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WA Bill Takes Aim at Boys' Dominance In Computer Classes
theodp writes Boys' over-representation in K-12 computer classes has perplexed educators for 30+ years. Now, following on the heels of Code.org's and Google's attempts to change the game with boys-don't-count gender-based CS teacher funding schemes, Washington State lawmakers have introduced House Bill 1813, legislation that requires schools seeking K-12 computer education funding to commit to preventing boys from ruling the computer class roost. Computer science and education grant recipients, HB 1813 explains, "must demonstrate engaged and committed leadership in support of introducing historically underrepresented students [including girls, low-income students, and minority students]" and "demonstrate a plan to engage historically underrepresented students with computer science." Calling it "a bold new bill that we hope more states will follow," corporate and tech billionaire-backed Code.org tweeted its support for the bill.
Why not make a few of the classes a requirement, not an elective.
I suspect you may be able to entice more young women into tech, if you expose them too it more.
If EVERYONE in your grade has to take a few of the basic computer science classes, you may find that more women get interested in the subject. Women who wouldn't, on their own, think to take the class.
You could make a perfectly good argument about making a gender-blind program
That would be a good idea but not the case here. To be gender blind one would not even count the number of students in the different demographics and would not be able to see that there are any underrepresented demographics. The problem is how to encourage underrepresented demographics to participate without discouraging over represented demographics from participating.
Misandry is not the solution to misogyny; it is just a different problem.
Just a note; Google dictionary knows the spelling for misogyny but not misandry.
We should also take aim at the over representation of female teachers. In my kids elementary school, the last male teacher left a few years ago.
Why aren't these people so concerned about the overwhelming majority of teachers and nurses being female?
Isn't this as big of a problem?
Don't we need to do *something* to encourage more men to become nurses? I mean, isn't this so f'ing important that Google needs to get behind it?
Do you have ESP?
Speak for yourself. As a relatively successful white male (well paid engineer, graduate degree holder, homeowner in San Francisco, top 5% income earner), I see discrimination against women and ethnic/racial minorities all around me. If you're too stupid to see that, so be it.
And I've benefited from countless helping hands, in many cases almost certainly extended in part because I'm a white male. There are countless ways that white males are perceived to be more worthy of or less risky recipients of help; that is, easier to "give a break" or "give a chance" to.
Just deal with it. You're against affirmative action because you're oblivious to the affirmative actions that hold you up. If you're so deluded to think that you've lived your whole life without the help of others, or that such help is given out equally and fairly, then you're perhaps the biggest leech on society I could possibly imagine.
That's not to say I support or oppose particular affirmative action public policies. That's a different kind of debate. But I sure as heck won't deny the blatant discrimination that goes on around me.
And for the record, I grew up poor. As in, eating food donations from local churches, living in foster homes, etc. I went to 8 different elementary schools. I've "pulled myself up by my bootstraps" to a vastly greater degree than most people, but in truth others have had at least as much to do with relative success as I have. Specifically my teachers, friends, and bosses. That's not a denial of self-help, hard work, or ambition; it's just a statement of fact about the realities of living in a society where everything you think you earn still comes by way of somebody else writing a letter, choosing to hire you, or cut your paycheck.
The problem is how to encourage underrepresented demographics to participate without discouraging over represented demographics from participating
What if one of the causes of participation by the well represented ("over-represented", after all, implies a predetermined desirable level of representation) is the very fact of under-representation by other groups? i.e. what if geekdom is-or-was a "safe space" for an oppressed group?
It isn't an accident that the image of "computer nerds" from the 1980s was what it was, nor was it some grand plan of the patriarchy to enable their heirs to carry on the torch of Y chromosomal world dominance. It was because we were the people who couldn't get dates, who got bullied, who retreated into our imaginations and creativity because what we found outside was so ugly and off-putting and predatory to us. We're The Mentor, and these people are still trying to spoon feed us baby food.
And now that we've won, we've actually built the shining city on the hill that stands a good chance of no less than saving the whole world from darkness, here come the barbarians to demand their share. Well if you ask me, they can fuck right off back to their hellish world of head chopping, marketing, buying, and hating. We built this, and we don't have to share it with assholes.
What's hilarious is the number of women who will say things like "Women are better in tune with emotions" and "Women are more left brained" or "Women are more in touch with aesthetics than men" or "Women have a higher E.Q. than men do" or "Women are better at understanding other people", etc.
But the nanosecond in which a man says "Men and women are different", the entire female population of the planet (and the sheep-like "white knights") will flip out and demand an apology.
But girls are more social than boys. Math and CS are not particularly social activities. They generally require a fair amount of time spent noodling in isolation about fairly abstract ideas. That tends to favor boys. It isn't that most girls cannot do it, it is just that the endeavor is not social enough to keep most girls' interest.
Now if you were to find a way to make Math and CS more socially interactive, that might work. But don't expect to attract a lot of boys into that way of getting into Math and CS. And don't expect the two styles to co-exist in a single class.
