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Women's Enrollment In Computer Science Correlates Negatively With Net Access
New submitter MoriT sends this excerpt from a post examining the correlation between women's enrollment in computer science programs at college and their access to the internet. "There is currently a responsibility-dodging contest between industry and academia over who is to blame for the declining enrollment of women in Computer Science and declining employment of women in software development. I hear people in industry bemoan the 'empty pipeline,' while academics maintain that women aren't entering their programs because of perceptions of the industry. I have compiled some data that may help resolve the question by highlighting a third factor common to both: access to an Internet-based culture of computing. ... I conclude that in the last 10 years among many Northern European nations, rising Internet access is correlated with falling interest in computer science relative to other professions among women. The group of Mediterranean nations that show a positive correlation should be a fruitful area for future research, but seem outliers from the Northern cohort."
We can't confuse correlation with causation. While this might be a third factor, what other factors may be involved?
Most of us know that a degree in Computer Science is FAR more related to mathematics, and is generally not supposed to be a training ground for enterprise software development. Even if we gloss over that fact, maybe women are smart enough to see that most software development jobs pretty much suck and are just avoiding them.
USD inflation is correlated with falling interest in CS among women.
The number of black presidents is correlated with an increase in cell phone use.
The comment "correlation does not imply causation" is correlated with the number of xkcd comics with a similar point.
Please stop this madness! First there is the gender wage gap myth which has been debunked over and over again, yet it still persists throughout all media outlets, and now this. Year after year, companies, government, non-profits - you name it - spend MILLIONS of $$$'s trying to get women into the sciences, and each year the same conclusion results that we need to push HARDER to get women in sciences.
Has anyone thought that maybe - JUST MAYBE - women aren't attracted to science like men are for reasons other than forcing it down their throat will fix?
And we should give a frack because...?
Has anyone bothered to ask women directly why they chose not to do Computer Science?
You know, rather than just guessing...
The first hypothesis I propose is that Internet culture supports a belief in a meritocratic environment [9], which has been linked, ironically, to an increase in biased behavior [10] as it provides moral cover for prejudiced beliefs. Encountering overt, covert or benevolent sexism undermines both women’s performance and interest [11]. Even if such beliefs were prevalent in professional spaces before the Internet, as masculine gender performance is common, aggressive and publicly visible in online forums [12] women no longer have to be the target of such behavior themselves before college in order to associate it with the industry and choose an alternative career.
The second hypothesis is that the Internet encourages a sense of belonging [13] to the masculinized culture of software development [14], which alienates many women [15] by causing them to feel excluded from a camaraderie-focused profession [16]. Again, while this culture may have existed before the Internet, women with Internet access are likely to encounter such attitudes earlier and more frequently. To the best of my knowledge, whether the Internet has changed the culture of computing itself, either in America or internationally, is an outstanding question.
TL;DR The internet is dominated by sexist men, which discourages women from getting involved in related fields.
This is a pretty interesting idea, and one that I'm inclined to ascribe some level of truth. I'm not too sure what we can do about it, though, other than continue the push for people to stop being so damned prejudiced.
Every chart I look at in TFA looks pretty flat, as far as the M:F ratio. It looks like both men and women tried to jump on the dotcom bandwagon, and we've normalized back to early-mid 90s levels.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
comparing differences in computer science enrollment, careers in software development, and Internet access by gender and country.
In other words, if you've been spoiling for a chance to grind an axe, now is a great chance.
Can someone explain to me why it matters if more or less women are studying computer science? Do women make better computer scientists than men? If so, I can see why it would be important for the progress of the field to have more of them. But if not, then I don't see why it matters any more than examining how many left-handed versus right-handed people or tall versus short people stydy computer science.
Not trolling. Just wondering what the deal is.
"There is currently a responsibility-dodging contest between industry and academia over who is to blame for the declining enrollment of women in Computer Science
Women are. Or are we still forwarding the lie that women don't make their own choices, and need to be coddled/cajoled/hand-held into taking jobs in industries they don't care about?
