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Encouraging Female Programmers
aquarium writes "Why is programming dominated by males? The St.Louis Post-Dispatch has a story that states one of the reasons is that girls are not encouraged to experiment with computers. Speaking as a male, I did not need anyone to encourage me to experiment with computers. It was something that just came naturally." According to the story, Carnegie Mellon University is actively recruiting female CS majors. This year they expect 37% of freshman CS students to be women, up from 8% in 1995.
I'm sure you're a wonderful programmer.
I've met my fair share of excellent female programmers and more than my share of worthless male programmers. This same pattern of male dominated engineering professions repeats itself constantly.
This same kind of journalistic pseudo-science is continuously cranked out by certain feminist and socialist think tanks. Its predominant characteristic being that even though you can disprove their assertions easily (by falsification) it doesn't keep them from having their opinions.
I can point to some female programmer friends of mine that are very good and never had daddy pushing science, mechanics, electronics or mathmatics at them. Hell, I never had those things promoted to me. I was trying to build phasers at the age of seven. My parents thought I was an alien. Most of my family are communications majors with only my grandfather as the lone engineering guy. I'm sure if my sister was interested he would have shown her how to build steam engines too. We would have welcomed the company.
Does that mean that female programmers are any less female for it? Certainly not! I applaud excellence and talent in any human. Female programmers as well as males in more traditionally female professions.
Jim Burnes, the original poster
jburnes@earthlink.net
I have read so many things about how women aren't encouraged to go into computer science. How women are not wired for computer science, how women just don't have the hacker gene, what not.
:)
To tell the truth I get kind of tired of it all. I am yet another geek girl, and I know I am not the only one. My first experience with a computer was with a Commadore PET in about 1980. You can click here to see the picture if you like.
PET pic
Since then I have not been without a computer. My father has a degree in computer science and through his job was able to bring home loaners from all periods of the history of the pc. I had a Vic 20, Commadore 64, an Atari 600 (I think), One of the first Macs, a Monroe Litton, IBM PC, Zenith AT, a 286, a 386, a 486, and a pentium.
I taught myself Basic, when I was 12, Pascal at 13, and C at 14. The year I taught myself C, was the same year I was in Grade 10, and I had my first computer class in school where I was "learning" Basic. I came out of that class with a perfect mark, and managed to start looking at assembly language by myself.
I saw high school computer classes as a waste of time and did not take another one, that didn't keep me from teaching myself new principles.
My dad first got me an internet account in 1992 because I was on BBSes all the time anyhow. So I went on the net, and learned Unix so I could make the most of my internet account.
I have the geek gene, it definately is neither a male or female thing. I am stubborn enough to want to keep working on things till they work, I am curious enough to keep learning about new technolgies, and I just plain love computers. Past Boyfriends have pointed to the monitor and accused it of stealing all the attention they wanted.
IDIOTS, It is the CPU I love.
Point at the case and you may have a relevant point.
One boyfriend called the computer my other boyfriend. My boyfriend now, he's a geek too, and he knows that if I am coding, that I am in the zone, and that he comes second. He doesn't mind, I have more computer knowlege and experience than he does, and when I am done, I'll be ready to show off what I have done, and explain it to him. A few of his friends, fellow techies - know I am more geeky than them too, and they are used to it now.
I made the mistake of not going directly to university out of high school, but I went back to school a few years ago to start my computer science degree (I am not finished it yet - I am on a break while I try to recoup financially). I encountered my first experiences with stereotyping at a university level. I would never be assumed to be in computer science by strangers, after all, I am female, I must be in Social Work, or Psychology. I didn't encounter any stereotyping from my classmates in computer science or any of my instructors. I was in the top 10% of my class and I quite enjoyed working with people who appreciated my mind and my technical abilities instead of (or perhaps as well as) my looks.
Girl geeks get stereotyped by society, yes, as shy introverted socially awkward plain janes. Male geeks are stereotyped too. Unattractive socially awkward dumpy short and wearing glasses. I am sure the male geeks appreciate the stereotypes just as much as the girls. I am an attractive woman, and I know attractive men in computer science as well.
Having a brain does not disfigure the body!
I think more women should go into computer science, so I can have more women friends to chat with who will understand when I am having a problem debugging a program at 4 am. So I can talk about a concept I thought up for setting up my server in a new more secure manner. I want female friends I can talk about the things that excite me, and their eyes will not glaze over.
The problem is not female role models, or sexist stereotypes.
Women, girls, check out MECCA and join the Syster's mailing list, or if you are a student, the Syster Student mailing list ( be prepared for tons of mail from Syster's).
Their url is http://www.systers.org/
That is almost enough of a ramble for me, I have decided not to include in this such things as a long ramble on Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, or any of the women who programmed the ENIAC, because if you knew anything about computer history - these are givens.
Hmmmm, I think it might have more to do with the fact that the male brain seems to respond and focus on visual cues, while females are more inclined to respond to auditory and tactual interaction. As programming takes alot of time spent staring at a screen silently, it just may inherently not be a womans cup of tea. For example I know alot of woman who use computers, and while they are in chat rooms in AOL or channels on IRC, they talk out loud when they respond, or read what is being typed to them. It might just sound silly to them to read C code out loud ;-)
S&P 500 utility eh. Well given Fl*rida's whopping economy I guess if you work in Fl*rida you work for TECO.
I think our society should learn to accept that men and women sometimes have different interests. Do we really want to steer women away from the more traditional female professions, where they are doing a wonderful job, just to prove a point?
I don't care if the difference is cultural, social or biological. Don't make them unhappy by steering them into a certain direction, just because the market demands more people with a computer-related education.
Programming takes passion. If you have tto be encouraged, prepare to fall flat on your face and get trampled on.
However, since I live in a kinda small village in the East of England, I'm used to no social life :P so, I guess that meant I had no social stimulation in the first place.
An Anon (+ available) 18 yrold female programmer :)
You're right, 100 years ago there were few women doctors. Today, women have a choice.
They didn't all appear there this week. They've been slowly filtering into the profession for many decades. I really don't know why that barrier was broken down first; perhaps because medicine is more compatible with the "nurturing" stereotype of women. At any rate, few people are willing to fight against convention. Now that it's conventional for women to go into medicine (or any of a number of other fields), it's no big deal and women do it if it appeals to them, or not if it doesn't. There are no considerations of social acceptability. Well, in CS there still are.
There are few females programmers today because fewer women CHOOSE to enter the computer science field.
There were fewer women doctors 100 years ago because fewer women CHOSE to enter the medical profession. Do you really think that in 1899 there were thousands of women beating on the doors of Johns Hopkins, demanding to be let in? No, of course not. Back then it wasn't really considered acceptable for women to go to college at all, let alone professional school. Most people go along with the program. Now the program has changed in many respects. Most young women now have considerably different goals in life than their great-grandmothers did. Societies change. Institutions change. Maybe the people at CMU think that just because our great-grandmothers had a hard time getting into med school (or law school, for another example of a profession where women are at home nowadays) does not mean that the same stupid fight must be fought in every generation. Screw it, it'll happen anyway. Relax to the inevitable, and increase the number of applicants while you're at it.
You're trying to claim that people aren't affected by their environment, and that's absurd.
And your whole inane "argument" doesn't even begin to address the question of affirmative action. Did women doctors need special encouragement to become doctors?
This discussion has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with "affirmative action". That would explain why I didn't address it. It's a red herring crossed with a strawman. In a nutshell, me lad, you suck worse than me
The really sad thing here is that you have no evidence and damned little logic to back up your position. If you want to know why young women tend not to major in CS, ask one. Ask one who's transferring to another major after a year or two. Then ask a dozen more. Then make up your mind once you've got some hard facts that are relevant to the issue at hand. I warn you, though: Reality is always rough on cozy little explain-everything theories like yours. Real life is messy. There's always more than one variable.
Despite the fact that there really are not that many secrets out there, programmers don't give a damn what you are. Hackers don't care if you are ten years old, have no identifiable sex and pick your nose. Can you hack? Yes? You're in!
In fact, I seem to remember most guy hackers being very desperate because there are so few women. Do you have any idea how popular a female, that showers at least every other day and can hack would be? ;-) I'll leave that to your imagination.
Why doesn't anyone ever bitch and moan how there are so few guys in ballet class? Or how so few women in shop class? jim burnes
Times changed, and women started to demand access to this creation of man. That's when all the problems started. Men resisted women's attempts because they created the workplace to get away from women! Men wanted to act like men and do manly things, and this would have to stop if there were women around. Now we have all these extra rules and restrictions, and forcing men and women to act alike is making life difficult for everyone.
None of this would have happened if men treated women right in the first place. Women figured (rightly so) that if they were financially independent, they wouldn't need to depend on men, and they wouldn't have to put up with men. I believe that if men weren't such assholes and treated women properly, we'd have a lot fewer problems in our society.
What has this to do with women in CS? Well, the CS field is just one of those things that was created by men for men. That's not to say that women can't be programmers, but based on all the other comments, there seems to be a consensus that of the few women in the CS field, almost none of them are real hackers. And it's the real hackers that drive the industry. Men need to drive things, to push them forward, to discover what can and can't be done. There are some women who feel that way, but only a small percent, and apparently it depends on what field.
Having said that, I believe that it's very important for women to be encouraged into fields that are male-dominated, because we need to make sure that those who are able to compete in these fields (and believe me, it IS a competition) should be given the opportunity to do so if they want. But that's something that I think everything should have, not just women.
they're taken becuase they who find them know they've found A Good Thing.
not that there's anything wrong with the art/music women, either. for me, the ultimate is a programmer is who is also a musician.
and that isn't personal computer. This is just affirmative action basically. There isn't a lack of encouragement at the university level. At my university there is a women in engineering and a women in computer science program. They are bending over backwards to get and keep women. They have had only minimal success. Any increase is only at the freshman level, and they tend to leave within a semester or a year. Also, in almost all CS related university job postings, something like "Minorities and women are especially encouraged to apply". Too many women have an anti-computer attitude (true of many men as well). I have lost count of the times that a female student at my university as said something negative about CS or engineering like "Eeewwww computers", "I don't want to lose my friends", "I don't want to have to date geek guys", or "I don't want people to think I am a virgin loser". Like I said this wasn't limited to women. I know one guy who was bragging at one point that he hadn't checked his email in a week. I do have experience with dealing with this type of affirmative action. I was working as an intern and they hired this girl. I don't think the company had an affirmitave action policy, but they probably wanted to increase their female:male ratio. She was a CS student, but she was incompent and many times refused to do work. My boss' boss and the Vice President above him were afraid to fire her for fear of a sexual discrimination lawsuit or something despite the repeated complaints against her. The only reason she got fired at all was that she decided to make slanderous comments against me by calling me a homosexual and the such. She even put it in writing!!!! I guess they were more afraid of a lawsuit from me than a sexual discrimination lawsuit from her. Within 5 days I found a new internship with more pay. After that people started leaving, and an atmosphere of paranoia was created with those who were left. The last I heard about that company was that it was bought out by another company that was more successful. Apparently they had to be majorly reorganized.
You're a moron.
If you walked into a room and everybody there assumed that you were incompetent because you were wearing glasses, you'd walk the fuck out.
If you walked into a room and everybody there assumed that you were incompetent because you were male, you'd walk the fuck out.
Grow up, dumbass.
Real communism actually is a good thing, but doesn't work with humans.
Communism most definately can work with humans, just not really large groups (ie: large cities, states, countries, etc.). If you isolated forty people on a desert island and came back in couple of years, you would probably see a very communist lifestyle among the island's residents. A communist economy is give-what-you-can-take-what-you-need system, and I don't think that can exist unless the population is a small, tightly-knit community. A large population is just incapable of the level of communication that a small group can have, and thus people get would left out of the major decisions and there would be endless bickering/feuding.
I can see your point, though. A communist system can crumble into dystopia when corruption is present (I think Stalin is a fairly good example, even though the USSR didn't have a true communist economy). Having a large population increases the chance that there will be people that abuse the system. But now that I think about, it wasn't intended that in capitalist economy 5% of the people would control 95% of the wealth, as seen here in the US.
Straying slightly from the subject, though: why is it that whenever discussions on communism in slashdot spur up, it never has anything to do with the subject that the person who mentions communism is talking about.
-Chris Andreasen
Also, women have been found to "double task" between brain hemispheres almost twice as efficently as males.
That you cited this point indicates that you agree that there is a fundamental difference between the inner workings of male and female brains. The brain is barely understood today and it is very likely that fundamental differences in thinking schemes could create improved efficiency in some kinds of problem solving while decreasing the efficiency in others. Therefore, to admit that there is *any* difference in the way men and women process information and complete tasks (as you did) also suggests a possible difference across the genders as to which forms of thinking/problem solving are more optimized and which ones are less optimized.
Indeed. When I did CS at Sydney University here in Australia in 1976-77around 20-25% of the course was women. I gather the % has declined markedly since, which neatly coincides with the rise of the PC. So which is it? Is it that only a small number of women are interested in the field, and that while the percentage has dropped the absolute numbers have stayed about the same, or is it something about the PC that encourages boys and discourages girls? I suspect the latter is at least part of it. Women (even extremely intelligent and technically competent ones, and I've known plenty) TEND to have a more pragmatic nature towards technology than men: they want it to do a specific job, and are not interested in the technology for its own sake. (Note: this applies to their attitudes to cars as well!). In the PC world, where everything is new all the time, technical experimentation for its own sake is the order of the day, and women just aren't into that; they're too sane! . Also the old observation that most computer games are aimed at boys and so boys get more hands-on experience when young. (The only games I've seen adult women take to in a big way are Tetris and Freecell; interesting; both are about establishing order out of chaos...) Women also tend to see things within a social context (part of the pragmatism), and game playing and generally mucking around with computers tends to be a solitary affair. I'd thus be interested in the proportion of women in on-line communities and RPG's. It appears that the proportion of women using Macs is higher than PCs; again the technology is less up-front and you can concentrate on the task. I think the lack of women is a shame because frankly there's a hell of a lot more to IT than programming; from my perspective (particularly since I became an IT support contractor a few years ago) this business is 40% technology and 60% people, and women with their superior social skills have a distinct contribution to make. Funny that most of my women friends at uni were ardent feminists and so in a sense is my wife, but we are both more and more convinced about hard-wired differences (note tendencies, not absolutes) in the brains of the sexes.
Where are more people like you? I've looked, honestly. All the female 'geeks' I've ran into have been maried. Oh well, guess I'll have to stick to dating art/music women for now.
The same disgust when you try to get a woman to watch a Sci Fi movie.
Sorry, about half of the Star Trek fans I know are women. Written SF fans, more than half.
You're just making shit up, you know? Just making it right up off the top of your head . . .
Why bother?
wow, isn't anyone of you PC idiots going to flame me for finding women's bodies attractive?
No, I'm going to flame you for being clinically paranoid.
You're clinically paranoid. Get help.
:)
So be it.
just curious - what is the age ogf those female geeks? seems like in past the ratio was higher. in the older it shops there are more women than...
just an observation...
...sie sind nicht grün
well...i guess...stay on /. it seems to have worked for me!
*in 1950's commercial voice* Gee Golly Rob! Thanks Slashdot!
