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Why the Widening Gender Gap In Computer Science?
ruheling writes "From yesterday's New York Times: ' What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?' In many US universities, over the past decade, there has been deliberate effort to integrate and encourage women and girls to get more involved in the 'hard' sciences, engineering, and math. However, instead of the proportion of women to men increasing, in Computer Science the opposite is actually true. Specifically, in 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. Now many computer science departments report that women now make up less than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates. What's going on here, folks?"
You guys are being creepy. Girls don't like creepy dudes leering at them all the time.
Clearly they realize that it is a bad career choice.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
For some reason its hard to accept that a lot of women simply aren't interested in studying CS, engineering, or hard science.
Its a similar problem to something like Nursing, in the other direction. At my graduation, the CS group sat right behind the nursing group. There's lots of comments at how the CS group was 80% male. There were no comments at how the nursing group was 97% female.
At some point, the reality has to set in that women on average simply aren't interested, and all the incentives in the world won't change that.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Why do they pick and choose industries to focus on. No-one raises a stink about shortage of female garbage collectors.
And I haven't heard a big push to increase males in areas dominated my women, e.g. elementary education.
Wait, What? No female /.'s??
"A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." Hayek
Girls don't enter Computer Science for the same reasons boys don't enter into the exciting and rewarding field of Nursing. Peer pressure and societal expectations.
(Okay, so three sentences including this one.)
Has anyone ever once argued that maybe--just maybe--I really really like computers?
What's the ratio in nursing? 20 females:1 male? So here's your solution: take all the entry level students from these two professions and even them out regardless of what the individual wants to do. See how happy you make everybody.
Or better yet, unfairly weight the minority sex in each of those classes, that's fair because I definitely was given a detailed account of the outside world while I was in my mother's womb and then filled out a scantron card for what I wanted to be--a white male in the United States with no heritage whatsoever.
It pays less than it used to and they weren't all that interested to begin with. I think it's a safe bet that the 10% percent that dropped were doing it for the money.
Women are less likely to be passionate about computing? While copyright and patent law exists, the lawyers waving bits of paper are the masters and the tech geeks are the slaves (one lawyer with a patent decides what millions of people can and cannot build). In a free market for tech services (i.e. no copyrights or patents), the people capable of _doing_ the stuff would be on top. However, you have to really like computing for its own sake to work in the current environment. Women tend to be realists, and if they have the analytic/verbal intelligence required to do compsci, will go for law instead.
Simple, because "Math is Hard". That and they're tired of their male colleagues saying, "Byte me", "Mind if I nibble for a bit", and similar worn out expressions as pickup lines.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Because of the family obligations that women often end up with (or perhaps value more than men), stability in a career is often a big factor for women. However, globalization has made it a more volatile field. Further, during downturns, new software development tends to slow or halt, further hitting one during recessions.
Table-ized A.I.
With props to Will Ferrell, the funniest man alive:
A woman's brain is one-third the size of ours. It's science.
Last I checked, they comprised about 51% of the population....
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Think of the various attempts to encourage women into computer science by watering down the content. Not too long ago /. had an article that talked about how a consortium of schools (including Carnegie Mellon) wanted to eliminate programming altogether as a way to encourage the students to move into CS.
The problem is that students are usually astute enough to sense that the school is presenting "mickey mouse" version of the material. They want the meat, not milk bonez, and watering down the content says, in effect, (a) "you are not smart enough to understand the REAL computer science so here is the for-dummy version", and (b) that there is no point for students who are truly motivated to do the work, since an A can be had for a song.
The smart girls are going to med school or veterinary medicine. They see the creepy geek guys leering at them like they've never seen a live female before and figure if they're going to need to deal with some horse's butt, they might as well go to vet school.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Human beings are generally agents of rational self-interest. We seek the easiest path to our version of "success". In modern society, this measure is almost always money.
It's much easier to use the power of one's vagina to obtain financial resources and security than to put effort into developing the skills needed to be successful in "hard" fields such as computer science.
Marrying a computer scientist is significantly easier than becoming one.
Since we know a priori that men and women have equal innate interests and skills, it must logically be the case that a difference in employment statistics reflects white male oppression. Happily, this justifies forcible extraction of wealth from the oppressors.
> However, instead of the proportion of women to men increasing, in Computer Science the
> opposite is actually true. Specifically, in 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate
> degrees in computer science went to women. Now many computer science departments report
> that women now make up less than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates. What's going
> on here, folks?
A hint: what happened in March 2000?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
In my CS undergrad, about 30% of my class were women. They were CS majors too, not CIS or MIS, so there used to be a decent amount of interest in a very technical, traditionally male, field. After my first job out of school, I still saw plenty of women, although mainly in IT opts. Plenty of server admins were women. Then they all seemed to disappear! I went back for a Masters in Software Engineering and I had 1 (ONE) woman in all the classes I took. In my new job though, about 30% or the programmers are women, but NONE are native born int he US - almost all the women are from India. All the native born women in my company are either BSAs, PMs, some IT Opts, or managers (My VP is a woman). So, at least for native born US woman, they seem to be leaving the more "hard core" tech jobs into affiliated jobs, but still in the industry, according to what I have seen.
I'd Like to point out that Computer science increasingly pays less every year and the market is saturated with talented IT professionals. It takes a lot a work to be good in this field and the reward dwindles every day. Women have a much easier time getting work that is less difficult and pays better.
We'll eventually figure out why using logical deduction, instead of actually asking people with vaginas
Seriously, why does every career or activity have to have an exact 50-50 mix of males and females? Last time I checked, the hormonal balance in men and women were quite a bit different and each sex has a general preference to what interests them. The examples of teachers, nurses, and garbage collectors are excellent examples. The two sexes are different. Why do so many people have a hard time accepting that?
its one of two things,
1. they dont like gimpy looking, spotty nerds letching over them in the class, or
2. they are at home, making the dinner
portfolio
I've taken two classes at a major university so that I can get my degree finally. In the most recent class, the teacher has been downright sexist. Crude jokes that come out badly because of his broken-ass english and a horrible sense of what's proper and what's not. I've only gone to class 4 times this semester... the first two classes, and the two subsequent tests. During each of the first two classes I saw a woman get up and leave the classroom after a horribly sexist joke. It may be that I recognize this because I've been in the workforce for several years and have gone through "sexual harassment training" or whatever, but I doubt it. This guy is creepy, and he's outright lewd.
So yeah, I can imagine that women don't want any part of the field if the people training the next generation of workers are this bad.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
...they are just playing hard to get. ;-)
Guys hear about Ladies Night at a bar and they go en masse to it. They hear all these efforts to get women into the field, so they all go into the field to hope to meet them.
Of course, if you get a Phd in CS from a good college, your work experience is even better, and even more so if you're able to work for yourself in a decent capacity. But people with an advanced degree, or enough skills and capital to work for themselves can do well in many fields.
1) It's not seen as a very lucrative career anymore. 2) A lot of the guys who make up the CS major at a given university are creepy, wierd, and annoying.
What is the reasoning to expect that there be less of a gap? Maybe women, on average, just aren't drawn to comp sci.
I don't see us trying to close the 'gender gap' in the construction trade. And I don't see any women's rights groups advocating that there should be equality there.
Programming ability seems to be distributed thinly, but uniformly, throughout the population. The fact that there are fewer women than men programming suggests that there are women out there who could be writing code but aren't.
This is bad. We need the code.
Ask a 7 year old kid what a computer person does, and they will describe someone working with machines, boxes, TVs and gadgets. From an early age, we are lead to think that boys work with machines, aka play with trucks. When kids are in high school and start making initial career choices, this mentality stays with them and therefore only small fraction of women end up doing what they were raised to believe to be a man's profession. This has nothing to do with sexism, glass ceilings or modernization. From day one the whole concept of working with computers just seems like something a boy would do. With that being said, companies are DYING to hire female workers in IT. Hopefully this will help.
I didn't get into computer science to be a SCIENTIST, I got into it so I could write applications and games and make useful things for people.
You don't need a computer science degree for that. You can buy all the books you want from Amazon, you can find the answers to all your questions online, and you can write any app you want in Python or Ruby or Objective C or the language of your choice. There's no need to deal with dry courses about operating systems and so on.
And if you really want some insight into NP completeness or whatever, there are plenty of free articles to read...or buy another book.
Women want to program and do useful things with computers, but maybe they're not as interested in what amounts to computer science for its own sake?
Perhaps we might recognize natural gender-based tendencies. Isn't it possible women just aren't that interested in programming? It's like asking "Why aren't more women interested in football?" They just aren't. It doesn't necessarily indicate some fundamental problem with the system.
I don't see a lot of people asking why there aren't more female plumbers.
Wait...there are girls in CS? Plural?
I don't think there is any negative force driving women away from computer science. I think that most women just aren't interested enough in computer science to make a career out of it. The decreasing number of women could have to do with decreasing wages, longer hours, and other job-related things... they drive out people who are doing it for the money and leave only the people with genuine interest in the field.
This is being over-analyzed though, and for the wrong reasons.
When all science and engineering fields are considered, the percentage of bachelor's degree recipients who are women has improved to 51 percent in 2004-5 from 39 percent in 1984-85, according to National Science Foundation surveys.
There are plenty of fields that are predominately one gender. A lot of people see that as a problem, and, as shown by the language in the article, it's viewed as an "improvement" when the ratio is balanced out. As long as the difference isn't being caused by discrimination or any other negative means, we shouldn't be trying to balance genders.
Tittie bars pay better, and are a doorway to lucrative pr0n careers. Why would women go into programming unless they are old or ugly?
To that, I reply, "Why is there a widening gender gap in the Ballerena field?"
It's not that one is geared towards one specific gender, or that one would rather see a certain gender perform the dance, it's that the people going into the field have a likelihood to choose one over the other. As I would postulate, most people who get really interested something, after graduating from college and obtaining a degree, find out that what they're interested in may or may not be what they majored in.
Plus, which would be support more in a rural or urban area? Computer programming in a "poor" school? Yes, I'd GOTO thatdawg; More financially rich children probably choose to be in a profession similar to their parents, such as a lawyer, a pilot, etc. Generally, I'd also postulate that the lower economic tiers, the ones that say, "I go to work so you, my child, won't have to do construction work for a living," have a better chance of having children that will choose a "wildcard" profession.
Why would anyone seriously consider going for a science career? It's a losing proposition nowadays, and I don't see any way it could improve any time soon. It's kind of sad that each time I see some article like this I immediately go looking for names and organizations, as most of the time it tends to be another attempt into getting more people in the field just to make sure salaries and conditions stay right where big business wants them to be. Are we going to see another article regarding visas and how they can lift the US in times of crisis like this too?
Get away from IT. Get away from science.
Beyond the whole academic or career scene, how many women gamers do you know? Women who grew up tinkering with computers?
Society demeans women who pursue what could be considered more solitary hobbies (which are acceptable for a man if they could lead to money). It isn't the computer science institutions. From CS departments to employers to computer science men, we would all welcome having a ton more women. It's that, from one side, women are being told that it isn't cool and fun for girls from the gender stereotypers and the feminists usually encourage women to go toward politics or some place of power which computer science definitely isn't. I'm not trying to be down on feminism there. They have a valid point: the money, respect, socialization, etc. isn't there in CS so if you're going to go for a hardworking position, why not point elsewhere. However, it can partially explain the "why".
As the great philosopher Barbie once said, "Math is hard!"
No, but seriously, before my karma is ruined, it's all a matter of differing interests. When I got into computers, they were still a seriously nerdcore hobby. It was rare to even encounter another girl at school who had a computer at home, even less likely for her to know how to use it. My sister looked at my computering, laughed, and went back to her interests.
Kind of without me realizing it, computers became a bigger and bigger thing in the lives of non-geeks. The internet is what really did it. When my sister finally asked me to help her find a computer, this was a watershed moment. And the social aspects made possible by the internet was what really sucked her in. I enjoyed the bulletin boards in my pre-internet days but IRC and ICQ were the killer apps that really sucked her in, that and the web in general. And more and more of her friends ended up having computers, and the social elements online weren't about computers but were simply facilitated by computers. == This, I think, is key. She has become as big of a computer geek as me now but she's using it as a tool, not as an end unto itself. She uses Photoshop and Illustrator for her art, uses different programs as a designer at her job, does her personal writing on there, keeps up with friends, etc. But it's not just geeking out on computers for the sake of geeking out. She's not installing all sorts of upgrades for games, she sticks with consoles for that sort of thing.
Since Slashdot is all about car analogies, I'd say most women are using computers the way they use a car, as a tool that they find very useful but they don't care about what's going on under the hood. Getting into CS is like becoming a gearhead. Most car users, male or female, aren't really gearheads. And from the stats I'm hearing from people I know in academia, Americans as a whole, male and female, aren't really into the hard sciences. There's just no money there.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
What has driven Americans out of computer science? The only qualified candidates we can find here are from India or China. A few from Eastern Europe. Plenty of women available, but no US citizens.
Because, for whatever reason, females don't do well in Tech. How many female CEOs or VPs do you see at top Tech companies? Not very encouraging.
Looking around at the CS students at UNM I see that most ~75% are foreign exchange students. Almost all of them are male. Of the other 25% only a few are female. I think the stats are being skewed by the shear number of foreign exchange students. Also, the number of US born students in CS is dropping.
It seems to me (a software engineer for a company of about 600) that this is less about barriers and more about preferred lifestyle.
Let's be honest with ourselves: the life of a coder is one with a very solidly entrenched lifestyle of sleeplessness and caffeine addiction. Interpersonal relationships are stereotypically uncomfortable, and non-technical conversations are rare and usually involve the word "d20" and "hit points". I'm getting a bit extreme, but the point is there. Coding is nerdy. I've made my peace with that, and enjoy the lifestyle.
Out of the 60 or so engineers in my segment, 3 are female. That's a whopping 5%. Those three females are every bit as nerdy as the guys, and so they fit in well and are accorded respect and not treated any differently.
I can only surmise that there are fewer nerdy/geeky girls, and thus fewer female engineers. Based on life experience (anecdotal, I know) I would say this is due mostly to peer pressure from OTHER GIRLS when they are younger. Not saying guys don't contribute to this, but I think it's mostly same-sex peer pressure that drives females away from nerd-stereotypes.
Thoughts?
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
Perhaps all the pushing to get them in has pushed them away. Maybe some people don't like to get scholarships to do something just based on their gender or skin color, instead of how smart they really are.
All these diatribes about sexual harrassment and descrimination are all complete and utter bullshit! It's not that it doesn't happen sometimes (it happens in every field), but, it isn't the problem.
In fact, the reason is simple: IT/CS sucks as a career if you enjoy significant amounts of Social Interaction and are a "People Person". As a group, Women are much, much, much more social than men. That is a FACT! So, naturally, they eschew the profession once they see what it is like.
Grow Up!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
The smart girls are going to med school or veterinary medicine.
I confirm. As a male med graduate, I am almost an endangered specie.
Indeed, it's just as much a brainy profession, but the pay is much much more better. Lots of girl will prefer it.
Even the more computer-interested girls move to fields where computer are used a lot, but which isn't just pure informatics as CS.
I did a 2nd Master in Bioinformatics and Proteomics after my medicine and I think I've discovered where all the nerdy computer-loving girls have ran away.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Here are U.S. Department of Labor statistics, sortable by gender.
Come on people. Look at the stuff in here. I am an engineer who loves what she does (I build robots!) and I have the good fortune to work in Cambridge, Mass, where women engineers are often no big deal... and yet if I knew I was in a room with all of you, thinking that my brain is different and I'm just not meant for this stuff, and if I *am* good/interested in this it's just because I'm "weird" and going against my gender norms... well, I'd hightail it out of here, too.
