog.progopedia.com)
blog.progopedia.com
My granny is a programmer
http://blog.progopedia.com/2012/jun/06/my-granny-programmer/
4 comments
This doesn't surprise me. In Europe it's not uncommon to find women in computer science or engineering. In the US it's not unheard of. In Australia it's extremely rare and most of those that you do find were born overseas.
In India, you will find an equal number of women and men in computer science engineering. There is no stigma associated with being a programmer either (It was never extremely uncool).
In practice, I have found that there are women who are as good as men when it comes to programming. I strongly believe that women don't have any inherent disadvantage. It is just social conditioning.
In practice, I have found that there are women who are as good as men when it comes to programming. I strongly believe that women don't have any inherent disadvantage. It is just social conditioning.
Your assessment that it's social conditioning and not an inherent disadvantage is consistent with my own observations. The fact that different countries have vastly different percentage make up of females suggest it is purely a cultural thing.
Unfortunately once such a pattern is established it's hard to break. I myself find the lack of diversity in the field to be off putting. I can't imagine what it'd be like for females.
Unfortunately once such a pattern is established it's hard to break. I myself find the lack of diversity in the field to be off putting. I can't imagine what it'd be like for females.
Afaik, gender equality was much better in the USSR than it is today in the US.
> Afaik, gender equality was much better in the USSR than it is today in the US.
I wouldn't call it gender equality, when it's apparently limited to a certain field (IT) and when comparing then with now. I'm not a historian or a cultural expert, but I do know two things:
* The majority of software developers in the early days were women. Programming was seen as clergy work, administration, and the existing administrators (then mostly women) were simply transferred to work with computers.
* There are percentually much more women working in the IT industry in eastern Europe than in western Europe or the US. I'm not sure if that percentage switched much over time. I don't even know how many men work in IT in eastern Europe; for all I know it's a women-dominated field (thus, no gender equality either, although I prefer a term indicating equal gender distribution, which is rare in pretty much every professional field)
At the other discussion above, about strong, working women, this was very much true, both in reality and in propaganda posters, during WW2 in the western world / the US; since the men were off to fight the war, the women had to do the work, keep the US industry going, build weapons, etcetera. Then the men returned and took over those jobs again, or something.
I wouldn't call it gender equality, when it's apparently limited to a certain field (IT) and when comparing then with now. I'm not a historian or a cultural expert, but I do know two things:
* The majority of software developers in the early days were women. Programming was seen as clergy work, administration, and the existing administrators (then mostly women) were simply transferred to work with computers.
* There are percentually much more women working in the IT industry in eastern Europe than in western Europe or the US. I'm not sure if that percentage switched much over time. I don't even know how many men work in IT in eastern Europe; for all I know it's a women-dominated field (thus, no gender equality either, although I prefer a term indicating equal gender distribution, which is rare in pretty much every professional field)
At the other discussion above, about strong, working women, this was very much true, both in reality and in propaganda posters, during WW2 in the western world / the US; since the men were off to fight the war, the women had to do the work, keep the US industry going, build weapons, etcetera. Then the men returned and took over those jobs again, or something.
> Programming was seen as clergy work
You probably mean "clerical"?
You probably mean "clerical"?
- Are you married?
- Yes
- Do you have kids?
- No
- Thank you for coming- Ok, see you in court.
No proper company will ask those questions, let alone even hint at them. If they do, there will be a dozen employment layers willing to take on your case for free.
No proper company will ask those questions, let alone even hint at them. If they do, there will be a dozen employment layers willing to take on your case for free.
They don't have to! What self-respecting Internet-raised hacker doesn't at least use some sort of social media? It would takes a lot of discipline to never mention your new baby on Twitter, or whatever social media they are using, regardless of whether you're a man or a woman. Unless he/she is very careful, some family information will leak out, even if it's just in the form of something like an obituary for a family member (which usually includes family information).