My issue with this whole argument is that we just know way too little about cognitive psychology to clearly identify any putative cognitive differences (the way people's brains are wired) between men and women. Some have been claimed, but to my mind there isn't nearly enough evidence for any of them.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
there would be no effort to encourage men to computer science degrees. Chances are it would be called "empowering to women" or something similar. I don't see any attempts to recruit more male elementary education majors...
. . . and I don't give a rat's ass about "new technology". I'm fascinated by algorithms and data structures, but I'm bored stiff by Palm Pilots and I couldn't care less how much RAM you have (nor how much I have, either; the end user will be running my code, not me).
Maybe life isn't as simple as you think? Maybe the human mind is a complex thing? Maybe.
Point 1: yes, I'm female. :o)
Point 2: yes, I'm studying CS (and top of class at that
Point 3: If all a bloke would want in me is a 'good wife', from this I assume washing dishes (thats why we have machines, deary), having children and whatever else, GO AWAY! let me be a spinster or whatever.
Personally, I'm happy to stay up until 6 am playing quake, optimising my linux machine and coding those pointless programs we all do when were bored :)) I still think I've got a load of progs that I did when experimenting with pascal at the tender age of 8 :)
~Emm (curriedrice@lineone.net, not bothered to log on)
What's despressing about it is that professors lower the standard to accomodate these folks. This means that they waste time covering material that the students should have learned in the prerequisite classes. Hence the students who _are_ in school because of a genuine interest in the field get bored with their classes. ...it doesn't make the professors happy either.
and i wasnt encouraged or discouraged by anyone! it was kinda like a calling....
We've had no luck in convincing women that they should be able to support themselves, which is the real limiting factor in enrollment.
Did you fall asleep in 1950 or something? I'm trying to think of women under 40 that I know who think they way you describe, and I can only think of one. One. Out of about, oh, two dozen maybe.
As for this year's entering class, they have it all figured out. They're going to get married and maybe work as receptionists
What country do you live in? Or is it just that you go to a junior college in the Bible Belt, and you think the rest of the world is the same way . . . ? Well, it's not.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have a brain surgeon who graduated due to affirmative action working on me.
As far as the CS industry goes, we already have too many morons and just plain stupid people punching out code as it is (How else can you explain Windows?). Pushing underqualified people into the industry will only make things worse.
We're not talking about taking or providing jobs. We're talking about doing a good job.
Adding encouragement to a particular group is one thing. Making a quota is quite another.
Let's play madlibs: So, guys, if being a lonely bachelor until you die at seventy-five appeals to you, by all means start writing code. Sound rediculous?
Uhhh, not really, sounds pretty close to the truth actually. I guess I could lower my standards, but so far I can't bring myself to start fucking men or farm animals.
But enough about me. A more appropriate link than CMU's front page might be CMU's Computer Science Department.
And, about time we got more females... Maybe now they're joining the CS school in force, we won't have the common problem of them transferring out after a year or two. With low percentages of them, I can certainly understand why.
--Carl
I no longer care. I'm not compelled to try to change anything I'm a guy. I want more women in computers because I think it'd be nice to have more around. Otherwise I'll make no effort to encourage or discourage anyone based on their gender.
You could make the same unsound argument about the men that take no interest at all in programming (the overwhealming majority). Is it because their parents gave them Babies instead of soldering irons? Thought experiment concluded.
no one here said anything about being angry with women for taking men's jobs . . . It isn't very good to attack people by tacking on things you remember from elsewhere. . . . As for my comment about hunting for female programmers, it 1was just a reference to affirmative action.
Precisely. IMHO, affirmative action has just the same relevance to this discussion as Rush Limbaugh's goofy remarks in 1992: Tangential at best.
I feel that a person's character has a lot to do with this discussion. I don't see how it couldn't. And I based my opnion off of what I seen: you belittling several posters for not only something they said, but for an almost similar thing someone else said in 1992. That didn't seem right to me and I voiced my opinion as such.
I don't see how my character could be relevant, nor do I agree with you that I demonstrated anything lacking in mine. My initial post was virtual gibberish. I was playing for laughs. I was satirizing a general attitude which I thought I was seeing in a lot of these posts here. I certainly wasn't trying to prove anything by logic; I was writing satire. The "logic" of satire is not normal logic; you've seen Monty Python, right?
Urgh, whatever. We don't agree, and that's that. I think we're both disagreeing politely enough that we can call it quits w/ no hard feelings.
Later.
Except about how they look and about marriage and children.
:)
:(
Let's cut straight to the point. Women are more well rounded then men. The real hardcore geeks, like the famous inventors, are monomaniacal.
My girlfriend is a programmer, a moderate one, and makes $80k/year. Know what? She doesn't like computers, and only got a CS degree because of the money. Same goes for my sister who is also a CS major. They always leave work at 5, and never do any programming at home.
How many of my fellow males reading this message have experienced the all night session. You know, you're writing some code, or reading something, and you simply can't stop until you've broken through, reached that mysterious goal you were seeking? Time seems to stand still, a whole day can go by and you don't notice it?
Even if you don't program, just think about those 10 hour Quake sessions online and you'll see what I mean.
Rarely have I observed women who are like this, and those that I have didn't want children, which is a *key point*
For those without much female experience, one thing you need to realize is that women have a ticking bomb inside them. From the moment of puberty forwards, they know that by age 35+ they won't be able to have any children (men don't have this problem) After age 18, many women worried constantly about their future, about when they are going to get married, and have kids. It is this insecurity about their future which cuts into any monomaniacal behavior.
Spending 18 hours a day on a computer messing around with abstract concepts does not advance the goal of having a family at all, so very few women (except those who resolved not to have kids, or are intelligent enough to delay it as long as possible without worrying) spend obsessive amounts of time by themselves alone in a room hacking code.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen. It's rare that GUYS do it. Keep in mind, that guys aged 18-27 spend a lot of their time trying to GET LAID.
Obsessed Geeks are a rare item for males. But they are even rarer in females, and when they exist in females, they exist in a different way.
I spent my whole life looking for geek chicks. I meet atleast 60 "geek chicks" from online personals (most of them turned out not to be). The girl I am with now is wonderful, and shares some of my obsessions, but not to the same degree, however for a geek girl, she's very cute and feminine, so I have a reasonable middle ground.
The coolest geek chick I ever met had one problem: she was a lesbian.
I applaud CMU for trying to recruit at institutions which are good in math, science instead of lowering the standards. It also should change the balance of females here in technical programs to a reasonable level instead of the ridiculous level that it used to be. However using verbal SAT to recruit people into CS is just plain stupid i'll admit I got an 800 verbal but it only shows a large vocabulary not the creativity to solve a programming problem.
More female CS majors is good
...about the differences between the human sexes. It said women are harder to train and do not take as much crap as males. Maybe females are less profitable computer programmers because they are not as likely to stay up all night?
Coincidentally, the fields with high concentrations of women and minorities usually end up being the ones with the lowest earning potential. I figure that the best way to get society to push more women into programming is to cut programmers' salaries in half.
...when I was in college, I was hearing the exact same thing. And there seem to be fewer women working in computers now than when I started working 2 decades ago. Maybe women are are just two smart to go into a "profession" where you're often treated like you don't know what you're doing by people who have no idea what you're doing; so they become doctors or lawyers instead.
as an Orientation Counsellor. They're a pretty sharp bunch.
The class of 2001 has 14 women.
The class of '02 has 28 (my year). We were impressed by that.
Way to go geek chicks!
Seriously, I'm impressed that CMU has come this far without resorting to quotas, only recruiting heavily in the areas they feel need more diversity.
I was reading the replies that slashdotters left, and I have to say, there are some interesting theories as to why women aren't involved in CS or programming.
Many theories are simply old prejudice or even phobia, but some deserve real consideration. Here are a few of the best:
* Women are wired differently.
- While this is true, the people I find saying this don't fully understand it. Studdy some evolutionary bioligy. You'll see that the difference between men and women is like the difference between 6+4 and 2+8 (a little different, but in the end still equal).
* Women aren't raised to do this.
- I can't say much about this. I wasn't raised with barbies, but I wasn't raised with toy trucks or army men either. I guess I'm a-sexual.
* This is reverse descrimintation.
- This is equal opportunity. They're just a little vocal about it.
* High Schools are at fault. They push girls into other fields.
- I've seen this first hand. Though, at my school, none of the girls have shown any interest in computing beyond the user definition. *That* is what needs fixing!
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It looks like the question behind all of these is: Why aren't more women in CS? What makes a geek?
While I don't know what makes a geek, I can tell you what made me one, and maybe others can share the stories of their enlightenment.
I was in elementary school; just drifting. My father went back to college when he was laid off. He minored in CS and got a computer. I started enjoying the games on it - JumpMan, Maria, Shamus, and Chess. It didn't take long for me to learn DOS and want to learn more. I was reading everything I could find on computer architecture. I became a geek.
This has some positive side effects in other areas too. Geekdome changed me. When my first grade teacher wanted me to read "Dick and Jane" with the class, I had to put down my Steven King. When my classmates read "Goosebumps", I read "The Fundimentals of Logic."
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This needs to happen to more girls. It doesn't just make people programmers - it makes better people.
So, the question is here. What exactly makes a geek? Can we make more girls geeks?
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P.S. I believe windows is making computing more surface oriented; that it makes users and stops people from really asking about the computer behind the scenes.
Now we get to watch a swarm of insecure adolescent males come howling out of the woodwork, claiming to "prove" that women can't succeed in technical fields . . . Never mind that their "proofs" are rendered absurd by the actual women out here who are succeeding in such fields; the bottom line here is self-perceived "losers" venting their insecurities. Some of them are reasonably bright, but bitterly hostile because they can't get a date (which passes with time, though I've been there and I know it sucks); others are real losers who may be able to get a date, but who sure as hell won't ever get into CMU. The latter are the ones who depress me, but then again they never get far enough in the world to do any real damage. So who cares?
Guys, women who might possibly have an interest in entering CS often are discouraged from pursuing them in ways that you might not even *notice*, because they might not happen to you. It's bad to be a geek in high school, but it's worse to be a female geek, at a time when, as a girl, there is *tremendous* pressure to be *beautiful*. Not strong, or interesting, or intelligent or anything that would differentiate you from a Barbie Doll, but *beautiful*. This puts a big strain on girls who are intelligent, or strong-willed or weird in various ways, to conform, and play dumb and pretty in order to be popular, have friends, dates etc etc. These traits conflict with the intellectual confidence, competence and ambition necessary to succeed or even consider pursuing a career in a technical field. I mention high school because that is a fairly decisive time as far as potential careers go, since that is often when people will choose, or not choose, to take math and and hard science classes that will open the doors to technical programs at university.
Another stumbling block is how much the communication style that prevails in technical cultures differs from what girls are taught. It's not that it's worse, or better, but it's different, and takes some getting used to if it's not native to you, and for most women, it isn't.
That said, although I have encountered obstacles to studying and working in CS, they've all been worth overcoming for the fun and awesomeness that I have every day. I wouldn't trade what I have today for the chance to be a popular girl in high school, ever.
As for some guy above saying female programmers don't make good wives...boo hoo hoo: cry me a fucking *river*. Despite the fact that I get paid more money that my parents make to do what, to me, is playing with fun ideas and toys, work with insanely intelligent people, come and go as I please, get paid to travel and go to conferences, have such wonderful jobs offers that I agonize about what to do about them and don't have to wear anything else but a t-shirt and shorts to work, I feel *utterly* *unfulfilled* by the fact I am unfeminine and unsuitable to be some illiterate luser's wife. Yeah, right.
Nuts. Just when I thought everyone stopped whining about the womenfolk and their not liking computer stuff enough, some other people dig this idea's rotting corpse up, offer no nothing new -- no real insight at all, and even widen the gender gap by taking extra steps to get women. People do what they want to. Women aren't dumb. I'm sure they are well aware computers exist, and if they want to use them, I'm sure they know the steps to take to find them. Programs like this make me want to vomit.
Hey, have a nice one, guy.
If you're a parent, ensuring balanced education
for boys and girls is your responsibility. We
(ok, mostly my wife but I do the computer stuff)
home-school our two children (son 6, daughter 8),
and beleve-you-me there is as little gender bias
as we can manage.
So parents, take things into your own hands and
make DAMN SURE both your sons and daughters have
the computer skills to compete. If you can swing
it, home schooling is one way to make sure this
happens. Both our kids have accounts on our
downstairs machine (Microsoft Free Environment!)
and have no trouble handling the XDM login or
starting netscape or applixware. Using these
tools is an integral part of our (home-Brew)
cirriculum (as is spelling!).
So if she wants, my daughter is ready and able
to be a Girl Geek if she so chooses. Though
this year being a ballerina seems the top choice.
-- Dad (AC today)
u cant recruit if one doesn't want to study CS...if they want to, be they male or female, they will come (most people in college that are in CS knew they wanted to be in CS before they graduated high school anyway...i knew i loved CC and computing in general when I was about 5 :P)
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
Anywho, just FYI.
----
----
"Oh, bother," said Pooh, as he hid Piglet's mangled corpse.
I just had the funniest mental image of a naked, wet guy running into the computer lab shouting 'Eureka!'. (Or however you spell that.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
...who uses twm. :-)
hmm. allow me to paraphrase your flame: "i don't have any valid argument, so i'll go for baseless character attacks instead, because i'm an insecure weenie."
Like most kids I know, I was given the toys I wanted. I don't know where people get the idea that parents influence kids by giving them gender-biased toys. Parents give kids the toys kids want or the kids complain.
Nearly every time I have heard of attempts to make a crossover toy it has failed miserably. Anybody remember "My Buddy", the doll for boys? It was a horrible failure.
No, but it does reflect a gender difference. Males are drawn to games that simulate the primitive hunting instincts. Girls are not.
Do you honestly believe that game companies are intentionally ignoring this potential market??? The game business is incredibly competitive, and 90% of games flop when they hit the market. There's no way that game companies would intentionally not target a huge potential market like girls.
The reason you don't see more software for girls is:
1) Making a game that guys will like is easy. The formula is pretty simple. Nobody yet knows what girls will want.
2) At least in the days before the Internet exploded in size, there really wasn't a market for software for girls. Most girls just wouldn't sit down alone in front of a computer for hours.
Not to stupid girls, but to relatively smart people only because they're girls.
In my university program there were 3 girls in a class of about 30. One girl got a scolarship that was given out to "a female from XXX county in the Engineering Physics program". She was the only female in the program, so she didn't even have to compete to get the scolarship. If, however, the scolarship had been to the top student from that county there's a very good chance she would not have received the scolarship.
Do you have references for this? I can only speak from personal experience, but when I was a toddler, I had barbie dolls. My friends and I (we were all about 5 then) would play rough and tumble outside, practice our Mr. T imitations, etc. Then my mother gave us barbie dolls to play with, instead of GI Joes or transformers. After a few minutes, we were all playing with the dolls and their outfits, playing house...
That's why I'm interested in the studies you mention: are the kids examined the same sort of ADD-afflicted, neglected maniacs who like pro wrestling, or was the sample properly selected?
--
Change is inevitable.
Progress is not.
