women want to be founders

Thank you, Laura Klein! People, go read her well-spoken rant about the fact that some women want to be in start-ups and run their own businesses. I mean, if you didn't already know that.

When I was much younger than I am now, I would have been a great start-up founder or employee. I had a very driven personality, and was quite the workaholic. I put all my efforts into academic studies, but the same kind of drive can be successfully pointed in the start-up direction.

Way back when, I didn't even know what a start-up was. I thought you had a choice between working in academia or working at a boring faceless corporation.

When I left academia, I was drawn to start-ups, and even talked about doing one with some friends. It never got very far. I should point out that my erstwhile co-founders were always white males, so it wasn't me alone failing to start. I didn't have any kids or obligations and was willing to throw myself into the business. In contrast, my co-founders would talk about family obligations. Hm, white males putting their families above founding a start-up? Sound familiar?

women and their shoes

I just heard a male coworker refer to "women and their shoes!". Then he back-pedaled, probably because he knew I might have heard him and said "not all women of course, though many of them!".

I do not own many pairs of shoes.

Why do some people feel a need to randomly spout statements based on stereotypes?

the benefit of being a female software engineer

Toilets / CC BY-ND 2.0
Originally uploaded by
jscatty (Jed Scattergood)

Jean Hsu recently blogged about the The Benefits of Being a Female Software Engineer.

Being a female software engineer, myself, I didn't find her comments very applicable:

1. Casual attire: in fact, many other jobs allow casual attire, and many companies require that engineers wear business casual. It's true that I'm getting away with ratty jeans at my current company, but that has nothing to do with me being a female software engineer.
2. Good odds for catching a mate: I have yet to find a suitable mate in any of the offices where I've worked as a developer. In fact most of the guys I've met are already part of a couple. I admit, though, I'm not looking for a mate, so maybe that's part of it.
3. Less drama: she claims women are more likely to be "drama queens." Really? In my experience, men are as likely to throw tantrums as women. All highly unprofessional, but it happens.
4. Being memorable: and how is this an advantage? If people simply remember you as "that female engineer who works at X" not as "the most talented engineer who works at X", how does that help? In fact, women are often put in their own separate category, as in sports events, so they're not even compared with the top men at all.
5. Being liked: She says women shower, and bring brownies, and are therefore liked. I've never brought food in to share with coworkers, although some of my male colleagues have. I shower daily, and so far as I can tell, all my male colleagues do also. So far as I can tell, "being liked" has more to do with your personality than anything else(avoiding being an ass helps).

Jean neglected to mention the most important (probably the only) advantage to being a female software engineer. If you work in an area dominated by the engineering department, you will find that the ladies' restroom is almost always quiet, clean, and empty.

The Social Network

I went to see The Social Network this week. Wiki says that no Facebook staff were involved, which is believable. Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg's "friend" who initially got into FB on the business side, was a consultant for the book , which explains why he is portrayed in the kindest way. The rest of the crew (aside from innocent bystanders) are skewered. BTW I put "friend" in quotes because the movie makes it doubtful that Zuckerberg ever had any real friends.

I'll repeat what others have said: the movie is thin, apparently largely based on transcripts from lawsuits. Zuckerberg is a one-dimensional character, portrayed as having zero self-esteem, craving approval, and emotionally stunted. His lack of an inner censor makes him seem a bit like an overanxious nine year old.

Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay. I have really loved his past work. I felt he didn't have the opportunity to really shine here, because of the nature of the plot (Ken Levine disagrees).

The movie depicts an environment that is steeped in sexism. Aaron Sorkin says the screenplay depicts the reality of the story. Here's a snippet from Sorkin:

I was writing about a very angry and deeply misogynistic group of people. These aren't the cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 80's. They're very angry that the cheerleader still wants to go out with the quarterback instead of the men (boys) who are running the universe right now.

This is recent history. Another reminder that sexism is alive and well.

It's unusual when a movie comes out where computer programming is a main feature. I wonder if the nasty culture depicted will turn off more young people considering programming as a career - men and women both. After watching the movie, you have to wonder about anyone who would consider that field an endeavor worth pursuing.

do women get paid less because they're nicer?

That's what Nancy Folbre wonders in a recent NY Times blog post about supersized executive compensation. She says:

Some personality traits — like conscientiousness — are likely to increase productivity. But other traits, including Machiavellianism and aggressiveness, can increase earnings via a more direct route. They can increase both efforts to demand higher pay and propensity to lie, cheat and steal.

Men score significantly higher than women on Machiavellianism and aggressiveness, which may help explain why 15 times as many men as women were in prison in 2008.

I've wondered if women tend to get paid less because, on average, they're less self-centered, egotistical, and more realistic, than men. If you look at your salary and always think you're underpaid, you'll constantly engage in behaviors that seek to raise your pay, and some of those will be successful, whether or not you "deserve" it. I think men tend to do that more than women. I emphasize that I'm talking about averages. If only a small fraction of men behave this way more than women do, it could skew salaries in favor of men quite a lot. To be fair, I've known men who, to my knowledge, took no active steps to increase their salary, since they felt like they were paid plenty as is.

I suspect a lot of this has to do with the way that men in our society are still expected to be the main breadwinners in a family. A man with a family to support is probably more driven to get higher pay than a women who brings in secondary income. Also, I suspect that bosses are more likely to give male heads of households higher salaries because, in the back of their minds, they think that he "needs" it more. I wish I had some statistics to compare the salaries of single men with married men.