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Gender Gap in Computer Science Growing
EReidJ writes "Looks like finding a compatible girl geek in the computer profession is becoming even harder, as an already wide gender gap among Computer Science majors is becoming larger. From the article: 'A Globe review shows that the proportion of women among bachelor's degree recipients in computer science peaked at 37 percent in 1985 and then went on the decline. Women have comprised about 28 percent of computer science bachelor's degree recipients in the last few years, and in the elite confines of research universities, only 17 percent of graduates are women [...] The argument of many computer scientists is that women who study science or technology, because they are defying social expectations, are in an uncomfortable position to begin with. So they are more likely to be dissuaded from pursuing computer science if they are exposed to an unpleasant environment, bad teaching, and negative stereotypes like the image of the male hacker.'"
28%? Come on! Which university did they go to? Some girls college, no doubt. In my graduating class there were two women and a about a hundred men, so that works out to two percent or so.
Maybe my experience wasn't typical, but I'm female and I never got any sense that I wasn't wanted in CS.
Feh. Have you dug around the many articles about women in computing here on /.? You can find plenty of men expressing the opinion that women should not enter software or engineering, because they "have different interests" or "aren't as capable at math and logic". Is the Dean of a major university saying exactly that not overt enough for you? Just because you won't hear that expressed in the halls of your workplace due to fear of reprisal doesn't mean the sentiment doesn't exist and that it doesn't enter in to hiring decisions.
So combine this active discouragement with the not overt but quite obvious to someone sensitive to them factors such as lack of female role models or even peers and I'm not surprised at all at the widening gender gap.
The problem with actively recruiting women is that we can't because they aren't there due to the problems above. The only part of the gender gap that "may or may not be simply the nature of things"* is the tendency of a privileged group to feel threatened by and try to exclude another group from joining and possibly stealing their privilege. Justifying their exclusion as being the natural state of things is absolutely classic.
* By the way, good job not being over or anything in your discouragement of women; just leave it open to debate like a good reasonable engineer. I'm sure no mere female will catch it and determine that the male establishment feels she doesn't belong. Is this what you meant by not actively discouraging?
The enemies of Democracy are
Interestingly enough (to me) I have just finished sexual harassment training (stupid name; should be sexual harassment sensitivity training or something) and you can definitely ask someone at work out. What you cannot do is ask them again after they turn you down, or suggest that if they go out with you, it will help their career, or if they turn you down, that it will hurt their career. It's not harassment until you know it's unwanted (this is true of all harassment) and you can't know it's unwanted until you're told, so you get one shot at asking out a coworker... Make it a good one.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
uh-huh. Never heard of the Ladder Theory, have you? read it here then tell us what you think off all the guys hitting on you!
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.