> just curious - what is the age ogf those female > geeks?
Most are under 30. We tend to hire straight out of college. The female department heads are older, of course, 40s-50s.
Well, using *that* logic, you could just as easily say:
"Losers whine about 'racism' because even though they have an unfair advantage due to affirmative action, they've still failed to make anything of themselves."
I think you miss the point that we should not tolerate discrimination based upon race/gender/etc., in *any* form. This is a sword that cuts both ways. You can't have "affirmative action" while being against racial discrimination, without being hugely hypocritical. Affirmative action *is* racial discrimination, the only difference being the target of the discrimination, and that it is government-sanctioned. Two wrongs don't make a right.
In Hong Kong for example, there are a lot of female programmers. At the place where i worked this summer, half of the programmers were prolly female. I don't think one should localize the problem around female 'programmers', the whole US culture seems to deter women from any technically, scientifically oriented subjects. The central question shouldn't be just 'why are so few programmers female', instead, a more general question should prove more fruitful, i.e. one can't encourage more females to be programmers, while at the same time pay no attention to the cultural environment which deter them from doing mathematics, physics, and etc...
I don't think there's anything to get worked up over. If you're a female interested in medicine, CS, astronomy, whatever geeky career, and you have the drive, you'll do it no matter what.
I'm really sick of the media buzz-word of the year, "mentor". Who says if you're female you should have female mentors?
Whenever I've had the pleasure of working with male geeks, I learned tons, shared my skills, and had a great time. I really don't see why people think guys are so intimidating.
BTW, I've attended some techie-girl clubs... they suck! They're so pre-occupied in female-empowerment that actual geeking-out and teaching never comes up.
Nitrozac
Just wanted to compliment you not only on your band (the music was okay) and on your skill as a Linux user, but also on your physical attractiveness. Shallow of me, eh?
In particular, I'm referring to the the (http://twiceshy.8m.com/tfwotsbsw/photos/scott/me1 .jpg) semi-nude photo of you (nice skin and nipples), as well as the others in that directory (giving merit to the 'jailbait' comment on the Jimmy Page page). I found (http://twiceshy.8m.com/tfwotsbsw/photos/friend.jp g") friend.jpg rather cute, too (nice hint of leg, there), if a bit young for me.
My question is, do you have any others like the first that you plan to post anytime soon? I'm sure lots of /.ers would love to see them.
In any case, good luck with everything!
As a female who is a programmer, and who is :(
involved in the open source/free software/geek
community on a day to day basis, I have to say
I'm getting kind of sick of seeing the same
things over and over again. One of the things
I see most often is ill-conceived affirmative
action intended to encourage women into technical
fields, often doing more harm than good. I mention this because I think CMU's
efforts in this case are *not* ill-conceived and
I want to make it clear that I'm not just saying
that because I'm female yada yada yada. As far
as I can tell from the very short and shallow
article, CMU seem to be doing the right things.
They're not setting arbitrary quotas, they're
just getting out there and selling the course in
places where women happen to be listening. They're not changing to course to fit the women,
but rather are pointing out the applicability of
the subject matter to a wide range of fields
(many of which just happen to appeal more to women). So it will be interesting to see how it
all turns out. I suppose it's unlikely that
they'll post followup stories, though
If anyone's interested, there's an article I wrote
a few weeks ago which you can read at
http://netizen.com.au/~skud/articles/c hick2/
about female geeks, how to encourage them, and
whether we actually want more of them in the
Open Source/Free Software community.
K.
I think a lot of males have no idea what it is like to have your friends from elementary school suddenly turn into idiots in middle school. Yes, it's good because the number of academic competitors decreases, but I find it very hard to relate to many of them. I do have friends but when it comes down to computers or just technology, their only thought is "AOL" and "chat" I haven't experienced as much discouragement but my teachers often tend to ask the boys in another room for help with technical problems even when I'm right next to them. Of course, those boys are all some of my best friends.
In my family, I'm the one who is the most computer literate and both my parents work with computers for their jobs. My brother learns mostly from me.
--- "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." ~ Ben Kenobi, 'Return of the Jedi'
Ellen Ullman
-----------------------------
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
As others have stated before, assuming that 50/50 will make everything alrightfor men and women is simply... stupid. People, be it geeks or jocks, are each socialized to be part of their gender culture.
Its happened before and it'll happen again. Females will break into whatever field they like. Keep your "men are made for this, women are made for that" argument for the 19th century.
Putting out a notice that this or that school is 'safe' for females is a nice gesture, but essentially meaningless. If there isn't a market to attract in the first place why bother?
Proposals to somehow make women love tech in high school sounds a lot like mind control to me.
"Yes, we will mold them at an early age." Sorry, everyone has the right to be typical - look in the mirror geeks.
Not that I'm pulling a half assed psuedo-social commentary on WHY men do this and women do this. If you could explain all the effects on culture for each gender you probably would have better things to do than post here.
The worst part is how most posts end with "Now I'm gonna get some." Sad guys, really sad.
Are you suggesting that discrimination is acceptable for some situations? I would disagree. Having different admission requirements for males and females is unacceptable for ethical people. People should have equal opportunity to get a good education regardless of gender. What would you think if you were prevented from entering a school because of your gender?
Don't you have something else to interest you besides nude 17-year-olds? HELLO THERE?! Getting a life might be a good thing for you to do, perhaps...
Where I'm coming from:
Twenty years old, female, English major/computer enthusiast at a heavily Engineering-oriented university (Rice).
The situations I've seen:
Here at Rice, at least, there are a decent number of women in the Engineering professions, although I would bet that the CS department would be the least balanced. I attempted to take the introductory compsci class here and was forced to drop after three weeks simply because I was in way over my head. Why? My high school only offered one "Computer Science" class not worthy of the name -- we learned Pascal. Yuck. And the teacher was a dumbass who wasn't qualified to teach even that.
The social scene at Rice, on the surface, involves a lot of moaning from both sexes about how dating at such a geeky university is nearly impossible and how the guys/girls just aren't even that attractive. The fact of the matter is that being geeks, most of us don't really have the experience or training to interact well with others in social situations; thankfully, Rice provides a place to learn that before it's truly too late (i.e., the real world, postgrad).
Outside of university, the stuff I've seen and heard includes a lot of wistful sighs from guys on the quest for the ever-elusive hacker babe. I remember getting aggravated on e.themes.org at a theme based around erotic art depicting nude women, and wondering if this was a product of fewer women being in this environment, or part of the cause?
Furthermore, I work for Rice IT and am one of the very few girls to do so (although more and more girls are recruited every year). I derive a weird sort of pleasure from being female in this maleish environment -- there's no harassment or inequality. It's the same when I find I'm the only female member of the R-LUG. (At least, at first, I think one or two other girls have gotten into since then.)
In the end, what I would have to say is this:
The trends seem to point to a dreamy wish for a class of beautiful linux guru women to arise and become soulmate to the (deserving, mostly) slashdot crowd. Some sort of goddess in which the mind of Linus would be incorporated into the body of Natalie Portman. But the fact of the matter is, guys, that if you open the doors to equality in this situation, you open the doors to women who aren't that smart, and women who aren't that good looking. If you're willing to accept them on those terms, great. (Note that I am not saying unqualified women should be given jobs. But there are always varying levels of competency in any given field. You know this!) But it's simply not going to happen that Glamazon Linux Advocate Babes from Venus will land in a spaceship and happily enter into a state of Deep Hack with you and program in elegant, clean, error-free Perl with you and then pull you into bed for hours of sexual ecstasy. This is the real world and relationships both personal and professional take far more effort than that.
Furthermore, a question: Why does the woman of your dreams HAVE to be a computer geek? I know most of this crowd to be more well-rounded than that. Don't blame it on "I work too much to have a social life!" So do lawyers, doctors, a number of other equally demanding professions. So look hard at yourselves before you give an answer to that that's too easy.
...having a great professor at SDSU who happened to be a woman. she could analyze/criticize code at a blinding pace, and i still think so five years since. well deserved PHD.
...i tutored a couple phys ed majors. they had to take a "special studies" class in the math dept. to get their masters, so they picked CS classes. one was 68K asm, the other had a pascal class. one male, one female. both struggled, but they made it through. these were real phys ed majors, btw. very sinewy, muscular and cut. i used to joke with them about eating right before sleep to maximize weight gain, but they didn't seem to get it.
...work with a few women now, and a few at my last job. seemed more stable than the men.
...oddly, none had pc's at home, or hung out on the web. pretty much just treated it like a job. terrible generalization though, not enough samples to have any meaning.
...a couple were lead c++ programmers. quite skilled. one earned substantially more than i -- single, with a nice $350K house overlooking the pacific, and a nice new toyota SUV. guess those high grades paid off for her!
...none of them had much patience with (shall we say) "cute, hair-twirling girls" -- seemed to find them offensive.
...should i ever be lucky enough to reproduce *and* have a daughter, i think i would always try to reinforce to her that *all* fields of endeavour are hers for the taking, that she choose that which gives her the most satisfaction when the day is done. i'd say the same regardless of gender!
...i'll probably not reproduce, cuz i'm getting too old, but for all you young men and women, try to think of these issues as though you were looking into your lovely daughter's eyes; encourage your son or daughter to be their best no matter what they choose!
I am male.
I am a geek.
And you seem to - SUCK!
Damn. I don't care whether a girl is computer interested or not - she does not even have to look like a model or so. If I like her then I like her - simple, isn't it?
- root 66
-- I love the smell of Blue Screens in the morning.
A raise from 8% to 37% is very optimistic. There have been many attempts in the past to get more females into engineering and computer science. I have yet to hear of one that has been such a success. Past experienc tells us that educating them about financial aid won't help very much. You need to get them to "want" to go into this field.
I am pondering why I am not a female CS geek. I know that I could easily be a CS geek if I desired to be so, but I lack that desire. I have had a computer since I was 4 or 5 (a Vic 20 :) and I had computer class with logo once a week throughout elementary school. My parents encouraged me to play with computers as well as read and ask questions (they bought me multiple books on programming in basic before I was 10). I'm even comfortable with cryptic UNIX commands (even if I forget them half the time, that's what man is for :). However, I completely failed to become a hacker (at least in the computer sense). I am a geek-in-training of neuropsychology.
I suspect that this might be a little wider than simply "females don't like to program". CS has to compete with other sciences for females like me who enjoy scientificness. I would be interested to see if this isn't a greater issue of females not into science rather than females not into programming, as I suspect.
"Any sufficiently advanced form of Magic is indistinguishable from Technology." - Gnomish Technomancer
Amen, Brother (or Sister)!
Well, I'm sorry I didn't carry this post out with more elegance...;]
;]
As for the stereotype of coke-bottle glasses and highwater pants...the community I live in is backward enough to still have that mindset around. I live in South Dakota in a small hickish community, and many people think a Pentium (as in P5) is incredible technology.
As for getting excited about fitting the description? Hey, I don't have a life.
And I couldn't care less what the prep snots think. They think perl is a color of nail polish.
Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me...
your website is odd.
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
At this moment in my life, I work in a completely male dominated job. I work in forestry in western Canada. Where men think they are men.. and women prove them wrong. Ive slaved 10-12 hours a day, proving I can cut it, pushing along side better qualified men.. and less qualified. But, I can do the job, and I have always wanted to. Ive came across alot of rednecks who believe I should be in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, and not doing what I do.. but I do it. My graduating class for Forestry had 3 women out of a class of 60 graduate..(a few women dropped out in the first year)
.02 canadian cents..
But Im through with forestry, the pay is great, but heck, Im getting old, and cant see myself being a bush monkey for the rest of my life...so now I choose CS. Not because I feel the need to prove myself. Ive done that already, but because it interests me...as it probably does many other women..But..the hardest thing, male or female, is getting started. Perhaps men have more ambition in that department, I really dont know. Lifestyles still leave the burden of taking care of yourself more on men. Its not as 'strange' to see a women not working, but a man is considered a bum. This point has little to do with CS precisely, but that occupation desc. is included in there.
Women can and do have the smarts for it, we just dont always know it.
Thats my
Its better to die on your feet than to have lived on your knees.
I think your brain is getting a bit spongy. Need proof, just look at the choices that you use to illustrate your point. The ABA? The NFL?
I think that this so-called 'gender gap' in computer sciences has a lot to do with personality, rather than gender. Many people who code for a living or play around with computers are by nature solitary, self starting types who can care less about the social pecking order or who said what to whom. Most Western women are not raised to do that- they're taught to be malleable 'nice girls' and be sociable. (Guess I missed that 'class' as a girl!)
That said, there may be something to the growing trend of teaching girls and boys seperately. In an all-female environment, girls will play with computers a lot more- mostly because there aren't any aggressive boys pushing them out of the way or ridiculing their way of learning things.
It is tough being female in a mostly male career field- but I have been 'playing with the boys' for 20 years. Some of the more boorish ones have made my life miserable- but their spouses and girlfriends can be much worse!
I look at the whole thing this way: This is a career field that takes brains, not brawn, and women can apply themselves and succeed in it as well as the guys. My main word of advice for programmers of either gender is this: Treat your colleagues the way you would like to be treated.
'Artificial intelligence' is anything a computer couldn't do 5 years ago.
your lame web pages, i don't think many people have to fear losing their job (regardless of gender) to the "Linux Guru"
dear god i hope you play guitar better than you create web pages or the music scene in your town truly sucks...oops, eats. forgot you like girls...slurrp!
Geek guys *wish* there were more geek girls out there. It is exactly the opposite of what you say. The fact that there are fewer female techies than male ones is a constant source of frustration for us geeky guys. It means we have to either compete for the few geek girls, which is a very oversaturated 'market' or we have to try to find that rarity among rarities: a non-geek who doesn't mind being around geeks. (That's rare whether you are talking women or men).
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
For a moment, let's consider the opposite question. Don't ask "Why don't more women program?", ask "Why do all these men program?".
I think the answer goes something like this: Most men who become geeks, computer nerds, programmers, warez dorks, etc start out as the "unpopular loner" or quasi-loner in junior-high. For whatever reason, some guys are "popular" and some are the "outsiders". The outsiders don't have lots of friends, don't have a reputation, don't have full social calanders, just lots of empty evening with themselves. The computer is a natural companion, even though it's a difficult friend to get along with. It crashes, hangs, gives weird errors, it barks, it drools, it sleeps above the covers....
I digress.
But seriously, how often has your school jock or ladykiller also been a a computer geek? I imagine it happens everynow and then, but not often.
So why don't women outsiders get into computers as much? Not being a woman, I can't really say. Maybe women are better at socializing and don't ever fall so low as to spend lonely nights in front of the cruel glowing screen. Maybe they're all smart enough to realize that programming is really just a cruel and unusual punishment dragged out until you're 35, when you become unhirable, something that us dumb guys don't realize until it's too late!
If any genuine women outsiders out there want to comment on the behaviors and activities of the female outcast, feel free to fill in the blanks!
P.S. I'm not fealing sorry for myself for one second, given the chance I wouldn't trade my life with a "more popular" one no matter what! It's a lonely road to geekdome, but I wouldn't pick any other one!
