Number of Female Programmers: US & Worldwide - Answers Here

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In summary: I don't think it has anything to do with inherent ability or interest, although that does play a role. I think there are a few things at work here: -There's a lot of social pressure to conform to certain masculine ideals in STEM disciplines, particularly in fields like math and science where there is a lot of competition and proving yourself. -Women are disproportionately represented in lower-paying and less prestigious fields, which makes it harder for them to make a career in STEM. -STEM disciplines are often seen as uncool or nerdy, which can discourage girls and young women from pursuing them.-The way that the field is currently structured is not conducive to women's careers. I don't
  • #1
Sypher
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Now this is a question that not only bugs me but all the other male programmers I know in South-Africa (I do'nt know how it is in other countries): How many female programmers are there? And how and at what age do they get interested in programming?

I have heard that most female programmers are asian and that there are'nt that much in the US but I don't know if this is true.

I would like to know this because it would be nice to have someone who won't get bored if I start talking alorithims and procedure and could actualy understand what I am saying.

So if you are/are intersted in programming or you know a female programmer let me know in this post.
 
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  • #2
It is true that there are very few female programmers in the US.

If you were a construction worker, would you only be interested in dating female construction workers?

I'll let you learn the hard way that this is not actually the best plan.
 
  • #3
Female programmers exist? I honestly don't think I've ever seen one.
junglebeast said:
It is true that there are very few female programmers in the US.

If you were a construction worker, would you only be interested in dating female construction workers?

I'll let you learn the hard way that this is not actually the best plan.

I agree with that, but what construction worker actually gets excited enough about construction to want to talk about it? And any stories they have to tell probably won't be very esoteric, so anyone could appreciate them.
 
  • #4
junglebeast said:
If you were a construction worker, would you only be interested in dating female construction workers?

That was damn well said. I almost pIsd myself wet thinking about it that way.
But I not realy interested in dating female programmers but it would still be interesting to know if there are any.
 
  • #5
megan-fox-transformers.jpg


Above: programmer.
 
  • #6
I am female. I'm not a programmer. I'm a neurobiology student. We in science are quite different from programmers, engineers, mathematicians, et cetera. At the same time, there are some commonalities between all of we nerdy women.

I can't help but think from the tone of some of the posts here (from even the title.) that there's some sort of, well, exasperation or anger at women with almost a sexist tinge to it.

That is not a good thing.

Compsci classes are chock full of women; go to professional conferences, go to places where programmers are going to meet. If you're looking only where you work, you're going to come up short, and you will probably run into some trouble with policy about workplace interactions.
 
  • #7
Sypher said:
... it would be nice to have someone who won't get bored if I start talking alorithims and procedure and could actualy understand what I am saying.
Alternatively, you could refrain from talking about programming to people who are bored by it.

EDIT: or, learn how to talk about programming to non-programmers.
 
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  • #8
Pupil said:
megan-fox-transformers.jpg


Above: programmer.

I can find no evidence of this.
 
  • #9
I'm female and I've done programming in school and on the job. Most of my close female friends are programmers and they are all different ethnicities. They all had different reasons for getting into it. I asked one of my friends, who is Nigerian, how she got interested in it and she told me that when she was a little girl she always knew she wanted to be "some kind of engineer". She said she loved math and logic and she loved to build things.

I've worked with lots and lots of female developers, so I guess in Southern California it's just not that unusual. I have noticed that there are less women working in game development than other areas like financial systems, website development, and database marketing.

So why is it that you want so badly to talk to women about algorithms?:biggrin:
 
  • #10
World's first programmer: Ada Lovelace
 
  • #11
TheStatutoryApe said:
World's first programmer: Ada Lovelace

Meh. Not really. Or, rather, she was a programmer in much the same way that Da Vinci was a pilot.
 
  • #12
negitron said:
Meh. Not really. Or, rather, she was a programmer in much the same way that Da Vinci was a pilot.

Well she wrote code. ;-p
 
  • #13
Never thought about it before, but I've never met a woman who does systems integration, which includes a lot of programming. I'm sure there are women on the staffs of very large integration firms, but there must be very few at smaller scale.
 
  • #14
My older daughter is majoring in computer science. She had switched to biology, but just switched back.
 
  • #15
I believe the number of women in tech jobs correlates closely with gender equality in that area.
 
  • #16
It's a male fest in my comp sci class for me; I think there's 5 women out of ~60 students.

Been thinking a lot about why there's a dearth of women in STEM generally.
 
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  • #17
Computer science was reasonably integrated at my college; above a quarter of the students were women. Math. sadly, was not -- we had < 10%.
 
  • #18
CRGreathouse said:
Computer science was reasonably integrated at my college; above a quarter of the students were women. Math. sadly, was not -- we had < 10%.

Wow, the math classes I took at a community college and at the University of Washington were well integrated. The physics classes...not so much.

Not that it bothered me...I liked the ratio :smile:.
 
