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Learn-to-Code Program For 10,000 Low-Income Girls
theodp writes: In a press release Tuesday, the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) announced it was teaming with Lifetime Partner Apple and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on its Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Commitment to engage 10,000 girls in learning computing concepts. "Currently, just 25 states and the District of Columbia allow computer science to count as a math or science graduation requirement," explained the press release. "Because boys get more informal opportunities for computing experience outside of school, this lack of formal computing education especially affects girls and many youth of color." HUD, the press release added, has joined the Commitment to Action to help extend the program's reach in partnership with public housing authorities nationwide and provide computing access to the 485,000 girls residing in public housing. "In this Information Age, opportunity is just a click on a keyboard away. HUD is proud to partner with NCWIT to provide talented girls with the skills and experiences they need to reach new heights and to achieve their dreams in the 21st century global economy," said HUD Secretary Julian Castro, who coincidentally is eyed as a potential running mate for Hillary Clinton, whose daughter Chelsea is the Clinton Foundation's point-person on computer science. Last year, Chelsea Clinton gave a keynote speech at the NCWIT Summit and appeared with now-U.S. CTO Megan Smith to help launch Google's $50 million girls-only Made With Code initiative.
This is only true for Western countries. In many other cultures women are dominant in engineering and computer science. For example, Iran (70 percent), Philippines (52 percent), Thailand (51 percent) and Kazakhstan (50 percent).
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... http://www.unescobkk.org/educa...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Therefore, it is a cultural thing and I doubt that it will improve any time soon. First, most programs address people at the end or after school. Then it is too late. If you want to "fix" it, you should start changing education in nursery and primary school. And yes, you should stop offering them dolls and fostering stupid girlie behavior, like "oh cool shopping".
BTW: In eastern European countries the percentage of women in STEM was higher during "communism", as they do not indulge in such "being a toy"-stuff. however, since the end of "communism" this changed, due to new/old role models emerging.