>> who is to blame for the declining enrollment of women in Computer Science
Blame? really? Last time I checked, people have a free choice as to what field they want to work/study in. If women choose not to do CS then its entirely their choice. No one is to blame.
Why is the ratio of men to women in CS even an issue? Its not intrinsically wrong that it mostly attracts men. Can we end this sexist crap please?
There are plenty of professions that have a significant majority of women:
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2010/07/27/where-women-work/
I don't see any corresponding massive outcry about how to get more men in those fields.
We just need to offer equal education opportunities to both genders and employ people based on merit not gender. Positive discrimination is still discrimination.
If there's a shortage of CS grads for employers to hire then its a supply and demand problem not a gender issue. Employers will just have to suck it up and pay developers what they're worth in the free market. Oh noes! the horror! Who knows, that might even lead to more people choosing to do a CS degree. Problem solved.
Who cares how many women are in the industry? They're not being harassed out. They're being given a bloody red carpet and they're running away in terror. Hell, the ones that make it through the education and enter the field tend to quit or transfer sideways into marketing.
I can speculate as to why that is but it isn't because the largely male population hates girls.
And really, if gender equality is so very important then why aren't men encouraged to join female dominated professions or women encouraged to join professions such as 'coal miner' or 'oil rig workers'...
Enough with the hamfisted social engineering. Just let nature take it's course here. If women want to be programmers they have every opportunity to be programmers. What's the grief? That women don't obsess about code, spend literally years methodically working on pet projects with no real prospect of making a dime on it and isolating themselves from friends and family... and then possibly get a good job a software company or found a start up?
Women don't do that.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I don't give a rat's ass whether my co-workers, bosses, or employees are male or female. All I care about is whether they do their job, and whether they have the right skills. Seems like that makes me the only non-sexist in the room :P
Practically all the disciplines that lean heavily on mathematical aptitude are affected by the gender gap: Engineering, physical science, computer science, and of course mathematics itself.
I can't say I understand exactly why this is so, but it seems that women simply do not demonstrate the same level of interest and aptitude in mathematics as men do. Certainly I have never noticed any actual gender discrimination that goes on in these fields, or at least not by anybody who has any credibility. That said, the only person I know who is my own age with a doctorate in mathematics is a woman... so this gender difference is anything but universal.
Nonetheless, there remains an indisputable gap between the fields that men and women desire to pursue, even though there is no definable physiological or biological reason for such a gap to exist.
I think that trying to figure out why this is so, or assigning blame, or even expending effort trying to change this instead of simply accepting it as fact and moving on is only going to result in a lot of wasted energy that could be better spent on actually improving the education that *IS* offered.
Perhaps, even, if we stop trying to focus on the issue so much, things might start to change on their own anyways. Just don't discriminate in the interim.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/13/the-three-biggest-myths-about-women-in-tech/
http://www.garann.com/dev/2012/is-it-me-or-are-we-going-backward/
...because women and hard logic are such a natural mix.
I would think that greater internet access implies a developed country - which in turn provides a greater diversity of opportunities. Rather than trying to figure out "What's wrong with the internet" or "What's wrong with men on the internet" the focus should be on, "Why do women find computer science dull and boring?"
Granted, the computing evolution over the past 30 years has been primarily male dominated, I'm wondering why they think this 'new' industry should have any gender equalization over time. Are we to believe that Computer Science or programming are subject to the same rules that every other emerging field has displayed over time where gender equalization inevitably occurs? Actually, please point any field out to me right now, where the gender makeup is 50-50! Does that even exist? Is that even the goal here?
More importantly, I think they're misunderstanding what exactly Computer Science is, and what exactly the industry considers with regard to programmers. Most of the programmers I know, either don't have a degree at all, or have a degree in anything BUT Computer Science. I'm sure your thinking now, 'he must not know many programmers' , but from what I read here, elsewhere, and speak to others about regarding programming, Computer Science in academia has very little to do with present day code shops churning out commercial software, web portals and web-apps.