  • #19
My database mgmt. training classes always seemed to have more women than men. I think my last SQL server admin class had like 10 women and 2 men. Bunch of naughty girls, too. Our poor instructor was just about to talk about DTS packages and had a demo for us. He said, "OK, now I'm going to show you my package." That resulted in much giggling and snorting and kicking each other under the table. Good times. Good times.:biggrin:
 
  • #20
Math Is Hard said:
My database mgmt. training classes always seemed to have more women than men. I think my last SQL server admin class had like 10 women and 2 men. Bunch of naughty girls, too. Our poor instructor was just about to talk about DTS packages and had a demo for us. He said, "OK, now I'm going to show you my package." That resulted in much giggling and snorting and kicking each other under the table. Good times. Good times.:biggrin:

Omg, that made me laugh so hard I cried.
 
  • #21
Im not in programing or computers at all, but I have some friends in computer sciences (all male) and they often complain about the small numbers of ladies. I know at my university there are special scholarships and work terms that are specifically for women. The guys complain about it because they often just sit there waiting for a woman to apply for or become candidates for them. I think its an attempt to encourage women to stay in those programs. A friend of mine recently got hired by Microsoft and has complained to me (constantly) about the fact that "there are no women". I don't know about other schools, but here there are a lot of really intimidating initiations for first years in engineering and computer programs. I met a girl in engineering who was physically held down and had her hair shaved into a mowhawk. I am pretty sure that had a lot to do with why she was switching her program to pure physics.
 
  • #22
megan-fox-transformers.jpg


Above: programmer.


negitron said:
I can find no evidence of this.

Look at her belt, it was made by a card punch machine.
 
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  • #23
fileen said:
Im not in programing or computers at all, but I have some friends in computer sciences (all male) and they often complain about the small numbers of ladies. I know at my university there are special scholarships and work terms that are specifically for women. The guys complain about it because they often just sit there waiting for a woman to apply for or become candidates for them. I think its an attempt to encourage women to stay in those programs. A friend of mine recently got hired by Microsoft and has complained to me (constantly) about the fact that "there are no women". I don't know about other schools, but here there are a lot of really intimidating initiations for first years in engineering and computer programs. I met a girl in engineering who was physically held down and had her hair shaved into a mowhawk. I am pretty sure that had a lot to do with why she was switching her program to pure physics.

Holy crap, I've never heard of such a thing! I was a chemistry/physics major (never finished the chemistry degree) and had a lot of math too...I was never intimidated like this. I hope she reported it! This sort of thing is absolutely unheard of in my experience (granted I finished school about 18 years ago).

I attended schools in California, Alaska, and Washington. Where did this happen?
 
  • #24
sas3 said:
Look at her belt, it was made by a card punch machine.

Give me a break. :rolleyes:
 
  • #25
negitron said:
Give me a break. :rolleyes:

What else would she be doing under the hood of that car besides thinking of the most efficient code to find Mersenne primes?
 
  • #26
lisab said:
Holy crap, I've never heard of such a thing! I was a chemistry/physics major (never finished the chemistry degree) and had a lot of math too...I was never intimidated like this. I hope she reported it! This sort of thing is absolutely unheard of in my experience (granted I finished school about 18 years ago).

I attended schools in California, Alaska, and Washington. Where did this happen?

I live in Ontario Canada, I love my university and would prefer not to tarnish it by leaving its name here in such an unpleasant situation. I know that mine is not the only one that has initiations associated with engineering programs. She wasnt the only one to have her head shaved, all the engineering students do it. I guess she refused, and they decided to take matters into their own hands. They all do it during frosh week, and it was the second week of classes when I met her in the student services office prepared to change her major. Thats how you recognize the engineering students- mowhawks and beards. Its possible that other ladies were involved in the head shaving and it had nothing to do with being female so much as not conforming to expectations.
 
  • #27
kldickson said:
I am female. I'm not a programmer. I'm a neurobiology student. We in science are quite different from programmers, engineers, mathematicians, et cetera. At the same time, there are some commonalities between all of we nerdy women.

I can't help but think from the tone of some of the posts here (from even the title.) that there's some sort of, well, exasperation or anger at women with almost a sexist tinge to it.

That is not a good thing.

Compsci classes are chock full of women; go to professional conferences, go to places where programmers are going to meet. If you're looking only where you work, you're going to come up short, and you will probably run into some trouble with policy about workplace interactions.

Thanks for your reply kldicson but just have to say that I am not a sexist. Quite the contrary in fact but that's not what's this is about. I (and I believe a whole lot of other guys too) am interested in knowing how many female programmers there are, where they are from and at what age they started programming (Males usu. get into programming at 15 myself included).
 
  • #28
Math Is Hard said:
I'm female and I've done programming in school and on the job. Most of my close female friends are programmers and they are all different ethnicities. They all had different reasons for getting into it. I asked one of my friends, who is Nigerian, how she got interested in it and she told me that when she was a little girl she always knew she wanted to be "some kind of engineer". She said she loved math and logic and she loved to build things.

I've worked with lots and lots of female developers, so I guess in Southern California it's just not that unusual. I have noticed that there are less women working in game development than other areas like financial systems, website development, and database marketing.

