The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer | Is the gender gap in tech at least partly because people with Aspergers (5X more men than women) make very good software engineers?

1up_for_life · 2018-01-07T14:43:03+00:00

After school robotics coach here. I get asked all the time how many girls are on my teams, nobody ever asks how many special needs students I have. The answer is seven, I have seven boys with special needs this year and nineteen students total. Some that aren't on the spectrum are pretty close.

BlindNowhereMan · 2018-01-07T13:39:32+00:00

this is a great article. This guy is high functioning autisic and is afraid of having that be uses against him as well as being a white male. He turn down and offer for Google because google sees autistic traits are brogrammer ones.. or sexist.

Also says this:

" He said that society increasingly sees groups instead of individuals, to the extent that group rights may supersede individual rights in all sorts of contexts, including politicised work environments. Because contemporary moral codes delineate women as vulnerable or marginalised, we stop seeing them as individuals with unique talents and idiosyncrasies, but as representatives of a victimised class. The reverse is true of men. Because women are now a victimised class, men are increasingly seen as victimisers, irrespective of their individual attributes or actions."

putamanoutofaplane · 2018-01-07T14:49:52+00:00

The only fault I found is when she wrote:

Of course, women are sexually harassed in the tech industry just as they are harassed in every other industry in which they work

There are lots of industries where employees are mostly or altogether women, where there are no customers or customers are girls or women and where women don't usually get harassed. There are slao vast amounts of small businesses where women never get harassed.

She could also have added that men, too, get sexually harassed in many industries and particularly in female-dominated ones. But that is never brought up when or, rather, if somebody happens to discuss the under-representation of men. An additional problem for men is that they don't report the harassment as often as women

-manatease · 2018-01-07T23:57:49+00:00

It is worryingly ironic how a group with neuro-atypical leanings can be targeted with what is tantamount to relentless bullying with such widespread acceptance. It's truly disturbing when you think of it in these terms. The hypocrisy involved when thinking of more PC-accepted, gender-neutral differences of ability is nothing short of disgusting.

motorscuz · 2018-01-07T20:11:36+00:00

Well, if programmers play the disability card then maybe femnazis will leave them alone

68696c6c · 2018-01-08T06:17:54+00:00

I’m a programmer and there could be something to this. Female programmers are rare, I’ve only worked with two out of the dozens of people I’ve worked with. And guess what? They both had aspergers or autism. Lots of the men do too, or claim to. To be honest, it’s kind of a trendy thing for programmers to claim to be on the spectrum. But there’s no doubt in my mind the two women I’ve worked with have been on the spectrum. Both of them had/have obvious symptoms. It seems to help them get/enjoy the job more, but sometimes has created some difficulty for them when the job requires more social interaction

YetAnotherCommenter · 2018-01-08T06:03:58+00:00

A good article, and its especially good to see more people are realizing there is a very large difference between aspie/nerdy types and the hypermacho types. The irony of the assault on Silicon Valley is that its being waged in the name of opposing traditional machoness, yet SV was built by people that weren't traditionally macho and were often bullied by the traditionally macho.

nrkyrox · 2018-01-08T14:18:11+00:00

We make good software engineers, but still can't get past the bitches in HR in the job application process because they're sick to death of working with geeky, socially-awkward aspies.

azazelcrowley · 2018-01-08T10:48:51+00:00

Diagnosing girls with Aspergers has a few stumbling blocks, as it doesn't present itself the same as it does in boys most often. It's possible there's more undetected girls with aspergers than boys, much like how depression expresses itself differently in men a lot of the time.

Doubtful that there's enough to close the gap, but i'd be cautious about a 5X result rather than something a bit lower.

autotldr · 2018-01-07T20:07:02+00:00

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 97%. (I'm a bot)

Last year I was working on an article about the tech industry when I decided to interview a software engineer who writes for Quillette under the pseudonym "Gideon Scopes".

Note, I'm not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are "Just." I'm simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don't see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.

The third factor, Gideon said, was the empathy gap, where we tend to be more receptive to women's pain than men's.

Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: women^#1 work^#2 autism^#3 industry^#4 high^#5

FyrW · 2018-01-07T19:51:53+00:00

You know the gender gap in tech can simply be explained by differences in biology. No need to search for psycological disorders to put women in a good light for not choosing STEM.

Women are less genetically evolved than men and that's okay. Everyone are of equal worth. You can't fault them for being women. That's just how they were born.

Comments