And in other countries there are many female engineers. My mother worked with a Ukranian woman who thought it odd that engineering was considered a "male" profession here, rather than a female profession as it was back home. Most of the women I do see in engineering are of Asian descent. You don't think, just maybe, that we're doing a crappy job as a culture of encouraging American kids (not just girls, but even boys too) to get excited about and be interested in this stuff?
I don't deny that women think differently from men. But I do question the suggestion that this means women can't or won't do engineering or science. I question why engineering or science can't handle the way women think. It's not a matter of dumbing it down; it's a matter of figuring out how to leverage diverse ways of thinking about a problem. A group of people looking at a problem in different ways is more beneficial than one geek sitting in a cube doing what he thinks is best. A group of men is good. A group of men and women is better.
Women are smart but most don't love IT enough to put up with the shit that comes with being in IT, even with the pay.
As a fieled, IT offers:
Is it really surprising women aren't going into a major that will lead into an IT career?
I love working on computers but even I am thinking about leaving IT because there is too much bullshit involved in it now.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
CS is still in it's infant stage. It's simple evolution that unaccepted men who don't get a spoose go out to explore new fields (loonies claiming that the earth rotates around the sun and simular heresies (Galileo/Kopernicus), outcast crazy dutch painters who have no chance with the ladies at all 'not finishing' their pictures and thus establishing new territories (Van Gogh), math-nuts with nothing better to do thinking up calculating machines, etc.) in order to gain better leverage towards the 'average' society.
CS/IT is still utter nerdterritory - which are outcast no-chancers by nature - with these exact traits with tons of brainwork to do and mostly eventually pointless things to try out and explore, and it will take another 80 years or so until that changes thouroughly. Then normal men and thus average women too will follow. It usually has been that way.
To emphasis the point: You don't really think that we'll still be hacking web developement frameworks 30 years from now, do you? Though so.
This essay sums this issue up pretty good and gives solid explainations for why it is that way.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The lot of posts like "women are just different and don't like CS, accept it" are missing the point. Insight to the youngsters -- it didn't used to be this way. When I was in college about 20 years ago, there was a good supply of women in my math and CS courses. They weren't there for a lucrative career, they wren't chasing a dot-com industry that didn't exist yet. They were smart and geeky and interested in the world.
(And, in a good proportion of cases, damned hot. If you haven't had they joy of 1 or 2 totally cute, smart babes in all your math/CS courses then I do feel sorry for you.)
So something is changing in the culture or CS courses that's turned of women. In fact, it's happened with breathtaking, distressing speed. And it's not about the money, I don't think; the women scientists I knew were the *least* motivated by a big strike-it-rich payday.
I read a paper written about 10 years ago evangelizing teaching all object-oriented programming and asserting in passing that OOP will be more attractive to women for some stupid reason. Obviously that, at least, has not been the case.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
In many US universities, over the past decade, there has been deliberate effort to integrate and encourage women and girls to get more involved in the 'hard' sciences, engineering, and math. However, instead of the proportion of women to men increasing, in Computer Science the opposite is actually true.
Reverse psychology has worked!
When we were in CS classes, we did not consider our male classmates to be scary, and some of them even seemed fairly cool. We'd flirt, and even exchange jokes with them that only a CS major could find to be funny. But we were all about making money. There may be men who are into computers just because it's fun, but women go to college to further their careers, and ever since outsourcing, CS doesn't seem to be the way to do that. If a CS degree becomes likely to result in a high-paying job, the women will come.
An "Anonymous Coward" talking about strengths of the male brain. That makes me giggle.
...the younger generation has grown up with windows machines and think "who the hell would ever want to make dealing with this shit a *career*?" A lot of people, girls, boys, and otherwise think that, plus they are looking at the economy and realizing it is dead end, study hard, get a big loan, maybe get a mc computer job, two years later get it outsourced, back to just finding any sort of job, no cs degree required, and still be looking at paying back all that money. There's no employer loyalty of note past a few percentage points with corporations, the bulk of them are globalist jerk offs who don't care about their employees or their neighbors or their nation for that matter, just how much they can squeeze out in the shortest time frame by being predatory jerks. The most enthusiasm you see today for a "computer career" is games development, because it is as far as you can get from that horrid insecure and buggy operating systems and the daily "WTF is broken or compromised now?" syndrome. I don't blame any young people for skipping it when contemplating a life long career. Until our society removes the "pig" part from the "capitalist pig" system, you'll continue to see less and less enthusiasm for anything that requires years of study and humongous student loans outside of MBAs. These kids can read the headlines as well as anyone else, daily its another big computer company laying off thousands of people. Get a clue, this ain't rocket surgery. It's a dead end move today for 99 out of 100 who are just entering that field. To be even moderately successful in the future in the US you will need be either a scumbag politician or a top dog predatory businessman criminal, eligible for bailouts on top of cashing in on all your skimming and fraud crimes, or nothing, some human resource to be used and abused.
Who the hell cares. Get into the field you enjoy. Pushing genders or races into a certain field just because theirs not enough is not the way to do it. I don't want a somebody being pushed into a field they are not passionate about. Ok your good at math but, if you don't enjoy lets say building bridges or circuits IT"S GONNA FAIL because you have no passion. Why do you think older structures and electronics hold up so much better. These people who designed them were completely passionate about their work.
I think women aren't naturally attracted to CS, but in the past some overcame that because they were smart, it was a challenge and somewhat glamourous.
Now that things like nanotech, genetic engineering are new and cool the smart ones (who like a challenge) have gone elsewhere.
I know I would do something else if I didn't have a family to feed. IT is pretty good at putting food on the table.
Look, in this age of enlightenment - where equality in gender, race, perks, consumerism, lifestyles, or healthcare is the apparent goal - does it really matter that there are is some ratio of men to women in some field of work...?
There are 2 ways to handle the inequality. 1, have government legislate or mandate some incentives for the designated minorities to want to get into that field of work; or 2, let human nature take its course as people make life choices for whatever reasons they find important and that field of work will achieve some balance on its own.
The only thing I know about incentives for any so-called minority program is that it creates a class of people who think they are owed something. And advancement is usually based on that minority designation instead of skill or knowledge or ability or accomplishment.
Any numbers about the ratio of some people in a field of work are maybe nice to know, but does it help that field...? What's the underlying agenda...? What was that proverb about truth, lies, and statistics...?
The place I went was very "Yay, a girl CS!" The place I went to also chased me away from college altogether. Screw that crap. I can learn it on my own
Ok, I don't do programming, but I do networking for an ISP. I was one of i think 2 women that graduated in our class of around 30 ( I went to DeVry ). Most of the women even on campus were returning students or in one of the new health or HR classes, taking night classes. Needless to say, there were not many girls even on campus, let alone in each class. There were A LOT of creepy guys and yes they would occasionally make you nervous, but if the guys in your school creep you out, then how far are you really going to get in life after school?
I helped out with the Girls in Technology programs we hosted and a lot of the younger girls thought it was pretty cool after seeing what I do, but there is a lot more drive to go towards a medical field. It is still technology and harder than I was willing to take on. In fact, I enjoy working with the routers, switches and servers all day and being able to understand what my IT fiance has to say at the end of the day. The only part I don't like is having to deal with users who don't know the first thing about checking their own LAN and always think that the first answer is to blame the ISP.
Did you watch this show? Media/Public tells that girls should be attractive. Media and public make fun of geeks like the guys in that show. This is also one of the reasons why American youth avoids science and math. I came across a show called big bang theory. Not funny at all, but again tells the story of loser nerds and a beautiful young girl which is portrayed as a !loser.
One reason people should "just accept" that "they don't think the same and have different interests" is that it is for the most part irrefutably true. For evidence, please see..."
REALITY.
It's nice you found an academic to cherrypick statistics to make a point, but it doesn't make your assertion true.
Meanwhile, ALL of us see obvious, easily identifiable differences in men and women.
In case you care, gender psychology is for the most part, a mine field of people who choose a position then try to justify it.
Janet Hyde is no exception.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
At least when I took CS (a decade ago) at a big middling midwest state school, there were very few US-born females. Classes tended to be about 2/5s US-born males (in-state), 2/5s foreign men (Asia, India, South America), and about 1/5 foreign women. By senior year, US-born females were one-per-class at most.
Is there a general slowdown in foreign attendance? Is there something sending fewer foreign females? Economic slowdown meaning fewer women are get the chance? Foreign universities getting more female-friendly? (I know Korean women who said they'd never get an academic job back home). Are there other degree programs attracting foreign females?
I graduated with a degree in CIS in '91. Not as pure technical as CS, but I got a lot of business knowledge, and I knew that is where I was headed anyway. Having the less technical degree hasn't hindered me at all, I now own my own company doing web 2.0 consulting. Our class was almost evenly divided, it was about 45% female. It seems that CS has always been more heavily dominated by males. I'm just wondering if there are more women in the CIS/MIS degree programs at this point in time.
I actually mean that from the reflexive side. CS, IT, programming, etc. have become ever more recognized skill-sets. Businesses hiring such skilled workers actually put their trust into those workers -- because the business owner knows very very little of what goes on -- and doesn't want to know any more. They worry that their own involvement will actually ruin their own business, so they tend to trust us implicitly.
That's the kind of trust that most women tend to avoid, or be terribly uncomfortable accepting. It's a responsibility and an accountability that very few people of any gender choose to accept. But it is one of those things that benefits from over-confidence, and macho self-righteousness -- something males tend to have much more often.
Incidentally, many here have been commenting about the tendency for women to be sexually harassed in many work-places by men. Umm, I think there's some context missing to that notion -- men sexually harass men with equal frequency and grace. We simply don't call it harrassment because it's a part of our natural discourse.
As I've always said, if women want to work with men, they are going to encounter men and men's culture. If you don't want to be around men, you aren't going to like working with us.
Women recognize that the industry is over-hyped and has too many employees in it. We are the rats that are bailing off the ship before the captain.
The industry will still exist, but the number attempting to get into it needs to be reduced. IT takes a special type of obsessive, isolated personality to properly handle it.
Oh, and it also does not help that most managers are assholes.
As everything has become more polarized, at least in America, its not beyond the realm of plausibility that traditional roles become more dug in. When a society, like ours, is under stress from multiple fronts and from a tidal wave of change in rolls and expectations, people grab the familiar straw first. And in a male dominated field, inertia rules anyway. Especially engineering, "this is the way it is son." Emphasis on "son." This is why I'm considering leaving the technical field myself. I'm so tired of not ever getting a fair hearing on my ideas.
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
The fear of cooties.
One of the professors at my college recently had a gender change.
I guess we can all do our part to increase the female presence in computer science..
I don't normally do that, but his example proves my point better than my post did.
One academic, or even a handful, are inevitably going to claim what GP claims, because the claim that "men have different interests than women" is seen as sexist, but more importantly to a scientist, it's not novel enough to justify research money.
However, if you are trying to prove something that is both observationally and logically against the grain, especially something that "proves" mean are "no different" than women, you're going to get money from the sky because the desire to prove mean are EXACTLY equal to women is a powerful motivation in academia.
I trust GP and his "source" as much as I'd trust anyone in a similar situation, that is, not at all.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Honestly, the geek stereotype does very, very little to attract women to CS. No one wants to constantly work with people they find loathsome, even if they might otherwise be interested in the field. There are surer ways to make yourself, miserable, but there aren't many, and women know this. They go into fields where they can apply their talents to people they actually enjoy being around. If that turns out to be impossible or impractical, then they apply their interests in a non-vocational way for example, perhaps by creating or contributing to OSS projects. The saddest cases give up entirely.
The male geek stereotype has been around for a long time, of course; why might it be to blame when it clearly was not in the past? Simple: the stereotype has changed. The "classic" stereotype, while it portrayed geeks as socially inept, also portrayed them as harmless: socially (and often physically) clumsy in an endearing sort of way, and certainly nothing to be afraid of. The more modern stereotype is far creepier, attributing more to problems with inhibition and self-control than mere misunderstanding. Geeks were once nothing to fear, and now they are, and so people have been away. Again, there are few ways to make yourself more miserable than to work with people you feel you constantly have to watch out for. And so they don't.
1. You spend just as much time as men earning a degree, but get fewer opportunities to get that "newbie programmer" job than men. There is inherent gender-bias in the field. My ex-bf actually had the nerve to say "women just aren't as good of coders as men." 2. That same company who won't give an American woman a chance at an entry level position will bring in a woman from India who is presumed to be better and cheaper than the American woman. 3. When the woman does finally get in the door, she makes only 71% (or whatever the latest stat is) as much as a man doing the same job. 4. CS generally involves some level of production support. Even if you are lucky enough to get a position with little after-hours support, there is nothing to stop the company from re-org'ing and putting you in a busy oncall routine. That is not very conducive to being a mother, whether married or single. It is hard to put food on the table when you are typing away at the keyboard, or on some long production conference call where none of the men will listen to you and try solutions you offer because you are a woman and you are obviously just not as good at CS as the men. (ironic tone intended) 5. Did I mention that women do not make as much as men? // from a female /. member [yes, we do exist!]
I believe there are two reasons. The first one (already discussed here) is interest. I did not study computer science to get a job -- I did it because I couldn't see myself NOT doing it. I know very few girls who get excited about mechanical things earlier in life (I spent elementary and middle school daydreaming about technology...female daydreams at that age seem to be different). I do not know how to change this.
The second one is more subtle: being really good at anything requires thousands of hours devoted to it with no apparent reward. If what you are devoted to is math or programming, it really helps to be unpopular for at least a period in your life, especially earlier. The same is not true if you are devoted to theater, chemistry, or biology, which you can practice in a more social environment. I think it is easier to be unpopular as teenage boy than it is as a teenage girl.
[this, of course, is a male point of view...I would love to hear the other side]
I suspect it's got nothing to do with guys, but probably does have to do with the social environment. Even I, as a guy, have left IT (professionally, at least) due to this environment. It's pretty clear, in IT, when battering away at keys and facing a screen, that you're not making headway in the more important things, like building friendships, social support networks, gaining relationship skills, helping others, being helped in return, etc. If anything, it's just the opposite: you're being kept away from social interaction by the need to face a screen; kept from rewards for your work by the expectation of being a cog-in-the-wheel who will do whatever the contract says to make Mr. X's business stay on track, even if it means being bitched at, etc. When you finally do get through a long boring project that you mostly did out of a desire to make someone smile, the most you usually get is the personal satisfaction of knowing you accomplished something. Will the employer actually smile and say thanks for the help after you worked your butt off for them? Probably not.
I tried to switch into a Computer Science double major instead of just my English degree. (English was so boring, I was tired of analysing the sexual inference of a tree shadow across a woman's bed). The Computer Science department was thrilled to have me (I had comp sci experience, could program, etc). BUT, I had to get into this one math course - so off I went to talk to the math department. The math professor I spoke to informed me that he "didn't think girls were good at math" and therefore, he wouldn't let me in. Yes, that was his whole reason - and this was only 10 years ago. I was young, stupid, and didn't take it to the Human Rights Office, instead, I went to the Classics department and spent 3 years learning latin (YAY). I think lots of girls are still discouraged from entering in the sciences - either quietly or overtly. I don't think it's sexual harassment - everyone in university seems to collectively "sexually harass" each other. It's called teasing, and it happens everywhere everyday. I also don't believe it's because CS isn't "social" - there are LOTS of opportunities for social interaction. I later became a systems librarian, so I could use the CS skills I have WITH the sociable aspect. There is a great demand for intermediaries - people who can speak tech and explain things to both sides (techies and non-techies). I suspect it's these small little pockets of "Girls suck at that" professors / administrators / high school teachers who discourage women from pursuing the field.
