Do you think there is no gender inequality in Software Engineering? Perhaps you should reconsider your opinion
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5753/jserd.2024.4031Keywords:
Men developers, gender bias, barriers, challenges, software developmentAbstract
Context: While researching gender inequality in software development teams, men consistently outnumber women among practitioners. Various perspectives, including gender bias and strategies to enhance diversity within development teams, have been explored by researchers in recent years. However, there is a significant gap in the existing literature, as the majority of studies focus on the perception of women practitioners, leaving the experiences of the larger demographic—men in the software development workforce—underrepresented and less examined. Goal: This study explores the perspectives of men regarding gender inequality within software development teams and compares their experiences in software development to those of women. Method: The study comprised two phases: Investigation and Confirmation. In the Investigation Phase, we distributed a survey questionnaire to gather a substantial number of responses. The subsequent Confirmation Phase aimed to validate the collected data. The Investigation phase involved 217 participants responding to a questionnaire with 27 questions. Subsequently, in the Confirmation Phase, two focus group sessions were held: one with ten Brazilian male practitioners and another with eight male practitioners working in five different European countries. The collected data was analyzed using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative techniques, incorporating graphical representations, percentages, and the grounded theory methodology. Results: Our results indicate that the majority of men surveyed do not perceive any sexist behavior among their team members, and they express satisfaction with their job performance. Furthermore, their primary recommendations to enhance their participation in software development projects include providing training courses and fostering improved interaction among team members. Furthermore, we did not find any substantial difference between the results we got during the Investigation and Confirmation phases. Conclusions: Men practitioners in software development teams encounter distinct barriers and challenges compared to their female counterparts. Moreover, they perceive that women’s limited presence in software development is attributed to a perceived lack of affinity and knowledge in coding.
Downloads
References
Aksekili, A. Y. and Stettina, C. J. (2021). Women in agile: The impact of organizational support for women’s advancement on teamwork quality and performance in agile software development teams. In Lean and Agile Software Development: 5th International Conference, LASD 2021, Proceedings 5, pages 3–23, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3030-67084-9_1. Springer.
Araujo, A., Holanda, M., Castanho, C., Koike, C., Oliveira, R. B., Canedo, E., and Moro, M. M. (2022). Pandemia de covid-19 tem gênero. In Anais do XVI Women in Information Technology, pages 110–121, 10.5753/wit.2022.223044. SBC, Anais do XVI Women in Information Technology (WIT 2022 –SBC).
Bellotti, E., Czerniawska, D., Everett, M. G., and Guadalupi, L. (2022). Gender inequalities in research funding: Unequal network configurations, or unequal network returns? Soc. Networks, 70:138–151.
Bosu, A. and Sultana, K. Z. (2019). Diversity and inclusion in open source software (OSS) projects: Where do we stand? In 2019 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, ESEM 2019, Porto de Galinhas, Recife, Brazil, September 19-20, 2019, pages 1–11, https://doi.org/10.1109/ESEM.2019.8870179. IEEE.
Breukelen, S. V., Barcomb, A., Baltes, S., and Serebrenik, A. (2023). ”still around”: Experiences and survival strategies of veteran women software developers. CoRR, abs/2302.03723:1–13.
Brown, D. and Parker, M. (2019). Google diversity annual report 2019. (Date last accessed 16-April-2019).
Brown, D. and Parker, M. (2023). 2022 diversity annual report. (Date last accessed 7-April-2023).
Bullinaria, J. A. (2018). Agent-based models of gender inequalities in career progression. J. Artif. Soc. Soc. Simul., 21(3):1–28.
Canedo, E. D., Bonifácio, R., Okimoto, M. V., Serebrenik, A., Pinto, G., and Monteiro, E. (2020). Work practices and perceptions from women core developers in OSS communities. In Baldassarre, M. T., Lanubile, F., Kalinowski, M., and Sarro, F., editors, ESEM ’20: ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, Bari, Italy, October 5-7, 2020, pages 26:1–26:11, https://doi.org/10.1145/3382494.3410682. ACM.
Canedo, E. D., Calazans, A. T. S., Silva, G. R. S., and Masson, E. T. S. (2022). ICT practitioners’ perception of working from home during the covid-19 pandemic: Exploring gender differences. In de Almeida Maia, M., Dorça, F. A., Araújo, R. D., and Canedo, E. D., editors, SBES 2022: XXXVI Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, Brazil, October 5 - 7, 2022, pages 47–57, https://doi.org/10.1145/3555228.3555248. ACM.
Canedo, E. D., Leão, H. A. T., Marioti, M. B., Fagundes, F., and de Cerqueira, J. A. S. (2019). Barriers faced by women in software development projects. Inf., 10(10):309.