Just this past week there was an article bemoaning Python as the new surging trendy language that will put C++ into the annals of history, like the Dodo (yea, right!!). Less than a year ago, it was javascript and jquery that were going to take over the Internet and give us a new online experience to boot. How exactly is Computer Science adjusting to that much market flux in theory, and application. Especially in under a year. By that scenario, a freshman Computer Science major would go in expecting to learn the hot button language streamlining through the web right now, and by the time they're a senior, realize they should have learned Cobol and be making 2-3X the pay right out of college.
Gender equalization? Perhaps if the industry in general, and probably media as well (includes you /.) wouldn't be so spastic over how coding and languages in general are percieved and used, we wouldn't be asking ourselves if we're presenting it in such a way as that might turn off would be female programmers.
That being said, females who are drawn to programming, aren't going to let misogyny or anything else stand in their way, despite what the industry reports, or academia bemoans.
I believe there is much more logic in following article by Philip Greenspun from 2006 than in TFA.
SERIOUSLY I DON'T UNDERSTAND why does anyone care? I'm sure there are a million other fields with disproportionate male/female ratios I don't understand why it matters at all.
Maybe it is because the women want jobs. IT jobs are dramatically down so it makes sense that the enrollment number have also declined.
While I'm sure the data quoted is accurate, I'm not seeing it here locally. In my group (20 of us, QA + development product group in a networking products company with about 2,000 employees), 9 are female, and an eyeball-survey says that this is about normal for the rest of the engineering organization. Same for candidates whom I interview; about half are female.
Where are all these all-male companies? Could other tech-oriented industries (defense, etc.) be getting lumped in with Silicon Valley style companies, and if so, is that really an accurate assessment?
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
"Join the fast paced IT INDUSTRY! Now with mandatory funtime! That's right, when deadlines hit - and they hit constantly because our managers are fucking idiots - overtime is out the window. It's FUN-time! You'll have fun working 80 to 90 hours a week, mostly at night on weekends, while being deluded into thinking you're making an awesome salary! We also promote further education! Learn the newest whizbang buzzwordy technologies, or we'll hire an H-1B to replace you!"
Men: Durr, that sounds kewl, I am teh neo i rite programs lolololol
Women: Dafuq?
Can't imagine why women don't get into tech.
....is simply due to women in general realizing software is just a bunch of made up egotistical mindset crap.
Don't believe me? wait a little bit and you'll see an article to the contrary, that there is an increase of women in software dev.
And it won't be the first time this babel has happened regarding women in software decline/incline.
I've always asserted that it takes a certain type of neurosis to program computers. You have to be from a weird end of the gene pool to be able to think so logically for so long on such complex topics. That is why, until recently, computer geeks were always the basement dwelling twigs with green tans... It hasn't been genetically normal to excel in it. But since it has become popular, their genes are thriving and mixing and giving us better geeks... I think sheer level of competition in an industry where the leaders have different mental wiring, and poor entry level pay, and no social life would be enough to make many people, women included, decide that it isn't the industry for them.
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
There are already too many posts asking some variant of "what makes it so bad for women?" or "they have free will, if they're not in the industry it's their own choice." Well i suspect that incidents like this are part of the reason why. I really can't imagine why young women starting to consider their career options might see that and consider staying as far away from the internet professionally as they possibly can.(/sarcasm)
There are also a number of comments about how the women who are in the industry know how to handle the macho bullshit that gets tossed around, implying that it's therefore okay i guess, since some women can put up with it and not all of them are being forced out of the industry. Well of course the women who are still around can handle it, selection bias much? That doesn't mean they should _have_ to handle it though.
You know, every time there's a story about some company, or even most of an entire industry, doing something assholeish to its employees people pop out of the woodwork to say something about how the free market will correct the issue because all the good employees will find work at companies that treat them properly, and the companies abusing their employees will thus inevitable fail. I wonder how much that group overlaps with the group that think women ought to just suck it up when they're treated poorly.
