The puzzling thing is that many of the proponents of the "sexism => gender disparity" hypothesis seem to regard digging deeper into their claims as sexism. It's almost as though they think "not being sexist" demands that we only sample/write-about/etc those women-in-tech who have horror stories about workplace sexism and anything else is "denying their lived experiences" or some such.
For example, when I try to understand why women in medicine and law in the 80s and 90s were so much more successful than women in tech today, proponents of the discrimination hypothesis come after me like I've committed some grievous moral infraction.
I can recall someone who did that before he became my manager.
Or that they should leave the field so that some more deserving woman could take their place?
I know a man who was told almost exactly that by a professor. (Minus the woman specifier.)
So, "you should leave this field so someone more deserving can have a place"? When you take out the gender qualifier it doesn't seem so ominous.
This is not a problem that's unique to STEM or CS or anything like that though.
>another talked about being encouraged to drop out so a more deserving man could take her place... that's not lack of interest, that's actively discouraging those who want to be here
Again, I don't see that as a problem thats particularly tied to CS or programming or STEM or whatever. I'm not saying its not a problem but thats simply a general problem. I mean a woman could literally name any field and state those reasons and it would have the same impact, and be equally as bad, but those aren't problems specific to the field of STEM or CS or programming or whatever.
>I've been in more than one professional situation where I was made uncomfortable with how a co-worker or manager was referring to female candidates/co-workers
I've literally been in the room when my boss made weird sexual comments to a female coworker. We looked at each other wide-eyed like neither of us could believe this was really happening, and it was like something out of a training video it was so stereotypical. She thought it was weird but it didn't really phase her, she just let it pass and didn't call him out on it. I think he was just socially weird and didn't realize how his comment would be received until he saw our faces. Nobody said anything and we just carried on with our meeting. She seemed to just take it as "this happens occasionally" almost like encountering road rage on the highway, like I'm not going to give up driving because some people are annoying. I think she took this type of attitude.
These things happen and the level of behavior control/policing that would be required to eliminate such occurrences would be onerous. The cure would be worse than the disease in my opinion. Particularly heinous harrasment can already be dealt with in the legal sphere. I don't want to hand wave it away but, I don't think it can be eliminated in a practical way TBH.
I've been in more than one professional situation where I was made uncomfortable with how a co-worker or manager was referring to female candidates/co-workers. I'm not talking about good-natured joking around on the job or even flirting, but rather something that in retrospect I can honestly say was discrimination. I also recall that in those situations, I was in no position to do anything about it so it's not like speaking up would have helped... more likely I would have been shortly out of a gig myself.