They did, they do and they will. Welcome to the outside of the US.
It is especially true in the context of both the Soviet Union and modern day Russia.
It is especially true in the context of both the Soviet Union and modern day Russia.
Uhm... No. Not then and not today.
Well... It depends, I suppose, what you define as equality. I'm too young to actually remember this, but I know from various sources that women under communist regimes, at least in central Europe, were seen as capable of working as hard as men. There are many posters of women driving agricultural machines (I don't know the word in English - something that's used to harvest cereal) and doing various other works that are traditionally associated with men. Aside from posters there were poems, novels and plays written that depicted women in the similar fashion, and later even tv shows, some of which are still popular today, showed women as soldiers, spies or even "entrepreneurs" of a kind. They supposedly had no problem with getting into colleges too. I don't know how much of this is true, but I guess the communists really did something for gender equality; I won't tell you what exactly and how much of an impact it had though.
During WWII, the U.S. promoted the capabilities of women through their "Rosie the Riveter" posters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter). Too bad more of that attitude didn't stick when the "boys returned".
From a business perspective, I have to wonder how the U.S. economy withstood the end of the war. The troops returned, flooding the market with labor and at the same time, much of what was produced during the war had no market in peace-time.
From a business perspective, I have to wonder how the U.S. economy withstood the end of the war. The troops returned, flooding the market with labor and at the same time, much of what was produced during the war had no market in peace-time.
I've grown up with the same perceptions of gender equality in the Soviet job market. However, I get the feeling that this does not so much have to do with a heightened sense of morality or anything, as it does with the fact that work in the USSR was simply a chore or an obligation that was assigned to you. Often people didn't do a particular job because it suited their personality or they were exceptionally good at it, most jobs were government orders anyway. There was no such thing as career planning. People's careers sort of just happened.
That's not what was suggested in this story, at least. She seemed to have an aptitude in math and interest in computers, so she choose a university where she could study CS.
And that is wonderful for her :)
Yes, the official propaganda was all about gender equality, there were movies, posters and newspaper stories about "a working-class woman" (one popular character from "40-latek" series even was called that - her most common line "I'm a working-class woman, I do not fear any job", and in each episode she was doing sth different).
At the same time 99% of the party leaders, managers, directors etc were male, even at regional level. There were still trades where woman were rare (woman on tractor was rare, casue not many woman wanted to do that for a living, woman as a bank director were rare just because). But no problems with getting to the university (incidentaly - you had much better chance to get to university if you were child of industrial worker of farmer, than if your parents were "inteligencja").
Stereotypes about math, programming and gender are also different between countries. Being good at math is cool in Poland, for example, even in primary school. There are some stereotypes about woman similar to that in USA, but nothing on such scale. From my experience around 10% programmers are female here.
At the same time 99% of the party leaders, managers, directors etc were male, even at regional level. There were still trades where woman were rare (woman on tractor was rare, casue not many woman wanted to do that for a living, woman as a bank director were rare just because). But no problems with getting to the university (incidentaly - you had much better chance to get to university if you were child of industrial worker of farmer, than if your parents were "inteligencja").
Stereotypes about math, programming and gender are also different between countries. Being good at math is cool in Poland, for example, even in primary school. There are some stereotypes about woman similar to that in USA, but nothing on such scale. From my experience around 10% programmers are female here.
> agricultural machines
You’re probably thinking of tractors and harvesters.
You’re probably thinking of tractors and harvesters.
Tractors, exactly. I even googled the actual thing: http://www.bwphotography.pl/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/...
The text below says, roughly: "Let's fight for the betterment of socialistic Polish villages".
The text below says, roughly: "Let's fight for the betterment of socialistic Polish villages".
Cute picture. But even after 50 years of this propaganda, I'm yet to see a woman driving tractors in Poland (yes, I've seen many men driving them).
Sometimes I don't know if feminists are really serious or just trollin'...
