The Human Factor in Software Engineering

And another finding from the gender research. One extensive study was about study conditions of students in informatics and mechatronics. What sprang to my eyes was this: When being asked whether female students experience depreciating comments and behaviour, it was rather the male students who observed it and said that yes. While the female students observed this less often and said that does not mean anything and they must learn to live with it.

Ilona Horwath, Nicole Kronberger und Irmgard Wörtl: Das Technikstudium aus der Sicht von Frauen und Männern. Institut für Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, 2007 https://www.tequality.at/source/Bericht.pdf

What I wonder: Studying is a relatively low competitive field of work where collaboration is highly esteemed and resources (good grades) are no limited resource. There is no real need to depreciate women, unlike in work life where a woman might compete with a man about limited resources and he will try to push her down in the hierarchy of respect. And this further makes me wonder: If females get used to being insulted during their years of study, then they will feel less pain in the competitive struggle at work when being treated unfair. And this is a large competitive disadvantage, not to defend one´s limits. (I make a note in my head that I as an instructor will never allow depreciating remarks against any student. We practice respect! This is one of the learning objectives.)

My current literature research is about gender research in software engineering. I can not forget one claim that I found there:
Boys and men are assumed to be competent in the technological field as long as there is no proof for the contrary. If a boy/ man does bad work, people rather suppose that he did not try hard enough, than to think he might be incompetent.
Girls and women are assumed to be incompetent in the technological field as long as she can not prove that she is competent. If a girl/ woman does bad work, people assume that she is incompetent and the wrong person for this task.

Source: Sabine Collmer (1997): Frauen und Männer am Computer. Aspekte geschlechtsspezifischer Technikaneignung. Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden.

This corresponds to my observation that in a new job, I often get only one chance for each specific task. If I do not get it perfect on the first try (i.e. do not do it the way in which my boss would do it), he takes away this task from me forever because I "have the wrong brain structure" or "wrong personality" for doing it. This is the explanation I get when I want to continue doing this type of work. I always wondered how I manage to create the impression that I am overstrained with a task that I loved to do and even did for years before. Maybe, this is a strong part of the explanation.