There's a core issue here I point out to my male colleagues, which I find to be true of myself as a female developer: as a stereotypical trait (I am generalising here, beware!) girls don't find sitting in front of a computer alone all that interesting. I personally value my personal time alone and am fairly unique in this respect (my boyfriend would love it if I wanted to hang out and work with him! But I focus best alone). So I would simply posit that changing the language to focus on the collaboration aspects appeals to more females.
I'd love to work on a team of mixed genders (that includes all known genders) - I have yet to have the pleasure. I find working in a team of hetero males can be exclusionary and exhausting, and prefer to work remotely much of the time rather than be in a room of constant male posturing (which many of you do unawares and outside of the work office I'm quite happy to enjoy watching the escapades).
"girls don't find sitting in front of a computer alone all that interesting"
To be honest, the nature of the work is that most time working is spent in solitude. It's the same if you write novels or compose operas. Do we also say that writing novels is unfriendly to girls because sitting in front of the typewriter alone is not all that interesting? It is interesting if you are a writer or developer or opera composer because that is the nature of the work.
However, it should be noted that all these fields also have times when you are not deeply immersed in a project during which you socialize, travel, or even party. Many IT shops are run like slave ships with 16 hr days 7 days a week, that is not possible and yes such shops are deeply dysfunctional, and a turn off for psychologically healthy women and men.
However, if one doesn't like being alone and primarily loves to socialize with people, developing software and writing novels are the wrong careers. Not because of a conspiracy. Because of the way the work is. I would also likewise not recommend high pressure sales jobs to introverts.
Well, to write a novel you have to have spent some time learning to write, and hopefully have either lived a little or have an imagination. To learn to program you have to spend a LOT of time focused on a computer taking in technical information. After you have acquired a certain amount of technical knowledge you can then program a utility. I wouldn't put this in the same boat as an artistic pursuit as the mode of acquiring information is different.
Once you have learnt sufficient computer knowledge then yes, you can work in a team, but the learning process requires a lot of time alone, while also having a technical aptitude. From my experience, from my friends, the girls who like to spend time alone are artists (painters/writers whatever) and the girls who have technical aptitude are scientists or in the medical profession. It really is my belief that if we want more women in computing it has to become less of an isolated pursuit - I'd like to see other suggestions but I've yet to find any other solution.
If you're a woman and reading this I'd really love to have some feedback from how you've found computing as a profession. Personally I find its isolation the core challenge.
I don't mean it in anyway as insulting: when a group of guys are together there are in-jokes, playful physical competitiveness (especially when they all know each other well) and talk of girls. All fine things, but spending a year with a bunch of guys in the same room during the workday can get a little draining. If I'm having a bad day it gets difficult when there isn't another female around for support.
To clarify: I love working in any environment where I get on with everyone, regardless of gender/choice of music/language. But it's harder if it's a guy I don't get on with, or there is tension of any kind. Having another girl around to offset that makes a huge difference. Wouldn't it be the same if you're a guy and your workplace is all women?
All fine things, but spending a year with a bunch of guys in the same room during the workday can get a little draining. If I'm having a bad day it gets difficult when there isn't another female around for support.
For what it's worth, it's the same deal if you're the only guy on an almost exclusively female team.
Wouldn't it be the same if you're a guy and your workplace is all women?
Yep. Been there, done that. I think it pretty much always sucks to be "the only one of X" where X is any significant characteristic, such as gender.
When I was one of only two guys in a 14 person IT department a few years ago (and the other guy was the IT director and he was never around on a day to day basis, so basically my work environment was me and 12 girls) there was definitely a sense of exclusion... I was obviously an outsider and nothing was going to change that. Now I don't think it was intentional on their part, any more than it's intention on the part of the men when the situation is reversed. It's just that groups of similar people tend to fall into certain patterns of behavior and a small minority group is always going to feel excluded to some degree.
I have had a similar experience. I don't mind at all if they talk about the best way to catch a girl at the next party or how cool it would be to hide the word penis in the final version of their thesis. But I can't participate in that talk, though I started to appreciate sexy women now. I just can't help being aware that I'm the only girl an an all male group and feel out of place. I feel more comfortable if I imagine that I'm a guy too, I've even thought if it wouldn't be nice to have a gender change to better fit in.
I'd love to work on a team of mixed genders (that includes all known genders) - I have yet to have the pleasure. I find working in a team of hetero males can be exclusionary and exhausting, and prefer to work remotely much of the time rather than be in a room of constant male posturing (which many of you do unawares and outside of the work office I'm quite happy to enjoy watching the escapades).