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The article starts with a claim "women have higher levels of education than men," which might be true, but it has nothing to do with underrepresentation of women in Information Security. The relevant information would be the percent graduates in computer science. When I googled for that, I found that only 18% of CS graduates were women. (Source: http://www.aauw.org/research/s...). So though there are more women with degrees, most of those degrees have nothing to do with CS.

Then there was a claim that "women make up only 11 percent of the cyber security workforce". I don't know where this number came from. Based on statistics provided by US Department of Labor, there are 18.1 percent of women in Information security analysts. Source: https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/C...

Assuming you're citing: https://www.aauw.org/files/201...

My problem with their analysis (and indeed, it may be an impossible problem to solve), is factoring in productivity.

Here's what they looked at:

Job and Workplace Characteristics
Occupation
Industry
Employer sector (e.g., nonprofit)
Hours worked per week
Whether employee worked multiple jobs Workplace flexibility, ability to telecommute Months at employer

Education and Training Characteristics
Educational attainment (bachelor’s and any graduate enrollment or completion)
Current enrollment status Other license or certification Work-related training Undergraduate GPA Undergraduate major
Ever attended less-than-four-year institution Institution sector
Institution selectivity

Demographic and Personal Characteristics
Gender
Age
Highest education of either parent Race/ethnicity
U.S. citizen
Disabled
Region of residence
Marital status
Has children
Volunteered in past year

On top of that, they are comparing only college educated folk, and make the statement:

That is, after controlling for all the factors known to affect earnings, college-educated women earn about 5 percent less than college-educated men earn.

So, it's not "all the factors known to affect earnings", it's just "a large number of factors". Or maybe even "a large number of factors we're able to measure."

Barbie is aimed at really young children, so I think by the time girls start to study STEM seriously they are probably well beyond such toys.

I'm not sure where you got the blaming men bit from. How does Game Developer Barbie blame men?

Barbie is aimed at really young children, so I think by the time girls start to study STEM seriously they are probably well beyond such toys.

I'm not sure where you got the blaming men bit from. How does Game Developer Barbie blame men?

I don't think either of us have been hiding under a rock for the past several years.

http://www.businessinsider.com...

One of my (not) favorites because of the nasty implications is from this article: http://www.aauw.org/files/2013...

One of these nasty tidbits that in essence tells women that they need special help because they can easily be turned away from a STEM career:

Does the stereotype that boys are better than girls in math and science still effect girls today? Research pro led in this report shows that negative stereotypes about girls’ abilities in math can indeed measurably lower girls’ test performance. Researchers also believe that stereotypes can lower girls’ aspirations for science and engineering careers over time. When test adminis- trators tell students that girls and boys are equally capable in math, however, the difference in performance essentially disappears, illustrating that changes in the learning environment can improve girls’ achievement in math.

What an odd thing, that telling a person they are not good at something makes them not good at something. Bloody hell, I was told I was going to be a failure by my parents, my teachers, my guidance counselors, from third grade on. Every damn day. I wasn't, I actually became quite successful. Would I have been a failure if I was female? What is the difference?

In addition, at least where I spent my career, most of the accountants were female. There was some math involved. What are the factors that cause this?

The concept that any negativity will cause a person to fail, is disturbing indeed. How does one function in the workplace when the key to getting ahead is telling others that they suck, in the process making them incompetent.

Amazingly enough they managed to make a pop culture reference complaining about the stereotyped female STEM characters in "The Big Bang Theory". Having worked with a lot of engineers of both male and female - that is us! What the hell, are we all supposed to become Danica McKellar, or Hedy Lamar so that women decide that it is cool to become an engineer or mathematician?

Regardless, in the second article, all of the changes needed and the implications derived from it are that men must change. Ergo males are at fault for the problem. Who else would be at fault?

I thought that RedK and Rockoon were being a bit shrill calling you an SJW until I read,

"...I would happily accept STEM being 90% male if there was evidence that all involved made a free choice, but there is actually a lot of evidence to the contrary."