Let's pretend for a moment that we aren't all assuming CS is a wise decision.
I personally know at least 3 CS majors. None of them make over $50k/yr. salaries. None of them are very good programmers and none of them deserve more than they make. Now, it's fair to consider them poor for reasons outside of their schooling but let's just take it at face value for now: CS degrees did not result in valuable careers.
Maybe women are just being smart and avoiding CS because you're not likely to make any money in that field. Every year it becomes easier for less educated people to perform the jobs in this field and the market becomes more and more dilluted while the valiant goals of those highly talented in the field is directly counterproductive to producing a market for workers in the field.
That was a little confusing, let me sum that up: The best programmers are working to make programming unnecessary. Computer Science degrees offer very little career choice besides programming. Why would you enter this field with even the slightest inclination of this opinion? Maybe women are just picking better careers and therefore different schooling programs?
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
For more information, please see the public service announcement, Sexual Harrassment and You.
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There are few career choices that pay more.
Check any statistics and many IT jobs are regularly in the top 10 or top 20 better paid professions.
As for career satisfaction, well, that is subjective.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
They finally realized their true calling. Into the kitchen to make me a fucking sandwich.
Even though the overall undergraduate MIT female enrollment has increased to the 40%s(*), the number of females majoring in CS has dropped in the past decade. Not even MIT is immune from this phenomena.
(* MIT always accepted women studies. But numbers stayed around 10% until the administration focused on balancing enrollment in 1980s.)
Here's my pet theory. Divide computer people into 10 classes. One class is more interested in solving problems. They'll use any tool that helps. The other class is only interested in cool tools. (I proudly label myself a codehead.)
From my experience, more women than men are tool users, but there are plenty of both genders. Many more men than women are codeheads, and there are very few women codeheads. (I've only met one.)
If a CS department (and I've been in grad school in three) has mostly codeheads, they drive away the tool users. And therefore most of the women. Also a lot of men who want to solve problems more than they care about what tools to use.
I think the problem is much deeper than just having few women. In my limited experience with other departments, I didn't see their equivalent of codeheads drive out the tool users.
I make a comment about titties and I get modded -1 Flamebait. (See below.) She makes a comment about titties and she gets +5 Insightful.
You know what the difference is? She has titties and I don't. It's all about the titties.
( . )( . )
Men from poor countries have no qualms whatsoever to work as nurses in rich countries, in many other countries (not only Muslim ones mind you) men prefer male nurses and thus you have more parity.
It is the first time that somebody claims that women are better equipped to deal with bodily functions, blissfully ignoring that most doctors are male.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I usually consider it a relief to talk to some of my female co-workers around here.
Mainly because I get tired of the usually belch, fart, and other lame topics that otherwise tend to pop up.
Not that all men are crass or all women are interesting conversationalists, but maybe some of the guys want to talk to you because they're actually interested in a conversation.
A popular position that is brought up whenever this gender gap is discussed is that women are steered away from hard science and and particularly computer science by some sort of indoctrination in schools, social pressures and through parents.
While that may be true (to what degree is debatable) why is it that the article indicates that enrolement in Computer Science by women has dropped off from a peak in recent years, dropping to much lower numbers. It seems that over time institutions, parents and society as a whole have softened with regards to rigid adherence to 'man's job' or 'woman's job' stereotypes. If we are to accept that nurture/conservative social pressure is what is turning girls away from computer science at a young age...why were their numbers higher in the past than there are now in the supposedly more enlightened present? That would seem to imply that parents and the school system must have become more conservative with regard to gender roles in the past decade. I find that kind of a hard position to take seriously.
While I don't doubt a lot of programs are kind of toxic to women in college and that they are turned away, (Indeed, one of my collegues has a number of stories about elective programming courses she took and the sexist comments made by her professor) I don't think thats the only thing going on here.
I suspect the paste uptick was due to computer science being throught of as a good paying profession at the time, but that opinion has changed some. Perhaps men just haven't been as quick as women in adapting?
"If a woman tried to tell me what to do; I'd be like Hay! Woman, get back in that kitchen and make me some PIE!"
- Eric Cartmen
I am transgendered, you insensitive clod!
HHOS
Here in the UK people working in education are really worried about the lack of male teachers, which would otherwise be positive male role models for the students.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Is it possible that there are real gender differences that have some effect on people's interests and skill sets?
Would real science want to consider this?
Trying to get females interested in comp sci at the university level is a mistake - it's too late. Most people already have an idea of what they want to do by then and if they know nothing about computers it's a little intimidating to jump in like that.
I think the numbers will eventually go up on their own, since kids of both genders are using computers from an early age now and it won't be such a big leap. I liked computers as a kid, but I never really got into them until I was older because none of my friends (girls) liked them, too. I think I went to one computer club meeting in high school, but I stopped going because some of the creepy guys there kept asking me out. It wasn't that I wasn't interested, but there were other things I was also interested in that were more fun socially.
I work at a very large software company that recruits worldwide. Recently I counted up the women working in my group. All the women in technical positions were from countries other than the US: French, Chinese, Indian, Canadian. None were from the U.S. It could be a biased sample, of course, but it seems to me representative of the staffing makeup.
I think you've got it, or at least a significant aspect of the issue.
I've watched for 30 years now as work conditions and culture in this field drift steadily out of balance compared to the expectations of life held by my friends and family. Now, I don't want to complain here, because it's evident that all professions are under increasing pressure to do more with less, but I think there is something pathological about how that expresses itself within the IT culture.
Though it wasn't always the case, women would now be correct in perceiving that a career in IT will be a socially stunted minefield of passive aggression, concerned not so much with cooperation, caring, and friendly competence as with an obsessive preoccupation with technology combined, as you've noted, with various and pointless kinds of power games.
We can all think of individual examples where values are out of balance, and I'm sure the same would be true of any field, but I'm speaking of something quite a bit more pervasive. When we embrace technology as a comprehensive end in itself, it makes us shallower and narrower in our outlook, and ultimately less humane. I see a lot of that in this field. Men, especially younger men, may not be terribly repelled by the idea of working under those conditions, but I think women are, and I think they're right to be.
And so, without an approximate balance between genders and their perspectives to temper the situation, it becomes gradually more extreme, and we become more alienated within it. The one happy thought I can offer is that this condition is not intrinsic to computer science but merely to the culture of information technology. Computer science, like other sciences, is concerned with enduring truth, something which I'm sure women care about as much as men do.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
Algorithms are seriously overrated for most things. Creative spark and vision are way, way, way more important. You can always optimize an algoorithm once you know WHAT you want to do and WHY.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
In the two fields I specialize in I notice two distinct populations through the ups and downs of economic cycles. The first are "true believers" in the field that stick with it through the good and bad times. These people tend the retain jobs in the filed because of their experience. Then we have the "economic mercenaries" with luke-warm interest in the field attracted mainly because its lucrative at the time. They tend to migrate to the "next best thing" at the turn of an economic cycle. I'm guessing the higher participation of women in the past was due the latter influence. The elastic nature of the American workforce needs both types.
First off, anything about inborn aptitude and natural abilities are generally irrelevant. Statistically you are still going to have plenty of women with the ability to pursue a career in computer science; however, the issue is why those that are capable aren't seeking out these degrees.
I feel the main problem is with how girls view "womenhood" growing up. I graduated last year from a high school offering a solid computer science curriculum as an elective. How many girls were in that class you might ask. Well, there was one; and that girl was socially outcast from her female peers. Computer Science has a social astigmatism which makes girls think that CS majors don't party, don't have fun, have poor hygiene, etc... Couple that with the fact you don't see a lot of programmers on MTV and you have yourself a female deficit. Girls in high school and college are more concerned with image or "having a good time" than their future. According to my year book, out of 97 girls, 6 are pursuing biology, 1 is pursuing computer science, and 0 are entering engineering. Hell, put a female computer scientist on the cover of Cosmo and I'm sure my class would have had at least 10 more girls consider computer science as a major.
As a woman who regularly reads science mags (and slashdot), I can tell you that when science talk makes me yawn, it's the guy, not the subject. I was raised by a single father who was an engineer, so our dinner conversations were frequently tech-heavy and geek-intensive, giving me a much higher level of tolerance than most people, male or female. But when someone is griping, not speaking about their interests, I glaze over.
I think most folks are forgetting something far simpler. Most folks I know including myself weren't 100% sure of what they wanted to be growing up. Yes, I'm gifted at computers but I can also write, love arts and could probably be a nurse due to my patience. In fact a good block of my skills are more artsy than solid engineering and math. The thing is when you're not sure you tend to go with what is considered the norm for your society. For me since I seemed bright and gifted in math despite my other skills I was encouraged to take a career in computers. Looking back it seemed that going with the flow seemed to have eventually worked out well for me. So yes you don't always need to break the flow to be successful. It seems to me being sexist is refusing to let someone into a field. Give everyone a choice however understand that most folks will tend not to make a choice that is different from what culture dictates. It's life and a normal part of society.
I used to be available 24/7. When I went on holiday my mobile, and pager were turned off and I was completely an utterly uncontactable.
A company that needs to contact somebody during his honeymoon is something to keep quiet about while feeling a lot of shame, not something to bring up as a typical working environment when in reality is an example of something dysfunctional (i.e. most companies are not like that by a long stretch).
We had women working under the same regime, and surprise, surprise, we had more women working for us than most of our competitors (we had flexible time for parents, possibility to work from home and many other benefits that allowed parents in general and women in particular to attend to their family's commitments).
Companies that try to function like if they were in a social vacuum should be shunned and are not typical (at least in my extensive working experience).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What also keeps women from CS/IT are the atrocious hours. Instead of hiring an appropriate number of people, companies cut back, ask their salaried IT to work more overtime, overburden the on-call rotation and generally demand more and offer less. I believe women are less willing to put up with that kind of abuse when we can find something else that employs our critical thinking and problem-solving skills but does not sap or consume our entire existence.
Add to this that society still pins the primary responsibility for childcare on women and you can see why 80 hours a week + pager is entirely unacceptable to a lot of women of child-bearing age.
That's why. There are few labor protections, you are often exempt and expected to work a great deal of overtime. It is not a job that is conducive to raising a family or one's self-esteem.
Lets take football for example.
Muslim country? Well, lets not go there.
Other religious conservative place? Ditto.
Here in England, the home of football, women were forbidden to play in first division fields for the best part of the 20th century. Way to encourage them to play the game.
Chose a sport, any sport, and you will be able to find sexist apologists for misogynistic attitudes whose arguments' only basis was the deeply entrenched prejudices they held. Listen to the male BBC commentators during the Wimbledon tennis tournament, and you will still hear sexist remarks that go mainly unchallenged by the mainstream media.
The same can be applied to many male dominated professions, were sexism and outright sexual hostility is at the root of low participation of females in the field.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Let me tell you: 10% is more of a normal number than 28%. I graduated in 2001, and most women (about 2/3) chose CS not because they liked the subject but because it was the easy, high-paying career.
Face it: CS and engineering are not subjects women like. Women in hard science tend to flock in the chemistry (including chem. eng.) and biology/microbiology departments. Just like men don't flock to medical science departments (except MD because the salary is extreme). It is NOT the symptom of a problem anywhere.
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
Many folks are trying to address "why aren't there more women in CS?", which wasn't the question. The question asked was "why are the numbers dropping?" I'd forward a strong guess that 2000 was a peak, if you graphed out the percentage of graduates every year, and I'd put forward that guess for two reasons. 1. That was the peak of the Dot Com mania, when the field looked ridiculously profitable. 2. Many Universities pushed the equivalent of affirmative action in the 90's for admissions to CS programs. Women who wouldn't have made the cut in the admissions department were given the go ahead, while men who would have been admitted otherwise were turned away to make room. I don't think the end results of this worked, and I'd bet that Universities have reverted the policy, but it certainly existed in at least some of the top schools in the 90's. More women being driven towards the field, due to enhanced profitability, combined with lower entry requirements, would certainly yield a few peak years.
I refuse to be marginalized as an unsuccessful woman by some fucking CS *professor* who can't even do arithmetic. "the computer camp she had attended as a girl had a boy-girl ratio of six to one. And why were only 20 percent of computer science undergraduates at M.I.T. female...The year was 1991." That looks like an increase in female representation to me. "In 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. " Another increase! "By 2004-5, the number had declined to only 22 percent." Call me a cynic, but getting out of the major in the early 2000s was a pretty cagey thing to do. And the cincher: "Twenty-five years ago, more young women in colleges and universities were drawn to computer science than today. From 1971 to 1983, incoming freshman women who declared an intention to major in computer science jumped eightfold, to 4 percent from about 0.5 percent. " "At least we know one thing: it's possible to have about the same number of men and women in computer science classes. That just about describes classrooms of 25 years ago." I'm just a stupid girl who knows jack about programming, so he must be right that 4% is close to half.
The problem with all forms of affirmative action at college level is: They completely fail to address underlying problems.
Without picking on any given demographic, if child A is raised in an environment where parents are unsupportive of study, where other kids of group A mock child A for scholastic achievement... You're going to get less students of group A competing at the same level as other students for the college courses that come at the end of that. That doesn't make the colleges [whatever]-ist or [whatever]-phobic.
Worse, affirmative action, lowering the barrier of entry so that you can get "appropriate" ratios of As to other groups just succeeds in putting As in classes they can't pass. So you end up being accused of being -ist/-phobic in your grading. Continuing the same flawed methods, you then have to lower your grading for As to ensure they keep passing in the same ratios. Only now, you've created a stigma for any rational person after college: As are now known to graduate "easy" and no one wants to hire them. This completely screws the members of group A who could compete on their own merits. Their 4.0 is devalued thanks to all As 4.0s being devalued. It's a lose-lose situation.
Then there's group B. In terms of academic culture, they study just fine. They're just, broadly speaking, not interested in your subject. A misguided sense that their "should" be more of group B means you beat yourselves up over something that's got nothing to do with your actual school. You lower requirements, offer incentives, eventually claw your numbers up by offering enough to get even the disinterested to apply. And then, disinterested, they fail out just as badly as those As who don't have the scholastic background. So you make the same mistakes as with the As, get the Bs out "somehow" then wonder why they all quit the profession within a few years.
You want to get more As or Bs in to a subject? You need to tackle it WAY before college level. Beating up colleges for broad societal trends is ridiculous and only manages to foster more resentment and more distrust. Instead, how about spending that affirmative action money on making more triple-A games that appeal to younger members of your desired demographic, getting their interest up in computing earlier? How about working with toy makers to make more science based toys for that demographic? Build the interest from the ground up, de-stigmatise it for your desired demographic, encourage study in it at all levels, that's how you'll truly change these things.
As for why gender roles are dropping now? Look at the economy, stoopid.
Comp sci is a traditionally male nerd subject - whether for right or wrong. Money is traditionally something that everyone wants, regardless of other interests. When the economy booms, when it's perceived there's a ton of money in comp sci, you'll swing towards gender neutral desire for money. When it sucks, when the perceived money's not there, you'll swing back to the defaults. Again, you want to change that, change the underlying defaults. It'll take a couple of decades to truly affect but it's doable. Just don't wring your hands at how bad colleges are for something WAY outside their realm to influence.
Saying a college is bad because of broad socioeconomic conditions that lead up to it having less students of type X is just as ignorant as saying people of type X are all criminals because broad socioeconomic conditions push that grouping in to crime. It's not the end of the system you need to look at and judge.
Were the rivers are made of milk and the trees drip honey?
