> To me, the real horror show is the 1:18 ratio between contributors who publicly identify themselves as a Woman and contributors who publicly identify themselves as a Man[1].
To me, comments like yours highlight the toxic nature of the software industry.
It is an expectation in software dev that we do most of our learning and development on our own time and part time work is generally frowned upon. GitHub accounts and side projects are becoming a larger part of interview processes.
How do you think this looks to prospective female employees? Basically it gives the impression that they have to be prepared to work 45-50 hours a week in order to be competitive.
This isn't compatible with many women's focus on flexible work for when they have children.
Notice that none of this is inherent to software development. Companies could provide proper on the job learning and development. Companies could be more open to part time work. Companies could use better proxies for developer skill than personal contributions to GitHub.
I think you are reading stuff into my comment that I simply did not say or imply; worse, the things you think I said you describe as "toxic"!
I don't think side projects are necessary to further your career, and it's been 20 years since I worked on one myself.
You do make good points that an individual may not have the opportunity to engage in a side project for reasons not related to competence. Your hypothesis that the hardship faced by many women once they have children may contribute to the statistic is well-worth further investigation -- like I said, there's many possible hypotheses to investigate, and more than one factor may contribute to the overall outcome. As an interviewer, I've only once seen an outside project on a resume and I considered it a plus; that may have been a mistake on my part.
If you really want to encourage women then help improve the industry by pushing for 20% time, pushing for flexible work practices, pushing for internal promotions, pushing for salaries to be adjusted to better reflect market rates when they get out of alignment, etc.
To me, comments like yours highlight the toxic nature of the software industry.
It is an expectation in software dev that we do most of our learning and development on our own time and part time work is generally frowned upon. GitHub accounts and side projects are becoming a larger part of interview processes.
How do you think this looks to prospective female employees? Basically it gives the impression that they have to be prepared to work 45-50 hours a week in order to be competitive.
This isn't compatible with many women's focus on flexible work for when they have children.
Notice that none of this is inherent to software development. Companies could provide proper on the job learning and development. Companies could be more open to part time work. Companies could use better proxies for developer skill than personal contributions to GitHub.