Gender Gap in Computer Science Growing 1027
EReidJ writes "Looks like finding a compatible girl geek in the computer profession is becoming even harder, as an already wide gender gap among Computer Science majors is becoming larger. From the article: 'A Globe review shows that the proportion of women among bachelor's degree recipients in computer science peaked at 37 percent in 1985 and then went on the decline. Women have comprised about 28 percent of computer science bachelor's degree recipients in the last few years, and in the elite confines of research universities, only 17 percent of graduates are women [...] The argument of many computer scientists is that women who study science or technology, because they are defying social expectations, are in an uncomfortable position to begin with. So they are more likely to be dissuaded from pursuing computer science if they are exposed to an unpleasant environment, bad teaching, and negative stereotypes like the image of the male hacker.'"
Good! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good! (Score:4, Funny)
Unplesant environment (Score:5, Insightful)
As a geek girl... (Score:5, Interesting)
As a geek girl myself, I'd put it a bit above half. sucks.
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:5, Funny)
As a geek guy, I'd put it a bit above 95%. You only hear from the ones brave enough to come forward.
Speaking of which, what are you doing Friday night?
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:5, Funny)
Going to recompile the Linux kernel and fix the m0n0wall issues. Just like any other Friday night. You?
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:4, Funny)
You may now send smilies at each other.
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:5, Insightful)
So how many, after you politely say no, persist in their pursute? I can understand why a woman would be upset by persistant unwanted attention, but I've never understood why women so often are upset by unwanted attention that goes away as soon as a negative answer is given.
Yeah, the guy is creepy/ugly/smelly/whatever. But what on earth is wrong with him asking, "will you go out with me," even if he does so ineptly while looking at his shoes the whole time? Unless women want to turn things around so they do all the asking, they're going to have to put up with saying "no" evey now and then to someone they don't like. They should get a grip and not act like it's their right to not be asked in the first place.
Put another way, if a good woman wants to get the attention of a good man, why would she be surprised when every one else pays attention to her as well?
TW
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's repulsive, harassing, and beyond irritating.
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's repulsive, harassing, and beyond irritating.
Yeah, stalking and harrasment suck. I appologize for my gender and peer group. My comment was just meant to point out that I've seen many women interpret plain ol' interest by a guy as harrasment and not even have the guts to tell the guy to go away.
Sure, it sucks for the dude to be told to back off by the girl. It sucks far worse if his boss has to tell him the same thing and he never even knew there was a problem. But if you already told him to take a hike and he didn't, maybe he needs to learn the hard way. Speaking as a boss myself, if I knew someone was told "no" and they persisted, I'd have no problem showing him the door.
TW
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a big difference between persistence, and crossing the line to pyschopathic behavior. Persistence can pay off, so long as it involves a respectful interaction between the participants. More than one marriage has formed after the guy being turned down first, but often we geeks lack the social skills to notice the difference between a "Get the hell away from me you creepy smelly dork!" and "I'm saying no, but I just want to see how much you like me." Don't try this at home (or work) if you aren't fully aware of the difference.
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:5, Interesting)
However, it's interesting to note that, of the men in my engineering classes who asked me out or asked me to have sex with them, 100% ended up pestering me day after day, or tagging home after me like a little lost puppy, even though I reminded them every time that I had a boyfriend. I had to resort to being mean and nasty in order for them to leave me alone. I probably just attract the weirdos, but it seemed like the male geeks were either too shy to do anything or went way overboard.
Now that I'm working, the male geeks still ask me out but politely drop the subject when they find out I'm not available, and become great friends in spite of it.
So I chalk it up to guys maturing at a slower rate than girls, geeky or not.
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:3)
That's because he's hoping to stand in line as a friend, thinking that he may have a chance later. Unorftunately for him, and most of our geek brethren, it will only ensure his future failure by placing him in the friend category.
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm... I'm not sure if that's a tautology, a contradiction, or just plain irony.
I really don't mean to be harsh but I can't state emphatically enough how many things are wrong with this position.