You just described 90% of modern jobs, irrespective of the field.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
But they should NOT act like the 1950s is the current American culture, or as if only British had any influence on it.
Not to preach, and other Americans can do what they want :) but I think we should appreciate current and past American culture, but ALL of it, and also look at other cultures and see what we like from them (as individuals).
We should say as American as Apple pie, but also as American as Chop Suey, and as American as Burritos (these last two are created in and typical of America, as opposed to Apple pie which is eaten all over the world).
ruheling writes
Now many computer science departments report that women now make up less than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates.
You said "now" twice.
So my Commodore Vic-20 isn't still the hottest machine around?
Computers used to be learning machines, not business machines; you used to be able to get your first taste for programming with:
There you immediately knew whether you had a taste for programming. Nowadays you need a 'C' compiler, and your first program is:
Then you can't just run it, you first need to compile it.
You might be wondering what my point is. Surely, it's just as hard for boys to overcome such barriers to entry as it is for girls? Well, actually no. Before it was easy for just about anyone to try their hand at programming. Now someone needs to make a decision, and put some work into it. How you you know that it's something that you might want to do? Well, to a first approximation, you look to what your peers are doing, and what's cool with them, unless you're very nerdy indeed.
The barrier to entry is such that girls need to overcome social pressure, while boys are at least to some extent supported by social pressure. Without this barrier to entry, such social pressure is irrelevant.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Umm let me guess, it's an unfair male dominated sector where boys are mean to girls? Get over it already. Sick of this red carpet for ladies and we have to frikin work our balls off. If anything, it's easy for a female to get a job in CS as long as she is qualified. You don't hear us bitchin about marketing jobs and such! Besides, maybe most ladies don't care for a "rock star"(irony) life infront of a lcd all day.
The reason is simple. It is a self correction in the male/female ratio as a result of the dot com bubble burst in 2000. The only reason women started "flooding" into Comp Sci is because everyone saw IT as the "it" place to make money. What were levels like before the dot com bubble? Probably very much like they are now or will soon be. It was the same thing with every Tom, Dick, and Harry that read a single HTML book and thought that they could be programmers too. All of them are gone now as well.
Typical. It is women's fault if they can adapt to the juvenile male banter.
What a load of bullshit.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I work in a web company with 7 people in IT, 6 of whom are guys, and I'd have to say that I've never felt that any of them made me regret being in C.S. or feel threatened or out of place.
I'll admit that there are *numerous* occasions where I definitely feel, well, *singled out*, and I'm definitely not "one of the guys", but I've never felt threatened in my job or ever had someone question my IT knowledge simply because I was female... And I can safely say that I'd consider most of my co-workers to be very good friends.
I will admit, though, that in college, I had to pretty much keep to myself in C.S. classes at first, because I had a lot of trouble connecting with any of the guys there. They're nice, there's just this initial barrier where everyone is a little uncomfortable.
Whenever I've been in a new job, there's always that few days (or weeks) where I can tell that everyone around me is a little uncomfortable and doesn't quite know how to handle a woman in IT. Not that they're mean or anything, they just don't know what to expect. A lot of times I feel like I'm invading their space at work, and suddenly they have to "be on their best behavior" or something...
Then, a few weeks go by... they realize that they don't have to treat me with kit gloves, I laugh at a few of the jokes they mistakenly tell when I'm in the room, and everyone's suddenly fine.
I can definitely admit that there is a barrier to acceptance for women in any group mostly composed of men simply because it's *change*... It's not anyone's fault, it just happens. I'm still different from my co-workers, but once they realized that I wasn't going to be ice cold to them, or, I don't know... sue them for sexual harassment or something, then everyone was okay.
So, to any women in C.S. that feel uncomfortable, just stick it out, don't try to be anything you're not, and *don't be afraid*... and everything will be fine. But maybe I'm just lucky...
There is a very simple reason to this:
In the United State outsourcing has diven many people out of the Computer Science area. The developing nations where many of those outsourced jobs have gone still have women in many ways as second class citizen.
Enrollment has tanked in the US for an industry that is consistently being driven over seas to nations where women have a considerably more up-hill battle for quality educational opportunities.
It's that simple.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
A few years ago, I was in charge of a multi high school math competition. The room full of students taking the competition's test was almost exactly 50-50 boy-girl.
They were all required to stay about 1.5 hours and then anyone who wanted to could leave. Anyone interested in spending more time on the test could stay an additional hour.
As soon as students could leave, the female population of the room dropped to around 15%. No peer pressure, just lack of interest.
On a side note, my daughter is two years ahead in math at school. Her grand desire is to become a vet. Computers and math bore her.
I figure since I'm going to be karma burned for what I'm about to say I might as well be upfront on my title.
http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/may08/taulbee.html
PHD breakdown: http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/may08/taulbee.html
BS and MS breakdown: http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/may08/tables9to16.html
I realize we can talk set theory all day, but look at the low numbers of blacks and hispanics graduating. Here are some interesting high points from 2007:
* 430 non-hispanic whites got a phd in CS. Only 20 hispanics and 19 blacks got a phd in CS.
* 1,115 API's got a BS in CS and 5,158 whites got a BS. Only 412 hipsanics and 261 blacks got a BS in Compuer Science.
As a latino with a CS degree, this angers me for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, I don't think it's soley the fault of the "white man". Whites and Asians need to work harder to be more inclusive to minorities. Not by giving them a free pass or admission into college, but by seeking out and mentoring young minority students. Minority students also need to seek out mentors regardless of race or gender. I only had white and asian mentors.
I'm actually fairly geeky for a woman, I love science and history and I do the majority of my own hardware/software maintenance, but I wouldn't want to do it as a career. Took physics in high school and loved it, used to apply it to random around the house problems just for the fun of figuring out how to use the laws/formulas. I've used Linux for several years and took programming classes in college for - again - the fun of it.
However, I wouldn't want to sit in front of a computer screen crunching code all day or spend my life beating my head against chemical formulas in a lab. I work in the video industry (on the technical side) and enjoy it a lot. Do I like science and technology? Yes. Do I want to make it my life? No. I love my family and I'd much rather spend my free time with them.
The thing is, when I'm around geeky male coworkers, I tend to emphasize how much I love computers because if I say "I prefer family time to Call of Duty" they roll their eyes and make those little "Yeah, you're a woman, after all" comments which are fairly annoying. And, of course, leave me out of the rest of the conversation. At times it can almost be a matter of social survival for a woman in the technical world to have some area of geekiness on which to defend her position in the pack (or should I say Guild).
At base, a lot of the tension boils down to having to act like "one of the guys" to avoid being considered "just a woman". Not because we don't like being women or we think women are superior, but because we're afraid men will simply dismiss our thoughts, ideas, and viewpoints and stamp all over us as somehow less than men. Of course, the radical feminists haven't helped in this regard with their I'm-a-woman-I-deserve-the-world attitude which just makes life harder for the rest of us who have to work with men who have been backstabbed by some witch bound for the top and consequently have a less than friendly attitude to the regular women just trying to do their jobs.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
What's going on here is women are staying where they belong: the kitchen. Seriously though, maybe women aren't interested in CS. In the social work field, women outnumber men by a large margin. Where I am it comes to about 7.5:1 women to men.
from the article: Ms. Cassell writes of the failure of these efforts, "The girls game movement failed to dislodge the sense among both boys and girls that computers were 'boys' toys' and that true girls didn't play with computers."
This may be true for girls PLAYING games but not for MAKING games. This study by the Stanford School of Education suggest that girls, even the ones not actually playing video games, are quite interested in making them: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1241071
more about the National Science Foundation supported project called Scalable Game Design here: http://scalablegamedesign.cs.colorado.edu/wiki/
I grew up in Mexico, and CS undergrad (at the geekiest uni in my town) was about 2 males per one female. Our masters program gets many people from India, and we have about the same rate.
So this is something that is much worse in the US (but I don't know about any other countries). It is a combination of biology and culture, and our culture makes it worse than others.
...busy getting technology management and marketing degrees so they can be the boss of us.
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Tell us all about your manners, westlake.
Women realized that computer science isn't just aol messenger and britney spears mp3's....
The people writing these articles must be bored if they have all the time in the world to chip away at meaningless editorials. Do these discussions indicate *anything* other than a trend in the sex of those in that course of study? And is there a point?
Why aren't we more concerned with the quality of the products produced by the CS/IT crowd? Wouldn't it be more fair to say that the quality of code and software is steadily declining while we sit and argue over what sex is churning it out?
Honestly, once you find some concrete evidence of why there might BE a problem, please present it to us. Until then stop looking for nails!
Two reasons:
1. The decline in education standards. In the 80s and before, boys and girls were educated to a standard, like it or not. Girls didn't mind this and were as capable as boys. When career choice came around, many women were advised to do CS as a good use of their talents and went for it. Nowardays education only demands that you agree with your teacher about the importance of environmentalism. The only people who get good at computers are people who self-teach, and because boys are into how-things-work, they do that. Girls aren't, so they don't.
2. Perhaps because of 1. or perhaps in spite of it, geeks have got geekier. You'd be surprised how un-geeky people were back in the 80s. Peter Norton, Bill Gates etc were not really geeks at all. The geeks were the Dungeouns and Dragons playing social dropouts. Since than, Stallman et al have defined themselves as geeky in order to gain a following among social retards, and then tried to make that cool (Stallman's really more of a communist than anything else). Now geeks actually think its cool to be a geek (wrong: geekiness may be fun in which case fine, enjoy yourself, but it is not cool). The final nail in the coffin are the new female geeks - normal women wake up screaming in the night in fear of the very idea of becoming one of those
What happened on 11/4/08?
Because you obviously don't value your citizenship.
I'm as leftist/liberal as they come, but one thing left or right you should never bring up, is questioning loyalty to your country, whatever it may be. That is, if you value your citizenship.
You CAN be loyal while dissenting, but you CAN NOT be loyal while questioning the worth of your citizenship. To ANY country.
And loyalty is one of the few rights a citizen owes to the state. Else you either work to overthrow it, or move the f^($ out.
Disloyalty while reaping benefits is the worst hypocrisy.
Nationalism, while having many bad sides, it's good sides, have basically built the world.
So the United States, or any other country, it's not only "a place of birth", it's your place of citizenship. As such, you owe it loyalty, even in dissent.
If not, you got your choices.
Proprietary OS, difficult to reverse-engineer or predict. [...] Why women avoid pursuing a CS career is a mystery to me.
You answered your own question, no?
Everyone here is working with a particular form of received wisdom - that the differences between the genders are statistically significant.
This is demonstrably untrue.
If women aren't going into computer science, this is almost certainly because of socially-imposed gender roles distorting their perception of what is interesting, and what is possible.
just curious... what percentage of slashdotters are women??
Pepsi
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Women are just as bad at this as men. Add in bitchy and the fact that women are given the upper hand (as they should, don't get me wrong, they have to drop the sprog or live with consequences) and you can sink the whole frigging human race into the ocean and be up on the deal.
Are there any folks who refer to themselves as American? (apart from "Native American Indians" (is this the right term?)) - mostly folks seem in press to refer to themselves as Irish-American, African-American, German-American etc. Is this just for folks who've settled one or two generations back or do the folk who immigrated 100 years or more back still refer to themselves as Something-Americans?
Wondering how that works generally. Personal preference on how strong you feel your roots?
cheers.
Now, before you go judging me for being sexist free your brain from preconceived objections and consider the following:
My experience since I've been married (to a strong women who rides the fence of 'I am woman... hear me roar') is that what they want, or at least her and many of her female friends, is equal opportunity. That absolutely does not translate into the desire to actually DO those things they traditionally have been barred from by their male counterparts.
For example: my wife has been a voice for equality since I've known her. She is upset in the often continued gap in pay between men and women who hold similar positions and, in the past, has been absolutely livid whenever it's suggested (jokingly) that she engage in 'woman's work' of any kind - e.g. go cook me dinner women! - funny, she actually enjoys cooking, and baking, just not when it's suggested that she should do so because she is female; touting that work is not gender-specific. However, there are quite a few things she really doesn't want to do such as: clean the litter box (ewww), install hard-wood flooring or other labor-intensive projects, learn about mechanics or software development, etc. She would much prefer to cook, clean and do the laundry - things which, as a guy, I really would rather not do.
My thought on this is simple. Women want the OPPORTUNITY to do the work without gender consideration but don't necessarily want to DO the work. Key phrase: without gender consideration.
There IS such thing as traditional woman's work - because women tend to prefer to do feminine things. They just don't want to put up with harassment when they decide to go a more masculine route.
There's two cents; the rest of the change is mine.
I am Jack's smirking revenge.
I blame object-oriented programming for the increasing gender gap.
OK, slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I do think that object-oriented hype has made learning programming overly complex and abstract. Perhaps there are benefits to OO in large projects, but a lot of good software was written in procedural languages.
And don't get me started about functional languages!
... are we still in fucking highschool? I really wish women did not call guys "creepy", most guys that are labelled such are most likely socially inexperienced and anxious, I really hate how women have a monopoly on dehumanizing these men when what they really need is some friends and some advice about what they are doing that is socially repellant.
I swear such women are seriously giving the good women of their gender a bad name by being so immature, by continuing to dehumanize them based on their social difficulties.
We should look at the bigger picture. India graduates just as many females as males in engineering and CS.
This isn't necessarily a gender issue as some have implied. Rather I believe it to be cultural.
Really.
We like you as a person but even if you asked, we'd say "no".
I mean, when I'm talking to a bloke, does that mean I want gay sex with him? Well, why not? I talk to a LOT more men then I do women, so I ****must**** be gay, right? There's no other reason to talk to someone other than jump into the sack, right?
I'm a female engineer and a member of the Society of Women Engineers where I get exposed to a lot of the outreach and networking activities going on to encourage young women to get interested in science and to retain female engineers already in the workforce. From my POV, I see the possible causes of this downturn as: :-P
1. Outsourcing/The Economy: Fewer students are pursuing degress in engineering and computer science because there aren't jobs for them when they graduate. Women are not blind to the writing on the wall and can apply their skills elsewhere.
2. Industry Environment: Businesses, especially tech businesses, function on processes and rules based on how men think and operate. Most of those businesses are not receptive to new ideas and changes to the way they operate. Also, when the economy takes a plunge like it is now, diversity programs are usually some of the the first to be cut.
3. Work/Life Balance: Women who choose to have a family will always struggle with the stressful demands of many IT and engineering jobs. Even a few weeks of maternity leave can put you way behind in your career, much less taking more time off to stay at home with kids. The industry is not set up to allow women to handle that kind of time off and still be competitive for raises and promotions.
4. Individual discrimination: Despite #2 and #3, the biggest threat to women in engineering is not instititionalized sexism, but individuals who make it difficult to thrive in an engineering job on a daily basis. If I had a nickel for every time one of my coworkers talled me "sweetie" or "darlin'" or compared me to and treated me like their daughter instead of their colleague (I AM their daughters' age, but come on guys, a little respect please!), I would have quite a large pile of nickels.
5. Outreach programs targeted exclusively at girls in college are implemented TOO LATE: If you don't get them interested in math and science by the 5th grade, there's little chance that they're going to change their minds later. By the time students get into high school and college, they already have a general idea of what they're going to do. Since I'm involved in SWE, I have a direct impact on changing this trend, and we do a lot of work with our local Girl Scouts and other K-12 outreach organizations as well as networking with college students for retention purposes.