Canedo, E. D., Mendes, F. F., Cerqueira, A. J., Okimoto, M. V., Pinto, G., and Bonifácio, R. (2021). Breaking one barrier at a time: how women developers cope in a men-dominated industry. In Vasconcellos, C. D., Roggia, K. G., Collere, V., and Bousfield, P., editors, 35th Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, SBES 2021, Joinville, Santa Catarina, Brazil, 27 September 2021 - 1 October 2021, pages 378–387, https://doi.org/10.1145/3474624.3474638. ACM.
Canedo, E. D., Rocha, L., Ramos Sousa Silva, G., and Freitas Mendes, F. (2024). Supplementary Material for ”Do you think there is no gender inequality in Software Engineering?”.
Canedo, E. D., Soares, L., Silva, G. R. S., dos Santos, V. S., and Mendes, F. F. (2023). Do you see what happens around you? men’s perceptions of gender inequality in software engineering. In Proceedings of the XXXVII Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, SBES 2023, Campo Grande, Brazil, September 25-29, 2023, pages 464–474. ACM.
Catolino, G., Palomba, F., Tamburri, D. A., Serebrenik, A., and Ferrucci, F. (2019). Gender diversity and women in software teams: how do they affect community smells? In Kazman, R. and Pasquale, L., editors, Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society, ICSE 2019, Montreal, QC, Canada, May 25-31, 2019, pages 11–20, https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-SEIS.2019.00010. ACM.
Durruthy, R. (2018). 2018 linkedin workforce diversity report. (Date last accessed 16-April-2019).
Durruthy, R. (2023). Linkedin’s 2022 workforce diversity report. (Date last accessed 7-April-2023).
Feng, Z., Guizani, M., Gerosa, M. A., and Sarma, A. (2023). The state of diversity and inclusion in apache: A pulse check. arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.16344, 1:1–11.
Garner, K. S. and Van Staden, C. Y. (2022). Women in engineering–barriers to participation in the south african context. In 2022 31st Annual Conference of the European Association for Education in Electrical and Information Engineering (EAEEIE), pages 1–4, [link]. IEEE.
Guizani, M., Trinkenreich, B., Castro-Guzman, A. A., Steinmacher, I., Gerosa, M., and Sarma, A. (2022). Perceptions of the state of d&i and d&i initiative in the asf. In Proceedings of the 2022 ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society, ICSE-SEIS ’22, page 130–142, https://doi.org/10.1145/3510458.3513008. ACM.
Imtiaz, N., Middleton, J., Chakraborty, J., Robson, N., Bai, G. R., and Murphy-Hill, E. R. (2019). Investigating the effects of gender bias on github. In Atlee, J. M., Bultan, T., and Whittle, J., editors, Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2019, Montreal, QC, Canada, May 25-31, 2019, pages 700–711, https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE.2019.00079. IEEE / ACM.
Kitchenham, B. A. and Pfleeger, S. L. (2008a). Personal opinion surveys. In Shull, F., Singer, J., and Sjøberg, D. I. K., editors, Guide to Advanced Empirical Software Engineering, pages 63–92. Springer, 10.1007/978-1-84800-044-5_3.
Kitchenham, B. A. and Pfleeger, S. L. (2008b). Personal opinion surveys. Guide to advanced empirical software engineering, 1:63–92.
Kohl, K. and Prikladnicki, R. (2021). Challenges women in software engineering leadership roles face: A qualitative study. In Filipe, J., Smialek, M., Brodsky, A., and Hammoudi, S., editors, Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, ICEIS 2021, Volume 2, pages 205–212, https://doi.org/10.5220/0010413602050212. SCITEPRESS.
Kohl, K. and Prikladnicki, R. (2022). Benefits and difficulties of gender diversity on software development teams: A qualitative study. In de Almeida Maia, M., Dorça, F. A., Araújo, R. D., and Canedo, E. D., editors, SBES 2022: XXXVI Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, 2022, pages 21–30, https://doi.org/10.1145/3555228.3555253. ACM.
Krishna, A. (2023). Ibm 2021 esg report. (Date last accessed 7-April-2023).
Lee, A. and Carver, J. C. (2019). FLOSS participants’ perceptions about gender and inclusiveness: a survey. In Atlee, J. M., Bultan, T., and Whittle, J., editors, Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2019, Montreal, QC, Canada, May 25-31, 2019, pages 677–687, https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE.2019.00077. IEEE / ACM.
Madsen, G. P. (2021). Male Allies’ Perception of Gender Bias and the Relationship Between Psychological Standing and Willingness to Engage. PhD thesis, Indiana Institute of Technology.
