zlacker

> I believe that, at age 18, women have more sophisticated social lives

I think you are on to something. This is really the critical age when the decision happens. Everything else is the just the result of this.

My own theory, is that CS (programming) is perceived as having low social status. Women are socially smarter, so they are aware of that. Men are clueless, so they are more likely to choose programming and later they move into other CS fields.

>>corpMa+(OP)
>Women are socially smarter

What does this mean? Do women talk more? Yes. Is it substantive? Women are more willing to talk about their feelings but they also can be quite indirect compared to a man.

Women also have a reputation of being more adversarial and catty: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/opinion/sunday/why-women-...

>>bluthr+N1
Socially smarter doesn't mean better social skills.

It simply means that they are more socially aware. If you allow the metaphor, I would say that they are more likely to "play the game" and "play it well" at that.

Social skills have very little relationship to "emotional intelligence", so I have no clue why you would bring up the point that women are more willing to talk about their feelings.

You are comparing extraversion and agreeableness. While both are statistically higher in women, you are comparing apples and oranges.

Here, have some science: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/

>>Raphme+aj
Thanks for the link.

>Replicating previous findings, women reported higher Big Five Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism scores than men.

Isn't this basically what got James Damore fired? Heh.

>>bluthr+kp
He worded it in a socially unaware way.

If he ranked higher in Agreeableness, he would likely have found a way to communicate the information without getting fired.

>>corpMa+(OP)
> My own theory, is that CS (programming) is perceived as having low social status.

A colleague told me when out at a bar he refrains from telling women that he is a programmer because they suddenly become way more interested because they know how much $$$ programming jobs bring in. That does not sound like low social status signalling to me, but the opposite at least for males.

>>Raphme+hq
>He worded it in a socially unaware way.

I don't think so:

"Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance). This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs."

Maybe if women were more agreeable they wouldn't have been so offended.

>>bluthr+bz
Agreeableness trumps Neuroticism IMHO. Neuroticism is a knee-jerk reaction that you cannot control without a lot of self-control. To expect an individual ranking high in Neuroticism to control themselves is to be blind to other's points of view. In short, it means that you do not have enough sensibility to understand and predict the reaction of others before they happen.

Agreeableness allows you to predict those reaction and plan accordingly.

>>icefox+qs
Having a high income gives a high status to men, but not to women. Women are not at all judged by their income like men are. Therefore, the fact that programmers make money attracts men to being programmers, but does not attract women.