That's my $0.02. Right now the biggest factor for me personally is #1: how can I encourage girls to go into science and engineering fields when outsourcing makes my own job security a myth? I'm considering going back to school for a graduate degree in medical device engineering because I don't forsee my job in computer design sticking around for much longer...
the answer is simple, males show off every time the females ask about a question and are given the solution which makes finding out how the solution to the puzzle came to be very very damn boring. however in other sciences there are more variables and methods to make such scenario near impossible. thats right there is only *ONE* way to program the tidy way that doesn't eat up my ram and loop the cpu to a grinding hault! for everyone who says otherwise I hope you die a frightening death in your own cesspool of agony...
In the UK out of the last three cases I can remember of a *teacher* being involved with a schoolkid, it was two women and one man.
The man was arrested and jailed, the last woman (I forget the first one's fate) was arrested and sacked.
...but I wish they would! I have one female professor at my university and she is a HUGE bitch. My wife thinks it's because she has to defend herself in a man's world. I don't know what the reason is, but I wish she'd be more normal in how she treats students. I've gone to get help from her a few times...let's just say I'll never make that mistake again.
My wife was an engineering undergrad with a minor in music. Well, come junior year, she had just had an internship in her field of choice and hated it, was looking for other internships, and they all sounded awful, and was taking more classes that she hated... She picked up an accounting job the next summer because the internships sounded awful, and really enjoyed it... the environment was pleasant, it was quantitative without being dreary, and she liked interacting with people instead of chemicals and equipment... So looking over the requirements, she could be done with engineering by doing a joint degree with humanities, and away she went... started graduate school in accounting -- basically night classes to qualify for the CPA exam, and got an accounting job, and is loving it.
Plenty of women that I knew that started out as engineering majors found out that the career path in the engineering world requires a masters to be employable, a PhD to move far, long hours, and crappy pay... perfectly legitimate if you LOVE the science of it, but pretty crappy if you want work/life balance, want a family, etc... there are plenty of well paying career tracks for quantitative women (and men) that don't involve the sciences and are pretty attractive.
Engineering is hard work and pays pretty poorly... largely because the supply of dorky guys without families willing to work long hours for low pay is pretty large... Engineering may be the best paying field out of undergrad, but it's poorly paying when you consider WHAT ELSE those students would be doing... people aren't choosing between Aerospace Engineering and Human Resources, but they might choose between Aerospace and Law... the latter pays way better per hour, with roughly comparable educational requirements.
Medicine, law, finance (current layoffs not withstanding), accounting, marketing, etc., all offer plenty of career options for quantitative people, minimal education requirements (except Medicine), and good pay...
The pay gap is largely a function of cultural factors towards negotiation, general career path choices, career disruptions from family, and a few "general" structural things... an uneducated woman is likely to take an oversupplied gig like secretary/receptionist that pay poorly, while an uneducated man is more likely to take a job in construction, where after the acquisition of some job skills, pays quite well.
The bizarre world of contracting with requirements to work under a contractor serves to erect barriers to entry for competitors to enter the business and keeps salaries up, but also keeps women out... how often to you find a female electrician or plumber? Both those trades are well paying and the women aren't at a large disadvantage from being of smaller stature...
That's where you get big gaps... not the difference in pay of ACTUALLY similar jobs... just artificially stupidly similar stuff, where academics compare education requirements, pretending that a degree in human resources and a degree in physics are equally valuable.
I was taught to ignore differences between people based on race, culture, religion, gender, sexual preference, and handicap. Since I am now blind to all such differences, any question about "gender gap" refers to something I have no way to measure; therefore it does not exist. And now, I shall return to my coding, along with the other humanoids (if I may be so crass as to pigeon-hole them thusly) in this place.
From my experience, a woman in a CS field needs to be better or one of the best to survive and be treated as an equal by her colleagues, especially if she is reasonably attractive. The majority of men seem to think beauty and intelligence are polar opposites and dismiss pretty women as the secretaries. You don't know how many times I've wanted to strangle a man/colleague because of some offhand comment that he was dismissing me because I was a woman. I've had to go to lengths to perform exceptionally better than him to shut him up.
Then a woman of average intelligence who admits she doesn't know everything or asks for help too much gets thought of as incapable even though she is just as good as the AVERAGE male CS employee. Perhaps it's just because she isn't as good at BSing her way out of things. Then degrading labels like ditz or blond start popping up as does the pressure to choose a different profession because she's "not good enough".
The bar is quite obviously different for men and women in computer science, men can get by being average, women can't in this field. So we are left with a very small percentage of outstanding women competing with all the men.
Of course, there is also the other side of the extreme, the woman that knows nothing or is so insecure about her knowledge she uses her body and charm to get the boys to do the job, and takes the credit.
Because of a couple of these horrible women, us normal women here because we earned it, the strain of constantly proving that we are here in the job because we are capable and intelligent instead of pretty or manipulative is draining. Some of the women I know in CS go to lengths to NOT be too pretty or dress too nice so they aren't dismissed offhand because of their looks.
It's quite a difficult position for young girls thinking about a career in computer science, strive to be a not so pretty genius type or strive to be a b***h. I can see where that turns young girls away.
Some years back when I was getting an engineering degree, there was a CS student who served as a monitor in the computer lab. He was socially clueless and not physically attractive to women (He actually bore a resemblance to Quasimodo). Whenever a moderately attractive female student entered the lab he was all over them, sitting next to them, talking to them. He was "helping" them, even though they really didn't require his help, and they were obviously creeped out. It was embarrassing, and I felt bad for the girls. But I felt even worse for him, because I kept thinking that eventually reality will hit him. He will one day look in the mirror and see himself as the grotesque creature that others see. How does someone survive that? The parent comment has been modded funny, and it sort of is, but it is also insightful and sad.
An interesting "natural experiment" can be found in comparing international CS students to US CS students....
While most of the international women students come to Carnegie Mellon without an extensive knowledge of computers, they all have a high sense of self-efficacy in math. Several students told us that not until coming to the U.S. did they encounter the attitude that women are not suited for math and science. They told us that girls (if they were lucky enough to go to high school in the first place) pursue math and science at the same rate and with the same expectations as boys, at least through the high school level
The reason is because, as the TFA implies, the data suggests that on average, there is no gender specific bias. CS is the anomaly. The question remains, why is this. If all of the obvious social reasons apply to CS, why not the other hard sciences? Counterexamples like garbage collector, and teacher do not apply here, because we are talking about the set of fields that are hard science, i.e. math, engineering, computer science. Amongst those areas of interest, CS is dominated but the others are not. Thus CS must be in L1([a,b]) by the D.C.T., and thus women don't live in [a,b], well at least almost everywhere.
Looking at personal experience, and the experience of other women I knew who've entered and exited the industry, I can't really say any single thing is to blame. I don't think it's nature. Nature may account for a 40:60 discrepancy, but not a 10:90. Growing up and throughout my adult life, I was never overtly pressured to give up my geeky pursuits. But that more speaks to not having parents who micromanaged their children's lives. One of the things that nearly led me to give it up completely was herd mentality. For me, it's not very strong, but for others I've known, it is. I've known many women who were fully capable to [x] (not just programming) but don't because they don't want to stand out. Men as boys can be pretty overt about this(eww, girls!), but it goes both ways.
Back to the herd mentality thing, I did have an "off" feeling in high school and in college, periods of uncertainty, etc. because I knew I was going against the current. I have the same thing occasionally when it comes to male dominated interests I have, while female dominated and balanced interests don't give me that feeling. I just eventually almost completely stopped caring altogether and straightened my priorities. Some people can't do that. Other people never had that issue to begin with. I think the former outweighs the latter, and this will cause the discrepancy we have now to snowball. It probably will widen further in the foreseeable future.
As for sexual harassment, it exists, but I've only experienced it at one place, in the four places I've worked at in Silicon Valley. It was at a startup with a culture not common to Silicon Valley companies. It's not as prevalent as others would make you think. That aside, men obviously tone it down when speaking to me directly (versus speaking to other men) and I find myself watercooler socializing with the engineering women more than men, but that's just how society in general is. We have a pretty decent amount of equality these days, and I'm glad it's there, but you can't change how people behave overnight.
(and just for reference, I'm a software engineer in the gaming industry. and yes I'm female. and no, I don't consider myself average...)
Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
Even the professors scare girls away from computers. Last year in my Comp Engineering class, the professor had all of us applaud the two girls who made it all the way through the class. I would have been embarrassed if I was one of them.
All the CS guys I know have wives who stay at home because they donâ(TM)t need to work due to their husbandâ(TM)s good financial income. Maybe less women are getting these types of degrees because theyâ(TM)re preferring to stay at home, have kids, and donâ(TM)t want to pursue this type of career choice. At least thatâ(TM)s what I see from my side of the cube. I canâ(TM)t blame people for avoiding our career out of fear of having to spend the rest of ones life studying to stay remotely competent, but the money is pretty sweet. Oh well, just one geeks thoughts. My wife is a biology major so go figure.
He was writing about generalities, and you changed the subject and made it about "boring males". Well, there are boring females, too. About a quarter of the world population.
You did just exactly what others here accused women of often doing: living in denial that any difference exists, so any problem there "must" be due to something else.
What nonsense.
Why this thought that unless the male-female ratio in the professions is exactly 50-50, feminism has failed? We don't need to get to 50-50. We just need to create an environment where both men and women feel free to choose the career that they feel suits them best. It's not about equality, or ability. It's about choice.
If women choose not to become computer scientists, why this automatic assumption that the men are creating a hostile environment? Some are, to be sure. But that hardly speaks to the environment as a whole.
Frankly, a woman deciding to become a computer scientist gets less crap than a man deciding to pursue elementary education. Where's your feminism now, ***?
I think natural affinity accounts for a lot of it. I'm going to throw myself to the wolves here and risk flamebait moderation for the sake of a little honesty.
Generally speaking, men are inherently more logical and less emotional. Please keep in mind I'm speaking in generalities here!
This lends much more easily to dealing with cold, utterly emotionless dealings with machines. Men are more naturally suited to it.
For example, the computer doesn't give a shit how you feel about what it just did. It's not even capable of thinking about how you feel. Many women I've met have problems accepting that other than academically.
I've lost track of the number of times I've had a woman tell me, "the computer hates me" some other emotion-laden statement of utter absurdity. I've never heard that or anything like it a single solitary time from a human being with a Y chromosome. Not once.
However, this absolutely does not rule out the existence of incredibly competent women! I personally know several that I respect more than the average man, or even a skilled man, because I know they've faced a lot of bullshit to get where they are. They're out there, they're just more rare.
It's much the same when it comes to men being comforting and empathy. Generally we're not as good at it.
Sorry for that, but I just can't take any discussion about the sexes seriously if it doesn't acknowledge that they are different.
And I am sad that there aren't more females, but I refuse to try and encourage them by coddling. I wouldn't do that for a man, why would I for a woman?
Question everything
The first is from a month or so ago, and found that while both boys and girls are lacking in math compared to the rest of the world, girls are much harder hit.
It falls back on the whole societal stereotype that math, and by extension science, isn't cool and certainly not cool if a girl does it.
As for women leaving, The Athena Factor is a study to read. They researchers found that hostility of the workplace culture is the most important factor driving women out, with "63% of women in science, engineering and technology have experienced sexual harassment." The whole thing is worth a read, and can give some insight into why women don't stick around in IT or any science career.
I'm lucky in that I've worked in the public sector for most of my IT career, and I've not seen as much as what the study found.
If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Angry Dome.
Are you common? Are many (most?) of your friends similarly motivated? Or are you different from them? Would they be less likely than you to work like you do?
If it isn't the first option, then that would be why it's 14%. Pointing out that "most women don't like mechanics/engineering" doesn't fit you unless you know it doesn't fit more than 14% of your female friends too.
I'm game for all of that IF at the same time are able or at least trying to speak in our common national language of English. Remember a proficiency in English is still a requirement for official citizenship here. I am so tired of having to read forever on signs (like at home depot the other day) and product to find descriptions or instructions in fucking ENGLISH. I'm happy to have other cultures contribute to our melting pot culture but some effort is required on their part too.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I've worked in the computer industry for 30 years now. The best programmer I ever met, hands down, bar none, was a woman. I am still amazed when I recall the uncanny way she could zero in on the source of, and solution to, ANY problem I presented to her.
If you're reading this, Charlotte C., I salute you.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
once chicks get into computer science and learn more about the internet, they realize they can do porn and make 3x the money.
My wife and I have been married for 31 years. We met in college. She was a civil engineering major, I was a computer science major. She later changed her major to mechanical engineering when she learned that ME's are more widely employable than CEs. When we met she was a freshman and I was a senior.
I went on to get a masters degree, she took the classes for a master degree but spent the time she would have spent on a thesis getting ready for, and passing, the P.E. exam. She has had her stamp for a long time.
We are both now in out fifties. She gets calls several times a year offering her jobs. Some in the private sector, some in the public sector. People value her decades of experience. People look up to MEs with decades of experience and a professional certification.
I was laid off for the last time on my 49th birthday and have not been able to find a technical job since. It is hard to find a company that will believe that I actually have the experience I have. I can't tell you how many times I have had an interview where I have been challenged on my experience and even though I can prove every bit of it people just don't believe it. And, don't get me started on certification for computer people, compared to getting a PE certification in the computer world isn't even a bad joke. It is mostly just a con.
I went back to school and "retrained" as a teacher and I am now certified to teach CS in public schools and I work part time teaching people how to use a mouse. I haven't been able to find a full time teaching job because their aren't many of those and the competition for them is fierce. You see, I live in Austin, Texas and for about 10 years this is where IBM transfered entire divisions before they laid them off. There are literally thousands of people my age with my qualifications wandering around down here (we used to have a morning walking club just for laid of 50+ software developers) and they all did the work of getting certified to teach in the Texas public schools. I got the job I had when the lady who had it before me got a full time teaching job. My application had been on file for more than a year. I moved from a job that was even more part time to one that is almost half time. A major step up!
When my wife graduated from high school she took the ACT. She compared her ACT scores to the average ACT scores of different majors and the average starting salary in those majors. Engineering had the highest starting salary and most closely matched here ACT scores. I went into computer science after taking a class in it and falling in love with it.
I have come to learn that I am pretty typical of a guy who goes into computer science. Most of us do it because we really really like it. Some do it for the money but those guys don't stay in it for long. I have also come to learn that my wife is pretty typical of women who go into technical subjects. They do it because it is a good way to make a living and you can do some really interesting stuff too.
Now, lets see some of the differences between being a "software engineer" and a real engineer. My wife has been laid off once, I have been laid off twice. Until I turned 49 (I'm now 56) I made 20% to 40% more than she did. She now makes 250% more than I do. I have done thousands of hours of involuntary unpaid overtime. She has always either been paid for, or received comp time for, all the overtime she has ever done. And, while it is common for programmers to be told to get something done by Tuesday or else, that has never happened to her. Working conditions that are normal for programmers are practically unheard of for engineers.
Women tend to be more practical than men when it comes to picking a career. Being more practical they will google for information about salaries, work hours, working conditions and so on, *before* picking a major. If you want to have a job for the rest of your life, and work 40 hours per week most of the time, and be respected at work and in the community, you do not study computer science. At least
Some friends (several of them women in computer science, physics, chemistry, etc) and I were discussing this a while back. I was pondering my perception that there are more women in hard sciences/engineering at good schools than at bad.
Women tend to under-estimate their own ability. Men tend to over-estimate theirs. This is shown in a wide variety of contexts.
My theory is this: in hard sciences, you are told that you are wrong very frequently. Because men tend to believe that they're good even when they're provably not, they stick with it, and vice versa. In good schools, the women (and the men) are actually better and better at accurate self-assessment, leading to less discouragement.
