Interesting article

[ironphoenix]

An article about women leaving tech fields in their thirties and forties, related to recent discussions. The article's main point is good and seems pretty sound to me, but there's a line that's tossed in about "the hostile macho cultures — the hard hat culture of engineering, the geek culture of technology or the lab culture of science" which doesn't get any further discussion. What are your impressions or experiences of that, and why is it one of "[t]he top two reasons why women leave" work in STEM fields?

Ganked from dracodraconis.

Comments

[zenten.livejournal.com]

I know the engineers that I had to deal with at school were pretty "macho", as in they acted like they could beat anyone up in a fight, that winning was all that counts, that drinking constantly is a good idea, and were highly sexist. Not saying all were like that (I can think of some very notable exceptions) but that was the vast majority of the people in my first year engineering courses.

I'm not sure what the geek culture has to do with keeping women out though. Although that could be from the number of female geeks I know.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

So far, the responses seem to side with you on your second point.

*thinks waaaaay back to first year* You know, my class was pretty civilized that way. The mechs, aeros and civils seemed to do more of the macho thing, as I recall (I was electrical). Enviro, elec, and comp sys folks were much less prone to chest-thumping. Is it a little-known side effect of inhaling steel and aluminum shavings, I wonder?