I believe what he's saying is that boys are more likely (some studies have found boys are five or more times likely) to be autistic or suffer from some autism spectrum disorder . Among other characteristics related to this disorders is difficulty communicating with other people such as having problems being able to tell how another person feels based on facial expression. One theory is that people who are autistic or have autism spectrum disorders may prefer working with computers because it does not require as much social interaction. The computer is essentially devoid of emotion. There are no facial cues or body language, just output messages. That might make boys more inclined to be interested in computers.
Normally it isn't a zero-sum game. Anyone who wants to study can, but if a funding model is introduced that penalizes schools for having too many boys it's likely that you'll see some get excluded, either because there's now less funding available than before if there aren't enough girls in the class or because the school is not able to get enough girls in the class to qualify for funding.
Really, they should just make a basic computer course mandatory in one of the earlier grades. That way everyone will have exposure and if it turns out that girls still aren't interested then people need to start looking for other causes or perhaps it does lead to more interest from girls and it solves the problem in that way.
You say it isn't what is needed, but I think people are overestimating the point of the law.
This is numbers. The kind of people that support this kind of legislation only want to balance out the numbers of people. Reduce the number of boys and increase the number of girls; equal seats is equal opportunity. They don't care about improving CS education or the quality of the industry. The law isn't needed because of the thousands of CS-interested girls that aren't getting into classes because the boys are taking the seats; the law is "needed" because people look at the numbers and want a legal answer to the social problem. Who cares if boys who actually care about CS don't get to take the classes because girls who don't care get incentivized to take it instead? Nobody watches the demographics of disappointed high school boys,.
You're right that the problem is that those girls don't exist (or exist as a minority), and you're right that the law isn't solving that problem, but I don't think it was ever intended to. It'll make the numbers look better though, and to some people, that is progress.
Hi. I am a Software Engineer with degrees in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. My high school had a small computer lab and no other computers. I never once got to take a computer science class before college or do any programming on a High-school computer.
I learned BASIC, switched to Linux, learned, C, C++, Perl, Shell script, Awk, and Sed on my own. With a couple books, some resources from the library, and no instruction from anyone.
I don't think High School CS education is as important as they think.
No one is inherently more intelligent about anything. The truth is boys go into computers because boys are interested in computers: experiments with small children under 2 years old have shown that small boys find interests more in trucks, and small girls prefer dolls. Small boys who do play with dolls in such experiments tend to make them fight; we call boys's dolls "action figures" for this reason. In both cases, the children select for what interests them inherently.
The selection criteria for a career is, similarly, based on what interests people. As G'Kar once said, all people do everything for precisely the same reason: It seemed like a good idea at the time. Some people select a career for money, for power, for working hours, for its attractiveness to women, its ease, its challenge, or its interest. Women, for example, may select a career for its monetary benefits, as a way to command their own independence; while men may seek a career for a perception about women being hot under the skirt for doctors, lawyers, and executives. Overwhelmingly, the decision is based in what is interesting.
The most obviously interesting career, the one selected for when no planning nor cunning nor foresight is applied, is the one which essentially amounts to playing with toys. Women like children, and select teaching jobs to interact with children; men like computers and machines, and become programmers and lube techs. Often this leads to hating your job and having your primary loves in life destroyed; nobody thinks that far in.
Ultimately, the women who get into computer science are largely there for the money, to assert their independence and their ability to challenge a male-dominated society; the small minority actually like computers. The men are, of course, only interested in tech. We see this pattern most clearly in casual conversation: outside the office, men talk about computers, about networking hardware, about software, about computer games they're writing at home; women mostly complain that their coworkers want to keep talking about work, instead of something interesting, and wish they could just talk about something else and enjoy their lunch break.
It hasn't occurred to most people that a pool of 100 men and 100 women produces 10 female programmers and 90 male programmers because women just aren't interested. Most people probably haven't considered a career choice as a multi-factor decision, but rather a matter of "what do you want to do?"; some are viewing it as a "what do you believe you're allowed to do?" problem. I wonder how long before the crisis of the male-dominated penis market will come up.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
But, I digress. I eagerly await similar bills to end "boys' dominance" in fields like garbage disposal, oil rig maintenance, construction and homelessness.
There is only one kind of systematic prejudice in today's institutions. And it is against white males. And if you happen to be heterosexual too, no one will target you for any favoritism.
Three words: Reality Distortion Field.
The white male geek starts his career from an extraordinarily privileged position.
The median household income in the US is $52,000.
College graduates in the class of 2015 with bachelor's degrees in electrical engineering can expect an average starting salary of $57,000. Computer engineering graduates are close behind, with average salaries of $56,600. Next come mechanical engineering graduates with starting salaries of $56,000.
Software design $54,000
Computer programming $54,000
Computer science $52,000
The College Degrees With The Highest Starting Salaries in 2015
This is brilliant. Force the classes to have sufficient gender representation, and cancel them because they don't. Then the only people learning CS are those motivated enough to do it on their own... which will be even MORE male-skewed. Thus continued male dominance of the CS field. Wow, the masters of the patriarchy sure are clever!
What I'd like to know is: why do we have such a lack of female pro-football players?
How about coal miners?
Heavy equipment operators?
In other words, why is CS such a big deal?