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Tech's Gender Gap Started At Stanford
JCallery writes: The New York Times has an in-depth look at the gender gap in tech through the eyes of Stanford's class of 1994. The article surveys the culture of the school and its attempts at changing the equation on diversity. It also examines Stanford's impact on the big companies (Yahoo, PayPal, WhatsApp, Stella & Dot) and big names (Peter Theil, Rachel Maddow, Brian Acton) that came of age during the pioneering era of the early web.
That summary is a total superficial read of the article.
It seems to me the point of the article was that 1994 (the web 1.0 boom of silicon valley) seemingly should have been more women friendly, but the valley was already being run by money from the previous booms in silicon valley and for a multitude of reasons which they list (e.g., male dominated venture capital firms), was unfriendly to women as chronicled by the biographies of the class of '94 from Stanford. One of the reason they cited was that women seem to gravitate towards "safe" jobs (e.g., law, finance, medicine) and a new "boys-club" mentality of the startup culture (specifically mentioning Paypal which was a Stanford dominated startup).
These same trends were most certainly true both before 1994 and after 1994 and not exclusive to Stanford... TFA didn't say techs' gender gap started at Stanford. TFA used Stanford as emblematic of the issue.
WTF is this modded Troll? See my quote from TFA below that DIRECTLY SUPPORTS PARENT'S ASSERTION:
"Dozens of women stayed in safe jobs, in or out of technology, while they watched their spouses or former lab partners take on ambitious quests."
...up until 1984. Interesting story about the culture which helped shaped women out of the field, or at the very least, class them out.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/17/356944145/episode-576-when-women-stopped-coding
Um, much more nearly, yes.
1943 to 1945 - women were about 95% of the computing workforce.
1946 to mid/late 1950s - still a very large percentage of women, since they had the experience (from the war) and were pushed back out of other engineering fields. Computing, being a branch of applied mathematics, was considered "acceptable" for women to take up
1960-1980 - still a large percentage of women in "data processing" (as programmers and systems analysts, not just keypunch operators), esp in very large companies.
1980 - boom in university computer science begins and many women are interested. 1984 is the peak post-war year for women graduating from engineering programs (around 40% IIRC); a large percentage are CS with many of the rest EE. Many of these women (my classmates) go on to critical roles in companies and universities building out this " 'net " concept (later renamed the Internet).
post-1990 - something goes completely wacky in the industry and women are driven out of computing in large numbers; younger women don't even enter the field.
So, since you seem to be a younger dude perhaps you could explain exactly what it is that happened 1990-2000 that made the field so undesirable to women.
I thought it was serious until I read that students showed up at Stanford in 1994 barely knowing what email was. Then I realized it's satire. I mean, you can't seriously propose that the tech revolution started in 1994, right? Even Intel, Apple and Microsoft are latecomers to teh tech revolution, which was already very gender biased in the late 70s. When did "high tech" begin? I'm not sure, maybe WWII, maybe the industrial revolution, or maybe as late as teh semiconductor. All of these were well before Stanford class of '94 graduates were BORN. Even I knew what email was long before 1994, I even had email of my own.
This isn't intended to be a geriatric post where I try to claim I'm an OG, most things high-tech were invented before I was born. C existed, Unix was a thing. The only thing the mid-90s meant to high-tech was the birth of the popular internet, which many of us remember being the death of the useful internet.
I can't possibly imagine what would ever give anyone cause to think that...
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanha...
WTF is this modded Troll? See my quote from TFA below that DIRECTLY SUPPORTS PARENT'S ASSERTION:
"Dozens of women stayed in safe jobs, in or out of technology, while they watched their spouses or former lab partners take on ambitious quests."
There are people her who pull out the sexist card, the downmods, unless you conform to their very narrow perception of reality. Someone called me sexist because I noted it isn't difficult to walk over to the "boys to section", after I said I'd let my daughters play with any toy they wanted, be it tradional male, or female type toy. Expect this post to be hit with either flamebait or troll about ten minutes after I post it.
And yes, that quote is in the story.
I thiink the answer to why a lot of women are not going into particular fields is twofold. First off, you have to really really want to be a STEM worker. There are better paying jobs, with better job prospects, better pay, and one each shitload more prestige than STEM work.
If my offspring was engaged to a programmer, I'd ask him or her if they had any plans for when their job was outsourced.
In my own case, I spent a lot of extra hours, including overnights at the job. Field trips with indeterminate length of stay. Lost a lot of vacation, (Got a couple months a year, took a week or less. Times that over 30 plus years.
I think that for all the bitching and moaning over this subject, the answer is much simpler than the variations on the "Men suck" meme.
In the earlier days of post liberation, women tried a lot of different careers. Eventually, they found out which ones they wanted to be in. And it doesn't have a whole lot to do with what we are hearning about.
I find it hard to believe that the often shy geeks in STEM fields are more sexist than the business people in industry where "escorts" are a standard practice. It does not compute.
And I have worked in efforts to engage young women in STEM fields. In the end, I've come to the conclusion that there two ways to get more women in STEM fields. Either force more women into them, or fire men until we reach equal gender representation.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.