Until recently, I've found that claims of sexism in software were strange (I'll share a story below to explain). If anything, I've generally found that men tend to be thrilled at having women working with them, and not for the seedy sort of ways that might be expected. Most of the male software engineers I've known honestly wonder why their field has so few women in it -- known that women are full and well as smart and capable as they. I've heard of no (until recently) cases of misconduct, or uncomfortable work environments -- on the contrary, I've usually heard that when a woman engineer claims that she'd like something to make her environment better, her management will bend over backwards to try and accommodate. I have heard of the usual pay issues and promotion problems. But in most cases it seems to just be a matter of not asking for them.
At any rate, the lack of representation of women in software is a huge problem in the field since it cuts off effectively half of the possible work force. More importantly, software that might better reach the female audience doesn't get written, services don't get created, etc.
Now the story.
My wife is a software engineer, her last job was a technical department head at a company with about 40% female software engineers. It wasn't super high-end work, but it provided services and data worth about $30-40million/yr to some very major institutions, so it had to be rock solid.
Her immediate boss was a woman, and 3 out of 4 department heads were women. Her boss's boss was a man.
Before that she worked for a $2billion dollar large company. In her department, there were about 30% female engineers (though in another technical department there were none, go fig). (her immediate super was a woman, but later changed to a man).
Before that she worked at an e-commerce company, of the engineering staff were women, her boss was a man, but his boss was a woman.
In every case they produced great, solid work, the companies were wildly profitable, her career progressed fantastically -- and she never complained about problems with sexism. Maybe she's been lucky, she never sought out these places, but that's where she ended up. (it could be that having so many women in the first placed altered the hiring dynamics so that they would tend to hire more women later)
Late last year, at the company she worked for, they brought in a new COO and within 4 months everything changed. Women managers were promoted up and over or moved laterally into diminished positions. Men with no engineering experience were brought in as department supervisors. My wife had her department entirely eliminated and her staff placed under all new male supervisors. One woman engineer was fired because she botched a minor product management job while a male engineer was promoted to department head right after complaints of rampant racism and sexism were formally filed against him.
My wife was devastated, she tried to stick it out, but the writing was on the wall and after a few miserable, tortuous months, I convinced her to resign. It was the first time she (or I for that matter) had seen or experienced such rampant and overt sexism.
Three months after she leaves we find out from her former colleagues that the COO was fired, and that 3 out of 4 major development projects have to be scrapped (at a total loss of $7-9 million) and the company is running in the red (in a recession proof industry).
If she had stayed her problems would now be over and she might have been able to work the problem to her advantage.
But, the good side is that she's now trying to startup her own company, brushing the dust off of long dormant engineering talents, and is happier than I've ever known her to be since she's doing her own thing and writing her own rules. Her job satisfaction appears to be off the charts and I don't think I've ever seen her work so hard.
Honestly, your story sounds like a typical corporate power struggle which happened to affect a department which was (by some fluke) full of women.
If you read about HP under Fiorina, you hear a similar story. Techies were pushed aside and replaced by Fiorina's cronies (mostly marketers), and the company suffered horribly. Such stories don't always end in disaster - a certain investment bank recently brought on a new IT chief who is well known for destroying a broken department and rebuilding a highly efficient one in it's place.
The process also involves firing many managers and replacing them with people loyal to him, pushing out lots of insiders, huge numbers of formerly comfortable people quitting in disgust, etc.
The only unusual element in your story ("her staff placed under new male supervisors") sounds like reversion to the mean - as you noted, "in another technical department there were none [women]". Perhaps there are other elements to the story that you haven't mentioned, but your description just sounds like normal corporate politics.
You bring up a fantastic point and it's certainly gave us things to think about while it was all happening. I have seen that kind of thing happen in my own career, but it's usually men replacing men with different men -- usually to disastrous effect.
I think what finally made us conclude the sexist element was the speed with which it happened, and that red flags were raised with HR that only seemed to speed things up -- get rid of the complainers faster than they can complain.
Yes, there is sexism. It exists everywhere, not confined to any particular profession. The company where she suffered that probably had women in totally different areas that also suffered from that. That is despicable, dishonest and repulsive. But it doesn't have much to do with the culture of software engineering itself, which on a technical level is very egalitarian in terms of really not caring whether you're male, female or a super intelligent shade of the color blue.
