The Paradox of Analysing Gender-Based Data

Abstract

In this short paper, we analyse "gender" perspectives from a survey of three hundred and seventy-eight industry developers on two aspects of IT industry developer practice: bugs and Automatic Program Repair. We also explore questions of how developers view their job satisfaction. Our key motivation was to show whether there was a difference in the way that males and females viewed these three important concepts. From a total of thirteen survey questions analysed, only two showed any statistical difference between the responses of females compared to males. Those differences were found exclusively in the job satisfaction part of the survey. In terms of the way that male or female developers think about technical activities per se and diversity and inclusivity more generally, we therefore have the paradoxical issue of whether gender comparisons have any basis. We all think the same way about technical-oriented activities, so perhaps we need to stop trying to find differences and division.