The Last Bastion

Kaisa Vaittinen — 2026-04-20

In 2025 the basic setup of software development changed when Andrej Karpathy coined the term vibe coding early in the year to describe a situation where software is built in natural language by giving an AI instructions about what one wants to achieve. The user does not necessarily need to understand the code the AI produces. Over the course of 2026 this has become something other than an amusing social media phenomenon. It has turned into a serious development paradigm with its own tools, its own methods, and its own market, already estimated in the billions of euros.

One dimension that does not often become visible, or that perhaps no one wants to say out loud, is that the technology industry has for decades been one of the last areas of working life where presumed-male individuals have functioned as de facto gatekeepers over whose ideas are valuable enough to be built. A presumed-female person who has had an idea and has wanted to start a company has historically had to gather a male-dominated tech team around them and sell, justify, and defend their own idea to that team.

Now vibe coding and agentic development are changing this dynamic in a way whose scale is only beginning to emerge. A person who has an idea can now build a working prototype and a working product themselves, without first having to get a technical team on board. The threshold between an idea and its implementation has dropped radically. And this gate has in practice been one of the last places where presumed-male technical expertise has functioned as a permit-granting authority.

What follows from this?

Many things follow from this, but one of them is that people who have worked in the technology industry for a long time may experience strong emotions. This applies especially to those whose professional identity, status, and financial security have been built over years on the premise that coding and development work is a demanding technical skill that only a few master. When this skill begins to be available in natural language and to anyone, the entire industry's position in terms of prestige and compensation is in motion and is in practice being disrupted.

Most of these feelings and thoughts are things that are not said out loud, because it is not ok. It is not politically correct and it is not socially acceptable. Instead these feelings may come out as small remarks, jokes, or assessments given in passing. When you combine this with gender or presumed gender, the dynamic becomes more interesting. The same behaviour is evaluated differently depending on who performs it (Heilman, 2012; Eagly & Karau, 2002). It is also about the gatekeeper's reaction to the fact that the gate no longer works.

Women against women

This is not necessarily an entirely gender-specific matter. Misogyny is not a gendered phenomenon in the sense that internalized misogyny is built into every one of us. Particularly condemning attitudes toward vibe coding may come precisely from those presumed-female individuals who have themselves had to fight their way into the industry over years or decades. This phenomenon has been studied in social psychology under the concept of the queen bee. Derks, Van Laar, and Ellemers (2016) have shown that in male-dominated organizations, some presumed-female individuals who have risen to leadership distance themselves from younger colleagues. Ellemers and colleagues (2004) noted earlier that the queen bee phenomenon is strongest in those who have themselves experienced strong gender discrimination during their careers.

Misogyny is not an attribute of a gender or a profession but a cultural structure that is built into every one of us. The most important thing is being able to see these reactions in oneself.

Behind closed doors

What happens in those places where things do not come to public awareness? In the male-dominated circles of the tech industry, behind closed doors, when HR is not present and presumed-female colleagues are not around, it may be that presumed-female individuals and vibe coding are discussed in a way that is considerably uglier than what public remarks could ever reveal. This may be one reason why dedicated vibe coding communities have been created for presumed-female individuals — segregation, not integration.

Why politically correct speech is not enough

Generally, these gender-related attitudes are addressed through training and rules of conduct. These are good things and they have their place. But they may not reach the phenomenon at hand. Socially acceptable terms and politically correct speech do not remove the feelings and attitudes that exist regardless. Concealed material does not disappear; rather, it may accumulate. Ging (2019) and Marwick and Caplan (2018) have documented how online misogyny networks (the manosphere) draw on the frustration of presumed-male individuals who feel they have lost their position. Cikara and Fiske (2012) studied how status loss and envy lead to dehumanized evaluation. Kruglanski and colleagues (2014) showed that radicalization is often a response to perceived loss of significance.

What instead?

One possible answer is to bring feelings and attitudes into visibility under controlled conditions and work them through that way. This requires a space where uncomfortable and inappropriate feelings are permitted to be expressed before they are articulated into acceptable form. Creating such a space is extremely difficult within an organization, because the internal relationships may be too sensitive. A safe space opens up better when someone is present who has no organizational power dynamic, who is nobody's colleague. This kind of work is the core of Emergent Reality. It is not training and it does not replace training. It is not therapy. It is a phase that precedes both.

To close

The technology industry is in the middle of change. Disruption is underway and there is a lot of good in this change, because it democratizes the ability to build software. But this kind of change does not happen without counter-reactions. If we genuinely want an inclusive industry, we have to dare to look at what is hidden. This concerns all of us — both former gatekeepers and those who have been outside the gate.

Sources and background reading

Vibe coding and agentic development

• Karpathy, A. (2025). First public use of the term "vibe coding" on X, February 2025.

Same behaviour, different evaluation: gender and performance assessment

• Heilman, M. E. (2012). Gender stereotypes and workplace bias. Research in Organizational Behavior, 32, 113-135.
• Eagly, A. H. & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109(3), 573-598.

The queen bee phenomenon

• Derks, B., Van Laar, C. & Ellemers, N. (2016). The Leadership Quarterly, 27(3), 456-469.
• Ellemers, N. et al. (2004). British Journal of Social Psychology, 43(3), 315-338.

Manosphere and online misogyny

• Ging, D. (2019). Alphas, betas, and incels. Men and Masculinities, 22(4), 638-657.
• Marwick, A. E. & Caplan, R. (2018). Drinking male tears. Feminist Media Studies, 18(4), 543-559.

Status envy and group dynamics

• Cikara, M. & Fiske, S. T. (2012). Stereotypes and schadenfreude. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3(1), 63-71.

Radicalization and significance loss

• Kruglanski, A. W. et al. (2014). The psychology of radicalization. Political Psychology, 35(S1), 69-93.

Internalized misogyny

• Bearman, S., Korobov, N. & Thorne, A. (2009). The fabric of internalized sexism. Journal of Integrated Social Sciences, 1(1), 10-47.
• Szymanski, D. M. et al. (2009). Internalized misogyny as a moderator. Sex Roles, 61(1-2), 101-109.
• Constantinescu, S. (2021). Research in Social Change, 13(1), 120-128.

System justification

• Jost, J. T. & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-justification. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33(1), 1-27.