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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."
Putting up with creepy neckbeards in the CS major? I've certainly seen it with the scant few women that were CS majors at my school.
Has anyone bothered to ask women directly why they chose not to do Computer Science?
You know, rather than just guessing...
...because women and hard logic are such a natural mix.
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
I'm sorry I'm being mean, but goddamn it, you guys. I'm sick of hearing this same tired bullshit, as though it occurred to no one to actually look the fuck around and see that this defensive attitude toward ignoring the fucking problem and hoping it goes away is making shit worse
You're not being mean, you're being gullible.
First, The lack of focus on diversity
doesn't exist, and should have been your first clue you were swallowing a load. Just look at the extensive and well documented attempts to introduce "diversity". The idea that there is ANY lack of focus on diversity is quite frankly, ridiculous.
Second you cite "negative experiences" as though it were lynching and sexual harassment, and not "long hours, tedious work, and a lack of social opportunities".
In short, you bought a line.
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
There's some other problems: there's a bunch of other fields that men are dominant in, yet we don't see much push to get more women into those fields:
- construction
- truck driving
- plumbing
- auto mechanics
- air conditioning service
- roofing
Why is there all this effort to push women into computer fields, but not these other fields? Why aren't people pushing little girls to get excited by a career where they unclog toilets and crawl around in shit? Why aren't people pushing girls to get excited about crawling on top of a hot roof in the middle of the summer and fix an A/C unit without falling off and dying?
The message here seems to be that it's OK for men to dominate really crappy and dangerous jobs that not that many people actually want to do, and only do because they have little choice, but for all the "good" jobs, we need to make sure there's equal numbers of men and women.
Similarly, there's no push to get equal numbers of men into female dominated jobs:
- nursing
- elementary school or kindergarten teachers
In fact, if any men try to get into that latter profession, they're deemed a pervert and probable child molester.