It has also been pointed out that the nature of hard-science curricula frequently makes collaboration ("cheating") impossible--and the bar to discussing ideas is much higher than in fuzzy subjects. Women tend to prefer collaborative endeavours, while men prefer to establish a hierarchy (again, wide variety of research backing this up), although to what extent that is nature vs. nurture I know not.
An obvious solution for computer science is to teach pair programming, emphasise collaborative projects, give students the tools to discuss ideas early on... I taught one such class, but the sample was too small to be interesting. Anyone have more data on this?
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
I honestly believe that only now people are truly understanding what CS is all about.
I remember during my first day in college we were asked about why we choose CS and what was our previous experience. Several people (including men) said that they have picked CS because they like surfing the web, chatting or playing video games. Many of them believed that the work of a CS graduate is about picking colors for a webpage or drawing textures for a game character.
I remember asking a female friend about the classes and she said "it's nice, except for all that math and programming".
Don't take me wrong I already worked with very skilled and talented female developers. But I do believe that woman generally prefer other areas instead of CS
If the brain is smaller, it will NECESSARILY use less energy. If it uses less energy, it will NECESSARILY be running cooler. So your three facts are irrelevant, they are one:
Womens brains are smaller but statistically, no less effective.
Just that one.
Now, if we know what gender brain produced the bad maths that turned this one fact into three, we'll know a little bit more about the gender cogitation gap.
Why is female enrollment dropping? Saying "women simply aren't attracted to that type of work" doesn't even address the question! If it is simply a fact of life that women are inherently disinterested in this kind of work, then we would expect female participation to remain at a relatively stable and low level. But it isn't - according to this, it's dropping off a cliff. Something must have changed. What?
I mean gee guys, this kind of knee-jerk irrelevant response is unworthy. It's particularly ironic for those who claim themselves better suited to carry out scientific analysis. You're not going to find the answer when you're not even paying attention to the question or the evidence!
Virtually all the comments on here are missing a key point: everything they say is true, but it was true twenty years ago when there were a lot more women going into computer science than are now, though still far fewer than men.
I think what's changed is that many other professions have openeed up to women. When I started work as a programmer, almost all doctors, lawyers, etc. were male. Computer programming, though, was much closer to a pure meritocracy - no one cared about your chromosomes so long as you could code. So it was a good avenue for intelligent women to pursue. Now, they have plenty of alternatives and, as others have noted, women seem to be more inclined than men to pursue more people-oriented professions, like doctors and lawyers, when those options are open to them.
women were enticed into the industry and realized that it sucks, so they left.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
This is the reason that I didn't vote for McCain. Palin believes that her personal beliefs should be imposed on others.
The reason I DID vote for McCain is that Palin said in an interview question on abortion, that communities should be able to decide their own standards.
Palin is as close to a Libertarian candidate as we have seen to date - and part of that is that she is able to separate personal beliefs from government mandates.
I'm not sure how you got to understanding her completely backwards, but now instead we'll have a president and congress very much interested in imposing standards upon all of us. Think on that over the next four years and perhaps next time you'll pay closer attention to what candidates ACTUALLY think before you pull the lever.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
H1B visas.
If you want women in the field - end H1B
Seriously females: You need to get on this. My CS classes are waaay off balance, and the lack of females is really disappointing.
Every few months there's a new article about how few males are elementary teachers and how we need more male role models :)
It is probably you, me and the rest of the animal kingdom. Really.
Most girls (sorry goes to the ones different) care about celebrity news, nice tan, sitting in a nice (nor powerful nor functional) car, weekend is for "meeting people" while vacations are for quiet relaxation.
I am almost sure most of the geeky persons have different ways of enjoying themselves. For me celebrity/stars and TV is a waste of time (except maybe Discovery and some others), I prefer function and long-lasting when comes to car as opposed to trendy and nice looking, weekends are to get some work done, ride bikes, go diving and play video games, while vacations are to exhaust yourself with diving/hiking/biking to the point when you only eat and sleep afterwords....... Oh clothing? I am sitting in the office in motocross (actually enduro) pants bare feet, because that is the most comfortable.... yeah.....
Now I know biologists are even worse than computer people..... that is why I probably married one.....
Now as yourself if you went to IT school: what you do/did very different than the guys at business administration or other "popular" "science" career, and how many would make your surroundings' average girl run into an other direction (not literally, just not to be able to live with)....
I might be wrong about that .......
Society has a stigma about the "computer nerd", and woman are more concerned about how people see them than men.
That and computer science departments stink of body odour. There were hallways at my school I wouldn't walk down in the summer because of the smell of other students. Great way to repel women.
I teach in a related discipline, electrical engineering. I would like to know the total numbers of men and women in the years mentions, i.e., the 80's, 90's and 2000's. From my memory I recall that the general enrollments in electrical engineering (EE) and CS were both pretty high in the 80's and 90's and I definitely can say that currently our total enrollments are WAY down in these areas. It's not just my university, it is a national trend. I think there really are two questions: (1) Why are students of both genders "running away" from CS (and EE), and (2) Why are the female students running away more? I think that answering the first question would go a long way toward answering the second one. A few posts have mentioned that "something has changed" and I believe that this is a major part of that change.
because in 2001 hiring practices after the dotBomb reverted to stereotype. Back in 1998/99 hiring managers did not care about gender, race, age, or a jillion other "filter factors" because they just needed people too badly to be picky using such faulty criteria. Since the layoffs that happened in 2001, hiring managers have used all of those filters to reject applicants. Many women have left the field out of sheer discouragement.
Women like cooking and soap operas, not coding and space operas.
This seems to be boiling down to a "nature vs. nurture" argument.
Clearly there's more to it that what each sex is interested in. And where does the "interest" come from?
The only reason we had a slight increase in the CS field for women has simply to do with having what people tell you that you can't have. In North America especially this has become true, we act like little children, wanting what can't be had, fighting tooth and nail for what we call 'equality', and once achieved the goal becomes a passing trend. Women want equal rights, they got it in the most part and are not content, pushing to get more rights than males. African-americans call each other the 'N'-word after so much work to eliminate barriers, bidding the question 'why squander the efforts of the previous generations'. We all think we are just 'entitled', when we shouldn't need laws to treat everyone around us with respect and stop whining about what we do and don't have.
Why is it bad that there aren't women in CS?
It's bad because if women are interested in CS, there will be a larger pool of intelligent individuals to fill the ranks, increasing productivity and competition. Further, the overall workforce would probably be happier in the profession if there is some gender balance. If you are excluding individuals who would make your workforce more productive, you are inefficient.
Why aren't women in CS?
I don't know, is it the work? Is it the environment? Is it the type of companies that they have to work for? My speculation: The work is solitary, and women tend to value jobs that require human interaction (see: teaching, HR, nursing/MDs). Further, the work hours are often later in the day/later at night, something that creates scheduling conflicts with children's dropoff/pickup times.
Should we encourage more women in CS?
The real question is, do the additional intelligent minds and competition make up for the cost of changing what they don't like about the job. Since I speculated that the nature of the job is the problem, the only solution is to make CS less coding intensive. That doesn't sound like a solution to me.
If the solution were simple and women wanted in CS, they'd be shouting it and companies would comply to improve efficiency. Women are highly educated and assertive these days and the education gap between men and women is about nil. This whole line of thinking that [male voice] "We need to find out why women aren't happy in CS so we can help them" is both insulting and ignorant.
I never hear women complain about this; it's normally guys. Which makes me think women know what they want in a career, and CS isn't it.
OK, the male/female ration is interesting, but I find the drop in 1983 much MORE interesting.
We know why people stopped enrolling in 2000. Computer people were getting laid off, and kids stopped seeing CS as a good money option.
What happened 1983? Why did males AND females decide that CS wasn't for them anymore? The Personal computer was becoming very available. The Macintosh was about to be released, and yet, just when people were getting more experience with computers younger, enrollment disappears.
What happened?
Anyone with good marks gets pushed toward science. For people in the top 5% of their field this is OK; people in the 20-25% range would do better going into a business-related program, competing with C students, and making big piles of money while improving business decision making for everybody. It is relatively easy to go from competitive programs to uncompetitive ones (some of the most successful people I know failed out of competitive science programs and excelled in less competitive non-science programs); going the other way is pretty tough (and usually involves years of school not on the job training and some home reading).
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
I used to teach computer science (University level).
I noticed two phenomenons.
One was that individuals who where socially challenged(SC) tended to like computers, because computers are infinitely patient and accepting (so to speak). This resulting in more of the SC folks to go to computer science. Obvious translation (more geeks in computer science, etc)
A second phenomenon had to do with working in groups. I found that often that coding in groups resulted in the stronger individuals (the one in front of the computer doing the typing) gaining skills and the other members of the group growing relatively weaker since they are passively learning at best. Given that women can more easily find programming groups and that the high male/female ratio makes it more likely that some socially challenged geek will seek to do favors for them, it is difficult for a person to avoid the temptation of letting someone doing their work, while they slowly fall behind the learning curve.
Just some observations. I have no idea why more women don't want to start studying computers. I mean, what girl wouldn't want to hang with these guys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_bang_theory_(tv_series)
Not computer, but you get the drift.
Well, I'm a girl with a 4 year university CS degree, and I've been working in web development for the last 6 years. 3 of those at a quite large software company in the web department working on large online .net systems.
Over the last few years I've become less and less sure that this is where I want to stay. For one thing, it's lonely working in a cubicle on lines of code all day. Our meetings are almost the best part of my day.
Second, I don't get to interact with clients at all. So, when I'm working on a particularly awesome project, myself and the other developers on my team don't get any of the positive feedback from users. My boss (project manager) and the execs are the ones who get to hear the Ooohs and Aaahs from the clients. We get an email saying "The client liked it." Not exactly fulfilling.
Also, I'm one of very few female developers at the company. I sometimes compliment the work of my team-mates, even complementing the testers if they find a really obscure bug. But, I get zero compliments in return (other than one guy said he can recognize my code at a glance b/c it's organized and commented. I think that's a compliment). I'm not surprised at this by any means. It just means you have to constantly encourage yourself. Which gets old after a while.
Fourth, I'm at the mercy of having to use the programming language and processes that the consensus decides on (or the VP of Technology). So I'm using .Net in an Agile development style, when I'd prefer PHP in a better planned strategy.
And lastly... my concerns usually get filed under the "we'll get to that some day" category, even when I find big security holes. What's the point of being proactive if no one listens?
I think, as a girl, I want to have more direct affect on what's going on, and feel like my opinions and actions matter a bit more. I also want more interaction with clients and co-workers.
Thus, I've been considering moving to project manager as soon as the position opens up.
What's gotten big since the 80's? MEDICAL SHOWS.
You've got ER,House, hell even Becker and Frasier are doctors. Blah blah blah. Alot of these girls grew up watching George Clooney save lives and swoon babes.
Can you think of any TV shows that 'glorify' the Computer scientist quite the same way? Nope.
Back in the 80s we had all those cool cyberpunk movies. Bladerunner, Hackers, War Games. Computers were seen as arcane and mysterious. Now they're common place. The average PC guy people know of is the dude at best buy- pretty much a glorified mechanic. That really isn't a stigma anyone wants attached to them. I mean, seriously, would you want to work at the places shown on "Chuck" and "40 Year Old Virgin"?
The CS field is highly competetive and we haven't gotten a good rap since 2000. Enrollment rates are dropping period- maybe the girls are just the first to go.
I had a friend who went from male nursing to CS. He loved the gender distribution and dated some women he would probably not have had a chance to in a more balanced program, but the low salaries and ridiculous hours (all night shifts, often) in nursing got him out.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Mod this joker up. The vast majority of female programmers I know are older than me, and I'm not young...We're talking people who were in college in the 70's and 80's.
Why were there more then, when this wasn't even much of a profession?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Maybe because all the women are somewhere else?
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2008/11/18/hunt_is_on_for_more_men_to_lead_classrooms/
Why are so few men, teachers anyways?
All you people who are interested in 'equality' and elimination of 'roles' don't seem very interested in the effects on children that women working have.
Lets put this on a scale for you.
Lowest (0):
The majority of child neglect cases come from single mothers.
(1) Something like 3/4 of divorce are initiated by women.
(2) Even those who are married wish to work more and leave their children in the hands of others to care for.
(3) There are those women who, despite the never-ending attacks by feminists, prefer to stay and home and care for their family.
American law-making policy and the population's ideals have consistently demonstrated a historically present lack of understanding of human emotion and sensitivity. Ever since Socrates the white race has been entire focused on the material, intellectual side of things, but never the emotional ones.
There are two types of children: those sensitive ones who benefit a great deal from the attention of their parents and tend to follow in their footsteps. And those children who tend to 'go with the flow' and rapidly adjust to changing circumstances. They require less attention and deal with difficult events (parent dying, divorce, etc.) quite well. They also develop their own personality and interests, regardless of how much attention their parents pay them. Even traditional western society has favored the latter type over the former, always giving more attention to the brash "pioneers" with an intense sense of self-determination and individuality. But these days the more sensitive children have suffered even more as a result of vocal feminist minorities controlling the politics of the nation, and slowly spreading their influence through the US and UN to the rest of the world.
People always say this is a 'man's world'. But laws these days have indulged in misandry. What you claim to be 'equality' is inherently unequal. For example, many laws have been passed to deal with the 'issue' of male violence at home.
I'm sure many of you think family violence should be pinned on men. But 55% of cases of severe violence are perpetrated by women (often times using weapons to make up for their smaller size). In cases of mutual violence the man stops after the first time, but the women keeps attacking.
You're completely blind to how much you're being manipulated.
Perhaps it directly corresponds to this; (http://agonist.org/20081012/american_culture_derails_girl_math_whizzes_study_finds) in conjunction with filter courses and other prerequisites of those particular degrees.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
Seriously. Ask most people in the field today and they will tell you to stay away.
Working conditions tend toward inhumane. No overtime pay and deadlines that require 60 hour weeks. Get laid off at middle age and you will have a harder time than most fields competing with 20 year olds who will work 12 hours a day for half your salary.
It is one of the most easily outsourced technology fields. My company regularly brings in a set of green recruits from China, we train them, they go back to the Chinese office and they lay more of us off. This has been happening for years. Morale is in the negative numbers for almost everyone I know working in the field (mostly telecom SW dev).
If anyone asks me if I recommend this for their children. I say NO! Not unless they live/eat/sleep the stuff and are already doing some development and still I would ask what their second choice is.
"Women and men are different"
In some unrelated biological capacity, yes.
"Women tend to be attracted to the emotional/social/blah, blah, blah"
Stereotypical male reasoning.
A woman is just as capable of being someone who has a preference to intellectual stimuli as a man.
There isn't a gene AFAWK that will determine such characteristics.
If there is valid statistical evidence that shows more men than women in sci/tech positions, it doesn't immediately beg the conclusion that women aren't as intellectually inclined as their male counterparts.
Why does this topic keep coming up? Why is it weird for a woman to choose a sci/tech career?
Because it is wierd as long as we hold just male-centric attitudes. Feminism isn't equality in identity. It's equality in value and there is no evidence that suggests a woman isn't as valuable as a man in a sci/tech position. It's weird because we know it's not fair but the mainstream hasn't accepted it yet. The male ego still makes rediculous distinctions such as, "men like things and women like feelings."
If it was normal, this conversation wouldn't be happening. Even if there were still more men than women in sci/tech careers, women would feel more comfortable choosing such a career. They wouldn't have to consider harassment and their colleagues wouldn't sum up their potential as a mate the moment they walk onto the job. That is just not normal and that is freaking sad.
I am so tired of having to read forever on signs (like at home depot the other day) and product to find descriptions or instructions in fucking ENGLISH.
You can't blame immigrants for having instructions in multiple languages. You can blame globalization for that. It's cheaper to print a product in multiple languages than it is to print up separate packaging for each locale.