It's funny how when a company/industry/environment treats all their employees badly it's the company that's at fault. This libertarian/republican/conservative viewpoint is that it's up to the employees to fix the problem, but at least the company is still clearly designated as the problem in the equation. But suddenly when the company/industry/environment is specifically targeting women for bad treatment, whether that's intentional or not, and the women choose to go elsewhere, it's not the free market responding to the fault of the company, it's the fault of the women for not being willing to put up with the shit they're dealt.
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There is a MAJOR responsibility-dodging group regarding this matter: Women. If anyone is to blame for the lack of female representatives in CS is the females themselves.
Let me say mathematics, computer science, and working in IT have helped develop my analytic skills. That said, after the first decade I should have exited IT and returned to school to earn a law degree which requires many of the same fundamental analytic skills. Now I am almost fifty year old and wishing that I had listened to my inner voice when I was only 41.
Women cluck like hens while men act like sexist pigs
Maybe women don't really like geeks and nerds. Maybe they like jocks and bad boys better.
Or maybe they just suck at technology.
You think CS is bad for sexism - try being a teacher, where you not only have to worry about society judging you, but also potentially lawsuits.
The number of male elementary school teachers is declining exponentially, and a big reason is simply that men are worried (and rightfully so) that they could be subject to a lawsuit or a sex offense charge for any number of routine workplace occurrences.
It is a very sad state of affairs. At least women in CS don't have to worry about being placed on a state sex offender registry because of their career choice.
"There is currently a responsibility-dodging contest between industry and academia over who is to blame for the declining enrollment of women in Computer Science and declining employment of women in software development."
I can pretty much guarantee no one in the private sectors cares at all. Why should they, why should you. Why on earth would we expect women to be like men or men to be like women. You rarely hear anyone mention guys aren't taking up some predominately female career.
Does it ever occur to these people that maybe there are actual differences between men and women. Humans are different by cultural, language, location, race, ect ect. Perhaps there is a difference between genders. I have to think we have just become so politically correctness is responsible for this. Are we so stupid we can acknowledge this difference.
As a guy who has known many women in his life, there absolutely differences between genders, some good some bad depends on your perspective.
It's because women generally don't give a shit about Computer Science.
Jesus Fuck, why do we insist on perpetuating this ridiculous notion that Women and Men are the same? They're not.
TFA didn't even consider the most well known explanation, which others here have mentioned, more or less: women are, by and large, more likely to take jobs for job satisfaction rather than to maximize their income to support their family (sometimes because they expect their spouse to be the primary breadwinner). Someone who acts like that is not going to want to go into the computer field, which is notorious for long hours and overtime (but high pay) and low job satisfaction.
And of course, the more internet access a woman has, the more aware she will be of these facts. Also, this doesn't really apply to very poor women (who are more likely to be single mothers and sole breadwinners), and poverty is correlated with low internet access (of course it's also correlated with not going to college at all, but that shouldn't affect the proportions of one major over another.)
It really has nothing to do with sexism at all, or at least, it hasn't been proven to have anything to do with sexism.
women would rather consume tech than create it (e.g. PLAY farmville instead of writing the next angry birds)
First of all I would like to point who cares? Second no one is to blame. This is liking asking our selves why users on slashdot so liberal. No one cares.
Roll back to 1986 - just over 50% of the people enroled in the first year computer science subjects at the University I went to were women. It's the subjects engineering students took as electives if they wanted proof that there were girls studying on campus :)
Anyway, very few of those women back then gained employment in computer related fields and female enrolement has declined since then. I have seen more women in mining, heavy industry and physical sciences than I've seen in IT.
It's entirely unclear to me whether there is any responsibility to duck or blame to take from any quarter. When did normative statistics become the consensus secular god?
I had hoped the Berkeley gender bias case had put this kind of trite formulation to rest.
I mean really...what does it matter? There's more men in football too...is this such a bad thing?
