Girls not Going into CS

An anonymous reader writes "The Times has an article about what you already know: few girls go on to be IT women. For example, the 2001 AP exam in computer science drew 19,000 boys and just 2,400 girls. Information technology, despite its relative youth, has been far slower to approach gender equality than law or medicine, fields which decades ago overtly excluded women. The problem is not lack of smarts: Girls statistically outperform boys overall in grade school and make up 57% of college graduates, margins that are growing to the point that some colleges are toying with affirmative action for men."

Comments

Re:So what?

[neuroticia]

Let's put it this way. Within one week of taking my first day of a "basic" programming course in HS, I had dropped out and switched to art (And I'm totally non-artistic). The teacher a.) refused to shake my hand when I introduced myself b.) never called on me when I had my hand raised for a question or for an answer c.) only called on me during the two times I was not paying attention, d.) argued with me when I had given a perfectly acceptable alternative workflow that would half the work, and e.) Refused to reccomend that I be put in a more advanced class, despite the fact that I knew more than 20% of the students in the more advanced class. I decided I'd MUCH prefer taking a lousy class I had no interest in than taking a lousy class I was absolutely interested in.

Flash forward. Another HS. They stuck me in "typing classes" and "word processing".

And what do I do today? I'm an IT person.

I'll NEVER take another IT class in highschool (because I'm too old) or in college without first speaking to the teachers in-depth and deciding if a.) taking the class will teach me anything b.) the teacher will be willing to teach me anything and c.) if the class is equal to or above my current level of knowledge.

I've found that it's beneficial to introduce myself with a full list of my creds, experiences, and a categorical list of what I do and do not know. I seem to get a MUCH better education/reaction from tech guys that way than if I tried to be a modest lil' girl. The problem with most women is that they're either so timid, or they lie about what they know to come across better. Fools.

-Sara

My experience...

[singularity]

I started as a CS Engin. student at Cornell University. My seconds semester (spring '94 semester), I took CS212, which was basically honors second semester CS.

The class was limited to 75 students. The first lecture, three females showed up. By the next day, one had dropped, so we had 2 females and 73 males in the class.

I became good friends with one of the two females. The female-male ratio in the class and in the CS departments together were a frequent topic of conversation. I got to know her as a very intelligent person, and someone who worked very hard (two requirements to stay in the class).

In a situation like that, the other students, the TAs, and the prof are all going to look at the females differently. They are obviously not the norm in the class, and it is all too easy to expect then that they will act differently. They could do well (which my friend did - the two of us often got the highest scores on the exams) and people chalk that up to "She is female in an all-male field. Just surviving is hard enough, so only the really tough ones survive. It is not surprising that she is doing so well." If they do poorly you can chalk that up to "Well, it is rough for a female to survive in an all-male field. That does not excuse the poor grade, but the situation does have to be realized."

My firned, of course, just wanted to be judged against the males in the class without a second thought about her sex. When you are the obvious exception, though, things you do normally are looked at with that difference in mind.

I learned a lot about how rough it is to survive those sorts of ratios. I think it would be difficult for any female to walk into a program with a ratio like that.

[Also, I am simply flabbergasted by other posts to this story that show an ignorance of the pressure that would face females going into a male-dominated field like CS. "Maybe they just do not want to" and "Girls do not do well at math" are just about as absurd a thing as I have read on Slashdot, and I have been here a *long* time. They demonstrate a clear lack of understanding of the full issues surrounding the topic.

Also realize that I am a Libertarian and I am opposed to Affirmitive Action type solutions. Instead, I think that colleges could do a better job of providing better support systems for females that do enter fields like CS.]