Why do the Russian labor market need women programmers?

Not so long ago I was lucky to participate in the international youth form of labor, which took place on March 14 of this year in St. Petersburg. “Lucky” because I submitted the theses for participation in the conference without any hope. First of all, by the time I gave a report, my research was at the stage of data collection (it is still there today). Secondly, there was no certainty that the topic of my report ( “Women programmers on the modern labor market” ) would be appreciated. Thirdly, I knew that a sociologist would have a hard time there, a big influx of economists and managers. But with the thought that I basically have nothing to lose, I sent a confirmation of participation and soon went on my own to this event. And there I already realized how much I underestimated the possibilities of such forums. Virtually every speaker led his speech in the mainstream of information technology. The labor market is transforming, the economy is transforming, society and values ​​are transforming - and this is all under the influence of information technology.

Of course, I began to feel much more confident, especially after the topic of my report was recorded in the TOP-5 of the most promising topics for further research. It was also noteworthy that the head of the section slightly re-named the name of my work, designating it as “the feminization of the IT industry” . Well, let's say, not the saddest alternative, however ... I would like to bring you up to date and explain a little why this is not "feminization."

Sociologists note that at present there is a strong tendency to increase the prestige of professions in the field of information technology. You can make sure of this very simply - look at the headhunter and see the number of vacancies for developers. More employers only in the field of sales and management. By the way, in the IT profession there are vacancies with the highest salaries. The upward trend in vacancies for developers and IT-specialists in general, is dictated by the rapidly developing technology industry and the daily growing level of competition among companies developing new products and filling the market. That “information society”, which M. Castells defined as far back as the 70s of the 20th century, is now showing a boom all over the world, primarily due to the development of the computer software industry and the development of information technologies that are becoming the driving force of social progress and crowd out rutinized practices. communications: for example, verbal communication is gradually replaced by virtual. And here it is worth noting the growth in the number of freelancers or freelancers who have many opportunities to develop specifically in the field of IT-development.

It seems that this kind of professional activity at the moment is one of the most sought-after and highly paid. Consequently, the profession of a programmer must be equally attractive both in the eyes of men and in the eyes of women.
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Nevertheless, the profession of a developer is considered to be truly masculine in the eyes of the public, although it does not suggest, strangely, stereotyped masculine qualities, such as physical strength, instant reaction, etc. Instead, the profession of a programmer presupposes assiduity, knowledge of a programming language, and the ability to write “beautiful" code, as is commonly said in the environment of the programmers themselves.

In the domestic academic community, the issue of women programmers remains undeveloped, while in the West this topic has been actively discussed for a long time. This is possible due to the fact that in our country “the era of programmers” came a little later than in the USA, Great Britain or Germany.

The situation with women in the IT sphere almost completely repeats the situation with the scientific activity of women, which was hindered by many factors. The bans on women’s education in many of the largest universities in the world have ceased to operate only since the 1960s. As Mirskaya and Martynova write: “The entry of women into science was not a continuous progressive process.”

What really is the cause of such a clear gap between women and men in the field of technical sciences? And why are there so few women in computer development?

In 1991, Ellen Spertus, a computer science woman, wrote a paper entitled “Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?”. By the way, this work does not lose relevance to this day. The introductory part of this work describes the situation of the early 1990s. The statistics that Spurtus gives are truly amazing. We see the following: 13% of the degrees of doctors of science in computer science belong to women, and only 7.8% of computer science professors are women. The proportion of female students studying computer science is growing at a very slow rate or is decreasing. So as a result, women do not professionally deal with information technology?

Ellen Spertus herself appeals to social canons that do not prescribe to women to engage in “unfeminine” types of professional activity. “Under social pressure, girls and women try to stay away from things that emphasize their anti-femininity. Women who excel in science are considered less happy and less attractive than women who are not burdened with such achievements. ” Spurtus draws attention to the fact that even with possible psychological and physiological differences that affect gender preferences, such a large gender gap within the professional community cannot be formed without cultural prejudices against women. This thesis is supported by some studies. For example, the results of the PISA study (Program for International Student Assessment) showed that in countries with the highest gender equality index, the results of girls in math tests are higher than in countries with a low gender equality index.

I would also like to mention the study described in the article “Shengang Tony Schmader, William M. Hall. The study revealed that women who signed their test forms with pseudonyms received higher marks for their work than in situations where the work was completely personal. Estimates of the work performed by men under pseudonyms have not changed. This allowed scientists to determine that the deterioration of the results of women in mathematics is associated with the threat of their personality being exposed to negative stereotypes. While still at school convinced that the mathematical sciences - the area of ​​male domination, girls decide to achieve success in the more loyal sciences - often humanitarian, less natural.

The data of the conducted studies also demonstrate a correlation of internal identification and manifestation of intellectual abilities. It is possible that this thesis also works for women who prefer “feminine” professions to “masculine”, which is also reflected in the gender gap within certain professions, such as an IT specialist or developer.

Lisa Wade - Doctor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the author of a short article describing the dynamics of the historical status of women in computer science. The article is based on a graph that displays changes in the number of women employed in certain areas of scientific knowledge (the graph shows medicine, jurisprudence, physics and computer science). Data borrowed from The National Science Foundation (NSF).

The article provides the following statistics: since the 70s of the 20th century, the percentage ratio of women in computer science has steadily increased, it reached its peak by 1984 - approximately 37%, since the mid-80s there has already been a decrease in the number of women whose specialty was related to computer science. Further positive changes were no longer observed. By 2010, women already occupied only 17% of the total number of specialists in computer science.

The reasons for this trend are still poorly understood. However, in her article, Lisa Wade mentions one study from the 1990s by Professor Jane Margolis. She interviewed hundreds of computer science students at the Carnegie Mellon University. She found out that families were more willing to buy computers to boys than girls, even if the latter were very passionate about computers. Margolis also found out that the first personal computers were not much more than toys, and these toys were mainly purchased by men or parents for their sons. The idea that computers for men became an imperative. The boys got acquainted with computers at an early age, which provided them with skills in working with PCs, which were necessary in the introductory school computer science courses. Those who did not have such skills, and these are mostly girls, were punished (or ignored) by the teacher.

Since these studies were carried out for many years. Many advanced (read developed or post-industrial) Western countries now have organizations (communities) specializing in promoting programming among women, as well as providing free assistance to women in teaching programming. Among them, the most famous are PyLadies , Django Girls , Rails Girls , LinuxChix , Girls Who Code , Women Who Code , Girl Develop It .

But in Russia, such communities, as well as the conditions for women's work in IT, have not yet been created. * It is possible that leading domestic IT companies should work in this direction, expanding the horizons of opportunities for women and attracting them to this industry, relying on the experience of more successful countries in this regard. It is possible that such a strategy will not only increase the number of programmers, but also improve the quality of development, and in the long run even lead Russia to one of the leading places in the export of IT development. But, of course, this is not a universal recipe, which is able to guarantee the massive entry of women into IT in the positions of programmers.

And here, actually, for the sake of what this publication was started - my own research. It still needs respondents. This is a small survey for women programmers who have already mastered the specialty and are working on it. If you are interested and you are a female programmer (or you know such wonderful people and are ready to share this idea with them), then I leave the link here goo.gl/forms/J1y8QOHCUkb3SXX13

PS The author of this article is a sociologist who is interested in programming and is interested in the world of information technology.

* - more details about what conditions are provided to employees of the company Facebook and Apple