I'm happy to have other cultures contribute to our melting pot culture but some effort is required on their part too.
You can have your cheap products manufactured in foreign countries, but some effort is required on your part too, namely taking some time out of that extra precious Slashdot rant time to finding the English description.
I am male with what I think of as "achievement feminist" leanings.
Not "entitlement feminist" leanings.
I can think of 3 major reasons for the proportion between gender in computer science.
1) Internality: Women get more, for less investment, by going into different areas.
2) Externality: Individuals and vested interests are trying to keep non-members from increasing participation.
3) Hysteresis. Some people (gender difference here?) are comfortable doing things which they see other people do. They are comfortable trying new things which seem to work for other people.
(By more, I mean more satisfaction, which for different people might mean different things. It might mean money, recognition, power, flexibility, free time, satisfaction, ability to pass on benefit to others, achievement of ideals, and/or hanging-around-time with people who don't smell bad.)
(Externalities are sometimes ugly, and sometimes socially acceptable. Examples with much in common but varying degrees of acceptability are excluding due to race, excluding due to gender, excluding due to nationality, excluding due to over-saturated market (like med school))
(Hysteresis. I think this may be what happened with medicine, the law, and other professional fields. When women saw women, women imagined themselves participating.)
As an achievement feminist, I am vocally opposed to 2) and happy to make efforts to address 3)
As to 1. Well. In a meritocracy, I fundamentally don't care about the gender of the winners. If women don't want to play, then ...
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
Maybe woment don't go into CS as much because the men in CS don't have as much earning potential as they used to.
My optimistic theory as to why the widening gap is happening is because there's just too much interesting stuff going on in science right now -- especially in the biological sciences, where women are already numerically well-represented. While I have a CS degree, myself, if I were a teenager today, I'd be sorely tempted to go into genetics or epidemiology. As a science-inclined young woman, there are all kinds of really interesting topics to get into right now, and it's fairly easy for Computer Science to get lost in the shuffle.
The science/math/technology magnet I went to for high school required us to choose one of three tracks to go down: Engineering, Physical Sciences, or Biology. The AP Computer Science course was not on any of these three tracks; it was a bastard stepchild of the math department. You had to go out of your way looking for it, or you never even knew it was there. If it had been offered as an elective on one of the official tracks, I guarantee that there would have been more girls in that class. As it was, there were only two of us, and we put most of the boys to shame. I'd be surprised if any girl ever went out of her way looking for a CS class unless she was already pretty damn confident about her skills.
You cannot force these things. The culture is skewed toward attracting certain types of men. Until that changes, you can "attract" all the women you want but they are all going to turn around and walk out the door when they realize what a bizarre world (of warcraft) you have created for yourselves.
How many girls play games or use computers outside of work? Yes, there are some who do but most prefer other activities.
Could it just be that people choose jobs/careers that are based on what interested them? Which often shows by what they do outside of work in their free time and what they like?
People keep trying to say that men and women are equal and men and women are the same. Men and women are equal but they are not the same.
Foreign grad students in science/engineering are hugely skewed towards male, making the gender bias look worse than it'd be if you only considered US citizens/nationals.
Looking at these stats from 2006, science/engineering grad students overall were 57% male, 43% female in 2006. But among U.S. citizens and permanent residents, it was 52% male, 48% female---nearly parity. This was offset by holders of temporary student visas being 67% male, 33% female.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Then why don't you leave?
Maybe everywhere else is either just as bad or worse in one way or another? That anywhere you go you won't be as happy as native born because you've proved yourself capable of disloyalty re your native land already? That the world arena is rigged such that you can't be happy anywhere, off-world travel isn't available, and suicide isn't a viable option by definition?
How does one VPN a life? You pretty much either need to be a Blank from conception and sheltered from society until you learn to do it for yourself or convincingly fake your death and remake yourself. And still with border checks and no extranormal and/or surreptitious travel options you'll be a prisoner of your country of residence unless you engage in illegal activities to attempt to preserve your anonymity.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
United States falls behind six Muslim countries in the percentage of women graduating in science to the total science graduate population. The countries whose ratio of women science graduates exceeds that of the United States are Bahrain, Brunei Darussalam, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Qatar and Turkey.
...was used as subject line so this post might get some readabilty. (sorry low blow)
I've skimmed through a good portion of the posts and many people have touched on some great discussion points. But I think that some of those points need to be brought together.
Many posters have said, "Let people choose to work where they are most comfortable."
Many posters have noted, "Girls like people, boys like things." (paraphrasing)
Many think women just aren't intersted.
Some feel women don't have the mental capacity.
Many have stated that women are harrassed.
You're all right and wrong.
Women do have the mental capacity for higher math and sciences. But we do tend to have that natural tendancy to interact with humanity. But girls are curious about things, but we also don't waste time. If an inventor made a toaster, and it works, we look quickly at how it functions and works to make life easier and we move on. Don't think that our brains are any less interested in the mechanical working, but we look for bigger problems and tackle those. We tend to follow the old addage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
The medical science area there are always new issues and they build off of existing issues that have already been resolved. One poster stated that women tend to handle repeative task and men constantly seek the next big challenge. In basic human nature that is true, women will handle the repetive need to satisfy the people around them. This is not completely untrue for men, but they look at that social need differently. It's not wrong, it's just different.
I personnally got into CS because I naturally found the ability to manipulate code to my design enticing. But I learned that I was a better thinker than coder. I would over think my code and honestly I wasn't an efficient coder. But I can pseudo code well and define the logic, therefore I help tremendously in the CS field. I natually fell into the analyst role. But I have learned from experience that may male counterparts as well as the female ones who are developers, are fairly anti-social in general. Most coders, in my experience, don't like to work on teams, they don't like to discuss, they don't tend to make their working code re-usable. Most coders tend to work in single person silo's, but this appears only to be what they are working on. Lunch Hours / After hours, they can be social butterflies.
Most Women don't tend to be that way. We tend to collaborate, we share ideas, we tend to try to think through problems before we tackle them. Men may think through things, but not as many tend to open up their ideas for discussion or criticism.
As for the harrassment aspect, it does exist. I have been harrassed, and put in embarrassing situations because some male counterpart didn't give a shit what he said or did around me. While that didn't stop me from getting my degree in CS and following that career path, I can see where some women can be disuaded. But honestly, aren't women more harrassed or leared at in Nursing? How many men or woman have enjoyed the notion of a woman dressed up as a nurse coming to the rescue? Ferris's Beuller's day off..... stereo-typical definition of a bad image place on women, funny as it was.
So it appears to me to be a disinterest in the lack of social team work along with many social stigmatisms that plague our society.
Food for thought.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Probably a large portion of the losses are stemming from the .com bust earlier in the decade, etc.
A lot of girls/women got in on CS/EE/CompE for the monetary aspects, and few were truly enthusiastic about the field. Those who do really like the subject are probably still going to enroll regardless. But those who now think the cost/payoff is not worth it are not bothering.
Another thing to notice is that the majority of women in grad programs in CS/EE/CompE tend to be Asian (Indian, Chinese, etc.). Most engineers from Asia are not inherently passionate about their field -- for them it's a relatively secure career. This is also easily observed amongst the women in these programs.
I think in the U.S., when the very high .com demand went away, it was not considered worth putting up with an otherwise unattractive field, since the payoff was not so high. Whereas for Asians, it's secure/lucrative enough.
As an engineer who has been in several places, both as a student and a professional, it's my judgment that "Women In Engineering" type programs at universities don't really have long term success in keeping those women in the field. If we want more women in engineering (assuming the business world starts valuing engineers in general as they should, which doesn't seem likely any time soon), we should get rid of hard science-related stigmas much earlier than at the end of high school/beginning of undergrad. Perhaps at the Jr. high or early Sr. high levels where the social and psychological pressures are staggering.
So nearly all species in the animal kingdom have inherent behavioral differences between males and females - except humans? You really believe that?
Nearly all species in the animal kingdom are bugs. But if you look at complex cordate animals closer to humans, for instance other mammals, I think you'll find that aside from the biomechanics of reproduction the behavioral differences between the sexes are slight. A female wolf is the same size as a male wolf and just as capable of hunting, for example. A female bald eagle is just as capable of catching a fish. Etc.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
As a computer professional with interests in pr0n, I can confess that most strippers make DOUBLE what I make working only 2 nights a week.
So - exploit me and my kind by dancing/shaking ass around a pole, or put up with impossible deadlines, stupid rules, proxy logging, site blocking, and pointy haired managers.
hmmmmmmm.....
Even for engineering, computer science stands out as a discipline that has very low personal interaction, where you interact mostly with a computer and communication with partners is not often the most important of skill sets. Women are biologically more inclined to desire interpersonal social interaction, so they dislike computer science.
Currently hooked on AMP
Boom and bust is normal for IT, and it is fast moving so you have to put in the hours of learning all the time. It also is not common to keep copyright of the work, but instead just pass that over to an employer, or on contract. It is also common for free software to be better than commercial in utility applications, further pushing the demand for innovation. You don't get a comfort curve with it, constantly on the lookout for the next big thing. To sum up, it is a mugs game if you do it as a career and women know that. The best thing to do is, take computer science with something else vocational, and excel in that area with your hidden computer knowledge.
...to finding the Engrish description.
There! Fixed that for you. I assume that's what you meant, based on your sentence construction.
If anything, parent is plain insightful. Can someone please get the moderation right on this?
Gravitation is a theory, not a fact.
Immaturity, childish memes and ubiquitious soft and hard core pornography.
... because as a guy who doesn't want to be creepy, I've always been terrified of approaching women for exactly that reason. That women these days actively *don't* want to be approached, don't want men to initiate a connection, and would consider any approach of any kind to be sexual harrassment.
If I see a ring on a woman, I back off instantly on the assumption she's off limits. Of course, it's tricky because single available women seem to wear rings all over and I can never remember which finger means what.
I figured that was just my hangup and women really didn't feel like that, and I was just painfully shy. But then you say it really does feel like that.
Meanwhile, I've had maybe two women in twenty years approach *me*.
Can you explain exactly *how* people are supposed to get together if it's never appropriate for the man to start the conversation? Is it one of those 'don't call us, we'll call you' things, or is it one of those 'hit on me, but don't *act* like you're hitting on me' kind of things? Or is it just 'do that sort of thing after hours, not in the workplace'? Or is there some kind of magic unwritten signal code designed by Darwin to screen out telepathy-impaired engineers from the genepool?
Or is the stereotype true, that women nowadays really do think that all men are predators and would kind of prefer if we just all went away forever?
I don't doubt that a lot of men are overly forward creeps, but that seems like it kind of screws the game for the rest of us shy/sensitive types.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Medicine used to be dominated by men. In North America nowadays, it's pretty much split 50/50.
If you truly believe having more women in CS will benefit the field--that is, will improve the quality of software/algorithms/proofs being produced--maybe take a cue, and turn CS into a profession that is (generally...) well-respected, well-paying, and offers high professional autonomy.
My two-year old son spends most of his time running around yelling, picking things up, hitting other things with the thing in his hand, and then throwing the thing in his hand.
We have not taught him this and we certainly do not encourage it. Culture has not taught him this behavior. In fact, this behavior is Insane.
He does this because he is a little boy and most little boys destroy things.
And not you being smart, cheerful etc?
Ok, let's say I give you that one (but what about the products made in the US?)....what is the excuse for signs in a store, or a govt. agency (drivers licenses, etc) in any town in the US that is not a border town to have it in multiple languages?
There is not excuse.
That is not the way to teach immigrants (talking legal ones of course) to learn English, which will help them succeed here. When I took foreign language classes in school...aside from a few things the first day...for the rest of the year, the teacher spoke no English. The immersion technique helped you learn to speak the new language much more rapidly.
But no...I hear in some areas of the US, we actually have US public schools that teach in languages other than English. Not a course...but the whole curriculum is in Spanish...that is absurd.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Just a regional name for casserole.
You need to get out way more if you think that's the epitome of anything except easy cleanup.
Also fuck you and your 'community responsibility' 'common good' BS. Code for 'do what your told' and 'pay your taxes'. I do as little of ether as illegally possible.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As a Slashdot-reading, dual-booting (with wireless and all the gizmos in Linux running, thank you) proud owner of the double x chromosome, I completely understand that there are differences between the brains of men and women. I have been trained as a teacher to know exactly how we learn differently and would suggest your disparity is more a result of how the sciences are taught, perceived, and furthered.
That CS is not a social field, I understand. (Techies in the family.) But I would also argue that the hard sciences are more accepting of the competitive, cutthroat, do-it-better-than-the-other-guy kind of thinking in the classroom and in the working world. Just the opposite is true for the "female" occupations referred to here, like nursing. The goal in nursing is to work together not to kill someone.
Work alone, checking code, or work together, on something tangible? If you change your workplaces and/or goals, you might find your demographics changing as well.
I've been posting "Information Technology *needs* Babes like you" signs everywhere, and it has had *no* effect.
I even put my picture on it!
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
When you look at the NYT graphic, the question becomes, "Why the Widening Human Gap in CS?" The percentage of males is down to 1980 or so levels. The two maxima appear due to the dot-com era and, previously, to possibly the rise of micros (although it's also the golden era of minis). With all the cool technology available these days to flesh out innovative ideas, I would have thought the field would be getting stronger, irrespective of male or female.
Lets all help keep Danny's dream alive.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Engineering in general is not much better then CE or CS.
Granted I can't find exact % of grads. Just a quote that most schools can't make 20% enrollment from a school that was crowing about 40% of a new freshman class being women. (Googled 'Engineering school gender balance').
I remember the glorious first few weeks of engineering school. I had hope that it wasn't going to be that bad. By the first semester break grim reality had set in as the classes shrunk and shrunk and shrunk.
To their credit the women that did remain were truly interested in the subject. But at least as many of the incoming female engineering students were looking to latch onto a graduating senior and get themselves a 'Masters of Residential Science' (Mrs) degree.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I hate my boring, nerdy, unsung profession. I wish I was doing something cool. Women are smarter than us.
From TFA:
" When all science and engineering fields are considered, the percentage of bachelor's degree recipients who are women has improved to 51 percent in 2004-5 from 39 percent in 1984-85, according to National Science Foundation surveys."
Yet on the other hand:
"In 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. By 2004-5, the number had declined to only 22 percent."
Which, anecdotally, matches my experience at Michigan (which was a few years prior to the latest numbers), where women in CE classes were quite rare, but extremely common in ME and ChemE. I didn't take any ChemE courses, but I had lectures in the building and friends in the senior/graduate level classes that I peeked in on. Also, I participated in some minority and women in engineering programs, so I knew a lot of women engineering students. None of them were CE.
The enemies of Democracy are
As a female professor of mine put it, CS is about "using the computer in order to use the computer." Women ask "How long until we do something useful?" Boys ask "How long until we get to video games?" which are less popular among females, last I checked.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
That could mean just about anything.
To get to 51% I'm betting they simply counted all BSs and BAs in science subjects. Not believing it and putting it down as NSF bias/BS/Statistics.
BTW by CE do you mean Civil Engineering? Computer Engineering is generally contracted to CompE. Civil engineering certainly has seniority.
20 years ago my CompE graduating class was about 5% female.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Men and women simply aren't the same.
It's normal to have more female nursus then males as it is normal to have more engineers and programmers of the male sex.
Do you ever hear anything about the scandalous discrimination of men in the cleaning or caretaking business?
Has anybody ever read an article about how outrageous it is that there are only 3% male kintergardenteachers?
Forcing equality on society is very contraproductive and is even against the very nature of mankind!
