Developing Girls - 2

Following my previous post, it is worth noting that we have lots of female analysts and project managers. They may even outnumber the guys in those roles and quite a number of them are ex-developers.

So it would appear that women tend to move out of development roles into more direct people-facing roles. Why? I think development is much more fun... But maybe I'm just odd. I guess it's another reflection of the same need to be 'helping people' directly that keeps girls out of engineering/software development to start with.

Thinking of possible reactions to these posts I came up with a couple worth addressing:

1. So? Who cares?
2. But girls don't have the logical brains for coding, they don't get into development because they just can't do it. Simple.
   

The question of who cares is easy to answer: anyone who has complained about the general shortage of developers. If we want to increase the number of capable developers out there, not cutting out half the population is probably a good starting point.

As for the second objection - rubbish! I know four women who disprove that every day. Unfortunately I can't leave it there because I am enough of a psychologist (yes, I have a psychology degree) to understand that there are differences between the way men and women think. A major one of those differences relates to aptitude for mathematics and the pure logic necessary for good programming. Guys are better at it in general. However, 'in general' does not mean there aren't plenty of women out there who have that aptitude. No, there aren't as many as there are men; but the number differences aren't anywhere near as large as those we see in the industry.

So those male-female ratios are something we should change and something we can change. Lets do it! If you have a chance to speak to a smart young woman anytime soon, make sure she's considering IT as a career option and show her she can make a difference.