Sometimes I don't know if feminists are really serious or just trollin'...
I am not an expert on tractor drivers' genders, but when I meet a female engineer over 30 in Western Germany, there is a chance > 80% her roots are in Eastern Germany.
Cute, right? I have the same impression, but this may be because I didn't live then and I don't associate it with all the other things that happened then instinctively.
You're right of course in that it's hard to see a woman on a tractor, but what I'm saying is that 50 years of propaganda can't pass without any consequences, even if it was widely recognized as a propaganda and it was actively opposed by many. I think that these efforts actually did something for women, even if only a little. They - the communists - even did something for racial equality: they offered stipends for people from African countries (of course those aligned with communists only) and it was quite normal (I'm being told, please don't blame if that's wrong!) to see a man or a woman with different skin color in the university.
Anyway, while communists did many bad things, they at least sometimes tried to do something good. Someone better educated than me should say how those efforts fared - I suppose they were not that successful, because as you said, it's really hard to find a woman on a tractor :) - but it's worth noting, I think, that they were made.
You're right of course in that it's hard to see a woman on a tractor, but what I'm saying is that 50 years of propaganda can't pass without any consequences, even if it was widely recognized as a propaganda and it was actively opposed by many. I think that these efforts actually did something for women, even if only a little. They - the communists - even did something for racial equality: they offered stipends for people from African countries (of course those aligned with communists only) and it was quite normal (I'm being told, please don't blame if that's wrong!) to see a man or a woman with different skin color in the university.
Anyway, while communists did many bad things, they at least sometimes tried to do something good. Someone better educated than me should say how those efforts fared - I suppose they were not that successful, because as you said, it's really hard to find a woman on a tractor :) - but it's worth noting, I think, that they were made.
> Cute, right? I have the same impression, but this may be because I didn't live then and I don't associate it with all the other things that happened then instinctively.
Well, this was slightly sarcastic. I wouldn't hang this picture on my wall, but it was clearly intended to look good like all the other pictures showing people happily running around with hammers or sickles and building better socialist future :)
As for whether encouraging women to pick up technical or scientific jobs (when it works) does any good, I'm not sure. I'm under impression that lower number of women in IT and CS is mostly caused by the female part of "I've no idea what I'm doing, I kinda landed here by accident" crowd going somewhere else. Those who are serious get through regardless of sex and the rest, well, isn't serious.
Well, this was slightly sarcastic. I wouldn't hang this picture on my wall, but it was clearly intended to look good like all the other pictures showing people happily running around with hammers or sickles and building better socialist future :)
As for whether encouraging women to pick up technical or scientific jobs (when it works) does any good, I'm not sure. I'm under impression that lower number of women in IT and CS is mostly caused by the female part of "I've no idea what I'm doing, I kinda landed here by accident" crowd going somewhere else. Those who are serious get through regardless of sex and the rest, well, isn't serious.
> Cute picture. But even after 50 years of this propaganda, I'm yet to see a woman driving tractors in Poland (yes, I've seen many men driving them).
Not a tractor, but my aunt was operating an industrial crane in the '80s in communist Romania.
Not a tractor, but my aunt was operating an industrial crane in the '80s in communist Romania.
To be fair you might expect that, if you have a command economy you can say "how can we get more women in IT?" and answer with "Take women out of nursing and put them in IT".
"To be fair you might expect that, if you have a command economy you can say "how can we get more women in IT?" and answer with "Take women out of nursing and put them in IT"."
During WW2 in Russia, the Soviets had female snipers and female fighter aces. Why shouldn't they have females in a new, blurry position of a computer programmer - a position so new and so alien to most people that no stereotypes could have evolved by then?
During WW2 in Russia, the Soviets had female snipers and female fighter aces. Why shouldn't they have females in a new, blurry position of a computer programmer - a position so new and so alien to most people that no stereotypes could have evolved by then?
She also looks like a total badass.
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