Regarding the part about being lucky at working in companies with a large % of women in It, there are a surprising number of women in engineering departments in large companies, especially when the companies are not actual software companies, they do business in other areas and have large IT departments to support the business internally. Because the culture in these is not really a startup culture, you really don't hear about most people in there. For the most part they aren't posting in HN or doing technical blogs or participating much in the "geek" community - and so this community doesn't actually realize they exist, and when people talk about the lack of women in IT, they're really talking about the lack of women in the open source and startup cultures.
In the end, it sounds like she had a really hard time, but she got out in time and in one piece, and she's more productive than ever, which is great. And good to hear that the COO got kicked out, it's good to know insanity doesn't go unnoticed forever. Thanks for sharing! Best of luck with the new startup!
"there are a surprising number of women in engineering departments in large companies, especially when the companies are not actual software companies, they do business in other areas and have large IT departments to support the business internally. Because the culture in these is not really a startup culture, you really don't hear about most people in there. For the most part they aren't posting in HN or doing technical blogs or participating much in the "geek" community - and so this community doesn't actually realize they exist, and when people talk about the lack of women in IT, they're really talking about the lack of women in the open source and startup cultures."
That's exactly the kind of industries or departments she's worked in, non-tech in focus, but needing a large technical/development/engineering department to run things.
But yeah, I've definitely noticed at the large system integrator companies, there's a higher than usual (for startup geek standards) % of women.
You'd be surprised at the amount of evidence required to make a good case. My wife and 3 other women decided to investigate this option and pool legal resources.
We came close to collecting enough evidence, but the lawyers we talked to said we needed either a smoking gun, or more overt documentation to establish a pattern. Most of the outward sexism was verbal or in the form of indirect patterns of employee movement.
At one point we considered secretly taping conversations but it turns out those are illegal in our state, which is too bad as my wife related some cases that sounded like something out of a bad 1940's movie.
At any rate, the lack of representation of women in software is a huge problem in the field since it cuts off effectively half of the possible work force. More importantly, software that might better reach the female audience doesn't get written, services don't get created, etc.
Now the story.
My wife is a software engineer, her last job was a technical department head at a company with about 40% female software engineers. It wasn't super high-end work, but it provided services and data worth about $30-40million/yr to some very major institutions, so it had to be rock solid.
Her immediate boss was a woman, and 3 out of 4 department heads were women. Her boss's boss was a man.
Before that she worked for a $2billion dollar large company. In her department, there were about 30% female engineers (though in another technical department there were none, go fig). (her immediate super was a woman, but later changed to a man).
Before that she worked at an e-commerce company, of the engineering staff were women, her boss was a man, but his boss was a woman.
In every case they produced great, solid work, the companies were wildly profitable, her career progressed fantastically -- and she never complained about problems with sexism. Maybe she's been lucky, she never sought out these places, but that's where she ended up. (it could be that having so many women in the first placed altered the hiring dynamics so that they would tend to hire more women later)
Late last year, at the company she worked for, they brought in a new COO and within 4 months everything changed. Women managers were promoted up and over or moved laterally into diminished positions. Men with no engineering experience were brought in as department supervisors. My wife had her department entirely eliminated and her staff placed under all new male supervisors. One woman engineer was fired because she botched a minor product management job while a male engineer was promoted to department head right after complaints of rampant racism and sexism were formally filed against him.
My wife was devastated, she tried to stick it out, but the writing was on the wall and after a few miserable, tortuous months, I convinced her to resign. It was the first time she (or I for that matter) had seen or experienced such rampant and overt sexism.
Three months after she leaves we find out from her former colleagues that the COO was fired, and that 3 out of 4 major development projects have to be scrapped (at a total loss of $7-9 million) and the company is running in the red (in a recession proof industry).
If she had stayed her problems would now be over and she might have been able to work the problem to her advantage.
But, the good side is that she's now trying to startup her own company, brushing the dust off of long dormant engineering talents, and is happier than I've ever known her to be since she's doing her own thing and writing her own rules. Her job satisfaction appears to be off the charts and I don't think I've ever seen her work so hard.