P.P.S. In my computer engineering classes at Case Western, out of a class of 120 or so, I remember there being about 5 girls. They all sat togeather, in the front row.
i forgot about those pics!
time to clean out the directory!
After reading all the comments people made, I started to wonder how many people who read Slashdot are females? So here's a poll idea:
:-) :-)
Do you consider yourself:
1. A Male Geek
2. A Female Geek
3. A Male non-Geek
4. A Female non-Geek
5. None of the above
6. Jar Jar sucks (sorry, had to throw it in
Matt
"Software is like sex- the best is for free"
I don't know much about computers, but i know i like them. Most of my friends are hackers, crackers, or whatever else you want to call them... all the computer suave are guys. All of my guy friends are supportive and have offered to help and teach me things about the computer, none of them have discouraged me in any way, shape, or form. None of the girls at my school give me funny looks and scoff at me when i carry a computer book. In fact, they often ask me questions about some things. None of the peers at my school have prevented me from liking computers.
:-) :-) Ok, i think i've said enough now, hehe.
"They figure if they so much as do more than point-and-click, they'll end up having to date a skinny nerd weirdo with coke-bottle glasses, high-water pants and dental problems. No, they want to hang around with the athletic guys."
Where did you get this from? *L* No one at my school is afraid to touch computers, and yes, this includes females! Btw, every guy and girl i know that is at least somewhat computer literate is (very) attractive... No coke bottle glasses, high-water pants, dental problems, etc. If you ask me, that image was smashed quite a while ago.
I, too, am still in high school. Eventually, when i have money, i'll learn to build a computer and install Linux. For the record, I have been wanting to major in CS ever since 6-7th grade.
Basically, what i want to say is:
Everyone keeps saying that nothing is happening and we need to do something, but I think something is already happening. I think we're in the middle of a major change. (And it's for the better.) Who cares if the sciences are still male-dominated? At least women are getting better chances of surviving and being accepted.
And one more thing... Whether or not people encourage me, i'm probably going to go into CS anyway. People think we always need to encourage others, but this is not so (not for me anyhow). When i was in 8th grade, i was one of two girls in metal shop. At the time, i hung out with the 'skater' type guys and one day girls on skateboards came up into a discussion. One of the guys (who i wasn't very fond of) said that girls should skateboard, it was a guy thing. Talk about reverse psychology, i got me a skateboard and proved him wrong. I still skateboard to this day, and people tell me i don't suck. It was somewhat encouraging when i heard him say that girls couldn't skateboard because i wanted to prove him wrong. I don't know if this applies to anyone else, but that's how i think.
p00p d00d b00b
i guess i commend you on finding those pics, i kinda forgot about them, so im not really upset that you saw them, hey, its a free web, but im just kinda embarrassed that it hit a /. posting...
*blush*
It`s not a matter of the women being willing to make the same sacrifices than the men. Think about it. Why did these women have to leave to look after the kids?
Why weren`t their husbands doing it? Why was it the women who were expected to do all the childcare work?
The men aren`t having to sacrifice anything, because they expect the women to run around after them picking up the pieces.
In Japan, one sex generally has a lot more time to pursue hobbies, has time for long lunches with friends, has more opportunities for leisure travel, and makes all of the financial decisions in the home. In the workplace, they very rarely put in more than an 8 hour day.
The other gender often catches the first train in the morning to go to work and the last train home at night, and often works weekends. Whatever leisure time they have is often expected to be spent socializing with customers, clients, or other employees. They turn over their paychecks to their spouses, who grant them an allowance for socializing expenses.
So which gender is discriminated against?
-jimbo
Whoo! Ya hit it right on the head. That drove me nuts. Of course, I went to a state school. I hope that real schools aren't in quite as bad shape.
My favorite classes were the ones where the prof would basically just barrel headlong through the course, not stopping for the lamers who hadn't learnt what they were supposed to in prereqs. They were almost universally unpopular, because most of the people in my school's CS program didn't like to work. Hell, most of them didn't have their own computers. *sigh*
--
A host is a host from coast to coast...
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
Because of the hysteria around sexual harrasment apparently many male professors are afraid to mentor their female students. Universities being as liberal as they are, the mail professor will be denied a defense. You can't exactly encourage your female students if you have to fear sexual harassment accusations.
It looks like I'll be going into Electrical Engineering with perhaps a joint major in CS. Hopefully at MIT, but I might end up applying to CMU as well if not Waterloo (where I'm already staked out, hah).
~~~NO CARRIER~~~
Geeks are rouintely discriminated against by women when it comes to dating and sex. If women want this kind of affirmitaive action for nonexistent sexism, then why shouldn't we get it for real discrimination. How many people think that a male geek is gay because he is continually rejected by women? Many and most are female.
A number of geek girls have responded on this topic. For those of you still in school, I just want you to know that not all IT shops obey the stereotypes that we've seen mentioned on this topic.
:)
I work at a S&P 500 utility in Florida. We have an in-house IT staff of several hundred. I'd say that roughly 30-40% are female. Half of the department heads are female, and our acting CIO is female. And these women aren't stuck in the touchy-feely areas either. We have female C programmers, Unix admins, Oracle DBAs, web programmers, etc., etc. Right now my own team doesn't have any females, but that's unusual. At one point it was about 70% female.
So what's the point? Just that these notions that women "can't do" the techie stuff are baloney. Some of the sharpest programmers I've known are women.
As to "encouraging" women to go into CS, I have mixed feelings about that. I'm not sure that -anyone- should be "encouraged" to go into CS. It's a very difficult field. Not because of the smarts required; plenty of fields require that. No, because of the commitment and dedication required. The field moves so fast; learning is constant. I think if you're not at least somewhat "driven" to be constantly learning about new technology, on your own time, then this is not the field for you. I've seen a number of young people burn out and leave the field (or worse, stay on and just become obsolete and incompetent) once they realized that graduating from college wasn't the end, but rather the beginning of their learning.
But if you're driven, whether male or female, hang in there, because we need you!
You mean, I assume, Grace Murray Hopper.
In High School, I was told that computers were for dorks and losers. Some of my teachers recommended that I go into business or sociology. I don't like computer games with gore... games like Simcity interested me. Yet, I overcame all these obstacles and still became the geek I am today.
But I'm a guy... so I guess that isn't anything special.
The point I'm trying to make is that (at least when I was in High School) many people are discouraged from going into CS/IT type programs. That is just the way people are.
I'm sure there are plenty of journalists, both male and female, that were discouraged from going into journalism... what's the big deal?!
If people encouraged you to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, would you? And if you did, is it their fault?
Ok, they market succesfully *and* it becomes apperant that a embarrasingly large percentage of them will fail the course! What will they do?!? Skew the grades of course! The whole system becomes cheapened since it becomes more of a political mouthpiece than a tool of education. It's no great loss however, the educational system is a farce for the most part anyway. I've seen this equality engineering in the workplace before. It's blindingly obvious when someone has been appointed a position they have no qualifications for and most likely very humiliating for the "equalized".
After reading all these comments, what I want to know is, what is it all you boys are afraid of?
Being outprogrammed by a GIRL? Grow up.
Thank you for giving the perfect explanation on why most programmers can not get hired after the age of 35. They want a life, companies want cheap labor. And yes it is cheaper to pay a 25 yr old $120,000 to work 16 hours than to pay a 35 $80,000 for 8 hours.
...one of the first Woman admirals.
She just invented the compiler, that's all;-)
Not to mention 50% of my CS professors...
I didn't read the article, but I have to say something. IMHO, "Trying to add memory to your computer" is a good thing not to try, regardless of gender, unless you are at least fairly deep into computers. Do you know the size, speed, parity, EDOness, feature-du-jour of your [SD]IMMs? I don't, and I built one of my machines from scratch!
To go with the gender analogy, I could see a similar note not to do your own RAM in Car and Driver or Popular Woodworking.
--The basis of all love is respect
Why was soccer all male until just recently?????
D. S. Advocate
Perhaps you might consider that females are socialy more 'group- oriented' , and do not generally wish to take up an interest which, if they were male, might at least proffer upon them some element of "coolness", but as a female, totally ostrasizes them from the group of both male programmers and 'normal' people. At least in high school, which is where most CS majors seem to get their start.
It's not that much easier for men in this respect.
At the risk of exhuming the hellmouth stories, geeks both male and female are generally ostracized from "normal" society.
As to which sex can cope better, I will leave that up to biology/psychology majors.
I do, however, resent the comment about female programmers being ostracized by male programmers.
I treat all programmers the same. Anyone who can code a decent program is at the top of my books.
The only difference with female programmers is that I'm much more likely to ask one to marry me =)
And people wonder why I'd NEVER send my kids to public school...
Also, I'd put a bit more weight on majors declared sophmore year than by entering freshmen/women.
1. There have always been more male programmers than female programmers (except for the first few years of the computer era when the hardware was guy's stuff and programming was seens as a woman's job, just like all the human calculators of the pre-computer era were female). Online porn is something of the last 5 years.
2. If you're online for porn you have no time to learn to program.
3. There are as many woman online as men.
Two years before I became a female Stanford CS major, I knew little about programming computers. Not until my mom got a PPP account (and configured our Mac's TCP/IP! I'm still proud of her..) did I begin to experiment with HTML, because I had to to express myself. Females learn programming because they have a project, not just for the sake of tinkering.
Anyway, I wrote a research paper for my high school senior project, Women in Computer Science, which has a bunch of internet background material references in the Research section. Enjoy.
a prophet on the burning shore
Actually, I was just thinking I wouldn't want my girlfriend to have to work with guys with some of the attitudes here. But then again, I guess with a lot of /. posts on other topics, you might not want to work with the folks expressing their opinions.
Finding porn (or anything else, for that matter) on the internet does NOT require programming skill, or even much "techno-savvy". Just point-click-and-drool on the spam that arrives in your mailbox.
--
Seeing is believing; You wouldn't have seen it if you didn't believe it.
i guess i commend you on finding those pics, i kinda forgot about them, so im not really upset that you saw them, hey, its a free web, but im just kinda embarrassed that it hit a /. posting...
*blush*
Dear Llewyn / Elysse,
Please accept my sincerest apologies in this matter. It wasn't my goal to embarrass you or make you blush, as you put it. You do have a right to be upset, even if it is "a free web". I reacted hastily by posting here to /., forgetting for a moment that it would be a "permanent record" (unless, as was the case, the photos were removed).
I made the assumption that since the photos were so easily found on your site (since there was no link to an "index" page from your rambleon page (I think), I just deleted the file name to get to an index page, which in this case gave me a directory listing, which led to your photos...), that the intention was to get others to view them -- your responses here on /. seem to indicate otherwise. Had I known that, I would have been considerably more reserved in my post.
I was being quite sincere in my compliments -- all of them -- even though I admit the 2nd and 3rd paragraph were meant in a light-hearted, joking fashion, yet they may not have come across that way. I wouldn't expect you to post any similar pictures. I misjudged you, your page, and the reaction(s) to my comment. For that, I am sorry.
In response to Andra, for the sake of this public forum; it is not my goal to make others around me uncomfortable, even in little ways, men or women (and I haven't stated my own gender). Many of my friends, geeks and non-geeks consider me a generally considerate, helpful and kind person, yet I admit, I have been known to succumb to foot-in-mouth-syndrome, as is the case here. I do agree with Andra -- it is "the little things", those things people rarely pay attention to, but which add up over time, and which are reenforced, almost subconscious responses that can so affect attitudes. Glaring mistakes are easier to flame, no?
Anyway, I'm going on and on; the purpose -- I hope! -- of this message accomplished, I should end now. Llewyn, once again, I hope my post didn't inconvenience you too much. If you would like to contact me further about this, a post here will do to notify me (as I don't wish to put my email down willy-nilly).
-- sean
Hear, hear!
I'm tired of being in the minority at work.
Being mainly a Cognitive Psychology Geek, I have to differ. The differences of thought are more towards the profound. Being a biology geek, I am sure you understand why a calico cat looks the way it does. Have you ever stopped to consider the brain of that cat? Major differences between males and females have been proven through most mammals all the way down to rats. Don't get me wrong. I *like* having women in the workplace. Women can be every bit as brilliant as men. But this cognitive equality BS needs to die.
In university, I had a friend who had taken needlework at school. Despite it being totally illegal, her school split by gender: girls did needlework and boys did woodwork. No choice in the matter. I remember being shunted out of the way when the school computer arrived, despite knowing more than the others did about how to work the thing, because I was female.
With that kind of thing -- and the report Yosemite Sue refers to is an excellent demonstration that it's not unique (read it, it's good) - I see little reason to get into all this unspecific "research shows that there are inborn differences" stuff. (Comp sci must be different; we were taught to provide references when quoting research.) There's a _lot_ that could do with fixing way after birth. Teachers who think that one subject is more suitable than another for girls or boys, for example. Feh.
Note: I'm neither a hacker nor a programmer, but I know plenty of both. Both genders, too. And it pisses me off bigtime to see this "Well, girls and boys are just different, that's all" crap, and I'm afraid that whilst it persists, jokes about "We could do with more women, especially pretty ones" aren't funny. Unfortunately, the attitude comes up too often when it's not a joke.
For the International Olympiads in Informatics, we Dutch require our team to consist of two boys and two girls. The girls are selected from the 2 or 3 female contenstants that take part in the prelimary rounds. (And of course the boys from the hundreds of male contestants.) If you want to see what happens at the international competitions, read this and search for "logo" and "zero points".
No wonder we Purdue(west lafayette) CS gets less females this year. Send them back damn it!
I suppose encouragement and role models will help with some people. It didn't help for me, but maybe since I'm male I had some innate ability to not be thrown by that. As far as computers went, I received no encouragement and had no role models.
I went through school picking and choosing what I wanted to learn (And boy did my grades suffer for it). When it came to computers, I learned outside of the curriculum (I didn't take CS in highschool. I snuck some of the microprocessor and assembly manuals from the electronics shop and read them on the bus and during my boring school subjects).
I'm probably not the same as most programmers out there. I'm probably not the same as most people out there either. Then again, most people wouldn't write CPU emulation cores in their spare time.
Even with that support, it was still difficult to be an intelligent girl interested in science and technology.
It's difficult being intelligent. Period.
I'm sure you must realize just how annoying it is trying to hold a technical/political/whatever discussion with the general riff-raff who's only experience with books amounts to leveling the sofa.
(Recently a VB instructor commented to me that as well as being one of his "best" students, I was one of his "prettiest"... what an effective way to reduce me to a superficial level!!!)
Ok, this is just plain lame. I'd have decked him one.
Better yet, you should have decked him one. If he complained, just tell him you're evening the score (sexual harassment and all).
-- A true hack's computer never has the case on.
For a counter example, I only had to show that there was someone who would want to be the only X for any room. I showed that (I guess that in order to be complete, I should specify a room -> my bedroom).
If I was in a situation where I was naked in a train station, a police station, a bar, or a jail cell, for what ever reason, I do not think I would want other naked men there with me. I think that the word "most" holds. I cannot think of a situation where I would want to be in a room with other naked men.
I guess that if I was in a room with a rapist, I would want there to be a better looking naked man in the room to act as decoy as I made my cowardly escape (or hit said rapist over the head with a 2x4).
it becomes apperant that a embarrasingly large percentage of them will fail the course!
