I have the theory that boys get into programming as a form of escapism – because the external world is frustrating to them. It is certainly my case, external world has all sorts of illogic demands, things that exist but should not be explicited, social rules, or various insults and condescension, some of them because we’re boys (my sister used to tell me boys have 13% fewer neurons, that’s why we’re stupid). So we talk to computers, although they can be extremely frustrating (I have spent hours at 7 years old finding the missing brackets — all of this in 1990 when I didn’t even speak English), but at least computers are logic. And they answer to us. They don’t make snarky comments. At least, when it fails, _it’s our fault_ . And we can fix it.
That would easily explain the gender gap in programming. It’s an escapism from the real world, while girls don’t need it as much because a lot of people are mindful of girls’ problems (notably teachers), or accept to listen to them.
I’d like to see an experiment: Give children 90% male teachers (the opposite of today’s ratio) and see whether programming then becomes more popular among girls than boys.
I'd add that there is some kind of toxic behaviour from men in my CS class. Think the typical 4channer type people. Obviously not all but when I had a chat with a couple of women from my class, they mentioned it was common to get hit on all the time during group projects when they were there to study and get talked down on as if they don't know what's going on.
I see similar behaviours to how men sometimes "gatekeep" games or even anything computer related. It's quite common to hear of stories women face on online games when they open their mic.
Is there a chance they'd avoid it based on the type of people they might face? Maybe.
How do you make the difference between being talked down because of gender, or because you didn’t practice the skills at the game enough, or bad relations or similar? Is it really the boy’s role to make the experience beautiful for girls? in which case, boys would have the gendered role of explaining the games to girls.
> gatekeeping games
You see, that is my point. Pretty much all activities of real life are gatekept. Programming is the only one that isn’t.
As a boy, 7 years old, my father took both my bigger sister and myself to explain the MS-DOS commands he knew. But does reading the 500-pages book on GW-BASIC by myself to understand how it works, even though I was French and 7yo and I had zero knowledge of English, sound like good gatekeeping to you? But my sister was then invited to various activities in school, including the school programming club if she wanted, but she chose the football club (and this was in the 1990ies). I wasn’t.
So I stuck with programming. No gatekeeping, no social inclusion, just RTFM until you understand the commands.
>I have the theory that boys get into programming as a form of escapism
Absolutely my case, except that I'm a big boy approaching 40. I don't work as a programmer, but the job exposes extensive SQL and Python to me (SQL for querying db and Python for automating and sticking together things).
From my experience, programming is so far the only activity that can satisfy my need for creating things and escaping from this world. I mean I can't really cut off all my ties to this world but it's nice to have a small world of my own to enjoy myself, from time to time.
Oh wow. This hits it on the nail. Some of the teachers who understood how to teach me were male. Only one woman knew how to teach me. In India, school teachers are almost always women. I turned to programming as soon as I got a computer. I also read a lot of escapist fiction. Fiction that wasn't based in India or in the real world. Tolkien, Eddings, Robert Jordan, Terry Brook, Agatha Christie (I know but her books weren't based in our time so I seemed to see it as escapism).
Thanks for making the effort to point this out. Do you have any reading material on the topic?
It's definitely not just boys who get into programming for the escapism, but anyone who is unhappy with how their body or how they look. Computer Science attracts more trans people than any profession I know that isn't related to drag performance.
For me personally, I loved programming as a kid because it had a macho culture I could actually participate in (programming definitely has a macho culture of all-nighters, showing off skills, putting down people who don't understand things as well) and my body (which I hated) didn't matter. Now that I have transitioned to male and have a body I can stand, I actively dislike Computer Science and can't wait to leave it.
As an aside, programming was heavily female-dominated when my grandma was a programmer. There are a lot of factors that contributed to the shift, including changing professional requirements, new job opportunities for women, the advertising around video games, and the stereotypes that developed about programming and nerd culture.
Workaholism and programming are two symptoms much more widespread among men than women. It is not necessarily gender, but it is heavily correlated with it. As said, the experiment I’ve described could “test” whether it is gendered or not.
For example, it could be Asperger. I haven’t been personally diagnosed, though. But even Asperger is more often diagnosed in boys than girls.
Other example, it could be behavior. Most beaten kids are boys. Either it is because of gender bias in the parent, either in it because of different behavior in the child; If we assume the former, it means parents are more violent towards the boy, if we assume the latter, it means the boys’ attitude provokes the parent more. Either way, the real world is less comfortable for those, in average.
There could be many profiles, only one of them “retires” in a virtual world, and some girls do fit the same profile. However, there is still a correlation.
As for “why did I assume it was because of my gender”, it is because of “Boys have 13% fewer neurons” is oriented towards gender, not profile, like many other events in life.
I think your interest in computers was inherent. It was the same for me and I bet same for many others in this sub.
I always felt something was not right with me and took every opportunity to be normal, socialize, blend in.
In the end, I became a lawyer. The only computer skill I use for my job is Microsoft Office. The work drains my energy so I don't have much much left for programming. Even though I try, I still can't fully blend in, people notice something's off with me.
I seriously suspect being a computer nerd is something inherent, we are drawn to computers because we are genetically coded this way. How else could you explain spending tons of hours as a child trying to learn programming without any guidance or external motivation?
I have the theory that boys get into programming as a form of escapism – because the external world is frustrating to them. It is certainly my case, external world has all sorts of illogic demands, things that exist but should not be explicited, social rules, or various insults and condescension, some of them because we’re boys (my sister used to tell me boys have 13% fewer neurons, that’s why we’re stupid). So we talk to computers, although they can be extremely frustrating (I have spent hours at 7 years old finding the missing brackets — all of this in 1990 when I didn’t even speak English), but at least computers are logic. And they answer to us. They don’t make snarky comments. At least, when it fails, _it’s our fault_ . And we can fix it.
That would easily explain the gender gap in programming. It’s an escapism from the real world, while girls don’t need it as much because a lot of people are mindful of girls’ problems (notably teachers), or accept to listen to them.
I’d like to see an experiment: Give children 90% male teachers (the opposite of today’s ratio) and see whether programming then becomes more popular among girls than boys.