Men are taller than women. It's just a fact that, as a group, guys are. It does no good to say whether or not this generalization sucks. That's like saying that it sucks that 2+2=4. Whether or not it sucks it's just the way it is.
So we have two options of handling these kinds of differences. If we think that differences are bad and scary and inequitable then we can shout as loud as we want and pretend they don't exist. We can pretend that guys are not actually stronger then girls, or that girls aren't socially smarter than men. We can obfuscate, complain, and trash anyone who makes the mistake of pointing the obvious out. But this is at best living in la-la land and at worst dangerous. When we have to lower standards so that we can hire enough women firefighters I think we've just gone to far. As my mum said (in reference to rules changes that said instead of a fireman's carry dragging a victim down the stairs was sufficient to become a firemen) "Who are these stupid feminists? I don't want some 5'2" woman dragging me out of the building, I want a 6'2" giant to carry me out!"
Sure, some men are 5'2". And there are some women who are 6'2". But how many of either do you know? And how many women do you know that are 5'2"? Or men that are 6'2"?
Look, the reason I say "I don't want to be harsh" is that I understand what it is that you don't like. You don't like it when people use a generalization to apply it unfairly to an individual. That's discrimination - and in many cases it's mean, evil, wrong, etc. But trying to make discrimination go away by trying to outlaw generalizations is like trying to make electrocution go away by outlawing electricity. It would be stupid to try and in the real world it's not possible anyway.
-stormin
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:5, Funny)
Is this a Turing test in action?
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:4, Interesting)
I live and work in Phoenix Arizona USA and I work in an organization with thousands of geeks from both ends of the spectrum. Hardcore nerds who write obscure code all day, to technical project managers who do mostly paperwork, fill out request forms, and assign projects to sysadmins.
I work with, and talk to lots of nerdy/geeky guys and gals who seem able to differentiate between friendly chat and an interest in having a relationship. From what I've found here, there are plenty of nerdy guys around here who are capable of communicating in an effective manner, and are perfectly acceptable mates for nerdy women.
There are lots of excessively flirty guys for sure, but most of them can take a subtle hint that you're not interested. They're socially stunted sometimes, not mentally retarded.
Also, lets not forget that many nerdy women are the same way. I find it excessively difficult to relate to and talk with other women who aren't technical. I don't really have much in common with them. I find making small talk to be quite tedious when some non-technical co-worker wants to blather on about her -precious- toddler, and all I'm thinking about is the lan party tonight where I'm going to frag the crap outta' the guys in BF2.
Lots of that social akwardness starts to fade away as we get older though. I'd say by the time most geeks hit 28-29, they're getting a better handle on life and have more experience with social situations. Just my observation though.
~k
Re:As a geek girl... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I can recall, they never offered "Etiquette for Geeks" as a part of the Comp Sci curriculum when I went college, but then again that was back in the age of the dinosaurs (the DEC-10).
Social skills isn't that big a factor. I find very few of my programming peers who fit the "geek programmer" stereotype. Plenty of us are married, have houses and families. Mind you my wife is not a tech-head and we don't discuss my work in-depth, but she could probably understand it. Geeks aren't going to find women on the Comp Sci track anyway; they'll do a better job impressing the bubble-head peroxide blondes who talk into their mouses.
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, if the girl has any kind of brain in her, she'll just talk to the guy, say "Sorry, I'm not interested" and whether he was ac
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Unpleasant environment (Score:5, Interesting)
I see equal opportunity blame in that situation -- a lack of intellectual pride both on the part of the girls and the guys.
I have also had to endure the insanity of having a really smart guy ask if you want to be his partner for the year in a class, only to have him show up at the first meeting with a finished assignment and a picnic basket containing a romantic dinner. It is a really difficult situation to deal with. On the one hand, the guy has made a nice and very sincere effort to please you. Unfortunately, that doesn't measure much against the facts that (a) he never actually asked you out, so you didn't get a chance to understand what kind of 'partnership' he was really hoping for, (b) he obviously didn't then and never did think you were capable of doing the assignment, (c) he assumed that you were the type of person who would gladly get out of work, and (d) he didn't mind that fact, as long as you went out with him. And he wondered why I wasn't bursting with admiration at his display of programming prowess.
Did you really see a lot of girls brazenly manipulating their way through a computer degree? It's hard for me to imagine. The women I graduated with knew their stuff, and would gladly prove it when challenged.
Pix
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:5, Informative)
So combine this active discouragement with the not overt but quite obvious to someone sensitive to them factors such as lack of female role models or even peers and I'm not surprised at all at the widening gender gap.
The problem with actively recruiting women is that we can't because they aren't there due to the problems above. The only part of the gender gap that "may or may not be simply the nature of things"* is the tendency of a privileged group to feel threatened by and try to exclude another group from joining and possibly stealing their privilege. Justifying their exclusion as being the natural state of things is absolutely classic.
* By the way, good job not being over or anything in your discouragement of women; just leave it open to debate like a good reasonable engineer. I'm sure no mere female will catch it and determine that the male establishment feels she doesn't belong. Is this what you meant by not actively discouraging?
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:4, Interesting)
Women in Games, by Chris Crawford
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/17/3 [escapistmagazine.com]
You've go to remember that individual variation will be greater than group variation, and I definitely think that we sometimes use tradition to override individuality (and that's a bad thing). But to say that "it's just arbitrary tradition" doesn't really make sense: where do you think tradition comes from? Traditions evolved with society, and I think that both society and, therefore tradition, are essentially products of evolution.
-stormin
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it starts younger. Raise girls to be princesses and moms, and you get women who's highest goals are domestic crap and social climbing.
Buy your girls lego. It can be pink, but it still has to have wheels and jet engines.
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:4, Insightful)
This is (dare I say it) at least partially the fault of the women's movement. It's the same pendulum swing that all issues go through - from one extreme to the other.
Things start out with there definately being a gender bias in everything - down to denying women the right to vote. Women's suffrage comes along, gains traction, gets the right to vote, and keeps on moving (rightfully so.) But as every movement has, certain radicals decided that not only should women have equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work, but that the traditional roles of the female were to be shunned. Now that the opportunity to have a career existed, women chosing not to do so were holding the movement back, and were themselves the product of a still-unbalanced culture.
Whether or not culture still does favor men over women in the career/pay department is not the debate here - I think that we're at least starting to see the pendulum swing back towards center again. Women go to college in droves - to most young people, there is no understanding of a gender bias in continuing eduacation at all. Women are executives and CEOs, and are starting to have real representation at the top of the ladder. What this means is that said pendulum is now free to swing back, and people can start realizing that it's choice that was lacking before. Now a woman can choose her path - career, stay-at-home mother, or even both, and it is that choice that we support.
It's true, there is no more nobel a calling than motherhood. There is a reason that no matter how a child was raised, most would instantly kill or be killed for the welfare of their mother. So now women have true choice, and people will hopefully stop judging so harshly for any choice, be it stay-at-home mother or career woman. And like your wife, that choice can be mutually exclusive from the level of education or intelligence a woman may possess or strive for.
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of my friends from college have math related jobs, just like me. Some of us do use functional analysis, measure theory, PDE's and whatnot on daily basis. Many of my former colleagues have jobs that have very little to do with math, at least with the kind of math we studied. Some are in IT, some in banking sector, some are lawyers, even few politicians, but all of them tell me that the time and effort spent learning advanced math was not wasted for them. Even though they never use any of the stuff they have learned, they acquired skills that are very useful for their jobs.
Even though the lady that is the subject of this conversation most likely won't teach advanced calculus to her kids, she undoubtedly will teach to them her love of learning, intellectual challenge and curiosity, and appreciation for knowledge. I think that's the best we can give to our children.
Re:Unpleasant environment (Score:5, Interesting)
I am fortunate that the head of the CS department at my university is an extraordinarily boisterous lady. The entry level courses are taught with the specific intention of recruiting new majors. (In my second or third week or class I walked up to my professor (who is also the head of the department) to ask a question, and she didn't ask me if I was a CS major. She simply told me that I was. As though this was obvious and I should stop pussy-footing around with this undeclared major business).
One of my programmer friends is a transsexual, and she was wondering aloud to me the other day if some of her position and esteem as a programmer are leftover benefits from having been male. (In which case, she ought exploit them for all they're worth.)
By and large, the CS majors in my classes have been wonderful, welcoming and helpful. The CS people I have met in the world at large do not have nearly so pleasant a distinction in my mind.
The head of the CS department pointed out to me that it was part of the geek meritocracy--the guys won't talk to you until you prove yourself, and then you won't be able to get them to go away.
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:5, Insightful)
But the bias concern is only applicable to gender stacking towards more men: women outnumber men by far in nursing, education and womens' studies yet nobody makes a peep about the inequities involved (or outright discrimination).
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:5, Insightful)
You're assuming that women are choosing not to enter Computer Science because they simply have less interest in the area. While this may be, it doesn't explain the whole story. There are many areas where women show great interest and are still denied equal access. This, and not women's waining interest in CS most likely explains the decline in female CS majors.
The legal profession is a good example of the discrimination the poster is referencing. Over the last few decades, women's enrollment at law schools has expanded dramatically. Most law schools now have equal or higher enrollment of women than men. I don't believe this can be fully explained (or explained) by greater interest in the Law on the part of women. Rather, Law Schools have made efforts to make the environment open and inclusive. While women faced discrimination in the 70s and 80s, Law schools now provide a far more equal teaching environment.
Yet, despite this increase in enrollment, women attorneys have been leaving the field. While nearly 50% of new associates are women, less than 10% of partners are female. This can't be blown off as being due to lack of interest. Associates at large firms put in 60+ hours a week, and are surely commited to the responsibilities of partnership. Despite this, men are dispraportionately chosen for the highest paying positions. As in CS where women are often not given the same opportunities or support from faculty which is predominantly male (in CS I believe 80-90%+ if my memory serves me correctly), and thus decide to enter other fields, women are finding that Law firms that are willing to hire them as associates, are refusing them the higher paid and more prestigious partnership positions, and thus are also seeking to either leave the field or to start their own firms. The "Old Boys Club" is still alive and well in the United States. It's too easy to ignore these issues, and say that women are simply not interested, but this is an oversimplification of the issue.
And as to your statement about boys not wanted to play with barbies- do you think this could possibly be caused by the fact that girls are socialized from birth to act in a manner that is appropriate for their sex? Their rooms are adorned in pink, they are given pink clothing to wear to seperate them from their male coutnerparts, and they are shown dolls and makeup as proper means of entertainment. The fact that we live in this society doesn't mean that is in any way natural, neutral, or necessary. We push girls to act a certain way, just as we push boys to act in a certain manner. Then we justify their inculcated differences as "natural".
Jason Wittlin-Cohen
Re:Unplesant environment (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I think there's a lot of uncertainty here. For example you just assume that since women are willing to work 60 hours a week they must be just as motivated as men to go for partner. I don't think that's obvious at all. What about women who want to be mothers?
I also think that the whole "society tells women to play with barbie dolls" thing cuts both ways. Now society, instead of telling girls to play with barbie dolls, tries to tell young women that they can have a career and be a mother too. I believe that this is just setting women up for failure and dissappointment. This just sets women up for feelings of conflict and guilt and inadequacy when they can't live up to the mythical "do everything" mom. Plus I've always been saddened when I talked to girls my age or a little younger (in college or just graduated) who have this glow in their eyes that they're going to really *do* something - they're going to have a *career*!
Who the Hell talks like that? I'm not saying you shouldn't be excited about your career, but women are being sold a bunch of horseshit here. A career means welcome to the 9-5 grind. A career means a cubicle. A career means having to accept the authority of some corporate boss. That's what a career is. Sure, not all careers suck, but by and large Dilbert is what a career is, and yet women are being sold on this idea of a career as the path to fulfillment, enlightenment and self-actualization. What a crock!
It's this awful Orwellian lie that somehow becoming a cog in some corporate machine is the straight and narrow path towards really being someone. What it really is amounts to nothing more than a materialist, consumerist trap for women as well as men. It's the basic Tom Sawyer painting the fence story - and yet the vast majority of people, men and women alike, are lining up to trade their toys for a chance to whitewash the fence.
-stormin
Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Does it help that the summary itself contains a male-point-of-view sterotype?
Best quote on Comp. Sci. gender gap (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Best quote on Comp. Sci. gender gap (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Best quote on Comp. Sci. gender gap (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Best quote on Comp. Sci. gender gap (Score:5, Funny)
Trinary (Score:5, Funny)
Just as the hard-wiring of binary mathematics spun the entire twentieth century about a simple yes-no axis, the invention of the three-state switch promised to revolutionize twenty-fifth century computing. After all, with three states (negative, positive, and null charges) on nanoswitches, computers could now think in terms of yes, no, and maybe, greatly humanizing their internal logic.
This would have brought many, many more female engineers into the field of computer science (hence accelerating the pace at which computers could do useful things besides transmit, compress, and enhance pornography), except that the same abbreviational logic that turned "binary digit" into "bit" turned "trinary digit" into "tit." This nomenclatural error set computing back nearly three hundred years, and two entire generations of promising computer scientists were lost trying to keep abreast of bad puns.
-- The Tayler Corporation. "Plotting to take over the world since 1998"
You don't need to meet a cs girl (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You don't need to meet a cs girl (Score:3, Insightful)
Gender gaps elsewhere... (Score:5, Insightful)
P.S. I have nothing against garbage collectors... they just happen to be the most visible "down and dirty not high paying" job I can think of. They do a great service for us, I'm not putting them down. I would like to see more women going into CS as well. I'm just pointing out something I've noticed.
Re:Gender gaps elsewhere... (Score:3, Insightful)
-Rick
Re:Gender gaps elsewhere... (Score:5, Interesting)
They also have one of the most dangerous [wasteage.com] (your garbage collector is much more likely to be killed on the job than a cop) and important (along with your plumber, your garbage collector is more responsible for increased life expectancy than your doctor) jobs around.
Somewhere around here I have an old Fenton [wikipedia.org] comic strip with dialog like this: "Did you know a garbage collector makes more than I do?!" "Then get a job as a garbage collector." "Are you kidding? You couldn't pay me enough for that kind of work!"
Re:Gender gaps elsewhere... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gender gaps elsewhere... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gender gaps elsewhere... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Gender gaps elsewhere... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because the gender gap in nursing is disappearing. It's only news when the gap is increasing.
Money (Score:3, Interesting)
Those numbers can't be right (Score:5, Informative)
Uhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
I have met VERY FEW women who actually LIKE programming among the women professionals I've met.
Re:Uhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent insightful (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Mod parent insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not in the US, but from what I hear it seems that in the US, it's common for male geeks/nerds to get discriminated against in high school (even physical abuse). But they still go do geeky stuff anyway.
Still, if this is true, it's not a good culture to have. Over here if you're a member of the chess club, or computer club it's not something you'd need to hide from anyone. People who do well in exams/tests don't get picked on negatively etc.
Avoiding a "loser" culture is important, since nowadays one has to be competitive with the rest of the world. Not just the rest of the class.
Nowadays the barriers of entry to the IT world are much lower. Computers and internet connections are much cheaper nowadays. Even if you don't have a formal CS or IT degree, if you're good enough you can prove it. I doubt most developers in the OSS projects care whether you're male or female.
But similarly that means a programming or CS-related job is easier to send to another country than a nursing job.
So it may be a smart move by girls to avoid Computer Science!
The problem BEGINS in High School! (Score:4, Interesting)
Part of the experience of a high-school education is discovering what interests you. That can't happen if you're discouraged from even looking. And I think that young women may be discouraged from doing so in many ways.
