# Why is the IT field overwhelmingly male? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2016, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-it-field-overwhelmingly-male/751141 "2016-04-04T00:16:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-it-field-overwhelmingly-male/751141/81 "2016-04-09T23:38:32Z")
An alternative theory is that men seem to have a strong desire to be in control. With machines, they are always in control. I’ve never been interested in machines because we made them, we know all about them, and we can control every aspect of them. Where is the unknown? Observe the huge sex difference in the number of men who want to ride motorcycles (machines, fully controllable) vs. the number of women who want to ride horses (you have to finesse them and you are never fully in control). When I was a very young kid, I was fascinated by biology, genetics, and behavior. I bred and trained guinea pigs. I won quite a few prizes at state fairs for my lovely colors I produced and the tricks the piggies performed. Taking apart and putting back together a clock? Sorry, not interesting. There was always that aspect of finding out something new about genetics or behavior when you worked with living things that simply does not exist when working with machines, and I think that uncertainty frightens/repulses men. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-it-field-overwhelmingly-male/751141/82 "2016-04-10T03:17:19Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > because they are all designed for and aimed at boys and men? Most are extremely violent and many exhibit a lot of misogyny. Personally, I don’t have the slightest desire to run around shooting things while looking at images of impossibly-shaped under-dressed women. Look, you clearly don’t like video games. That’s okay. But please understand that your knowledge of video games is simply not accurate. “Most” video games are not misogynistic nor particularly violent. Most video games are like Candy Crush or Angry Birds. (Both might technically be “violent”, but not in the way I think you mean.) You’re speaking from ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![truthSeeker2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7cd45c/32.png) [@truthSeeker2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/truthSeeker2)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-it-field-overwhelmingly-male/751141/83 "2016-04-10T12:22:12Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’d say that men are simply more _interested_ in “systemic, logical thinking” than women, not necessarily better. Even when men are terrible at it, they are often still fascinated by it; as I once heard it put, if a scientist finds some crank harassing them about their private theory that tries to describe all physical phenomena using basic arithmetic, that person will probably be a man. > > Males are just as a group more prone to enjoy or be fascinated by things like working with inanimate objects and complicated logical/organizational systems, whether it’s for work or play. On the high level that means more men go into fields like programming, engineering and physics; on the more casual level that means there’s a lot more men interested in things like, say, sorting sci-fi settings according to their demonstrated firepower or coming up with explanations for contradictions in story canon. > > And no, that’s not saying that there’s no outright sexism involved. It’s just that the sexism tends to amplify what would be a strong bias towards men into outright male exclusivity. Which is the problem with assuming that “fair” means “equal numbers”; in a fair system, there’s still be a bias towards men simply because there’s more male interest. It’s _not_ fair to force men out or force women in just to make the numbers come out even regardless of the desires or happiness of the people involved. Good post. I read right brained people are good at creativity. Even in creative stuff, I think men are more interested in painting, creating music etc. Women are more interested in creative stuff involving clothes, food, home designing. So, women are more interested in things personal to lives of their’s and of people in their circle (clothes, food, homes). Agree? ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-it-field-overwhelmingly-male/751141/84 "2016-04-10T17:29:41Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > because they are all designed for and aimed at boys and men? Most are extremely violent and many exhibit a lot of misogyny. Personally, I don’t have the slightest desire to run around shooting things while looking at images of impossibly-shaped under-dressed women. Yep. Candy Crush was clearly designed to appeal strictly to people with a Y chromosome. I have no problem with you not liking video games. Different people are going to have different tastes in entertainment. My Dad was a big fan of opera, I am not a big fan of people singing in languages I don’t understand. (Although I am partial to "rock opera"s.) (And come to think of it, Swedish rap is quite pleasant to listen to even though I don’t understand Swedish.) But statements like the one I quoted only serve to show that you don’t really know anything about video games. And unfortunately, it makes people think that the reason you don’t like video games is you have only ever seen one kind. They think that if they can just point you at a video game about puzzle solving in a genderless universe, you’ll be happy. There are games like that. A lot of them. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-it-field-overwhelmingly-male/751141/85 "2016-04-10T18:36:56Z")
