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Not Enough Women In Computing, Or Too Many Men?
itwbennett writes "Do geeks really 'drive girls out of computer science,' as the headline of a LiveScience article contends? Blogger Cameron Laird doesn't think so. In fact, 'I don't think "gender issues in computing" is important enough to merit the attention it gets,' says Laird in a recent post. And maybe the problem isn't that there are too few women in computing, but that there are too many men. 'I'm waiting to read the headline: "Women too smart for careers with computers,"' says Laird, 'where another researcher concludes that only "boys" are stupid enough to go into a field that's globally-fungible, where entry-level salaries are declining, and it's common to think that staying up all night for a company-paid pizza is a good deal.'"
I've been taking my 18 year old to tour colleges as he will be pursuing chemical engineering. Engineering starting salaries across the board (chemical, civil, mechanical, and electrical) are between $50 and $70k.
The solution for many comp sci students is to double major comp sci with one of the above "demand" areas, pass the professional engineering exam, and then the money issue is a non issue. Computer skills are now part and parcel of every engineering profession, so getting paid well to do what you love (if you love computers) should not be difficult.
The challenge for people hell-bent on starting their careers as programmers (as opposed to computer engineers) seems to be that starting programmers are not worth as much.
[By the way, the number of girls on his engineering tours seem to be between 10% and 20%. In other words, nothing there is changing. My son's solution to the ratio issue is to attend a large university where there are more female students overall.]
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
My girlfriend was offered a full scholarship into engineering/computing and turned it down. I went in. She decided to do biology and then med school, she paid it all. Now she makes 4 times what I make.
Yes, I do agree, she made the smart decision. But I choose to defend my decision of engineering/computers with the reasoning: I enjoy what I do, It's my hobby. She cannot do the same, while she enjoys her job, she isn't as enthusiastic about it as I am. She can't break out the knife and do surgery at home. Well, legally, anyway.
I do work long hours and get stuck at work for small increments in pay. This is how it is with many computer people. But remember, there is a BIG difference between JOE IT down the street, and the high-level db admins, enterprise architects, etc. Many of the 'regular' guys never went to university, and it is them who are diluting the wages. The people that did go to university are being stuffed into a field where more and more do-it-yourselfers are getting into it and undercutting costs. Truth is, most IT doesn't require a university educated guy when your nephew or a guy with 5 years 'experience' can do it almost as well...and even if there is a difference, not many small to medium businesses can tell the difference until something very bad happens.
I am a girl. Being on call all day and all night / programming until mentally exhausted / etc. is not something I am willing to do. So yeah, I'm going into teaching. EVEN THOUGH I AM A GEEK. Thanks for telling me what the working conditions were in the field, Slashdot - you made the decision that much simpler.
Note: I was 13 when I wrote most of this. Take with several grains of salt.
Programmer 84k http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=programmer&l1=new+york
Garbage man 77k http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=garbage+man&l1=new+york
But the garbage man gets overtime and probably union benefits.
>better social prestige.
Only here.
No, men just not that interested in being nurses, unless they're gay.
bullshit.
I've got a lot of family members who work various positions in local hospitals, and my sister just went through a medical lab assistant course, and agrees with what I'm saying here.
Saying that men aren't interested is BS, because they're high paying jobs and you spend every class surrounded by ladies. it sounds like a great scam. But when you get there, everyone thinks you're 'just precious' and you end up being the damn bouncer and guy who picks up heavy things in an emergency room, which isn't exactly a job with good promotion potential.
There are a lot of guys who want a stable well paying job with fairly low risk and nice stat holidays. A lot more of them would be getting into the field if there wasn't such a social stigma.
Fortunately their is a comment on the blog that has some interesting insight...
http://www.itworld.com/tictacns
Not enough Women in Tech
I believe this may be the article that MSNBC was referring to:
http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=54341
"It was brought to my attention in an ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) newsletter.
My opinion is that Tech is a tool, a means to get from point A to point B, like a car. I think women want to be the travelers, using Tech to achieve their goals and using the auto industry analogy, they generally do not want to be the mechanics. When we hear about tech, we usually hear about the techies/mechanics, we do not hear about the many other skills that the tech industry requires to thrive and people tend to not pursue things they are not aware of."
That.
Prior to the tech inovations of computers and the internet, we had cars and trains as the feets of an earlier generation where the people who were most into building and working on hotrods were men, but many mechanics have ladies who loved their vets and mustangs. People who have fascination with trains have mostly seemed to come from men as well, though many woman use them as a means of transportation and wouldn't think twice about hopping on a trolly, light rail or subway, though they don't care about how it works, just that it does. To some degree this affects many sciences...
Perhaps this says somethign more about differences between men and women...
Ave Molech Setting
Right. That's why I've caught VP's having meetings in men's rooms, to avoid the presence of female members of staff, and why the engineer in my workgroup who got the sex change was _amazed_ at the number of times "she" was both hit on, and technologically ignored, after her transformation.
