China Daily Global Edition (USA)
A way of life and thought
The tech sector’s strong gender imbalance has led to a rise in nonprofit organizations dedicated to closing the gap in the field of software engineering.
A report conducted by Codeforge, a source-code sharing website, shows that in 2014 only 20 percent of programmers in China were female.
Rails Girls, a campaign started in Finland by two programmers, onemaleandonefemale, aims to provide women with the tools and a community to understand technology and develop their own ideas.
The organization hosted its first Chinese workshop in Beijing on Dec 15, 2012, before arranging a further 17 in six other cities. Wen Yang, who helped to host the Beijing event and later became a part-time volunteer with the organization, said Rails Girls has now provided free programming workshops to more than 1,000 women in China.
“Some of the women were inspired by our eventsandtook up positions as programmers,” he said, adding that some have even started their own internet companies and their own websites.
In June, Wen quit his job at a State-owned enterprise and established the Coding Girls Club, an organization that female programmer in theUS contributed to an opensource project, the work was more likely to be accepted by their peers than contributions by men, but only if the people judging the work were unaware that the programmer was female. The same work was more likely to be rejected if their gender was made public.
The researchers suggested that female programmers are at least as competent and sometimes more skilled than the average programmer on GitHub, one of the world’s largest web-based hosts of source code. “It shows that women face a giant hurdle of ‘gender bias’ when other people assess their work,” they said.
Kang, the recruitment expert, said 100offer is optimistic that its report will attract greater attention to the income disparity between male and female software engineers.
“The situation will only improve when more female programmers join the workforce. We also need events to motivate female coders and entrepreneurs to speak up,” she said.
Proficiency is paramount
offers women free programming workshops and seminars. So far, the club has organized two training sessions, attended by 32 women, but the organizers aim to help 1,000 women to become programmers in the next three years.
However, Wen conceded that it remains difficult for women to take up programming through workshops, adding thatonlytwoofthewomenwho attended the Rails Girls workshops over the years have made the grade.
Although most Rails Girls courses are sponsored by internet companies and programmers volunteer to give the lessons, the time frame can in the workplace.
“Some startups might prefer young, male programmers because they are more adaptable to working extra hours. But for some major corporations, gender is no longer an issue,” said Zhang, who has changed employers three times in the last six years.
Su Xunbo, Zhang’s team leader who is responsible for the development and maintenance of Mtime’s app, said female programmers offer diversity to his team, which is composed of two women and six men.
“Programmers’ meetings can be at daggers drawn. In the midst of red faces and even clenched fists, a woman’s voice can have a surprising effect, including the power to calm everyone down,” he said.
However, Wen Yang, from Coding Girls Club, said his organization believes that women deserve the right to use programming as a springboard for their careers, and it has set a target to provide programming training to 1,000 women across China in the next three years.
“Programming is essentially an intellectual activity, an area with no gender differences. We believe there is a trend by which the gender imbalance will disappear in the future,” he said.
“It is a not a matter of whether it will happen, but when it will happen.” make things toWen.
“The fact that Rails Girls can only provide free one-day workshops makes it difficult for internet companies and professional programmers to devote themselves to the course,” he said, addingthat the club isnow looking to promote programming among women in China’s third- and fourth-tier cities.
“We hope women will be able to achieve a rise in their social and economic status by mastering programming skills,” he said. “We are aiming to providemorelong-term support via programming courses, so women will gain a high degree of proficiency.” difficult, according A volunteer
Programming is away of living and thinking, according to Zhang Danli, a 32-year-old software engineer in Beijing.
Zhang, whoworksforMtime, a movie portal, said she has felt passion about the subject since she was introduced to it in college. The subject fascinated her somuchthat shemadethe difficult transitionfrommajoring in geographic information sciences to software engineering.
“I was simply interested in computer science, and the opportunity to use computers attracted me,” she said.
After graduation, she found a job at a web-mapping, navigation and location-based services provider where she was able to learn more.
The rise of mobile internet presented another learning opportunity and another major challenge. “Itwasatotally different programming language, so I had to start all over again to learn it,” she said.
She recalled having to get up at about 3 am every day for more than six months to learn mobile-application coding.
“If I want to keep up with the latest industry developments, I have to learn about coding for mobile applications,” she said.
“You can fail all the time. The anguishcangoonandonandon
I was simply interested in computer science, and the opportunity to use computers attracted me.” female software engineer in Beijing
Zhang Danli, — and then, out of the blue, you discover a solution. That joy can override all of the past gloom,” she added, describing her work as an algorithm designer.
Zhang has also discovered that her job increasingly shapes the way she thinks.
“The other day, my boyfriend askedmetobuysomeorangesat the supermarket. I took it as a direct order and went to fetch them. The oranges were sold out, so I simply came back home,” she said, with a grimace atthepainfulrealizationthatshe could have bought other fruits.
“But that is the programmers’ way: Think straightforwardly. I was thinking in strictly technical terms, which is ‘if X then Z’,” she said.
teaches women at a free software programming workshop organized by Rails Girls in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.