If you're stupid enough to have such faith in untested assumptions, I can only assume that you would have failed the course as well.
Furthermore, it's their university, not yours. I realize it's absurd to suppose that the people running CMU know more about education than some random loser on Slashdot, but nevertheless they don't seem willing to take orders from you. Whaddya gonna do?
oh yegods! its not /that/ bad! no harm done, no harm taken! as i appreciate your formal apology, and if *you* wish to communicate with me further, email me (thats why its there, you know, if i was uncomfortable with emails i would be an AC too.), and from one geek to another: im glad you said something about it, because goddess only knows how long other people have been going there *nervous giggle*..
but seriously, i was not offended, and yes, i am open for communication.
Thanks.
So we see where old school meets new school.
Those old stereotypes no longer apply: this generations computer industry workers are not the forlorn lonely social zeroes of yesteryear, and I would think that more of us would be bitter about the use of such depricated ideas.
Furthermore, why not geek love geek instead of geek love brain-dead waif or geek love brain-dead jock? Once again the type of mate you seem to idealize only exposes the shallowness of your person.
bullshit !
Women for the most part don't like technology.
It is true and you know it. How many female friends you have that share the same interest in computers as you do ?
This is typical politically correct agenda-based "journalism". I'm sure the reason that programmers are mostly guys has something to do with the way their brains are wired.
Oh, you're sure, are you? Well, golly gee! That settles it. The Anonymous Coward (the other Anonymous Coward, I mean, not me) is sure! There's nothing more to be said. Don't bother with the evidence, guys. The AC KNOWS these things. How does he know? He just kmows, that's all, and if you demand proof, why then you must be motivated by some kind of "politically-correct agenda". That's distinct from the AC's agenda, which isn't "politically correct", so it's okay.
Two words: Who cares? There are much better things to worry about in the world. Hey did you know that lama farming is a male orintated past time.... mabey your government should PUT some of your tax payer dollars towards that two.....
I run a (IT) business in Australia and if I put on a female trainee I get a grant from the government? and it is SIGNIFICANTLY (IE $1000) more than the male grant. Their reason....... "not a traditional female occupation.... Someone please tell me, hasn't computing technology (as we know it IE electronics) been around for the last 30 years, whats that half a life time?
I think from this we all can gather a few things.........
1. Governments suck.
2. Women in IT is kewl but really is it a newsworthy subject?
3. Why are females in everything such an issue?, isn't that a type of discrimination?
I believe COBOL was created by Grace Hopper.
Esther Dyson is on the board of ICANN
What was your domain name again? (clicky-click)
As for the "compliment", yeah, there is room for debate over its appropriateness and if I am overreacting in feeling that it was inappropriate.
You are not overreacting. It was inappropriate.
The fact is that he is a teacher. His only interest in the matter should be with her mind.
I'd have felt pretty uneasy if my teacher had said "You are not only the smartest, but the most handsome as well". I'd feel even more uneasy if he was a guy =)
- little girls *are* given Barbies and baby dolls, and boys are given mechanical toys. Girls are expected to be quiet and feminine, while boys are encouraged to get dirty and take apart the toaster.
...
There is a lack of good software for girls right now
These two sentences seem contradictory.
In the top one you are suggesting that girls should not be raised in the stereotypical "girl" sense.
In the second sentence you are suggesting that computer games should be tailored to match the stereotypical "girl".
Here are some interesting questions raised:
- Are girls by nature more nurturing, or is it purely of environmental influence?
- Are dolls more appropriate toys for girls?
- Are girls really into the ruff n tumble play to the same degree that boys are?
When I was in gradeschool, the boys' favorite lunchtime game was war, using sticks for guns, and watching the lunchtime fight, if there was one.
The girls' favorite game was gossiping about the latest events (i.e. which girl everyone hated now) and playing dolls.
Play tended to merge somewhat in the later grades, though.
I thought it might be useful for you guys to read this excerb from Appendix B of the Hacker Dictionary (aka Jargon File):
Hackerdom is still predominantly male. However, the percentage of women is clearly higher than the low-single-digit range typical for technical professions, and female hackers are generally respected and dealt with as equals.
In the U.S., hackerdom is predominantly Caucasian with strong minorities of Jews (East Coast) and Orientals (West Coast). The Jewish contingent has exerted a particularly pervasive cultural influence (see Food, above, and note that several common jargon terms are obviously mutated Yiddish).
The ethnic distribution of hackers is understood by them to be a function of which ethnic groups tend to seek and value education. Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon and tends to be met with freezing contempt.
When asked, hackers often ascribe their culture's gender- and color-blindness to a positive effect of text-only network channels, and this is doubtless a powerful influence. Also, the ties many hackers have to AI research and SF literature may have helped them to develop an idea of personhood that is inclusive rather than exclusive -- after all, if one's imagination readily grants full human rights to future AI programs, robots, dolphins, and extraterrestrial aliens, mere color and gender can't seem very important any more.
--
And let's not forget Hillary Gorman , whose NetAxs.com business card said "Support Goddess", and who immortalised the phrase "Lusername Deleted" on the Luser Voice Mail From Hell archive.
Geek chicks are so few, that in my school, the girls get their pick of the hoardes of geek guys. So, unfortunately, most of us geek guys have to get our lovin' elsewhere. I for one would encourage MANY more women, one's with nice cute butts, to get into computing.
-Ben
-Ben
bensmith@biz1.net
Adding encouragement to a particular group is one thing. Making a quota is quite another.
Yeah, nice view. But:
What's the point of carrying out a political program if you're not going to measure its success?
And how do you propose to measure success, other than by results?
Quotas look like a necessary evil to me.
jsm
Oh, I don't think I could have made it into CMU. Pretty poor student actually. I just see this as some sort of radical move by CMU that might backfire in their faces. Skewing the averages is not a new practice either and seems like the only way out if this turns out to be fiasco.
I have found that the guys who complain the most about ugly women tend to look a lot more like Ernest Borgnine than Brad Pitt. I've known "butt ass ugly" guys who refused to go out with anyone less than a supermodel. Of course, that meant that they ended up not going out with anyone at all.
Frankly, your reaction sounds to me like "Men have it tough too, so shut up and stop whinging". If that's your attitude, fine. Have a nice life, and I hope you're never blocked by some bizarre convention and when you tell people that it exists you're told you're whining.
I can't even begin to answer the final sentence; however it's an excellent demonstration that trying to assess character through writing doesn't work. "Ruminating on wrongs"? Sorry, but that's actually rather funny.
I fail to see why there should be an even gender distribution in computer science, or any profession. The simple fact that the current distribution is the way it is would be sufficient proof of a general difference in aptitude by gender.
Why is the american baseball association not 50 percent female? Why is the NFL all male?????
Artifically inducing an equal gender distribution via encoragement, gender based discrimination, or bias in favor of a single gender at an institional level is the beginning of a subtle and damaging trend in the quality of the profession.
Communism also seeks an artifical distribution, although it is of wealth. Communism has also proven itself to be less efficient then democracy and capitalism - which are both based on freedom and equality. Somehow, the idea the there should be the same number of males and females in the computer science field strikes me as of a communist nature. The reality is that there is not, so why should there be?
I know that there are many very skilled and talented females in the CS world, and even more skilled and talented males. I cannot but feel that it is discriminatory and wrong to offer encouragment to one gender over another.
I'm not sure I quite follow you...
If you carry out a program, you can do statistical analysis to measure the results.
A quota is a pre-determined amount that must be met.
Who determines the quota? Someone who professes to know the "correct" amount that "should be".
And as we all know in the real world, once a quota is in place, it must be met, even if it doesn't match reality.
Of course, if you are carrying out a political program, you would want to measure it's success.
I'm not criticizing the measurement.
I am criticizing the political program.
hah! well, it was said to us when we had our first departmental meeting and sign-up for classes..
"Congratulations! you are the first class to break the Female-To-Dave ratio.. there are more females than 'Daves' in this class!"
I kinda resent the comments about it's all just affirmative active taking play. It's not. Just talking with the other girls here, they have just as much of a CS background as the males.
I am just waiting for the day that the female thing isn't an issue. It is kind of uncomfortable.. at any predominantly engineering/science school, you're gonna get the same gender disparities, I suppose.
Hahahahahahaha! You're kidding, right? 'Cause I don't know a single woman (in any field) who would even consider going out with a guy who just wants a little wifey. (Actually, I know one, but she's kind of psycho.) Good luck finding yourself a little wifey, because you're gonna need it, pal! Signed, a non-programming woman who is geeky nonetheless and whose programmer boyfriend likes her that way.
way to not read your post before sending it! Anyhow, I meant "offer nothing new." I had a mysterious "no" in there.
Hey, have a nice one, guy.
a perfect response. Thank you for putting it into words better than I ever could.
"The horse leech's daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum does not vary."
...didn't graduage from a college/university computer science program.
...and that goes for both male and female.
...in fact, I've long regarded college as a cop-out.
...if those who can't do teach, then those who won't do are taught.
Speaking as a professional female developer, I am very much agains affirmative action. I beleive I got this job on my merits alone and would hate to think I was part of some quota.
Nevertheless, I do think there is a need for some positive re-enforcement of the idea that, regardless of gender, a good programmer is a good programmer. My parents told me that my desire to do a Copmp Sci course at university was due to the fact that I was a "tomboy" and I would grow out of it. (I haven't yet) And my "A" level comp-sci teacher discouraged girls from taking his class as we "would not follow through and get jobs in the industry."
We need a few female ESRs and Linus Torvalds, something for us to aspire to. I'm certainly encouraging a female friend who is a gifted developer but going towards the Business Analysis route (because it is more "suitable" for a woman) not to think in such stereotypes.
As for us being better at the touchy feely, human interaction stuff... all my best friends are programmers or research comp scientists. What does that say about *my* social life!
im a female programmer!! I'm sorry, but an AC below just proved that you don't exist. Your brain's wired the wrong way, you see, so you're really just a figment of your own imagination. Either that, or you're a castrating, man-hating lesbian feminist taking a job away from a man somewhere -- a man who, while admittedly less competent than you, nevertheless "deserves" your job in some mystical way that nobody is quite able to explain. Heh. I think I'm going to spend a very pleasant afternoon flaming ditto-heads today.
... sure they can program and succeed in technical fields. I won't dispute that. The problem is that most of em are just butt ass ugly.
Maybe my experiences have been particularly unusual, but half my computer course were female and the years below me also had a similar male/female split. In the company I'm currently working in has a large proportion of female programmers as well. I think the idea that computers are for men only has definitly gone the way of the Dodo.
Well, so the women in computing now get their pick of guys. Be cute and polite and maybe you'll luck out. Otherwise, you'd better recruit.
Indeed! Induct today!
Recruit! Recruit! Recruit!
(happy to have my pick of nice guys; but willing to subvert more of the female populace)
bz
Nuff said...
Ha!
So what does this guy want? Let me guess - a nuclear physicist? A political investigative journalist? A photographer for National Geographic? Something tells me maybe not...
If being a programmer is enough to discourage morons like that, then thank my lucky start that I am a programmer.
Love to all the smart grrlz & to all the men who are sane & human enough to want a smart girl & not a stepford wife,
xx
Wench
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
My gf was badly burned by this. She grew up with Spectrums & stuff, and was into programming at an early age. However her school didn't believe that women could understand computers, and forbade her from taking CS lessons (Oh did I mention this is the same school who put someone with a 140+ IQ in a mental school for a year?).
:-)
There were allegedly several conversations at college that went like this..
"What do you want to do?"
"I want to work with computers."
"Oh it says here you can type. Have you considered doing secretarial work?"
"No, I want to work with computers."
"Ahh you mean word processor operator!"
"Aargh!" (hits head on desk) "No, I want to work with computers!!!"
etc...
Eventually she came out with a typing and administration qualification. Yeah. Loads of use.
I am now teaching her C, and she's really getting into hacking around with Linux. I'll try to bash a few heads to get her onto a CS course at college but I'm not hopeful really (realistically to do it properly she would have to start again at O & A levels and it would take about 8 years before she got a degree).
I get really angry at an education system that labels people then tries to force them into stereotypes. Anything that changes that (even slightly) is welcome.
Tony
(Apologies to all the US types who have no idea what O and A levels are, but I have no idea about your 'grade' system either, so we're even...
When programmers start making more than movie stars, you might see more prom queens burning the midnight oil in gdb. :)
I am all for schools encouraging females to enter CS programs, but the real steps IMO need to be taken with girls while they are young. In a lot of cases, the problems are not just that girls are not encouraged to experiment and play with computers/technology, but that they are discouraged (sometimes actively, sometimes subtly). Around Junior High seems to be a critical time for girls, determining whether they will have the self-confidence to succeed in what they want to do, or whether they will succumb to the popular ideal and submerge their own personality.
... yet. Unfortunately, that is not the case for a lot of women.
...
Girls also need more positive role models in science and technology. This has got to be one of the toughest things - society, as a whole, does not reward women who embark on a traditionally male-dominated career path. How many female instructors/professors have you witnessed in the physical sciences and in computer technology? This lack of role models is something that is rarely acknowledged as a problem, but has been shown to affect career choices of female students.
I am lucky - my parents encouraged me to do what I wanted, and to have confidence in myself. Even with that support, it was still difficult to be an intelligent girl interested in science and technology. Subtle prejudice from teachers ("But you're so good at English!!!") and peer pressure made my life difficult at times. I still find sometimes that my appearance is taken more seriously than my work (Recently a VB instructor commented to me that as well as being one of his "best" students, I was one of his "prettiest"... what an effective way to reduce me to a superficial level!!!)
Oooh, the rant must stop. But as one of the minority of female programmers here, I just have to mention that there is a lot of negative stuff that still affects females in non-traditional areas. I am lucky, most of the negative feedback I have had has been silly and petty, and hasn't limited my advancement
Sometimes I wonder if I *should* be encouraging females to go into CS/IT
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
If I was to walk naked through a street or train station I'd prefer to do it with a bunch of mates rather than all alone.
Let's face it, 50 naked guys in a sauna is normal and quite acceptable and nobody would be embarrased. If you were the only naked person in a room with 50 fully dressed men, you would probably be pretty damn embarrased.
As a male programmer, I went to University in a class with 49% women. While they're all working in the IT industry, I don't know how many of them are actually *programming*.
I'm also a musician, and find a lot of similarities: the creative aspect tempered with a need for technical proficiency. And I find a similar reaction from women when discussing the technicalities of either. They are just not interested. They can laugh about how they have no interest in it, but can talk about shoes for 2 hours. But they still do it.
There are, of course, some women who are interested. And let's never forget that the field of computer programming was created by a woman.
As for the very politically-correct assertation that the brains of women and men are the same, let me pose a hypothetical: if you're looking for someone to mind your kids, would your first choice be a man or a woman? Exactly. Of couse there are differences, the crime isn't in recognising this - it's in using it as a means to discriminate unfairly.
Vive la differance.
I am not a woman.
I am a programmer.
I would NEVER even consider getting seriously involved with a woman that is a programmer. I'd rather have somebody that is going to be a good wife - and none of the few female programmers I know come close to fitting this requirement.