There's fields where there are more women than men...is anyone bellyaching about this? If not...why?
I keep seeing this harped on....and I don't know why? Unless there is some mass conspiracy to discriminate letting women into comp sci. programs....I don't see what is wrong. Discrimination would be one thing...and I don't see anyone suggesting that. But lack of interest should be perfectly acceptable. Are we also going to start bitching that there are too many Oriental folks getting into comp sci. math or physics and less Caucasians? More men in coal mines than women? X race females more than another race of females and men?
It is called choice.....what's wrong with that? People are different.
The sexes are different....geez, accept it and lets go on with life.....it just doesn't matter.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It is possible now to get degrees in CS in major universities (even good universities with some top-notch programs) that are nothing like traditional CS. Some CS programs teach mobile app dev and PHP and web design, allowing their students to get by without so much as a binary search tree. Assuming these enrollment statistics apply somewhat similarly to them, the traditional explanation about gender-based learning of math and science is moot.
Hmm. At my company, roughly 95% of the developers are men. My boss is a woman. The HR department is all women. The documentation department is all women. Greater than 50% of the business analysts are women. The accounting department is all women. 80% of the DBAs are women. Yet, I hear women complaining that all us computer guys are misogynists and lecherous oafs and that's why they're not in computer science. Surely they realize that going into another field is not going to separate them from us, the spawn of Satan. Or maybe...just maybe... women don't go into CS because they aren't interested in programming. Call me crazy.
Maybe women just aren't as likely as men to leave India.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I did a CS course at uni 10 years ago, started out as a programmer, but moved to servers\networks in a management role, but still hands on. there were hardly any girls in course back then, and even now and I've only encountered women in business roles rather than straight out tech roles.
The main issue here is that IT is not attractive to most females. They don't really care about computers as long as facebook works. Same issue with cars, don't care how the engine works, as long as it starts up in the morning. The lack of desire to know how things work, solve problems etc. Its just not really a "girl" attribute.
Its the females that don't fit the traditional mould that tend to be interested in IT. Personally I'd rather watch how its made, air crash investigation or seconds from disaster on TV rather than soaps and reality tv shows.
TLDR: don't try to put a square peg into a round hole.
These types of stories always makes me shake my head. It generates all sorts of speculation by a bunch of (geeky) men on why women do (or don't do) something when they really have no clue what they're talking about.
And, as a woman, I couldn't tell you why not as many women go into computer science as men, because I did. I did get my psychology degree first because it took me awhile to figure out what I wanted to do career-wise. It was when I working full time after graduating university that I decided on computers/software development after hanging out with out IT guys a lot.
I got a two year diploma from our technical college instead of doing another 4 years at university. In my class, we were split about 50/50 between new high school graduates and mature students (over 25) looking at a change in careers. Of the 50% of us "older" folks, I'd say about a third were women. I can only distinctly recall one in the high school crowd. Why the difference? Who knows...
More women than men choose quality of life over income.
Speaking from 20+ years in the field, a ton of women "mommy out" when the work is hard. Sometimes, they quit to be with family. Other times, they get pregnant, take the 6 week maternity leave, then quit within a week of coming back.
Those I've kept up with were still not working a year later.
Now- given that work hours and quality of life are more important to women, why the hell would they enter a field where you have to work 10 to 12 hour days, weekends, holidays, and is low status?
In the IT field, women make 96% of what men do. Given men's aggression to quit jobs over money and go to new jobs over money, that's a very small difference in pay.
But I'm about to retire myself. I would never recommend IT to any woman OR man. It's a terrible, horrible field with slave-like conditions for 95% of the workers. But it pays well. I'll be retiring at 52 with more money per year than most people make every year salary and without a bloated state pension.
