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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."
I thought the headline read "girls DO geek again" and I got all excited for a minute there. Domn Slashdot misrepresenting headlines.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
There may be some disagreement about what it means to "dominate." Clearly the author feels it requires a higher disparity.
Interestingly, there were only 100.
That made the statistician's job really easy.
They defiantly approach problems differently, I find women developers tend to be less interested in the next big things but the daily process of keeping things working... Now I could be way off because most of the Women developers I have worked with are from the 1980's graduates, and are focused on retirement. But even with younger women developers they seem less interested in trying to make something and more to keep it running or do what it is told.
This isn't a bad thing, I have seen some very good code produced, and very timely.
However it does sometimes create a situation where it is harder to create a change in the process.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
Its been a total sausage fest in I/T for the last 20 years. We need more women so we can act uncomfortable and awkward in what we consider our native surroundings.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
and then get me a beer :)
In 1987, 42% of the software developers in America were women... the percentages of women who earned Computer Science degrees rose steadily, peaking at 37% in 1984
If women with computer science degrees peaked in 1984 at 37%, then it also means women working as software developers were less likely to have a degree.
From the Article: "In the past year, the number of women majoring in Computer Science has nearly doubled at Harvard, rising from 13% to 25%"
If there was that much change in a single year, I'm betting it has more to do with the admissions process or other factors than any society-wide phenomena.
It has to do with the complexity of the systems. Those early computer systems were not very complicated. Then, throughout the late 80s and 90s systems and software became much more complex. However, in the last ten years or so, much of the complexity is hidden. Programming and systems management has become just a lot of pointing and clicking without any need (usually) to really understand what's going on underneath the covers.
I want to add that this is just a theory, and that tt's not that I think women are incapable of understanding very complex systems, it's just that I think the majority of them have no interest in that kind of work.
Proverbs 21:19
Although it's great that more women are getting back into CS, these kinds of articles make me itch. Geek girls shouldn't be hired or coerced into taking CS because of or in spite of their gender. They should be hired because they're good at what they do, and they should be encouraged to study if they have a sincere enthusiasm for the subject. If it turns out that the best students, or the best employees are male... so be it. /female CS grad and web developer
I don't not believe there isn't a God.
Women didn't leave the field voluntarily. Once it became apparent that programming was becoming a lucrative field women were systematically driven out by a system that favored men:
The gender disparity in programming is not the result of slight differences between men and women or subtle unconscious biases. It is the result of overt discrimination going back decades to the origin of the profession. And it will take overt action to correct the disparity.
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
I don't think it has anything to do with a rising interest in IT. its that women need jobs these days too, due to the economy, so i bet you will find ALL industries are increasing their woman count. Especially 'clean' jobs since most women ( or men really ) don't want to go out and dig ditches for a living.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
These days your average person pushes a button, types in a username/password, and starts clicking things to get to work.
She powered up various large devices in order, typed a long hex boot string into the system, then proceded to load punch cards, open reel tapes and hard drive cake platters, and perform other various complicated tasks.
It's a lot easier now.
I'm sure I'm just responding to flamebait... but I'll bite.
Every manager I've had in the past 10 years has been a woman. Matter of fact I just lost out a promotion to a woman. I'm not bitter either, she's just as good as I am and has been with the team longer.
There may be a disparity of women to men in many IT workplaces... but it isn't always the case. Take your stereotypes somewhere else because they don't always apply.
The 42% are women and the 58% are nerds. That's when.
Why is it that America always represents the world? The World is so different from America.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
Even though this was a small sample, as Joel mentioned lets look at the numbers:
Made it to resume review: Female - 75.68%, Male - 72.05%
Made it to the coding stage: Female - 28.38%, Male - 26.49%
Made it to phone interview: Female - 0.054%, Male - 0.099%
In person interview: Female - 0.041%, Male - 0.0565%
Received an offer: Female - 0.041%, Male - 0.0194%
Official Hire: Female - 0.014%, Male - Male - 0.013%
Even though this was a small sample, is there anything we can derive from this? The last stat to me doesn't matter as much, even though the numbers were for all intensive purposes the same percentage, even though there were 8 times more male applicants.
If we were to break down the stages the women had better percentages up to the phone interview. Does this show or should this show that the males did better at the coding assignment? If we can agree that that is what happened then the whole "boys play with computers more, tinker, etc etc" might have 'some' truth to it. Before the phone interview the females led by nearly 2%. By the time the phone interview came around, the males had gained that 2% but additional ground on top of the that.
However 100% of those females that made it to the in person interview made it to the offer stage while the men lost the ground that they gained during the coding stage. Does this mean perhaps that the males had poorer social skills to cause some doubt in their ability to do the work or perhaps be a good fit? Did the women wear low tops?(i am not suggesting the Joel and his interviewers are biased regarding to this, but i am just babbling there).
Would be interesting to see what others think or perhaps what Joel thinks of the numbers after he printed them(assuming that he wasnt keeping track as things progressed through the entire process.
Women left: citation http://www.nber.org/papers/w15853.pdf
Let's not forget Admiral Grace Hopper who programmed, developed a successful programming language, led successful standardization efforts, managed--did just about everything you could do with computers both as a direct individual-contributor and as a high-level manager.
She was a nerd and she did "stuff that mattered."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
"In 1987, 42% of the software developers in America were women. And 34% of the systems analysts in America were women."
So 58% of developers were men and 64% of systems analysts were men. Looks like men dominated the field then too.
Either way, he's probably not going to work tomorrow, right?
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
WOW look like someone panties is riding a bit too high and is getting uncomfortable, that was meant to be a joke.