So, girls, if being a spinster until you die at eighty appeals to you, by all means start writing code.
Hmmm... I'm having trouble distinguishing between your argument and that of the other AC. Care to post some evidence yourself rather than just pointing out that the other AC didn't?
;)
It'll be much harder for folks to ignore the evidence if you'll post it!
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Why not just mandate that 50% of engineers must be female? There could be an upside to this, guys!
Wow. If getting to marry people like you is my alternative to being a spinster........
At any rate, trust me. Women programmers have NO trouble finding geek boys to date.
C'mon! You're making the rest of these boys looks bad!
'Sides, I think that those who don't wanna date a female programmer, or don't think that women should be encouraged to program, are actually afraid that women could prgogram just as well as they can.
And from what I've seen, the other chick programmers mop the floor with most the you guy programmers.
It's not "genetic" or taught. It's all about access to the toys. While most boys are getting tools, and Erector sets, girls are getting Barbie dolls and tea sets. How the heck is a girl supposed to know that it's ok to be a geek if she never gets the chance to see if she likes it! Sure, no on is telling us that we can't program. But no one is telling us that we can!
Anyways... enough of my rant.
-C.
It DOES have something to do with a lack of social skills which social behavior seems hard-wired into women's heads unlike men who can be solitary with no problems. Perhaps it stems from the time where men would leave the family to make money or kill an animal or whatever and return. Seriously I *WISH* there was something that could be done to have more women in the programming sector but they dont seem driven enough. Women arent usually out there to conquor the metal beast which is the PC. Men have evolved to CONQUOR animals in a hunter/gatherer environment. I just dont see it happening. What I seriously DO dislike though is the wannabe female hackers from AOL trying to impose their nazi-eske curse word censorship on irc channels. THAT I wont put up with.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Not to say that there's not a few problems with these ideas...
When I started work as a programmer back in 1979, the establishment had about 100 programmers and the male/female split was about 60/40.
"I just don't trust anything that bleeds for 5 days and doesn't die..."
JUST KIDDING!
One of my best friends is also coworker of mine, and she is one of the smartest people I have ever met, as well as the best programmer I know.
This has nothing to do with political correctness, or how brains are wired. Women just need to feel more welcome and less threatened in computer science programs. I NEVER had a female professor in the computer science department, and the number of women in the classes could usually be counted on the fingers of one hand. I think efforts to encourage women to study CS are long overdue.
How about...
Lady Ada Lovelace?
Capt. Grace Hopper?
Ann Winblad?
Brenda Laurel?
Pattie Maes?
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
The man's brain and the female brain are not compatible. Right away when a man is born he will like tools(all kinds, including breasts perhaps?:) very much...and this interest will go with him all his life. But when a female is born she will not have this interest in tools(including computers)..and will never develope much interest in tools.. but if the kid when it is in the mom's belly and is exposed to a lot of mens hormons she will like tools... but on the other hand if a boy is exposed to female hormons in the belly he want like tools....and may be a fag?;) bioligy 101, hehe
> "trying to add memory to your computer" under a sidebar of 5 things *not* to try!
:-(
This was in the 50's, right?
I'm at CMU, and I'd say that very few women taking CS are actually in it for reasons other than "it's where the money is". Of course there is also a depressing large percentage of males in the same mindset...
This is just a bit crazy. If you were encouraged, fine, but don't encourage other people. If they WANT to be programmers, they'll be programmers. This sort of thing is just plain stupid. We're going to end up with a bunch of retarded programmers that will go work for MS and make even worse kernels to base ever worse OS's on. Don't take this as a sexist comment, I would say the same if the programming field was dominated by women and someone was "envouraging" men to program. If they want to program, they will. They'll be the good ones that go off and do nice things like alan cox. If they don't want to program, or weren't thinking about it until being persuaded, they'll probably be little morons and do stupid things like Stef from UF and end up borrowing code from "hello world"
Just my 3 or 4 cents...
---------------------------
---------------------------
Mine tried to discourage me from sending applications to CMU and UIUC because "I should go to a community college for two years and then get my degree from a local college."
He also tried to discourage my friend from majoring in music because "she probably wouldn't make it in music" (though he admitted he didn't know how good she was...)
It's a very painful idea that he shapes minds for a living...
-- Scream, Dracula, Scream!
I'm a guy, and there isn't enough social interaction for me in programming, either.
I think people develop their intellectual skills only as much as they need to in order to satisfy their emotional needs. It's almost always a last resort. I was a social outcast when I was a kid, and got into literature and computers to compensate for a lack of human interaction. It seems to me that girls are much less likely to be in this position. There's so much demand for the company of girls, just because they're girls, that most girls are likely to find plenty to keep them busy (parties, etc.) without having to resort to developing their minds.
--
A girl in my CS class at high school ended up going to CMU. She's a freshman there now. Her name's Kristen.
I don't think that anyone has to worry about attracting women to CompSci and higher education. I recently read some articles indicating that the percentage of women in higher education was increasing, and that more men were opting for shorter technical degrees or trade schools. With the increased demand for hi-tech employees, you might do better short-term with a tech certification that doesn't demand a high level of overall education. So, more men are taking that route, where women are tending to stick with 4-year programs (and advanced degrees). Some studies predicted that in a few years, as much as 80 or 90 percent of enrolled students at most universities would be women.
The simple fact that the current distribution is the way it is would be sufficient proof of a general difference in aptitude by gender.
If people weren't affected by the attitudes prevalent in the environment, that statement wouldn't be hilarious, but they are and it is. A hundred years ago it was considered "obvious" that women weren't interested in, say, being doctors. Have you looked at the medical profession lately? Hell, a century ago it was considered "obvious" that women weren't interested in any careers at all -- if they worked, it was because they were driven to it by poverty, and they did something unskilled. Now, of course, we all know women who have interesting, responsible jobs because they like having such jobs. With or without a Y chromosome, smart people like to use their brains. Deal with it. It's not a male characteristic, it's a human characteristic.
"All other things being equal", you'd be right, but "all other things" never are equal.
In a nutshell: 100 years ago, there were damned few, if any, women doctors. Now there are a good many; perhaps not 50%, but well into double digits. So which percentage is the "natural" state here? Your view implies that that percentage either cannot have changed, or has been changed artificially. So go chat up some male residents at your local hospital, and find out what they think about their female colleagues. If you're honest enough to listen, you'll find that everybody is held to the same standards, and they're all there because they want very badly to be there (with the occasional exception of those whose parents pressured them into it; but that's not gender-linked, and very few of those last into residency).
You're inventing excuses to believe what you want to believe, rather than simply facing facts. The difference between science and religious belief is that science is all about inventing theories to fit observed facts, while religion is all about inventing facts to fit received theories. So you seem to be in the grip of a religion here. Maybe you can apply for tax-exempt status. Give it a whirl; you've got very little else going for you.
Speaking from experience, and as a CMU student, I have to sadly say that there is a cost for this increased female recruitment.
The CMU CS department has long been known to recruit people with strong math scores, which to the powers that be, are more important than even practical programming experience...
But in speaking with some of the freshman this year, both men and women alike, it was hard to find anyone, especially women, who had any computer experience at all. One even mentioned to me that they had no practical computer experience at all...
So CS recruitement for women is up 35%, but are these recruits best suited for CS? Perhaps, with their high math scores, they are better suited for other fields, such as mathematics.
I'm not saying by any means that women should not be computer scientists. In fact, read my last paragraph, you'll note that mathematics is another male dominated field.
Also, one last note, dispite the number of recuruits, the true test will be the number of CS graduates. Sadly, this past year, you could count the number of female CS graduates on one hand. (I'm fairly sure, regardless, it was extremely low). In four years, will we see a 35% women CS graduation?
I am a freshman CompE student. I graduated out of a 900 student Highschool. There were about 3 SERIOUS computer nuts in my class, all male. There were also about 20 peaple I would call computer capable, with about 2 being girls. The situation is about the same for the class that graduated ahead of me. The girls seamed to understand the "surface" elements of computers (point here, click here) but I never saw one of them intrested in the inner workings (Programing, etc..). Now just for the record, we had a 50/50 mix of male/femaile in both science and math. I dont know what the diffrence was. Our High School CS teacher was even a female. If there was anyone discouraging females from CS, it was the school councelers, and there piers.
Well, that is not really that far off. When I was at UT Austin, admittedly a liberal hotbed, back in the early '80s, they were going through much the same thing. I was in Liberal Arts (English) and there was a massive push going on to get more women into the department. This went poorly, to be kind. The bulk of the problem was that the super-liberal, incredibly sensitive, power-to-the-people English Department radicals were really some of the most unpleasant, immature, unethical, selfish people around. It was startling, for a starry-eyed and naive young thing like me to discover that the professors whom I thought knew it all, who had impeccable liberal credentials, who went to all the right protests and had all the right t-shirts, were deeply offended if you challenged them in class, were deeply afraid of women, and would jump you every chance they got. I learned to keep the office doors open. These were the people in charge of implementing the quotas that the administration was requiring for hiring minorities and women. Well, these paragons of caring and social progress just didn't. When I left, after an amazingly painful MA made nearly impossible by my objecting to a tenured professor's theft of my research notes and a series of nasty encounters with 60's relics who had serious problems with women unless they were on top of them (literally), I decided never to go back. At that point, six years after I got there, there were (IIRC) 6 women and two black people in the entire department. Almost all were of questionable quality and were female and black versions of the 60's weirdos who would nearly have a stroke when you would do things like suggest that deconstructing The Taming of the Shrew from a feminist perspective was an exercise of limited utility. Some progress. And then I went to work as a secretary, turned out (thanks to my battles with UT's awful equipment) to be the only one who could fix the copier, wound up managing NetWare and UNIXWare, and thence to Solaris and HP-UX and SAP, more than ten years later. I liked UNIX (hell, I liked DOS and I liked NetWare) just because there is a lot there to satisfy a thirst for knowledge, not unlike language and literature. More to the point (sorry, I am rambling), I have been through a quota deal before and I have to say that the responses that I am reading here (well, quotas are OK, I have been priveledged enough, this is just "recruitment" not affirmative action) are spookily redolant of what I was hearing in 1983. It is a very bad idea. I have a hard time arguing with trying to get more women into the sciences -- I love what I do and wish that I had been required to take at least one MIS class when I had been an undergraduate, as it could have saved me from three years of hell -- but I just don't see that that will happen. They WILL let in the unqualified and they WILL let them slide on grades and they WILL allow unqualified people to slow everyone else down. I don't know about engineering or even CS as I learned it all OJT, but I have found that this profession (system administration, now SAP) really required you to do stuff on your own, with no encouragement and no hand-holding. I don't see how I would be benefitted by having to deal with an applicant pool full of insecure and whiny girls who had been shepherded through a program that was supposed to teach independant thought. It sounds pretty nightmarish to me, really -- "Liiiiiiiindaaaa, that user was MEAN to me!" And given that I work in a male-dominated industry (oil services) and I am not unattractive, I really don't need that many more challenges to my percieved abilities that would come from an influs of unqualified young women. I wish that I could be nicer here, but I have seen this and it didn't work because (and this is an important point) the system is the way it is now for a reason. At UT, the professors were afraid of women, lechers, little boys searching for their mothers, whatever, but the fact that there weren't any women there wasn't by accident. The fact that there aren't any women coming into CS at this place is a pity, but I would suggest that this is because of the priorities of the people in charge of the department, and what are the odds that they will do something like this right? Right. It would be far better to require an MIS survey course and allow women with an interest to self-select.
Here's a URL for a wired story that discusses ENIAC's programmers.
m l
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/story/3711.ht
I think we can rule out "brains are wired wrong". I'd like to hear a good explanation because computer science seems rather gender independent to me. I'd certainly do whatever I can (probably very little) to make the field friendlier to women.
Jim
Thank you. I feel the same with individual differences nazis who insist that IQ doesn't matter and if it doesn, well, it must be racist/sexist/etc. I like math. I like stats. I like computers, albeit as tools, and I love Fortran. I know that I am unusual and I cannot understand why I have to be concerned about the rest of the women out there who can't think, count, reason, or respond under pressure. I think that some of it is social, but an awful lot is hard wired, and hopefully, before I am bearing children, we will be able to fix that. I like the fact that IQ is 85% genetic and that my kids would have an excellent change of having a useful IQ, but I really don't want girls who cry every time they see a squashed squirrel on the road. I certaily would like to see more women in the harder fields, but I am not going to give anyone a break. As for people who can't grasp that, I think that Menken said "Sloppy writing comes from sloppy thinking, and sloppy thinking comes from stupidity." And for any flamers out there, as Rossanne said, "For those of you who don't think that I am feminine enough, well, you can suck my dick!"
I agree with you. Engineering/CS are bad for femininity according to my empirical study. The above mentioned areas are too "cold" for women to keep their feminine insticts alive. Please, don't tell me about the exceptions to the rule you have witnessed. Let's talk about the rule intstead! OK, the modern feminine man might not care whether his SO has any feminine insticts left or not. It is sad that the girls to whom CS is marketed don't realize what kind of mistake they are making. There seem to be no values above ambition in the current American society.
For anyone who thinks that women aren't discouraged from working as programmers, a quick look at many of the posts here should enlighten them as to why this environment can sometimes be hostile for females ... Interesting that the majority of these comments are from ACs!
YS
PS. It is nice to see the occasional non-sexist comment from the guys out there!
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
And, so, the good old school system messes up some more lives.
(Not to mention the fact that when they do become programmers, there are twerps like me, who's hormones are a little too active, and sometimes get a little too `attached'.)
Why is the ABA and NFL all male? Because they don't hire women. Why don't they? Because there's no qualified women. Why aren't there any qualified women? Because there's very few women football programs in college or high school. Why not? Because it's just not done.
So... who knows how many great women football players they could get if they actively recruited women? We'll never know, since economic and cultural barriers make it all but impossible.
Looking at the average for a profession indicates a *statistical* relationship, not a *causal* relationship. NFL players aren't male because men are better football players, NFL players are male because the NFL recruits men.
I'm sure you could froth at the mouth about how women aren't as strong as NFL players, and how they're slower, blah blah blah. You can't compare the average woman to the average NFL player. Try comparing the average man to the NFL player.
You can't tell who would be great for a job just by looking at who normally occupies those jobs. (It would mean that white guys are *meant* to be in power, and that sounds too much like manifest destiny for me.)
Also, please leave the Red Baiting at home. It's great that you're a flaming Capitalist. Yeehaw. Moving on...
CMS is not actively recruiting women at the expense of men, they're tapping into a market that has gone untouched for too long. Isn't that what capitalism is all about?
It's not quotas, it's not affirmative action, it's not keeping the Man down. They just feel that females would bring a little something to the classes... and they're right.
So... big thumbs up for CMS!
-- I can't think of anything witty to put here. Sorry.
What's so depressing about it, other than they're wasting their time when the could be doing something they really love. In a couple of years, they'll be burned out, and will go back to school and get an MBA so they can be "where the money" is...that giant sucking sound is the number of open jobs.
James
I might personally know one woman on the internet who's as driven as I am to make computers jump through hoops. Or (having met her face to face) she could be a guy in net-drag. Of course, real programmers are always in short supply. In the past 4 jobs I've had, I've only met three, and the first one introduced me to another.
