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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."
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.
My undergrad EE department was told that the environment was driving women away, and that was supposed to explain why we had no qualified female applicants. Obviously they knew what sort of atmosphere our department had before they had even arrived!
What amuses me is the number of feminists who criticizing the disproportionate representation of women in science and math who never tried to advance beyond a high school education in those subjects. The women I have met in engineering were tough, knew how to put down sexually offensive comments before things got out of hand (I do not think anyone can reasonably expect offensive comments to never occur -- but there is a point at which those comments become a problem, and the women I am referring could stop that from happening with a few well-chosen words), and hated the special status women receive during admissions to engineering schools (they felt it belittled their abilities).
Palm trees and 8
Has anyone bothered to ask women directly why they chose not to do Computer Science?
You know, rather than just guessing...
I know you're probably going for the laughs, but if X% decide to go into almost entirely female nursing or early childhood education or mostly female education, then you're going to have a hell of a time convincing an extra X% to go into CS just to balance it out.
You're really screwed (uh, metaphorically, although it worked out for me practically) if there are more female nursing students than your entire engineering school. You need quotas, not so much to keep the boys out of engineering and CS, but to keep the girls out of ed and marketing and nursing.
I'd be unholy pissed off at the world if I were forced into early childhood education just to "get the ratios correct", and I'm sure the chicks being forced into neckbeard-land would be equally pissed.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
My experience with my daughter and her girl scout friends is that once the get to middle school, a lot of pressure is put on them not to like math. From TV, to parents, to other kids.
Now, I don't stand for that nonsense, and my daughter(11) is learning algebra through summer.
Yes, I am a mean dad that has actual summer goals for his kids. Fear not trolls*, it's only an hour a day in the mornings for math and Spanish, and an hour for electronics in the evening.
My kids have plenty of time to goof off; which is important. And frankly there more you know about science, math and electronics, the more interesting their goof off time is anyways.
*Not necessarily the person I am replying, to, but to a bunch of people who don't have kids but a wealth of stupid advice.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yup, my daughter's (11 yr old) also into Lego robotics and starting middle school next year. She's learning welding, helping to tear down a big block Chevy, and video editing this summer. She already has the "I'm a geek and don't care what you think" attitude so hopefully, will stay on her current tech/science track.
I drank what? -- Socrates