Actually from what I've seen, it's the rigor of the academic program that tends to drive away female students (i.e. they're not capable in either math/logic, or programming, or both). And I'm saying this as a female computer science undergraduate observing my fellow peers. I'm not in it for the money; I'm in this field because (a) I like computer science and (b) I'm good at it.
Being driven away from a field purely because of the fact that it's "too geeky" is too generic of an excuse to explain this disparity. For all we know, this disparity occurs for the same reason that nursing has a similar but opposite gender mismatch (as mentioned by countless commentors above me). I am sure personal background and skills have a lot of say in this (both parents were in engineering programs).
I have known way too many girls who display this superiority complex yet have absolutely no idea what they are doing.
you better turn her into your wife pretty quick.
I don't see a 'successful doctor' (as you put it) hanging onto a nerdy computer guy forever.
Mod parent up. I was in the same situation as this guy. We actually were married, though. Things were great until we graduated and after her residency she started making four times as much as I did. She was being invited by other hot shot doctors to go on yacht "off site meetings", expensive parties, etc. Something about all that made her change in a fundamental way and she started to become a different person. Eventually she started spending more and more time at the hospital (or so she said) until my cell phone broke one day and I had to use hers and noticed she had text messages from another docter insinuating that they were screwing after hours. She admitted what had been going on, filed for divorce, and just left without batting an eye, as if I was a complete stranger to her. Of course, she ended up telling the divorce court complete lies "he was abusive and hit me, I have to divorce him" and the court sucked it up and she ended up taking the house and the car, while I was admonished by the judge because "men like you are a bane to our society". Now I can even date normal women anymore because everyone thinks I am some sort of wife beater... It's pretty much ruined my life. I thought she was a different person... She WAS a different person... But that changed :(
Not true. Some groups form professional organizations and rake in the big bucks by making it difficult for others to join and compete. Lawyers, Doctors, Nurses, Pharmacists, Engineers are a few that have to certified by various professional organizations before one is allowed to practice.
Interesting point. I guess IT workers, tending towards more libertarian/anarcho-capitalist viewpoints, can't get their shit together then?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
How often does this have to be said? Yes, there are more men than women in IT. Why is that? Um, because?
Disclaimer - I'm a woman and I've worked in the IT field for almost 20 years.
Yes, I've found that in general IT is a boy's club. I'm used to being the only woman in the group. And I'm used to the crap that I have to put up with being the only woman. I've been ignored, talked over, dismissed (well, they tried that), and generally excluded. It happens. Grow a pair.
No one is going to go out of their way to make women feel all warm and cozy. So you can't use traditional female tactics to carve out your place. And unfortunately that's what most women fall back on when faced with a difficult situation.
My way of making things tolerable is to take my place on the totem pole relatively early on. I watch the personalities and, sad to say, make the weakest one my bitch. Once I do that then I'm on my way to acceptance. It's how they play, it's how I have to play. YMMV
I've mentored women in IT and it isn't pretty. But if they learn a few tricks they can at least stay long enough to find out if they like the work and can work in the environment.
That's no joke. My church was having a father's weekend camp-out, and they asked me if I could attend to help take care of some of the children of single moms. I like to work with children so of course I went. While we were there someone told my pastor that they were concerned that I might be a pedophile for no other reason than the simple fact that I was there. And I was there with dozens of other fathers. Seriously? Unbelievable.
People really need to read up on sexual abuse, (and other forms of child abuse) because it really is a serious problem. But unfounded paranoia about men is not the solution to the problem. If you are are curious about what can be done to prevent abuse, the BSA has some good guidelines (http://olc.scouting.org/info/ypt.html). The only thing I have a problem with is their instructions to contact responsible individuals at the BSA before contacting child protective services. That is obviously intended primarily to maintain a clean image for the BSA, and it's disgraceful that they've suggested/recommended it.
Females tend to help each other to feel good.
Go ahead and take this with a grain of salt, since this is only one person's experience.
Here is the timeline of my experience in basic training in the air force (not too long ago):
-Put your bag down! Pick your bag up! (equal response)
-Goddammit you need ta march with yer feet hitting the same beat HUP TWO TREE FOR (women win by miles)
-You need ta help your bunkmate get 'is SHIT TOGETHER! (men win by a landslide, as the sister flight is already getting into micropolitics)
-I want your shirts aligned to the micrometer and I want your marching to be in step to the yottasecond! (by this time, the women are falling into factions)
-Graduation is tomorrow, don't f*&^ing embarrass me! (and by now, the women have split into camps while the men have unified)
I agree with what you said up until about 3 weeks into a project. After that, the men catch up on the unified front level and the women fall behind because of the clique thing. I'm not going to say that one side is better since both genders have their strengths, but ask any drill instructor: Women hate each other by the end of boot, and men create life-long bonds. That's generalization but one that fits 90%+ of the people I've known.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.