The right man/woman for the job should be the motto!
And don't try to 'force' girls into the hard science (where alot of them aren't fit to turn around in)
(Forgive my Engrish please, I try)
It's true! And in a CS dept, the sex will be bad because the guys have no experience, and the money... well, how does a CS major get money when the jobs are all going to BRIC countries? :P
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
One of the reasons there are significantly more comp sci majors these days is because computer science has gained validity through the video game and cinema industries. The science can be more interesting if it relates to people in ways that they can appreciate.
But the Computer industry in this way is seen as an industry for deviants(which are synonymous with boys), as our culture has a divide which exists toward things which are directed at adolescents(and deviants are adults who refuse to embrace adulthood), the whole do everything for fun or because you want to feel better about yourself compared to things which are seen as adult endeavors, where its not really the fun but the chance to show how sophisticated you are as a part of the society-- programming being outwardly seclusive isn't seen as proper and sophisticated though it may be witty and dexterous. No one can appreciate it because it runs in the background thus it has to fall into the previous category.
In the same way Computer Science isn't seen as directly applied as the medical field or even the other science fields. It's just seen as a potential outlet for the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.
After wading through the postings, it is obvious to me that if the posters that identified themselves as male are a representative sample of guy geeks, then no wonder women are avoiding CS. With a few exceptions (and thank you for those) the postings have been simplistic and essentialize males and females in ways that make it obvious that the posters have never studied or can't remember any sociology or psychology. I am female and I worked as a licensed mechanic for 30 years and although I surely loved the work, it was guys like you that finally drove me out. There were not enough neutral ones to counterbalance the others. Another thing to consider is that women do talk to each other and every negative experience usually gets discussed. Decisions about careers are made in context and not in isolation.
As per scientific research, social rejection massively reduces the intelligence and injects aggressiveness in Kids.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2051
Slashdot = Sarcasm
As per the scientific research there is no such thing as intrinsic motivation.
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm
Hence it is imperative to solicit why and how type of questions from Kids whether they sound rational or not.
All high school teachers across the private and public schools should record these questions everyday from Kids and display them in school notice boards or their websites.
Slashdot = Sarcasm
It isn't because of money, nor social mores. It isn't about distinguishability or prestige. It's not about if boys are better than girls or girls are better than boys. It's not about social structure, or social standing, or social influence. It's not about what *you* think early-childhood-education has been defined.
Different folks have different strokes. Regardless of heaps of policy trowled over the situation at hand, it will still be what the statistics say. More boys than girls in Computer Science. ...Big whoop. ...You want a concrete reason? It's because I said so. Teacher: 'A girl doing math...What does that mean?' Class: 'She's a Witch!'
Ok, so after reading through all these posts, I've come up with a few conclusions... 1. I must attend the only college in the country with "normal" people in its CS program. None of us are particularly socially challenged, we all have good hygiene, and all of the women in the major are treated with respect (no creepy stalker types). We're just people with the same habits and drinking problems as any college student. Brings to mind a quote from the recent IBM programming contest..."Oh God, we're going to lose...we're the only normal looking team in the room." 2. We can continue the debate of whether the lack of women in the field is due to gender differences or social pressure all freaking night, but the chances are that nothing is going to be solved on this forum. 3. The only good answer is that everyone should be left to decide their own fate and profession. --cross_shot
So you object to American firms trying to sell their products in other countries? Or maybe you just object to American firms saving packaging costs (so they can sell their products at a lower price) by having a single package with labels and instructions in multiple languages.
And you obviously think that tourists in the US shouldn't be helped; they should be required to become fluent in English before they vacation here.
So why are you so opposed to Americans trying to attract foreign customers? Most of the world isn't fluent in English, and America's English-only practices are a good way to discourage the rest of the world from spending money here. Any sensible American businessman (and any government agency that wants to support foreign trade and tourism) has an obvious motive to support multilingual signs, documents, packaging, etc.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
So says everyone, but why were the numbers so different before?
Who actually gets to see the 'C' code, and at what age?
Why are the girls different? Is that nature or nurture?
It is notable that more and more girls go on to take mathematics at uni. How does that fit assumptions of natural appeal?
I would suggest that the difference with mathematics is that neither sex can avoid it until it's too late - peer pressure and expectations have already been overcome. By contrast there is basically no programming in most childrens' education.
You cannot tell people's natural aptitude and future motivation "just by looking" when their current motivation is so coloured by other factors. That so many people (especially teachers) believe otherwise is one of the big reasons for the sheer degree of current disparaties.
I'm not claiming that there are no natural disparaties; I am only seeking to explain why the ratio used to be different to what it is now.
Wikileaks, no DNS
At no time do you go to the bathroom and hear a colleague say something off-the-cuff regarding your hobbits? No one discusses your car, or how you may be a little too particular when it comes to your organizational hobbits?
Dude, he has hobbits that organize, wash his car, and even clean up after him in the bathroom!
"As a woman who regularly reads science mags..."
You should know one person is not evidence of anything.
Or, the plural of anecdote is not data.
And therefore, your post is useless.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
"What do these behavioral differences have to do with professional work in the field of computer science, or any science for that matter? What is it about behavior in male and female monkeys that effects the differences in their computer programs?"
I'm going to explain something slowly so you get it.
It DOES NOT HAVE TO BE IN ANY WAY ASSOCIATED WITH THEIR WORK PRODUCT.
It could be a preference for indoors vs outdoors.
Or reading vs. talking.
Or visual vs. auditory stimulus.
Or group vs indivudual work.
"But I have yet to see any solid proof, outside of neuroscience and psychology junk studies, that any of the shit they talk has anything to do with people's ability to do a job"
That';s nice, what does that have to do with the process of selecting a major, which is the topic of both the article and THIS thread?
Or right, nothing.
See you might be correct that work prodict is the same, but the point is not that men do better work than women in a particular area. I don't know why you are wasting time arguing a point no one made.
The point, my so-fired-up-to-demonstrate-your-sensitive-to-women friend, is that WOMEN ARE NOT CHOOSING CS AS A MAJOR.
So ANY difference in cognition is important, ESPECIALLY if the differences appear early.
"Therefore, if you ask me why there is a lack of women in computer science at this point in time, I can with some confidence state that it is because of social and cultural reasons.
Of course, I could be wrong."
You are.
Last, it's always funny to see someone get so offended by a line of discussion that they completely expose themselves as ignorant in their effort to display their "enlightened" thinking.
Like you did there.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
"But if you look at complex cordate animals closer to humans, for instance other mammals, I think you'll find that aside from the biomechanics of reproduction the behavioral differences between the sexes are slight."
No.
"A female wolf is the same size as a male wolf and just as capable of hunting, for example. "
Not really.
And why are you arguing "just as capable" when the point is "does not prefer" NOT "cannot do the job"?
You do understand that NO ONE is making the claim that women are less caable, don't you?
And you do understand that the point ACTUALLY BEING MADE is that women may have different preferences than men which you haven't even addressed?
And you realize that your main points are all wrong?
The point is, biological differences lead to differences in PREFERENCE, NOT ABILITY.
Stop being offended and read what you're replying to, thanks, you have completely missed a nice discussion.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Nit picking, English is not required for citizenship, only for naturalization (and even then, not really required since you could get a waiver).
Also, the vast majority of immigrants learn English pretty quickly; it is just that learning a language takes time; most immigrants are doing a *lot* of effort to integrate.
And, the signs at Home Depot (and other merchants) are NOT immigrant's fault; they're Home Depot's (same for all other marketing materials :).
But no...I hear in some areas of the US, we actually have US public schools that teach in languages other than English. Not a course...but the whole curriculum is in Spanish...that is absurd.
It is not absurd, if you want either of two things: 1. Have Americans learn Spanish 2. Have recent immigrants learn academic stuff while they learn English.
Do you see a better way for achieving either of those goals ?
Hmm...you missed that part where I said 'except for border cities' for not being English only. And as to this comment...I don't recall when I visited other countries, that they had their signage in multiple languages...and yes, I did at least make efforts to try to learn some of the language of the country I was going to in case I got stuck and no one around me spoke English.
I don't see in other countries (again, away from the border areas or places like airports where visitors are plenty) they have everything marked in multiple languages. Most things in France are in French...etc. I don't see why we are going out of the way to make things IN the US multi-language. We for sure don't need to be wasting govt. money printing everything in multiple languages, and we certainly don't need to be having schools teaching only in Spanish. Those students need to be learning English.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Do you see a better way for achieving either of those goals ?"
1. Not a problem with normal English speaking schools to teach other languages. Most every school I went to or have heard of in high school offered Spanish and French classes. Even more in college. I don't have a problem with foreign languages being taught younger. The point is, these are special classes for English speaking students to learn more languages.
2.Well, let's see, in past years, when we had mass immigration from China, did we set up public schools that taught only in Chinese? Did we do this for the Italians, the Poles? Nope...they went to English speaking schools. Now, I have no problem with special attention and time being spent to bring the immigrants up to speaking English (wait...if they are legal immigrants, and on the path to becoming citizens, well, as I stated before a proficiency in English is a requirement)...but, there should in no way be a school that is all foreign language like Spanish. There was a story recently about a lady in the Houston, TX area....who was hispanic, but, a US citizen, as was her child. The child spoke ONLY English. the public school that was in her district...was a Spanish only school...and they suggested rather than have her kid ride the bus to the closer school, that she drive him daily to another public or private school, that spoke English. So, a US citizen that speaks the country's language is suggested by public officials to go to a private school?
Again...that is fucking absurd.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Learn your history: The war of 1812
The British even burned the whitehouse.
Speaking of getting offended.
If if helps, I'll rephrase:
"A female wolf is the same size as a male wolf and hunts just as much, for example. A female bald eagle catches as many fish. Etc."
These are behaviors. You mention preference, but preference is not measured, it's inferred. Especially when you're studying animals. Going by measured behaviors there are not huge sex-based behavioral differences within many complex animals (again, leaving aside actual reproduction).
Your argument that the gender split in CS is biologically based might make sense if there hadn't recently been a much more even gender split (did you read the article?). It's pretty hard to believe that human biology has changed that much in one generation.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
"given that intelligence would be a positively selected attribute"
WTF?
Obviously this is not the case today. Bright people are lucky to have one kid, while dumb people often have 5 to 10.
In times past, don't forget the energy cost of having a large brain. (and yes, in the absense of general defects, size is the determining factor)
A powerful brain is only selected for when it offers an advantage. It often doesn't, especially when you factor in the energy costs (directly, plus indirectly via weight) of brainpower.
*raises hand* Female geek here. I've only recently come over to the light side - I started working with Ubuntu at 7.04, and bought a Dell with Ubuntu prebuilt a short while after (yes, yes, you may say it's not REAL Linux, but since I've converted my whole family it makes things a hell of a lot easier to fix. Even my computer illiterate mom runs Ubuntu without glitches; that never happened in Windows). If you're intersted in a mini-bio of a real live (honest!) female computer geek, read on. I won't blame you if you don't though. ;-)
I've been a geek of sorts all my life, though I only became a computer geek when I was 13; before that I was more of an English/Literature geek (Hey, it takes all kinds!) and I still am. A word nerd, if you'll pardon the horrid pun. In any case, I was introduced to computers at a very early age, playing games on a mac starting at age 4 (can you tell I haven't been around long? :-) ), and my dad tried to get me intersted in building websites when I was 12 (He's an engineer by trade, and used to do freelance web design as well before the dot-com bust). I wasn't interested at all, and went back to my books. About a year later, I was bored and messing around on the computer (I was fairly proficient by then, meaning I knew not to stuff bologna in the floppy drive) and opened up Dreamweaver, since that's what my dad had on there (Dreamweaver 4!). I looked through a few "recently opened" files and looked at both the WYSIWYG and code views. "Hey, that's neat!" I thought.
And so, with nothing but Dreamweaver 4, HTML books from 1996 ("Don't use frames!" they said. "They're too new and very few browsers support them!" *laughs*), and my dad's limited knowledge (He was a HTML and ColdFusion programmer, and had never heard of CSS, PHP, or the rest so I had to teach myself), I've worked my way up to freelance, self-taught status.
It still amazes and - more often - amuses me how few women there are in CS. I'm in college now, and I'm one of two girls in the Linux class, and the other dropped out (I'm also the only one with any previous UNIX/Linux experience so I'm the go-to homework help *grins*). Just last week there was a guy who was eavesdropping when I mention my major (Web Information Technology) and he looked at me incredulously, then said, "You like computers?" Turns out he's a web developer too, although when I showed him some stuff I've done (Flash, ColdFusion (yes, I use that still!), Photoshopped stuff) he was in awe. I'm not insulted when people don't think I'm a geek; I think it's far more fun to surprise people. Quite often I dress fairly nicely (half the time it's ThinkGeek shirts and jeans though), and I'm blonde, so stereotypes are often in action for me as well, which makes it even MORE fun when the blonde reaches over, types a couple commands, and fixes the guy's problem. It's interesting to see stereotypes shattered in front of your eyes.
But I find very few girls interested in CS at all. I don't mind hanging out with the guys at all, though there are the creepy ones that I avoid. But I don't stereotype around those few creeps. I have a wide circle of geek friends, and I'm helping to start a computer club at my college (it's a community college, we're trying to fix it any way we can). The problem is, nearly all of these friends are guys; the girl geels I know aren't cmputer geeks, rather science or math-oriented. I would like to have more computer geek girls to hang out with, but I don't feel left out because of it. Am I a minority in the CS field? Hell yes. But I don't mind. I chose it because I love it. Let others choose what they want to do. I don't care if there are nine guys to every one girl in IT.
And look at it this way, ladies: It may be that you're swarmed with overeager guys. But this 9:1 ratio means you have quite the dating pool to choose from, and hey, you don't have to choose the creepy guy. Unless you want to, and hey, to each her own...
"You mention preference, but preference is not measured, it's inferred. Especially when you're studying animals."
This could be the most wrong assertion I have ever seen.
Not only is it mose definitely measured, it is measured exactingly, like any other scientific discipline.
You are completely wrong about this, and I am an expert in the field, so argue if you like, just be warned you are totally wrong.
" Going by measured behaviors there are not huge sex-based behavioral differences within many complex animals (again, leaving aside actual reproduction)."
You are, again, factually wrong. But even if you weren't the "size" of the difference is irrelevant. Pebbles start avalanches, and behavior is the same. SMALL changes make a BIG difference.
"Your argument that the gender split in CS is biologically based might make sense if there hadn't recently been a much more even gender split (did you read the article?)."
GOD DAMMIT. I NEVER MADE ANY ARGUMENT REGARDING CS. And yes, I did read the article, It DOES NOT say what you claim, but I don't really care to be honest.
My argument was that biological differences can influence preference.
THAT IS ALL. Read what you're replying to please.
One last thing
You'll notice a total of three loctions where I used caps in a relatively long post.
So I have to wonder why you'd say "Hey I'm not the one using all caps" to me since I didn't do anything approaching "using all caps" and you implication that I did is both wrong and moronic.
Do you always lie like that?
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
You are completely wrong about this, and I am an expert in the field, so argue if you like, just be warned you are totally wrong.
Ah yes, obviously. Most expert biologists I know spend their days posting 20+ times to Slashdot on computer stories.
It's been fun!
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
France doesn't have English signs because the French are just as stuck up about their language as Americans are about English. But in Italy, Germany, and Austria? I saw plenty of English signs. The exception would be in the tiny town in Sicily that my family's from, where tourists generally don't go. For Palermo, Rome, Venice...English signs weren't hard to find. So, if you're in a large city, it's reasonable to expect tourist-friendly (either picture or translated) signs.
look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux