Something I've been wondering about lately - it seems that people out there *do* care about the election, it's just that we don't hear about them (and especially don't see them!) on the nightly news. I've heard that half a million people were in NYC peacefully protesting the Republican convention, complete with flag-draped coffins being paraded down the street. Curious to see how this was being covered, I turn on the TV, to find coverage instead of the coctail parties in NYC, and which ones the Bush twins are planning to attend, with 4 minutes of red carpet footage of the two smiling and waving in cute little outfits. This wasn't on E - this was MSNBC! No mention whatsoever of the protest - instead, the on-site reported discusses, seriously, with the anchorwoman how to get into the best parties. Holy tamole!
As a female PhD student in CS, who has worked professionally as an employee and as an independent contractor, I find I really have to respond to this thread.
I personally have done a lot of work to try to help women interested in computers to follow that desire, and I have witnessed a lot of the "reasons" for the lack of women in the field firsthand - the sorts of things found in the HOWTO and books like "Unlocking the Clubhouse". Like any complex problem, if there was any *one* reason for it it'd be really easy to fix, right? And it's always really hard to figure out where the "fault" lies - sure, we know women are uncomfortable, but how much of the "fault" lies with the men, and how much with the women? Engaging in this discussion with an expectation to lay blame is sort of like getting into an argument with your spouse about whose turn it is to do dishes - nothing productive comes of it.
The truth of the matter is that a whole host of reasons go into discouraging women from pursuing careers in CS, just as a whole host of reasons go into encouraging women to go into fields like the aforementioned nursing. And there are good reasons why more gender equity in *all* of these areas could be a benefit to all.
As far as the value of increasing percentages go - I do think that men and women are different, if you can broadly categorize people based on gender, and that they are often different in very *complimentary* ways. Men and women (whether because of nature or societal influences, the cause is not important) often approach problems in different ways and with different skill sets, and for this reason, trying to attain gender equity in *any* field is a worthwhile endeavor. You learn from each other, and you help each other.
A job is never just its surface-level of skills - to be a scientist, you can't just be a good analytical thinker, you also have to be able to communicate your ideas in persuasive ways. Likewise, you can be the most nurturing nurse in the world, but sometimes being able to lift heavy unconscious people is an asset. Hey, but what if you have two people who work together, where Person A is better in Area A, and Person B is better in area B, and they collaborate? Good stuff happens! Sort of like what happens when your right & left brain work together, right?
Part of the problem as I've seen it is that traits that are *not* necessarily essential to a given profession become conflated with that profession. So, you want to be a software developer at MS, right? You've gotta be aggressive, forthright, able to argue & challenge in pointed ways - that's more or less what I've heard from friends who have applied/been hired to work there. But should everyone *really* be like that? Isn't it also useful to have some people who are skilled in resolving conflicts, in smoothing ruffled feathers? Do self-righteous people always win arguments? And once they do, do they get the sort of buy-in from the "defeated" argument partners that a development team really needs to work productively and efficiently?
Although gender roles could be assigned to the scenario I just described, I'm not trying to do that - as a blowhard myself I know that not all women are conciliatory smooth-talkers. But the point is, by-and-large traits that are not both necessary and sufficient conditions to make you a good CS person become associated with that profession. Since most people in the CS field are men, lots of these conflated traits are male-leaning. When this starts impacting the hiring process (as in the aforementioned MS grill-session job interviews), this implicit gender bias becomes explicit.
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Something I've been wondering about lately - it seems that people out there *do* care about the election, it's just that we don't hear about them (and especially don't see them!) on the nightly news. I've heard that half a million people were in NYC peacefully protesting the Republican convention, complete with flag-draped coffins being paraded down the street. Curious to see how this was being covered, I turn on the TV, to find coverage instead of the coctail parties in NYC, and which ones the Bush twins are planning to attend, with 4 minutes of red carpet footage of the two smiling and waving in cute little outfits. This wasn't on E - this was MSNBC! No mention whatsoever of the protest - instead, the on-site reported discusses, seriously, with the anchorwoman how to get into the best parties. Holy tamole!
As a female PhD student in CS, who has worked professionally as an employee and as an independent contractor, I find I really have to respond to this thread.
I personally have done a lot of work to try to help women interested in computers to follow that desire, and I have witnessed a lot of the "reasons" for the lack of women in the field firsthand - the sorts of things found in the HOWTO and books like "Unlocking the Clubhouse". Like any complex problem, if there was any *one* reason for it it'd be really easy to fix, right? And it's always really hard to figure out where the "fault" lies - sure, we know women are uncomfortable, but how much of the "fault" lies with the men, and how much with the women? Engaging in this discussion with an expectation to lay blame is sort of like getting into an argument with your spouse about whose turn it is to do dishes - nothing productive comes of it.
The truth of the matter is that a whole host of reasons go into discouraging women from pursuing careers in CS, just as a whole host of reasons go into encouraging women to go into fields like the aforementioned nursing. And there are good reasons why more gender equity in *all* of these areas could be a benefit to all.
As far as the value of increasing percentages go - I do think that men and women are different, if you can broadly categorize people based on gender, and that they are often different in very *complimentary* ways. Men and women (whether because of nature or societal influences, the cause is not important) often approach problems in different ways and with different skill sets, and for this reason, trying to attain gender equity in *any* field is a worthwhile endeavor. You learn from each other, and you help each other.
A job is never just its surface-level of skills - to be a scientist, you can't just be a good analytical thinker, you also have to be able to communicate your ideas in persuasive ways. Likewise, you can be the most nurturing nurse in the world, but sometimes being able to lift heavy unconscious people is an asset. Hey, but what if you have two people who work together, where Person A is better in Area A, and Person B is better in area B, and they collaborate? Good stuff happens! Sort of like what happens when your right & left brain work together, right?
Part of the problem as I've seen it is that traits that are *not* necessarily essential to a given profession become conflated with that profession. So, you want to be a software developer at MS, right? You've gotta be aggressive, forthright, able to argue & challenge in pointed ways - that's more or less what I've heard from friends who have applied/been hired to work there. But should everyone *really* be like that? Isn't it also useful to have some people who are skilled in resolving conflicts, in smoothing ruffled feathers? Do self-righteous people always win arguments? And once they do, do they get the sort of buy-in from the "defeated" argument partners that a development team really needs to work productively and efficiently?
Although gender roles could be assigned to the scenario I just described, I'm not trying to do that - as a blowhard myself I know that not all women are conciliatory smooth-talkers. But the point is, by-and-large traits that are not both necessary and sufficient conditions to make you a good CS person become associated with that profession. Since most people in the CS field are men, lots of these conflated traits are male-leaning. When this starts impacting the hiring process (as in the aforementioned MS grill-session job interviews), this implicit gender bias becomes explicit.