Is software testing women’s work?

Please read on before you start hurling abuse into the comment box or even hurling your mouse at the screen in uproar. I pose this question not as some kind of a throwback to 1950’s male chauvinism, I’m not a sexist… I married a woman :-). Nor is this in anyway intended to demean the noble discipline of testing since I have nothing against software testing… I’ve been testing software since the Nineteen Nineties! This article is based upon my simple observation that there seems to be a larger proportion of females in software testing than in other areas of software development. So, is software testing women’s work?

Where do I get my numbers from then? Well, in 1998, I led my first team of around 15 testers. 5 of those were ladies. The most recent test team I managed before writing this, consisted of nine testers, three of whom were women. The department was made up of 5 product test teams – 3 of those were led by women. Between the late 90’s and now, I’ve worked on dozens of software delivery projects and have really only come across one or two female developers, zero female technical architects, a couple of female database experts and a few female project managers who don’t really count because they’re not technical. During this same span of time, I’ve come across at least 50 female software testers.

I recall an article published in 2004 by Computer Weekly magazine. They reported that by 2006 it was predicted that 75% of testing roles would be filled by women. This was based on figures at the time showing an increase in women in testing from 5% in 2001 to 50% in 2004. I’ve not been able to get the 2013 figures but plan to conduct some research of my own some day soon.

So what is it about testing that attracts women to the role? Or what is it about women that make them want to be testers? Do women make better testers than men? Or am I totally alone with this observation?