Re^2: Women in Perl - Ada Lovelace Day

I don't know whether to be amused or sadden by the way this thread has veered off topic from a list of notable women to a discussion of whether the topic should even be discussed.

Whether women or any other group should be singled out is an important question, but discussing it here muddies the thread and makes it hard to read for those who are interested in the question originally presented: "who are the notable women?". I, for one, do not know enough about my female colleagues and would have liked to keep that topic front and center.

I truly wish that Anonymous Monk had had the wisdom to post his or her views on a separate thread rather than this one. And I also wish that the first monk to respond had chosen to gently redirect Anonymous Monk back on topic rather than take up the bait and argue the point. But sigh... the debate is here on this thread and not elsewhere, so I'm going to, with reservations, add my two cents. So far, this discussion seems to be by men about women and I'm finding it uncomfortable.

For the record. I DO NOT REGRET (loud enough?) having had the opportunity to go to a college that once upon a time admitted only men, hold a highly skilled job, get a business degree from one of the top schools in the world, start my own company, or all of the other things that the women's movement has granted me both the courage and the opportunity to do.

Over 70 years ago my grandmother graduated third in her class with an MBA from NYU (1933). She went on to teach accounting at a vocational school, despite previous experience as chief perfume buyer at Best and Co. Her husband, who graduated in the same class with less significant work experience, went to work on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's economic advisory committee.

I once asked her why she didn't pursue a more aggressive career. Her explanation? All the women she knew who did never found husbands - apparently in the 1930's it was a rare man who wanted to marry a high powered career women.

Most men would say "do it anyway", but women and men are different. When social structures force women to choose between family and personal development, most women will find a way to compromise so that they can have a family. In my grandmother's case that meant forgoing a professional management career. Instead she donated her considerable management skills to community organizations and eventually was awarded the prestigious Clara Barton award by the Red Cross. During that same conversation she told me that there were many women like her. Many of the social service organizations started in New York City were started, organized and managed for free by women who today would be highly paid CEO's.

Women in the 1940's liked to go to college and run organizations as much as men did - they just had to find different outlets. Today it is the same for women and programming, I suspect. When you change the teaching methods and the social context to fit the interests of women, then the interest in programming becomes apparent.

At lower grades the EYH (formerly the Math/Science network) has sponsored several successful programs aimed at getting young women more involved in maths and sciences. At the university level, Carnegie-Melon has dramatically increased the number of women Computer Science majors by taking this into account. For more information, see:

"Culture and Environment as Determinants of Women's Participation in Computing" - academic paper, covering the Carnegie-Melon initiatives among others
Celebrating 30 years of effective change! - retrospective article discussing the work of the EYH and what makes for successful programs.
Edu-sig: Girls, women, and Programming - someone who has taught Perl programming to kids shares some personal observations about differences in male and female learning styles.

Part of that context is giving people the vision to say, "People like me do..." - hence the discussion of group-specific role models. Men see "People like me..." more often when they look at men than women. Women likewise see "People like me..." more often when they look at women than when they look at men.

Best, beth

Comment on Re^2: Women in Perl - Ada Lovelace Day

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Re^3: Women in Perl - Ada Lovelace Day
by tilly (Archbishop) on Mar 25, 2009 at 21:44 UTC

have

Why not? Well for a start I'd guess that there are 10-20 male Perl programmers for every female one. This is not to say that there are no women, but when you start with that many less, if all else is equal you'll have fewer all of the way up the ladder. So you have fewer virtualsues out there. And then you get even fewer when you get to ones who do a lot of open source work, like liz.

But it gets worse. If you look down a list of well known women in Perl, what are they known for? Well we have Allison Randal, who is known primarily for organizational work for The Perl Foundation. We have jarich, who is best known for her work helping organize Perl Monger groups and conferences. We have kudra who organized YAPC EU. These three are all good programmers, but you'll note that they are not known for their programming.

Let's continue on. We have women who are better known for their husbands than themselves (eg Elaine -HFB- Ashton and Vani Raja). We have Audrey Tang who was already well known before becoming a woman. I would guess that a significant number of Perl programmers would name Abigail if they were asked who the most prominent woman in Perl was. The number is less than it was a decade ago since there is more awareness that Abigail is a man. And so on.

The more you look, the more obvious it is that Perl doesn't have a community that winds up valuing women for their programming expertise. Why not?

Well let me give one reason. When I tally the male Perl programmers that I have worked with, I can immediately think of 3 whose behavior is offensive to any woman around. When I tally the female Perl programmers that I have personally worked with I can only come up with one. And she was a junior programmer who I was training. That isn't great for women who want to stay in Perl. And that isn't exactly a great ratio of bad apples to decent role-models.

That isn't to say that there is no hope. There are well-known and respected women in Perl. Judging by your Perlmonks contributions, I'd say that you're likely going to become one of that number. There are people who care. Things do change over time.

Moving on, I'd like to make a comment about your grandmother's reasoning. While things have improved since the 1930s (at which time there was a significant backlash against the first women's movement), her comments still have justice. Success and dating have become like height and dating - most people (male or female) would prefer to be in a couple where the man has at least as much of it as the woman. (There obviously are exceptions, but as a general rule...) Which means that successful (or tall) women are competing with a large pool of women for a small pool of men. As a result I've known a number of women who are successful and attractive, but are having trouble finding a guy. While many don't want kids, some really do and I feel sad for them.

But things do get better. My impression is that today most people are willing to consider an equal relationship. Not very long ago most men would only date women they felt superior to. (And that was really not long ago. In a class my wife was in back in the 80s the professor did a poll of this. Most of the women wanted a man of equal or greater intelligence. But 70% of the men would only consider dating less intelligent women!)

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Re^4: Women in Perl - Ada Lovelace Day

by Jenda (Abbot) on Mar 25, 2009 at 22:57 UTC

Mkay, so Abigail is a guy despite the appearance. You are a guy despite what some people may think. I am a guy despite what some people tend to think and what some version of (I think) Mastering Perl 5 wrote. How do we know there are not quite a few well known members of the community that just use a gender neutral (or male sounding) nick and are female? :-)

Jenda
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Re^5: Women in Perl - Ada Lovelace Day

by moritz (Cardinal) on Mar 25, 2009 at 23:31 UTC

How do we know there are not quite a few well known members of the community that just use a gender neutral (or male sounding) nick and are female? :-)

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Re^5: Women in Perl - Ada Lovelace Day

by tilly (Archbishop) on Mar 26, 2009 at 00:43 UTC

moritz

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Re^3: Women in Perl - Ada Lovelace Day
by Zen (Deacon) on Mar 25, 2009 at 19:20 UTC

Perl monks have been well-known to argue everything into the tiniest particles of the original argument or thread. Consider it equality that no special treatment has been given to this thread in addition to what has been an overall appreciation of female Perl programmers. I haven't seen anyone rally this community as a men's club, and most of the time no one really knows a person's gender anyway because it's the internet.

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