So why is it that you want so badly to talk to women about algorithms?:biggrin:

Thats good to hear. I live in in South-Africa and never ever seen a female programmer in my life. There are a lot of female primary school IT teachers though. I think the main reason to my dillema is that computers have only been around for about 20 years in this idiot country.

Oh and to your question why I want to talk alogorithm to women is that with my hacker buddies I never get a word in. I want to talk about my code and they want to talk about theirs and I am a very polite person, so I let them speak. Maybe with a woman, I can get a chance.
 
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  • #29
Sypher said:
Thats good to hear. I live in in South-Africa and never ever seen a female programmer in my life. There are a lot of female primary school IT teachers though. I think the main reason to my dillema is that computers have only been around for about 20 years in this idiot country.

Oh and to your question why I want to talk alogorithm to women is that with my hacker buddies I never get a word in. I want to talk about my code and they want to talk about theirs and I am a very polite person, so I let them speak. Maybe with a woman, I can get a chance.

If you really love what you do, its natural to want to share it with the people youre really close to. I am pretty crazy about my horses, so I talk about them alot. One reason my relationship has worked out so long is that my boyfriend and I both make efforts to take part in each others interests. That does not just mean accepting and respecting that they are interested, but actively trying to understand their interests and taking part in them. This means I've had to learn a lot of stuff about computers so that I can keep up with him when he wants to talk about something that is important to him. It also means he's had to take riding lessons and come with me to horse shows to support me in my sport. When we are done school we would both like to live on a farm. I don't expect him to muck stalls or get serious about showing horses, but I do expect him to actively support me. Likewise my boyfriend knows that I will never be a programmer or pursue a career in computers, but I do try to understand what is going on when he has learned something exciting. You don't have to have the exact same interests (in fact that may even be irritating) but having an open mind and desire to be supportive can be enough.
 
  • #30
It's weird; math seems to have a decent amount of women (10-20%), biology is mostly women (more than half, at any rate), chem is also fairly even, but CS and physics are just low. U of I has a great CS department, so we see more women in the depart but it's still a sausage fest. In physics, women are practically a rumor. One guy I was talking to who just graduated said he was in upper level physics courses with a girl in the class once. Twice if you count a chick that got the wrong classroom number on the first day.

That said, girls in any STEM major and pretty open and generally interested in more than their field of study. You could talk to a math chick about algorithms, and even if she doesn't know everything about it, she could still make intelligent comments and be interesting.
 
  • #31
Be like me...be a nerd, but work out with weights. Look like a man that takes care of his body as well as his brain and you'll have women of all types all over you.
 
  • #32
CRGreathouse said:
Computer science was reasonably integrated at my college; above a quarter of the students were women. Math. sadly, was not -- we had < 10%.

Okay, where the hell have I see your username before? Do you play D&D? I could have sworn you used to post on my forums.
 
  • #33
My university had a few hundred male CS students and 2 females (if you can call them that).
 
  • #34
Something seems strange to me. A lot of males says females progies are practically non-existent while females says they are pleniful.
 
  • #35
My university had a few hundred male CS students and 2 females (if you can call them that).

Awe, beast, that's not very nice to say :(
 
<h2>1. What is the current number of female programmers in the US?</h2><p>The current number of female programmers in the US is estimated to be around 24% of the total number of programmers.</p><h2>2. How does the number of female programmers in the US compare to the rest of the world?</h2><p>The US has a higher percentage of female programmers compared to the rest of the world, where the average is around 16%.</p><h2>3. What factors contribute to the low number of female programmers?</h2><p>Some factors that contribute to the low number of female programmers include gender stereotypes, lack of representation and role models, and a lack of support and resources for women in the tech industry.</p><h2>4. Are there any efforts being made to increase the number of female programmers?</h2><p>Yes, there are various initiatives and programs being implemented to encourage and support more women to pursue careers in programming, such as coding bootcamps specifically for women, mentorship programs, and diversity and inclusion initiatives in tech companies.</p><h2>5. What are the potential benefits of increasing the number of female programmers?</h2><p>Increasing the number of female programmers can lead to a more diverse and inclusive tech industry, which can lead to more innovative and creative solutions. It can also provide more opportunities for women in a growing and high-paying field.</p>

1. What is the current number of female programmers in the US?

The current number of female programmers in the US is estimated to be around 24% of the total number of programmers.

2. How does the number of female programmers in the US compare to the rest of the world?

The US has a higher percentage of female programmers compared to the rest of the world, where the average is around 16%.

3. What factors contribute to the low number of female programmers?

Some factors that contribute to the low number of female programmers include gender stereotypes, lack of representation and role models, and a lack of support and resources for women in the tech industry.

4. Are there any efforts being made to increase the number of female programmers?

Yes, there are various initiatives and programs being implemented to encourage and support more women to pursue careers in programming, such as coding bootcamps specifically for women, mentorship programs, and diversity and inclusion initiatives in tech companies.

5. What are the potential benefits of increasing the number of female programmers?

Increasing the number of female programmers can lead to a more diverse and inclusive tech industry, which can lead to more innovative and creative solutions. It can also provide more opportunities for women in a growing and high-paying field.

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