No kidding! I think that people who simply don't think of women as capable have never been around them, in other words, they are the products of the suburbs with submissive, tame wives. And they hate them. My mother didn't take anything from anyone. I grew up thinking that this was normal. When women would be sneaky and deceptive, it would drive me crazy -- I was used to women getting in my face and telling me "their feelings." (Like "You get your ass back in your room until you can show me all of your homework done or you better pray for rapture cause that is the only think that will stop me beating your ass until you don't have an ass left to beat!") Women should try standing up on their own -- they can generally do it. I was 6'6" in ninth grade and the only thing that I feared was my 5'2" mother.
When I was getting my CompSci degree at Eastern Michigan University (class of '94, 60%+ female majority at the 25,000 student campus), we tried to encourage more women to sign up for CompSci (all but 1-2 of the handful of existing women were older or foreign students). Invariably, they'd wrinkle up their noses and say "I don't like computers". Mind you, some of these women were in other hard sciences (chemisty, etc). It was rare for 400-level classes to have any women students.
Now that I've been in the working world for a few years, I've noticed a much greater number of women in the workforce than my experience at EMU would suggest (3 of the 6 programmers at my first job), tho a disproportionate number of them are 40-something and in management.
Dunno what to do about this. Don't really consider it a "problem", maybe an annoyance. Really can't figure out what the dropoff between 40-something and 20-something women in the field is all about.
It's much better to go out hunting for female progammers in order to have some certain percentage filled. Seriously thoughy, no one said anything about females taking programming jobs away from males. It was my understanding that there is a shortage in the field and employers are taking all they can get. You just made that thing about women taking jobs and guys being annoyed about it up. While I dont doubt similar things have been said by people in the past, it wasn't mentioned here and it doesn't speak highly of your character for bringing it up without a valid reason. Perhaps you just like to argue. Anyhow, happy random flaming. If you feel like shooting some my way, feel free to make stuff up and throw a few words in my mouth here and there. I'm sure I'll live
Hey, have a nice one, guy.
Two female computer science role models come to mind. First of all in the millionare category there is Ester Dyson, who really is one of the most respected pundits/Vulture Capialist types around. As for females who can code, there's Adelle Goldberg from back at PARC who was a major player in the creation of Smalltalk.
The role models are there, if people bother to look.
... lady Ada's time.
Maybe we should encourage women to take an interest in motorcars, football and extreme sports too? I don't think most women (indeed most men) are interested in being programmers and I don't see why they should be encouraged just for the sake of trying to achieve some supposed utopian situation were there is exactly 50/50 sex split in all careers, sports etc. etc. I personally think we should spend our enery encouraging women to attend etiquette school and to learn to become housewives/mothers/supermodels :p ~~ __G__
I'm having trouble distinguishing between your argument and that of the other AC.
It's easy: He's arguing that women can't write code, the reason for this being that he says they can't. I, on the other hand, am arguing that he's a jackass. He posted my evidence for me.
I'm amused by the way so many slashdotters go apeshit when somebody suggests that boys aren't smarter than girls. I'm not going to waste my time throwing facts at them, any more than I waste my time arguing with creationists or scientologists. People believe what they want to. It's no skin off my ass what they believe, but when their antics are amusing I reserve the right to laugh.
I don't want to say anything about "Why Women Aren't Geeks". It seems everyone here has their own opinion (social, political, brain 'wiring', upbringing) and honestly all they are is factless opinions. The truth of the matter is that there simply are fewer Women Geeks.
Now I see this everywhere. The jobs I've worked, the computing clubs I frequent, even the close circle of friends I have. There are a few female geeks, and some of them are computer literate to a high level, but they are always outnumbered by the male geeks by a factor of 10.
And I don't think this has anything to do with the actual people I know. When there's an all night party, or a drinkup at the pub, or a campout, or a trip down the beach, or a video night, there is always a fair 50% representation of both genders. But when you have a LAN party you can count the number of females on one hand.
Now I think this is changing. I'm seeing more female geeks now than I used to. More girls are finding the games fun and joining in the LAN parties, or having "their turn" on the consoles when you're lounging on the couch. I reckon that the proportion of male/female geeks is starting to naturally balance out. So what worries me is that the next generation is going to churn out a higher proportion of female geeks, and that Carnegie Mellon is going to incorrectly think that they had anything to do with the increased numbers. This is bad science for a start (no control group), and it's going to lead to bad conclusions (race/gender inequality can be solved by throwing money at it).
The other thing that concerns me is the statement in the article that you don't see many multimillionaires who are female geeks. Well to be completely honest you don't see all that many multimillionaire geeks of either gender. Computing isn't the land of milk and honey. Most of the truly great computing minds are not rich. Most of the time it's the venture capitalists (Cisco) or the salesguy (Gates, Jobs) who gets rich while the true computing geek gets a lesser amount (Allen, Wozniak). And the real geeks, the ones that should be admired for their pure geek value, seem to get nothing at all (Engelbart, Ritchie, Knuth). If you want to get rich off computing, become a venture capitalist and study economics at university, do not become a geek!
I'm all for more women in our field. I prefer to be around people with like interests, but in today's computer-infested world, someone who is "really good" with computers knows how to install IE on Windows 95. People either can't make a distinction or have no words to describe the awesome capabilities of those of us who can do simple things like install/configure PC hardware, install/configure an OS, or (gasp!) program. I've known very few women who could work as a Unix admin, and fewer that could program (even something simple, like web development). I try to encourage those that know a little to learn more, but they express disgust. The same disgust when you try to get a woman to watch a Sci Fi movie.
So, I feel that if women were strongly encouraged to pursue CS degrees (tempted, of course, by the pay), they would start, decide that they don't like it, and either switch majors (or drop out and leave the field), or stay in it and not enjoy or excel at it.
I would like nothing more than for there to be more women in our field. All the ones I do find are invaribly married or horrifically fat/ugly. Perhaps if there were more to choose from, I could find myself a girlfriend that I actually like.
It seems like males are more inclined to "master" a skill (video games, computers, sports) than females. Females seem to emphasize social status, and males seem to emphasize ability. Personally, my computer was always a constant source of challenges (especially after installing linux). And I'd like the recognition and status that that gave me amongst my friends. Today, people on the street or whatever are impressed when they hear you have a swanky computer job. Positive reinforcement. Unlike the real world, programming follows rules. And the program is as perfect as you make it. No bully to punch you in the head or girl to break your heart. It can be a sanctuary, a safe place, where you can build your skills. This paragrath just lost it's direction, so I think I'll put it down now. BaNG!
I'm a geek chick myself, and I figure the biggest thing keeping girls from being hardcore geeks is their peers...as a teenager, I see it. Some of the girls in my class looked at me paging through a Linux manual and said "Sheez, what are you looking at? That's weird!" They scoffed and moved on.
;]
It's a big peer thing, mainly. At least in my experience. Most chicks don't like to be isolated. They figure if they so much as do more than point-and-click, they'll end up having to date a skinny nerd weirdo with coke-bottle glasses, high-water pants and dental problems. No, they want to hang around with the athletic guys.
I'm still in high school, and I'm a girl, but I can build a computer and install Linux on it (without messing it up TOO badly...heh..)And hanging around with three or four geek guys that would love to see what exactly I'm doing...well, let's just say it's not that bad
Btw, I'm considering a major in CS. And it's good to see that my chances of being able to use that are getting better.
Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me...
...with nice knockers!
wow, isn't anyone of you PC idiots going to flame me for finding women's bodies attractive? c'mon you slashdot idots, you can do it!
if a woman finds a man attractive, it's her "right as a woman", if a man finds a woman attractive, it's "womanizing"
MONICA==GOOD!
CLINTON==BAD!
FOUR LEGS GOOD! WELCOME TO PC NATION!
I should leave this alone, but I can't ...
... but it certainly helps if you can relate to the role model. Girls will often relate to other women, go figure. And it always strikes me, if I walk into a workplace that is all male - why aren't there women here? Is it an unfriendly place for a woman to work?
/. posts claiming that "airhead" girls get CS jobs because they are "babes".
...
... The fact that girls aren't drawn to the blood-and-gore shoot-em-ups does NOT reflect a lack of ability to program! But the lack of games out there does mean that computers may not be as attractive for young females. Hopefully this situation will improve, at least the game companies will someday want to tap that market that they are missing ... Perhaps the computer itself is not the thing that is not interesting, but the lack of any uses that computer can be put to by the girl in question. The web, with its boundless information resources and communications capability is already bringing large numbers of women into the computer-using world, and I hope will also help young girls become more comfortable in using computers and see a reason to do so.
...
... same as to the higher-scoring guys!
Role models don't HAVE to be of the same sex
As for the "compliment", yeah, there is room for debate over its appropriateness and if I am overreacting in feeling that it was inappropriate. But in a career where there are allegations that women get jobs because of their looks, not their skills, it is difficult to be taken seriously when your appearance is the focus. I don't expect most males to understand this, but I have seen previous
Now my experiences in high school are my own, and I hope that other females have had better ones! My science teachers were the ones who practised the subtle prejudice in their career suggestions. Steve, the 4th highest student in Chem, Physics and Bio, was encouraged to go into engineering. Girls held the top 3 spots, but we were encouraged to go into "journalism", "education" and (well, this isn't so bad) "law". Science/technology was never suggested to us.
I have some references in terms of limited advancement for women (and minorities too) in comp sci:
Educational Pipeline Issues for Women
Women in Science and Engineering
I doubt if the males out there who suggest there is no problem will read these articles, but they may be of interest to other women in this area
Again, I don't know if there is a need for "artificial encouragement" here - little girls *are* given Barbies and baby dolls, and boys are given mechanical toys. Girls are expected to be quiet and feminine, while boys are encouraged to get dirty and take apart the toaster. Those are generalizations, and some families are providing non-stereotypical upbringings for kids, but mainstream media (including commercials) gives the same old message.
There is a lack of good software for girls right now
One thing I find interesting in this debate is how upset some of the men out there are getting about this. It's not like big scholarships are being given to stupid girls or something. Getting the feeling there is a lot of insecurity out there
YS
PS. My C instructor was a pretty cool guy - only comments he made to me were about my programming skills
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
Might I point out that communism is actually
the opposite of that: there is no government.
If you're thinking Soviet Union style it's a
state capitalism-dictatorship, *not* communism.
The World Socialist Movement
Um, guys is bigger than girls. The difference between CS at CMU and the NFL is that at CMU you don't have to knock the prof down and stomp on him to get an A. Sure, if the NFL were perfectly willing to hire women, and if our culture approved entirely of women playing football, there'd probably be some women in the NFL, but statistically it's damned unlikely. By the way, for anybody out there who thinks that I'm not supporting CMU here, I am. Our culture has a moronic bias that tends to encourage women to do certain things, and not to do others. We don't need that crap. We need people do do the best they're capable of. Furthermore, while the NFL example is well-beloved of men who think it's relevant to CS (IMHO it ain't, but never mind), there is evidence to indicate that women do, statistically, tend to be better suited, physically, to other occupations -- flying an F16 in combat being one of them: Better reflexes on average, better resistance to G forces (again on average), and a couple of other things. Oh, yeah, and on a purely folkloric basis, women are generally considered to be better at concentrating on multiple things at once (like, guys are often described by comedians as turning off the car radio when they're lost, you know?)
So deal. Life is complicated, and people are extremely complicated.
CMS is not actively recruiting women at the expense of men, they're tapping into a market that has gone untouched for too long. Isn't that what capitalism is all about?
Heh heh heh. Watch 'em backpedal on that one. I love it.
Looking at the average for a profession indicates a *statistical* relationship, not a *causal* relationship.
I hear you. Methinks these "boys are smarter" boys didn't do so good in school. Correlation != causality. The fact that the issue involves gender doesn't excuse anybody from thinking rationally.
You just made that thing about women taking jobs and guys being annoyed about it up.
No, Rush Limbaugh made it up. Right after giving Hillary Clinton as an example of a woman who only has a career because she's too ugly to get married. Uh . . . what?
In fact, that attitude is very relevant to this discussion, because if you read the other posts you'll notice that we're swimming in it.
While I dont doubt similar things have been said by people in the past, it wasn't mentioned here and it doesn't speak highly of your character for bringing it up without a valid reason.
My character? Oh, please. If you can't fault my logic, you invent silly attacks on my "character". Is "character" in issue in this discussion? Is it? No, "it wasn't mentioned here" until you brought it up. My alleged "character", and your uninformed opinion of it, is absolutely irrelevant to the quality of my ideas. They stand or fall on their own.
It's much better to go out hunting for female progammers in order to have some certain percentage filled.
Heh heh heh, speaking of making things up, I see it's a favorite hobby of yours. Nobody's talking about doing anything like that. CMU is marketing their CS program to a group that they believe to be a largely untapped market, that's all. This happens every day. It's called "free enterprise". Deal.
If you don't like to re-define the meaning of terms (and who does? :-), why don't you stick with the original definition of communism as given by Marx. His idea of communism was something very different that what existed in the USSR. Real communism actually is a good thing, but doesn't work with humans. So be it.
You might find that increasing your showering frequency might help your coding. More than once a solution to a problem has come to me while showering.
It's not just CS but also science that is clearly dominated (in numbers...and i'm sure more in certain instances) by men. FOr the past two years i've followed a lot of the ideas in figuring out why, and though there is a 'calling' per se, why don't more grrl s have it?
WHen i started computers (commodore 64 baby!) i was mainly interested in games (couldn't convince my mom to get me a nintendo)...and i get sick everytime i see a make-over program fer girls.
THe game aspect is pretty well documented, but its more than a technical hurdle of girls being a harder or more specific market. A few girl gaming sites have been cracked and attacked by bands of boy gamers...maybe the community isn't there...especially at 12 yrs old?
Plus, now that computers make into pop songs everyday, computers beyond the geek style of the internet, are seen as really methodical big brother fit-in or die image, or overl technical or whatever you'd like to descibe it as. In the 70s, the 'feminist movement' (which ISN'T a phase thank you very much) focused quite primarily on the social sciences and eliminating porn and in general, female history has largely been stuck in social humanistic ties with housekeeping, soothers of pain, etc. so its not terribly odd that a really cold machined image (however untrue it may be) might not apply...which is sad because even if we don't have a leagues of girls pumping out c code and designing pretty pink kernels instead of playing with hair, on a less technical level so much could be done by utilizing all the different ways of communication.
ANd on a day to day level, computers are of course in greater use than before. whatever social theory we can come with, i think the calling idea is something that should but isn't necessarily happening, not because girls aren't logical or can't get into them, because all my (female) friends who used to call me a geek and sorta separate themselves from that part of me, i showed them HTML and just in all my geeky conversations have gotten a lot of them into the web and everything. So it doesn't necessarily take all that much, but it isn't happening on the level of mattel and major game/computer/electronics marketers or the 'general social conscience' that you hear so much of in college...
chimchim
Teacher steer their students to soft, easy majors, social work, therapy, all the garbage stuff that values "teamwork" and group conformance over intellect and original thought.
