I am a woman in CS and I'm going to generalize a little bit. Beyond being interested in CS, women are more interested in stability and flexibility. I can see why it decreased after 2001. After the dot bomb, computer science didn't look so hot. You can work just as hard in other fields and have more stability and more money.
I think that women are just as interested, but are looking out for the bigger picture - what will provide best for themselves and their families.
I'm really lucky that when I had my son last year that I could work 1/2 time as a CS.
Jenny
My parents (Engineer Father, Homemaker Mother) gave us Legos and the ideal that there is nothing that we couldn't do. I believe that sterotypes are first learned at home and then reinforced in school. I was shocked the first time a student at school said I couldn't do something because I was a girl.
I am now an Electrial Engineer doing mostly embedded systems programming and my sister is a Computer Engineer doing application development.
If you want more Computer Science/Engineering majors I would start with the parents, but there are still things that could be done by teachers and by peers to make things better.
So guys, my advice... Don't patronize, don't expect less, and have lots of daughters.
Slashdot Mirror
I am a woman in CS and I'm going to generalize a little bit. Beyond being interested in CS, women are more interested in stability and flexibility. I can see why it decreased after 2001. After the dot bomb, computer science didn't look so hot. You can work just as hard in other fields and have more stability and more money. I think that women are just as interested, but are looking out for the bigger picture - what will provide best for themselves and their families. I'm really lucky that when I had my son last year that I could work 1/2 time as a CS. Jenny
My parents (Engineer Father, Homemaker Mother) gave us Legos and the ideal that there is nothing that we couldn't do. I believe that sterotypes are first learned at home and then reinforced in school. I was shocked the first time a student at school said I couldn't do something because I was a girl. I am now an Electrial Engineer doing mostly embedded systems programming and my sister is a Computer Engineer doing application development. If you want more Computer Science/Engineering majors I would start with the parents, but there are still things that could be done by teachers and by peers to make things better. So guys, my advice... Don't patronize, don't expect less, and have lots of daughters.