McIntyre, L.-R. (2023). Global diversity & inclusion report. (Date last accessed 7-April-2023).
Office, I. L. (2019). Women in business and management: The business case for change. International Labour Organisation (ILO), [link].
Overflow, S. (2022). Developer survey results 2022. (Date last accessed 22-April-2023).
Palumbo, R. and Manna, R. (2020). A portrait of workplace discrimination in italy: empirical evidence from a nationwide survey. In Evidence-based HRM: A Global Forum for Empirical Scholarship, volume 8, pages 92–112, https://doi.org/10.1108/EBHRM-03-2019-0029. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Rocha, L., Dias Canedo, E., Pereira, C. P., Bezerra, C., and Freitas Mendes, F. (2023). Investigating the perceived impact of maternity on software engineering: a women’s perspective. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, pages 1–13, 10.1109/CHASE58964.2023.00023. IEEE.
Rossi, D. and Zacchiroli, S. (2022). Worldwide gender differences in public code contributions and how they have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 44th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society ICSE (SEIS) 2022, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, May 22-24, 2022, pages 172–183, https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-SEIS55304.2022.9794118. IEEE/ACM.
Sarmento, C., Massoni, T., Serebrenik, A., Catolino, G., Tamburri, D. A., and Palomba, F. (2022). Gender diversity and community smells: A double-replication study on brazilian software teams. In IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering, SANER 2022, Honolulu, HI, USA, March 15-18, 2022, pages 273–283, https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00043. IEEE.
Silva, L. L. S. B., Sampaio, S., and Marinho, M. L. M. (2022). Gender diversity in technology sector: Barriers and perceptions success of women in porto digital. In García-Díaz, M. E. and Holanda, M., editors, Proceedings of the XIV Latin American Women in Computing 2022 co-located with XLVIII Latin American Computer Conference 2022 (CLEI 2022), Antioquia, Colombia, October 19-20, 2022, volume 3321 of CEUR Workshop Proceedings, pages 65–76, [link]. CEUR-WS.org.
Stol, K., Ralph, P., and Fitzgerald, B. (2016). Grounded theory in software engineering research: a critical review and guidelines. In Dillon, L. K., Visser, W., and Williams, L. A., editors, Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2016, Austin, TX, USA, May 14-22, 2016, pages 120–131, https://doi.org/10.1145/2884781.2884833. ACM.
Terrell, J., Kofink, A., Middleton, J., Rainear, C., Murphy-Hill, E., Parnin, C., and Stallings, J. (2017). Gender differences and bias in open source: Pull request acceptance of women versus men. PeerJ Computer Science, 3:e111.
Trinkenreich, B., Britto, R., Gerosa, M. A., and Steinmacher, I. (2022a). An empirical investigation on the challenges faced by women in the software industry: A case study. In 44th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society ICSE (SEIS) 2022, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, May 22-24, 2022, pages 24–35, https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-SEIS55304.2022.9793931. IEEE/ACM.
Trinkenreich, B., Gerosa, M. A., and Steinmacher, I. (2022b). Women in open source: We need to talk about it. Computer, 55(12):145–149.
Trinkenreich, B., Wiese, I., Sarma, A., Gerosa, M. A., and Steinmacher, I. (2022c). Women’s participation in open source software: A survey of the literature. ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol., 31(4):81:1–81:37.
Wang, Y. and Redmiles, D. (2019). Implicit gender biases in professional software development: An empirical study. In 2019 IEEE/ACM 41st International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society (ICSE-SEIS), pages 1–10, 10.1109/ICSE-SEIS.2019.00009. IEEE.
Wang, Y. and Zhang, M. (2020). Reducing implicit gender biases in software development: Does intergroup contact theory work? In Proceedings of the 28th ACM Joint Meeting on European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering, ESEC/FSE 2020, page 580–592, 10.1145/3368089.3409762. ACM.
Wang, Y., Zhang, X., and Zhang, X. (2023). Fundamentalists, integrationists, & transformationists: An empirical theory of men software engineers’ orientations in gender inequalities. In 45th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society ICSE (SEIS) 2023, Melbourne, Australia, May 14-20, 2023, pages 1–12, 10.1109/ICSE-SEIS58686.2023.00009. IEEE/ACM.
Wohlin, C., Runeson, P., Höst, M., Ohlsson, M. C., and Regnell, B. (2012). Experimentation in Software Engineering. Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29044-2.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Edna Dias Canedo, Larissa Rocha, Geovana Ramos Sousa Silva, Fabiana Freitas Mendes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