So now I can go to painting, massage, and traveling to conventions selling things.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The main reason why women are shying away from computer science is the desire to have a vibrant social life and to have children. A lot of women want to get married and have children and the time and effort it takes to be good at software development takes away from that. Women who have access to the internet soon discover all the time you can waste playing around on the computer. Women are the ones that have to make more of an effort to find a mate since women outnumber men in this world plus sitting on ones fanny for hours on end makes them fatter and less attractive to the opposite sex. Women have biological clock ticking unlike men and cannot afford to devote their precious youth to learning software development and then decide to get married at the age of 50 and start having kids like some nerdy men do once they strike internet gold and become billionaires. As for women dating other computer geeks, have you seen some of the nerdy men in computer science! Most of the men are not a turn on! :-P
"intelligent guys love intelligent girls."
Yes, ones smart enough to know when to keep their mouth shut!
Give it another 50 years, and the US will be exporting "women" to Asian countries. It will be the only viable export the US will still produce locally.
Here's an outline of the causative process based on biological differences in risk tolerance combined with technology life cycles:
Men tend to be less risk averse and more risk thriving; this because they are greater variance of any given metric you might measure including risk tolerance (even with more or less the same mean value of any given parameter). It's these tails that are the primarily difference between the sexes. Most of this is because of the biologically-defined differences in physical reproduction roles combined with the necessary prioritization that comes from those role differences in order to assure individual reproduction. Men do have it easier in some ways but also worse in other ways and that affects them both positively and negative but mostly it creates pressures to have greater variance in order to give individuals the opportunity to have a reproductive advantage. Men are individuals are generally more expendable because of the physical biology of their gender - that changes their reproductive strategies which affects their risk tolerance.
This difference in risk tolerance means men will have a disproportionate presence in risky activities. New technologies are risky activities, so they are more likely involved in the leading edge of any technology. Not all men but rather all men as a statistic distribution have more outliers who are especially risk thriving than women's distribution risk tolerance. This simply adds up to a greater male presence. Women have been a minority in STEM even since feminism and women's liberation - the political change didn't change anything thus it can't be a factor. More simply women have chosen because of other factors. The most likely is risk tolerance differences.
Further, since you need technical focus of a full-on STEM degree in those early phases of a new technology because the technology is new and unknown, you attract both risk thriving subsets of the population simply because the subject is more risky (and potentially more rewarding) AND those willing to commit their lives to a STEM difficult level of education focused on it (which itself is also a risk thrive/avert behavior) because the education is risky (lots of effort to learn which itself is a risky choice). That selects for men again.
So what's the causation underlying "women enrolling in Comp Sci" correlating negatively with network access? Which is the independent variable and which is the dependent variable? I'd claim network access is indeed the independent variable but its due to a large systemic effect of technology adoption and risk tolerance.
Computers and internet are NOW in the trialing edge of their life cycles which is also the lowest risk phase of the technology. Further, because the technology is well adopted (>50% of the population has "adopted" computers), it's no longer required to have a STEM degree to simple use the technology and reap MOST of the benefits.
Ergo, the combination of risk aversion combined with the lack of a need for risk thriving to simply use the technology result in the lower risk variance population having less desire and need to even pursue the STEM computer science degree. Men still are attracted to the degree because of having a wider component of risk thriving but women are less attracted because the lower risk choice is to not pursue STEM and to simply live off the fact that the technology is well adopted and the benefits readily available without the risky investment (see Apple products, for instance).
As a man I find the general tone of discussion on this thread offensive, both from an emotional standpoint and from a factual one; I can't believe the ignorance I'm seeing. False assertions about women's abilities which have never been founded and have been long settled by research brought up over and over again as if it's a fact that women are less capable engineers than men. It simply isn't true. It's never been true, and it's not likely to be true any time in the future.
I think if anyone is looking for a reason why internet access might discourage women from CS, they should simply read this thread!!!
I never was a fan of the humanities during my undergrad. I believed people should focus more on studies which lead them into lucrative careers, like engineering and computer science. I still believe that to a great extent. But witnessing the ignorance of many in those disciplines makes me wish that they had at least taken the time to study the history of their own frigging profession!!!