People like these steer girls into art appreciation and courses like "The Homosexual in History" rather than chemistry, physics, algebra, geometry, and calculus. After 4 years of this misdirection, all you're good for is social work.
Me, my career counselling was done by my mother the chemist, she got her degree in the 50s. The only time I ever feared her or any other strong woman was when momma told me my mouth was taking me to a place my behind didn't want to go.
Moral: Make sure counselling is done by someone with accomplishments, not some group therapy reject.
To make it through the drudgery of a life in the "dry", technical fields like CS and engineering, you need some motivation. From a very young age, with no encouragement from anyone, I have found computer harwardware and programming to be so enthralling that I could lie awake at night for hours fantasizing about buying some new system or writing a program. It makes me wonder if there are some neurotransmitters involved akin to those that runners get (a "runner's high" is caused by endorphines, natural pain-killers similar to morphine, both of which are addictive).
Do other men feel this way? Having many close male friends with similar interests, I am certain they do. We can talk for hours about computers with a great deal of enthusiam...and pleasure, I suppose. I know men aren't known to talk as much as women about some things, but when it comes to computers, (some) guys just can't get enough.
Do women feel the same way? I wondered that for a long time, and so I thought I'd ask them. I asked a number of women that work around and with computers (so, they've already "made it") (1) if they have any computing projects they work on in their own spare time and (2) what they thought of a certain new technology. The response is typically (1) "No way! Are you kidding? I can't wait to get home and away from those things" and (2) "I don't know. I really don't care".
But how do women get by in some very technical and "dry" fields if they are so apathetic about the technology? Well, I'm not a woman, so I don't know. But I would dare to guess that women are motivated and even get "mental pleasure" from the prospect of "nurturing" a "career" (to use some womanisms) and making money. In contrast, most men I know tend to be less concerned with the idea of a perfect career.
Maybe women here can enlighten us. (1) Do you have computer projects that are totally unrelated to work? How much time do you spend? (2) Do you find yourself talking about the latest technology with your friends on your own time? And (3) would you say you get pleasure from the technology?
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
--
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
HAL9000
I keep on hearing about her. Did you write some fantastic computer program or something?
Encourage a female, it's called progress. Encourage a male, it's called sexist.
You're choosing to ignore the fact that males are generally encouraged by our culture to go into technical fields, while females are generally discouraged. Ask any woman in a technical field; they're out there, and in most schools and most workplaces, they have to prove themselves more than men do. Evening out the "encouragement flux" (if you want to call it that) is hardly unreasonable. Encourage everybody equally, and let the best student make dean's list. What's so bad about that?
There will never be equality as long as people are pushing for their group (whatever sex or race that may be) to be placed above everyone else.
Oh, crap. Nobody's being "placed above" anybody here. They're marketing CMU CS to female prospective students. There's a perception that women aren't welcome in CS programs, and an equal perception that men are welcome. CMU is marketing their CS department as one where women are welcome also. The default assumption is that women aren't welcome and men are; the men part of that default assumption is just fine. It doesn't need to be changed. The other half, however, is crap and it does need to be changed. It's their damn university, anyway. They can do as they please with it. If you don't like it, start your own university. Or get them to hire you as a consultant to tell them how to run theirs. Good luck.
Jeez. Look, "there will never be equality" implies that you want equality, right? That's how it sounds to me, anyway. So how do you expect us to get there? Let's see, i == 2 and j == 10; so should we increment them both equally to achieve equality? I doubt it. Bear in mind that we're talking about marketing. Not affirmative action, but marketing. They think there might be an untapped market among smart (CMU-quality, which is IIRC very smart) young women for CS degrees. So they're trying to tap into it. It's no crime. There's also the fact that if they do get more women in their CS department, that's going to attract more men as well.
Sure, are you? Being mainly a biology geek, may I proffer some info: the ONLY significant difference in brain mass between males and females is 4 extra ounces males possess which seems to be related to a natural sense of direction and spatial relationships. Also, women have been found to "double task" between brain hemispheres almost twice as efficently as males. I have explained seceral aspects of computing to my female friends, and I assure you, they and I are both quite capable of understanding it. Perhaps you might consider that females are socialy more 'group- oriented' , and do not generally wish to take up an interest which, if they were male, might at least proffer upon them some element of "coolness", but as a female, totally ostrasizes them from the group of both male programmers and 'normal' people. At least in high school, which is where most CS majors seem to get their start. Trust me , I know. Sorry if this's a bit disorganized..I was up all night writing a web page.
Would you be so kind as to explain where "affirmative action" came up?
"affirmative action" is used here to mean any unequally applied effort to recruit or assist one gender/race/ethnic group over another.
In other words, hiring white guys (warning: I am one and I've gotten way too many second chances in life for no good reason) because "we all know that women cain't do that job", or "we all know . .
Losers whine about "affirmative action" because even though they've got an unfair advantage due to being white guys, they've still failed to make anything of themselves. As for me, I've suffered for the mistakes I made and I don't blame anybody but myself. Of course, I have made something of myself (albeit less than I probably should have). If I were a failure I might feel differently.
I fucked up, mea culpa. It's not true for absolutely any value of X. But for an awful lot of social and gender-related values of X (including the example I gave), it does hold.
I prefer to be the only naked man in the room for most values of "room".
Hmmm . . . Now that I think about it, I don't agree with "most" -- "some", surely, but "most"? What about a train station? A police station? A classroom? A bar? A jail cell? I think you're thinking of rooms containing only two people, and as for that I'm with you -- but there are a lot of different rooms in this world.
:)
For some reason, I'm reminded of a photograph I once saw of a room full of naked art students, all drawing a clothed model. It was funny, but it also made ya think.
My SO is a CS major, but she has grown to hate it. Fortunately, she's a math major, too, and finds that more interesting. But most of the females I have encountered have little or no interest in programming - even the CS majors. Most of them just don't seem to quite understand the appeal. I don't mean to say that women can't get involved in programming - it'd be nice to see more! - but it seems as though it's just a guy thing. More power to those few women that really do love it - if they're out there anywhere.
Dare we say stereotype? Generalization? I do not wish to be a "female" anything- I want to be an astronaut. My boyfriend is a computer maniac. He also cooks excellently, picks up after himself, and will turn his LINUX box off at any given time. My point? Not all computer programmers, male or female, have the stay-up-all night never do the laudry or brush their hair disease that you seem to think. Did you also consider that a male programmer, by your definition, might also make a "bad husband" Perhaps we should issue the warning on all CS classrooms " Beware, all ye who enter here, you will never get married!" As for wanting a "good wife", well, who wouldn't? While we're at it, let's try for world peace...the men and women these days who are willing to stay at home and do the other partner's laundry are few and far between.
Well you can artificially boost female enrollment, artificially boost female hiring, hire actors for female programmers in movies. Despite years and years of this, the bankruptcy commercials still use women as the poster for bankruptcy, women are still passengers in the car commercials. We've had no luck in convincing women that they should be able to support themselves, which is the real limiting factor in enrollment. As for this year's entering class, they have it all figured out. They're going to get married and maybe work as receptionists, but the car payments and home loans are going to be covered by the patriarch. It's all in the can.
Oh, the socialists have bastardized *that* word, too? First it was `liberal', which originally meant `one who believes in liberty'. Then came `libertarian' which also meant `one who believes in liberty', but, apparently, now means `one who believes in having some freedoms, but is OK with those freedoms being taken away in the name of `equality''. And now `liberty' itself is being attacked. What existed in the USSR was Communism. If you're advocating what I think you're advocating, anarchy, please use that word. Moderators? Please off-topic my post and it's parent.
I'm a female Computer Engineering major and, after observing my (decidely non-techie) friends, one of the biggest reasons girls don't enter CS or EE as often as the guys do is that we're just more afraid of breaking things. We aren't as likely to drive extremely fast and we're more worried about damaging property. Something in our culture and/or something in our nature causes us to be more careful.
The way I encourage my friends to take more risks with their machines is to constantly remind them that the worst thing they can do without opening the box is to wipe out their hard drives, and that they'd have to be fairly deliberate about that (and this is without introducing them to fdisk or other such partitioning items), and that running the restore CD will fix most of that (well, except for the MP3s they'd lose.)
We (women) do it to ourselves in many ways, though. My roommate was skimming an issue of _Cosmo_ a few months back, and I glanced over her shoulder at an article listing 30 practical things women really should be able to do (change flats, set VCR clocks, etc.) I nearly hit the roof when it listed "trying to add memory to your computer" under a sidebar of 5 things *not* to try!
Have an old machine? Give it to a girl to play with, and tell her not to worry about breaking it. I think that having only a TRS-80 Model 4 until 1995 and then having a 386 until last summer pushed me to learn more about the hardware, since I wanted to do BBS stuff (early 90's) and then actually use Netscape (late 90's).
From what I've seen of the few female techs and programmers I know, American industry is missing out on a vast resource. I think that one of the best ways to tap it would be to remind girls/women that practically anything that can be done to a machine while the case is closed can be remedied by formatting and reinstalling the operating system and programs and that they can install their own hard drives and memory upgrades using the instructions provided.
Grüß Gott aus Bayern!
Please, don't tell me about the exceptions to the rule you have witnessed. Let's talk about the rule intstead!
Well, gee. Where exactly is your evidence for this "rule"? Anobody who knows women in technical fields knows you're on hop.
OK, the modern feminine man might not care whether his SO has any feminine insticts left or not.
"Feminine man"? What are you babbling about? We don't live in caves any more. Frankly, I'd be dead bored living with the kind of "feminine" (I gather you mean "submissive and uneducated") woman you seem to approve of. I'd rather be with somebody I can talk to.
...is a damn good reason to do a business studies type job instead, where there are tones of women!! (especially, lots of horny women on business studies courses) !!
A better question might be what are the desirable skills of a programmer? Software engineering is increasingly a group activity, which calls for a different set of skills than those of the "hacker". The emphasis has shifted to working in teams and closer interaction with the user/customer. This requires strong social skills, an area where many male programmers are deficient.
The last head of my software engineering department was a woman. I don't know if she was a great coder, but she was a great leader, manager and politician.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
That, combined with the reality that the teaching profession is now a ghetto of females with this kind of background, is it any wonder our young female students aren't being pushed to study in the harder fields?
I love when stories like this turn up on Slashdot. All the heavy-duty wingnuts come wriggling out of their caves and into the light of day.
Hey, kid: It's not because of "female hormons" that "fags" "want like tools" -- it's flying saucers! Don't they teach you anything these days?! Don't you know what the queers are doing to the soil?! Sheesh . . . You'd think these things would be obvious.
The lady that had my position before I got in there was basically promoted from secratary, and sent of to school at the local community colege.
Yeah, and the last three sysadmins I suffered with were guys in the exact same situation, except they were probably pumping gas a year earlier instead of taking dictation. If you really think a guy would have been likely to do any better with the same experience and the same motivation ("hey, i gotta raise! goody goody! lemme see, me punch button, light go blink . .
Promoting idiots is a problem, regardless of the gender of those idiots. Promoting competent people regardless of gender is good common sense. CMU is doing the latter: They're encouraging more people to apply, and those people will then be accepted or not on the same basis as the rest.
You're right, 100 years ago there were few women doctors. Today, women have a choice.
You probably won't believe this, but it's not just the medical profession that has made it into the 90's. There are few females programmers today because fewer women CHOOSE to enter the computer science field. Not because they're underprivileged, suppressed, exploited or unskilled.
And your whole inane "argument" doesn't even begin to address the question of affirmative action. Did women doctors need special encouragement to become doctors?
In a nutshell, you suck.
Most guys out there don't realize it, but women in a mostly-male environment get mobbed, harrassed, and stalked by some of the weirder guys -- if there are 2 such guys to each girl, rather than 5 girls to each such guy, it starts to be a problem, you know.
I've known some women in technical fields, and that's what I hear too. It sucks being one of the first few in the door.
Unless you're in the mood to find it funny.
If you have the stomach to read the comments you'll find these 3 statements to be extremely common:
1. This is a load of PC crap, women aren't discouraged from doing CS at all, they just don't have the brains for it.
2. I want chix to do CS so I can fuck them.
3. All chix who do CS are butt-ugly feminist losers who can't get a man.
Spot the many inconsistencies...
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
That comment was butt ass ugly, that's for sure. Superficiality is its own reward I suppose.
If they're just going to mount campaigns to encourage more women to think about CS, then I'm all for it. If, on the other hand, they are going to try for another affirmative action-type fiasco, then forget it.
The last thing we need is yet another political agenda pushing more underqualified personnel into the industry just to make everyone feel better.
I remember some of the older instructors at BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Techology) mentioning that when the CS section was first introduced, there was a 50% gender split in enrollment. It then gradually slid down as the years went by, to the point that I doubt it would be higher than 10% today.
Is it because it is a "man's world"? I doubt it.
In the early stages of computing there were many women present on the scene (in perspective of the time period, of course).
I've had discussions with female collegues regarding this subject and while nowadays that is the outward apearance (due to the serious imbalance in the male/female ratio), inside it is not the case (at least at the office where I worked, anyway).
The ratio of women in high positions at the office directly reflected the ratio of women who enrolled in CS programs.
Is there a problem with geek kids chasing the women around? I never saw it in my school.
We certainly never treated them any different in my classes. They'd be right there in the thick of it with the rest of us as we commandeered a computer room for 2 weeks during projects crunch and never left except for bathroom breaks and pizza delivery.
I was one of those geek kids who was too absorbed in my hacking to even notice the opposite sex =)
Role models? I never had any. I can't think of any computer hackers I looked up to.
Encouragement? Not! I had quite the opposite.
"Stop playing with that damn computer!"
"Go outside! It's a beautiful day!"
etc.
Is it the idea that all CS people are hardcore hackers who use a logic probe to monitor RS-232 Rx and Tx lines?
I know of many men who believed this, and avoided CS because of it. I seriously doubt this would have any more (or less) effect on the women.
I'm getting sick and tired of all this liberal "making everyone feel good about themselves" policy that seems to be sweeping the nation these days.
If you don't have the tenacity, ambition, and desire to do what it takes to get what you want, then you don't deserve it.
I am an arrogant bastard, and I have a right to be. I worked hard to get what I wanted, and I never gave up, even though the time from vision to completion (of some things) took 10 years or more.
I have new goals and visions, and they will be fulfilled even if it kills me.
If you can't take discouragement (barring serious harassment or discrimination, of course) then get the fuck out and let someone more worthy take your place.
Good heavens! What next?!
:)
Seriously though, doesn't that indicate that women do belong here after all?
Okay, that wasn't terribly serious either.
I think the biggest problem women have (as well as most minorities) is that they oppress themselves and don't even know it. They demand all sorts of equalities and opportunities, and then they go back to their old ways. "Cosmopolitan" claims to empower women, but I think it backfires.
Hmmm. Usually I post anonymously cuz its quick. I'm certainly not afraid of holding opinions. I live in St. Louis and used to read the St. Louis Post Disgrace before it became the organ for big business and reprinter of AP articles. Have a good week, Jim Burnes jburnes@earthlink.net
I just hope males wont be put at a disadvantage and standards lowered for female students. I fully support encouragment. As long as yhe standards remain the same.