Slashdot Mirror
Girls Go Geek Again
nessus42 writes "Computer science has always been a male-dominated field, right? Wrong. In 1987, 42% of the software developers in America were women. And 34% of the systems analysts in America were women. Women had started to flock to computer science in the mid-1960s, during the early days of computing, when men were already dominating other technical professions but had yet to dominate the world of computing. For about two decades, the percentages of women who earned Computer Science degrees rose steadily, peaking at 37% in 1984.... And then the women left. In droves. ...it looks like women are now returning to computer science."
There may be some disagreement about what it means to "dominate." Clearly the author feels it requires a higher disparity.
I question the "leaving in droves" comment though. Did the females leave or did the number of males coming in just go up an a rate faster than women? According to their data, far more men have submitted resumes than women.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
It's always had majority men, but 58-42 is very different from the roughly 80-20 split that it has now. It's sort of like the difference between pediatric medicine (currently about 55-45 in favor of women) and nursing (95-5 in favor of women).
In the cases where you have a gender in an extreme minority, you often get silly social reactions around them. For instance, male geeks who stay in all-male environments might not get used to treating women professionally rather than drooling over them or harassing them. Similarly, some female nurses (particularly older female nurses) have been known to mistreat male nurses because they think there is something wrong with the men.
I am officially gone from
... given that it's these kind of attitudes that keep women away.
If that were true, wouldn't women keep out of pretty much every industry?
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Yeah, because you know jocks aren't chauvinists. There is nothing endemic to geek culture which is necessarily negative toward gender equality or respect. Those negatives exhibited by males in geek culture or jock or metrosexual or what-have-you are endemic to the social values imprinted across the entire gender. It is wrapped up in what it means to be male and how men should value themselves vs. women, and the cultural context in which these are expressed, be it geek culture or some other, is really just a lens on that broader social deficiency.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
No, that's not it. Girls love to be talked to that way, they dont' like seeing other girls talked about that way when they aren't. The problem with geeks doing it is that they're overtly creepy and unable to bluff enough "casual" interest to cover the scent of their all-too-eager interest.
Women stay away because guys intimidate them and don't respect their intelligence, it has nothing to do with sexual jokes.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
So they selected anti-social people who at the same time were highly social in joining fraternal organizations? Sounds perfectly and utterly non-contradictory.
Rules to workplace flirting:
/Or something like that
1) Be attractive
2) Don''t be unattractive
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
Yep, you're on to us. We wanted to keep it a total secret etched in the tablets of our elk lodges, but we totally prefer the fat, anti-social, greasy fingered, soda sipping dweeb mold rather than simply trying to look for the most qualified individual for the job. It's completely overt - we are even willing to give up our capitalistic ideals and endure dents in our bottom line to maintain this fraternal tradition.
It's probably okay that you know this now though - we are not frightened of loosing our stronghold. We know that you are incapable of taking overt action because we have evidence that is equally as strong as what you have presented, that you are all spending your time having topless pillow-fights in your sororities.
This all makes total sense if you don't think about it and just assume that a significant majority of people in high places are just filled with hate to the point where they are willing to sacrifice financial and technological gains to consciously perpetuate an arbitrary standard.
Signed CEOs everywhere
ôó