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551 points adrianhon | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.209s | source
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toolz ◴[] No.39973124[source]
I do believe there are unique challenges to being a woman in tech, but the odds seem in favor of women doing well both back in the 70's and today with todays stats having roughly 20% of CS grads being female while some 23% of SWEs are female. That suggests there are more women in software jobs than women who have been pursing that career academically. What stats do you see that suggest the odds are against women in tech? I frequently recommend tech as a good field for young girls, but I'll probably not do that anymore if the odds are truly against them.
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leononame ◴[] No.39973152[source]
How ist 20%/23% good? Am I reading the numbers wrong? 40%, that I could agree on. But 23% is very low.

Another thing is culture. The in the company's where I've worked at, how the men talked about women was pretty off-putting to be honest. They didn't do it in front of women (obviously), but even your nerdy developers would drop comments that had me wondering whether I was really in the ckrrect field. I'm sure the women in those places notice that even if it's behind their backs.

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ekms ◴[] No.39973307[source]
23% > 20% which means if someone goes into the field of computer programming they're more likely to remain in the field if they are a woman than if they are a man. "remain in the field" is used as a proxy for success.

You could argue about whether or not it's a good proxy for success, but your response sounds like you think women would be more likely to drop out of the field alltogether than men, which doesnt appear to be true

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1. WarOnPrivacy ◴[] No.39979059[source]
> they're more likely to remain in the field if they are a woman

Top earning fields (+most fields) were rife with strong resistance to hiring women. For women who'd managed jobs in top-earning professions (<pay) - this was constant, persuasive pressure to stay where they were.

source: grew up around professional women born early 1920s (budget analyst, peace corps, navy intel, usvp sec).