> [@truthSeeker2](#): > > Good post. > > I read right brained people are good at creativity. > > Even in creative stuff, I think men are more interested in painting, creating music etc. Women are more interested in creative stuff involving clothes, food, home designing. So, women are more interested in things personal to lives of their’s and of people in their circle (clothes, food, homes). Agree? Are they that way because inherently they are that way? Or would it be because traditionally, the men had more freedom to explore some of them while women were relegated to household-related things? And if they are, wouldn’t that mean then that the creative force is in essence the same, just directed (by culture, perhaps) into different things? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-it-field-overwhelmingly-male/751141/86 "2016-04-10T19:07:40Z")
> [@truthSeeker2](#): > > Good post. > > I read right brained people are good at creativity. > > Even in creative stuff, I think men are more interested in painting, creating music etc. Women are more interested in creative stuff involving clothes, food, home designing. So, women are more interested in things personal to lives of their’s and of people in their circle (clothes, food, homes). Agree? No… SOME women are more interested in clothes, food, homes. SOME men are more interested in painting, songwriting. Is Dolly Parton a dude now? A lot of it is cultural. A ridiculous amount of famous French and Spanish cooks are from the Basque Country, an area where there has never been that stupid idea that “cooking is women’s work”. What’s ridiculous is not that there are good Basque cooks - what’s ridiculous is meeting grown men who can’t fry an egg! ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-it-field-overwhelmingly-male/751141/87 "2016-04-10T19:31:41Z")
[“Right-brain” creativity is a myth](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/tracking-wonder/201203/myths-right-brained-creativity). ---
**Author:** ![BrianJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@BrianJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrianJ)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-it-field-overwhelmingly-male/751141/88 "2016-04-10T20:11:33Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > It would be interesting to see how many women leave the field because of the way they’re treated by customers. “I don’t want to talk to you - I want to talk to a man!” I can see where dealing with that sort of attitude all the time could wear a person down regardless of how much they wanted to do that job. As a sorta parallel example: I was shopping for a car. My husband was with me. Guess who most of the salesmen talked to? Being ignored or treated like a lesser creature gets old fast! The IT field doesn’t typically involve dealing with customers though. Other team members, speaking with clients maybe, but i my experience, the women I’ve worked with always excel in these roles (dealing with clients) more than the men. Looking at specific jobs within the industry I’ve worked in: Women are more represented: Functional Design Management Consulting (dealing with clients) Testing Management Men are more represented: Straight out programming Technical design (this goes with the programming) Support roles (resolving software bugs, maintaining code, problem investigation) In all my years working I’ve never heard sexism coming from men, where a guy would tell me that a woman can’t do the job). Several times from women though! ---
**Author:** ![truthSeeker2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7cd45c/32.png) [@truthSeeker2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/truthSeeker2)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-it-field-overwhelmingly-male/751141/89 "2016-04-11T02:13:29Z")
> [@KarlGrenze](#): > > Are they that way because inherently they are that way? Or would it be because traditionally, the men had more freedom to explore some of them while women were relegated to household-related things? And if they are, wouldn’t that mean then that the creative force is in essence the same, just directed (by culture, perhaps) into different things? > [@Nava](#): > > No… > > SOME women are more interested in clothes, food, homes. > > SOME men are more interested in painting, songwriting. Is Dolly Parton a dude now? > > A lot of it is cultural. A ridiculous amount of famous French and Spanish cooks are from the Basque Country, an area where there has never been that stupid idea that “cooking is women’s work”. What’s ridiculous is not that there are good Basque cooks - what’s ridiculous is meeting grown men who can’t fry an egg! Lot of it is cultural but some of it can be natural as well. Women have to bear the pregnancy time of 9 months, give birth and breastfeed the baby. So nature made women physically weaker than men. Men have more testosterone harmone than women. I think it influences interests as well. Women are interested in things which are directly related to their lives than men. (This - meaning testosterone levels etc, is also why men die before women in all countries as per my theory. Average life expectancy of women is higher, u can check) If some male bachelors share an apartment, it is likely to be less clean than an apartment shared by women bachelors (I think). Note that I am talking about interests, not ability meaning if a woman is really interested or passionate abt any field (except physical strength related field), she is equally likely to beat me as a man… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-it-field-overwhelmingly-male/751141.md?page=4)