In the spirit of fairness, I'm going to first present an article that aggregates support for your general argument in a well organized advocacy piece: https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem

Academic settings tend to encourage examinations into topics that have the potential to over turn accepted ideas. This is actually a significant bias especially regarding fuel for the social justice agenda. So it won't be surprising that there are studies looking into this "problem" and coming out with support for the idea that it's a problem.

Here's another way to view it that is sufficiently obvious that it doesn't need a study.

American society has been actively encouraging girls and women to take an interest in STEM for about 40 years and got focused about it 10 years ago.
The Association for Women in Science was founded in 1971
WEPAN was founded in 1990
The AAUW started the Tech-Savvy program in 2006
The National Math and Science Initiative was founded in 2007
National Girls Collaborative Project

And there's Scientista and Million Women Mentors and... and... and....

My point is that there is AMPLE support for girls and women to enter STEM education and STEM careers. That support has been around long enough to successfully work its influence. And the result has been zero or negative change in the number of women entering college in STEM.

It seems remarkably biased and disingenuous to HUNT for reasons for this in STEM culture. Will you find some male bias there? Sure! Is that male bias the signal you should come away from after beating a drum to increase women in STEM for decades and getting no significant increase in APPLICATIONS for STEM in higher education among women (a class of people over represented in college populations already)?!

Here's what this tells me - A certain percentage of girls and women are into STEM. A certain greater percentage of boys and men are into STEM. The cause of the disparity between these percentages is not due to a lack of support or an exclusionary STEM culture.

This doesn't mean that STEM culture is without male bias. It doesn't mean that it's legitimate to ignore concerns about that bias. It doesn't mean that there aren't gender biases in the greater culture at work on girls and women that keep them from taking an interest.

But it also doesn't mean that men in STEM are part of a pervasive culture of denial when they observe that there are less women interested in their field. It doesn't mean that when all the digital assistants end up defaulting to female that it's part of some blind male presumption. We've been imagining robot voices sounding like Sigourney Weaver for 30 f**king years. In Hollywood, with the exception of Kit, J.A.R.V.I.S, and Max Headroom, EVERY GODDAMN COMPUTER VOICE sounds like Sigourney Weaver. Every countdown sounds like her. Every warning system... every magic talking box.

That voice is a MARKETING decision- not a tech decision. The order in which bugs are fixed is largely a business decision - not a tech decision. And, if you've done enough work in tech, you know that the shortfall in women programmers is made up for in a larger percentage of women in marketing and management.

So, when the various commenters went on their tirade about the SJW nonsense posing as an article in the OP, they had a pretty good point. They weren't demonstrating that they were

I'd be interested to see what the starting offer was for men and woman and what disparity was there.

Starting pay (as in, right out of college) it's exactly the same (look on page 17).

There is a lot of garbage in the glassdoor data. I personally always inflate my salary when I report it to 'help' HR realize they need to pay programmers more. In any case, here is some better data:

Women make more than men in some tech jobs.
Overall in tech, men make as much as women.
Another study, women are paid as much as men after graduation, and tech is one of the most equal fields to go into (see page 17). And I believe it. You want to see sexual harassment? Look at the sales team, not the programming team.

These sorts of stories are harmful, because they make women say, "I shouldn't go into tech, look how bad it is!" Then they do something mis-informed, like go into sales.

If you want to know what it's really like for a woman in tech, here is a good blog post. It's a great field for women.

However, she is not very eager to go back to coding.

I see another "poster girl" raising awareness of the "pay inequality" in the making...

That is incredibly presumptuous towards the woman in question, and towards other so called "poster girls".

However, she is not very eager to go back to coding.

I see another "poster girl" raising awareness of the "pay inequality" in the making...

First, you're the one who chose the paper, not me. And the paper did not say that it wasn't happening - even after every excuse, the gap was still 7%. Are you willing to forgo 7% of your income - for life?

There are multiple sources that show women are paid less overall, as well a paid less for the same work.

While more education is an effective tool for increasing earnings, it is not an effective tool against the gender pay gap. At every level of academic achievement, women’s median earnings are less than men’s earnings, and in some cases, the gender pay gap is larger at higher levels of education. While education helps everyone, black and Hispanic women earn less than their white and Asian peers do, even when they have the same educational credentials.

