It's more than just women. I've been programming for 10 years and I don't like the culture. It's not the brogrammer stuff either. It's more the incredibly negative attitudes and litany of social faux pas.
Programming isn't the only job that pays well and rewards the highly intelligent. Women probably aren't going into software dev because they're socially acclimated enough to realize what a bad deal it is. Software skills change like the wind, and there is always a fresh crop.
Yesterday it was rails, today it's node. People who can hack people like programmers hack computers have far more valuable skills. Social skills don't become obsolete, a rolodex is far more reusable than most pieces of code.
Build up your own rolodex and be on the list of names people turn to when they need programming work done. Most developers I've met don't really care that you know Rails but not Node. They care that you're a good programmer. It's really only HR departments and lazy companies that strictly adhere to "5 years experience in Node only!"
It also isn't one culture that permeates through all of programming. Go find a place with the right cultural fit for you.
If holding power over others and perpetuating inequitable power balance in capitalistic structures is your ultimate goal, I certainly would never admit to it as you just did.
As a programmer I mega-cringed when I read this and would certainly never work for you or any company you worked for if I read this.
So please, be more dismissive.
(Re: Downvotes - So I guess we should just treat programmers with derision and those with rolodexes as the bosses, case settled!)
Probably because people are reading the parent post completely differently than how you interpreted it. Nowhere did I think he was suggesting inequitable power balances. I'm pretty sure he just meant good social, sales, and marketing skills are more important than coding skills.
Programming isn't the only job that pays well and rewards the highly intelligent. Women probably aren't going into software dev because they're socially acclimated enough to realize what a bad deal it is. Software skills change like the wind, and there is always a fresh crop.
Yesterday it was rails, today it's node. People who can hack people like programmers hack computers have far more valuable skills. Social skills don't become obsolete, a rolodex is far more reusable than most pieces of code.