The pay gap also exists among women without children. AAUW’s Graduating to a Pay Gap found that among full-time workers one year after college graduation — nearly all of whom were childless - women were paid just 82 percent of what their male counterparts were paid.

It starts right out of school.

The gap persists even in the professions though college degrees help narrow it. Possibly due to career interruptions:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...

The pay gap exists even for childless women:
http://www.aauw.org/research/t...

The Wikipedia primer on the topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

An other article.:
http://www.iwpr.org/initiative...

While the numbers vary, it is still cheaper to hire women,

Also? Cynthia Than's headline is the opposite of the conclusion in the research results. A more serious treatment of the structural problems that lead to these gaps.

Sorry, but someone has to call BS so here we go.

First, presuming you are living in the 2000s and not a time traveler recent data suggests the average working woman makes 23% less than the average man. This DOES NOT try to control for any factors. When you control for factors even AAUW can only find at best a 7% difference. Some reports show the difference as low as 4.3%. Is there a detectable difference in pay between the sexes? Yes, but just barely. Obviously, as people have a hard time understanding these numbers, "Math is hard" is probably a real thing.

Second, the rest of your argument is not a complete lie so I have no problem with it. The argument, and studies, about how much is nature and how much is nurture have been going on for a really long time so there is probably substantial truth in both positions. That being said in the US the 'Tom Boy' description is a great example of how your 'freak if they don't conform to the pink unicorn princess culture' is a bit over exaggerated. (As a side note did you know that pink used to be a masculine color it wasn't till the early 1900s that it was considered feminine).

And here are some things to read if you wish to educate yourself.
http://freakonomics.com/2010/01/28/superfreakonomics-book-club-goldin-and-katz-on-the-male-female-wage-gap/
http://www.payscale.com/data-packages/gender-wage-gap
http://www.aauw.org/what-we-do/public-policy/aauw-issues/gender-pay-gap/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html

If you let the government give subsidies, how long do you think it will take before they start attaching strings to the money. I.E. We'll give you the money only if you filter content we find offensive. Seems far fetch? What about the conditions currently on healthcare money relating to family planning ( Reproductive Health Restrictions) or Stem Cell Research ( Scientists Call For Stem Cell Research).

I really would not hold any decision they make of any value at least until it has had a chance to go through the appeals system.

Do you realize that what you just said is laughable? They are the appeals system. The only court above them is the Supreme Court.

And as far as being overturned goes, your statistics are worthless. How many of their decisions has the Supreme Court upheld? And how do you think the Supreme Court chooses which cases to hear? Not ones for which they entirely agree with the lower court's decisions, I'll wager.

There's evidence to back this up.

The American Association of University Women did some extensive research into why girls don't tend to get into computers -- and one of the things they studied were games.

And they found that the typical computer game (Go Forth and Shoot Things) did not appeal girls because they generally found them boring and repetitive. ("Oh look. Yet another game where you make things explode. Been there, done that. YAWN.")

Games ostensibly designed for girls (Talk, Shop and Be Popular!) also didn't appeal to girls because they generally found them inane and dumb.

Games like Myst, however, which was more goal-oriented and focused on problem solving, were a huge hit with girls. (Note that games that girls would tend to enjoy would also appeal to boys.) That is, girls like games that make them THINK, not mindlessly shoot things.

I'm female, and it irks me to know end when the knee-jerk suggestion for a "Game for Girls" is something like "Chat with the Computer". Here's a clue -- why would any woman chat with a computer when there are REAL, LIVE people to talk to?

There's evidence to back this up.

The American Association of University Women did some extensive research into why girls don't tend to get into computers -- and one of the things they studied were games.

And they found that the typical computer game (Go Forth and Shoot Things) did not appeal girls because they generally found them boring and repetitive. ("Oh look. Yet another game where you make things explode. Been there, done that. YAWN.")

Games ostensibly designed for girls (Talk, Shop and Be Popular!) also didn't appeal to girls because they generally found them inane and dumb.

Games like Myst, however, which was more goal-oriented and focused on problem solving, were a huge hit with girls. (Note that games that girls would tend to enjoy would also appeal to boys.) That is, girls like games that make them THINK, not mindlessly shoot things.

I'm female, and it irks me to know end when the knee-jerk suggestion for a "Game for Girls" is something like "Chat with the Computer". Here's a clue -- why would any woman chat with a computer when there are REAL, LIVE people to talk to?

The most recent article (here) is on why and how women are steered in a number of ways away from computing careers.

Mentioned in the article was a study by the American Association of University Women of these pressures in how computers are taught, an executive summary is here as a pdf and an overview is here.

The full article must be purchased.

The most recent article (here) is on why and how women are steered in a number of ways away from computing careers.

Mentioned in the article was a study by the American Association of University Women of these pressures in how computers are taught, an executive summary is here as a pdf and an overview is here.

The full article must be purchased.

This isn't relevant to the topic of "Girl Geeks", except for clouding the discussion. Sommers' arguments tend to miss feminist points in a way that looks deliberate to me. Take for instance the that Atlantic Monthly article you linked ...

"today's girls outshine boys" (Sommers' words in my italics) because they "now outnumber boys in student government, in honor societies, on school newspapers, and in debating clubs". The skills practiced here are mostly social, not deeply technical. Actually so are many examples of girls' behavior illustrated in this article -- irrelevant to the subject of math/science education for girls.

Boys as a group probably have a different constellation of needs that aren't being met in the school system (as acknowledged not just by Sommers but by Sommer's feminist whipping girl Carol Gilligan). This doesn't disprove or contradict that girls with potential to excel in technical fields are shortchanged, only that boys are probably shortchanged in different ways.

That Summers chooses to characterize this issue as a "feminist" "War on Boys" strikes me as opportunistic and unnecessary, like she's looking for the big media attention that was given Camille Paglia and Katie Roiphe (as opposed to the academics she criticizes but nobody reads). Even her Atlantic Monthly bio lists "tart essays about feminist disingenuousness" as one of her specialties. Nothing wrong with criticism & honest debunking, but she could address this issue without invoking her pet demon.

Sommers makes good points in that there are prejudices against boys, and attention needs to be given in schools to how they socialize, and they have special needs that different from girls. And it's obvious that Sommers care about boys a lot. But I'd be a lot more receptive to what she has to say if she didn't spend so much time vilifying feminism in general, and the American Association of University Women's "fishy" research (not my phrase, or even Sommers' come to think of it) in particular.

Here's a link to an NPR show with Christina Hoff Summers discussing her War Against Boys idea, with RealAudio. The host likes her a lot.
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This isn't relevant to the topic of "Girl Geeks", except for clouding the discussion. Sommers' arguments tend to miss feminist points in a way that looks deliberate to me. Take for instance the that Atlantic Monthly article you linked ...

"today's girls outshine boys" (Sommers' words in my italics) because they "now outnumber boys in student government, in honor societies, on school newspapers, and in debating clubs". The skills practiced here are mostly social, not deeply technical. Actually so are many examples of girls' behavior illustrated in this article -- irrelevant to the subject of math/science education for girls.

Boys as a group probably have a different constellation of needs that aren't being met in the school system (as acknowledged not just by Sommers but by Sommer's feminist whipping girl Carol Gilligan). This doesn't disprove or contradict that girls with potential to excel in technical fields are shortchanged, only that boys are probably shortchanged in different ways.

That Summers chooses to characterize this issue as a "feminist" "War on Boys" strikes me as opportunistic and unnecessary, like she's looking for the big media attention that was given Camille Paglia and Katie Roiphe (as opposed to the academics she criticizes but nobody reads). Even her Atlantic Monthly bio lists "tart essays about feminist disingenuousness" as one of her specialties. Nothing wrong with criticism & honest debunking, but she could address this issue without invoking her pet demon.

Sommers makes good points in that there are prejudices against boys, and attention needs to be given in schools to how they socialize, and they have special needs that different from girls. And it's obvious that Sommers care about boys a lot. But I'd be a lot more receptive to what she has to say if she didn't spend so much time vilifying feminism in general, and the American Association of University Women's "fishy" research (not my phrase, or even Sommers' come to think of it) in particular.

Here's a link to an NPR show with Christina Hoff Summers discussing her War Against Boys idea, with RealAudio. The host likes her a lot.
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