I'm not in the US, but from what I hear it seems that in the US, it's common for male geeks/nerds to get discriminated against in high school (even physical abuse). But they still go do geeky stuff anyway.
Hmm. Perhaps because a boy geek is perceived as a mildly eccentric target for ridicule, whereas a girl geek is an anathema to her peers at that age. Or maybe a boy's rising levels of testosterone make him feel better than a girl would about doing stuff alone.
The real tragedy here is that many crucial career choices can be made at this age, including ones that determine whether a student can pursue a career in mathematical or physical fields or not. For example, the perception that mathematics is a "boy's" subject can discourage girls from continuing to study it in high school. And that closes many career doors. Probably forever.
(I have heard that this perception does not exist in some parts of the world. For example, in Iceland: at the risk of grossly over-simplifying the picture, mathematics is actually perceived as a "girl's" subject, whereas the boys want to finish high school so they can go out and help their fathers on the fishing boats.)
I think the solution is to debunk the perceptions that young people can have about these fields, to warn them about "closing doors" to their future, and to encourage them to discover their aptitudes, whatever they may be.
Re:Uhhh (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at UC Berkeley's admission stats. Once affirmative action was struck down, percentage of whites stayed just about constant, blacks went sharply down, and Asians shot up, indicating that that gap of Asians (or any other group) has been artificially suppressed in the name of affirmative action and anti-discrimination.
And there's no such thing as over-represented minority. If asians represent 20% of the best talent pool, then let their performance and achievement speak for themselves, not their ethnicity.
Re:Uhhh (Score:3, Insightful)
If they wanted equality, you'd see studies like this done about fields like plumbing, carpentry, construction, and other "unskilled" jobs. You don't see this kind of thing about a (technical) field like massage thearapy or salon duties (both of which pay pretty well) - because women already have the majority in fields like that. What the bitches that trump stuff like this really
Stinky-pants (Score:3, Insightful)
Im sure there's always that 19% whose intrests in computer science balenced with their ability to tele-commute are powerfull enough to overcome any obstacle. Even being harassed into wearing their hair like Leia.
--not that programmers are ALL like the above, but its a pretty tough image to beat, mainly because theres is a substantial segment of programmers who do unfortunately fit the bill.
Re:Stinky-pants (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget that thanks to the dot-com boom, working in IT became fashionable, so that everyone from all walks of life wanted to get in on it. As a result, the old school computer nerds now work side by side with the jocks who beat them up in high school.
Even self-hating geeks will get pussy someday (Score:4, Insightful)
CS-related fields booming (Score:5, Insightful)
MRS Degree (Score:5, Insightful)
So they are more likely to be dissuaded from pursuing computer science if they are exposed to an unpleasant environment, bad teaching, and negative stereotypes like the image of the male hacker.'
I don't know if the number is statistically significant, but from my own anecdotal experience I know a number of women who went into CS because of the gender difference and because they were more interested in finding a financially stable husband than in learning about computer science. I know several women who became engaged and/or married and then switched degrees or dropped out. I imagine the same is true, in reverse, for certain fields dominated by women. I know at least one guy who joined the cheerleading squad to meet women.
It's not just schools... (Score:4, Interesting)
Or maybe... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Or maybe... (Score:3, Insightful)
What is essentialism? (Score:4, Interesting)
Essentialism is still a lie. I don't know why intelligent people can let themselves be deluded into thinking it's true. Shame on you and shame on the moderator who gave your talk a mod point.
"Essentialism and society
Essentialist positions on gender, race, and characteristics, consider these to be fixed traits while not allowing for variation in the group or individual. Contemporary proponents of identity politics including feminism, equality for gay people, and anti-racist activists generally take constructionist viewpoints. However, these proponents have taken various positions including essentialist ones. Prejudices such as racism, sexism and anti-gay bias may be based on an essentialist view, such as the view that all people of a particular race inherently possess a particular negative characteristic."
Read more at Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
Do you honestly think that women are bad at math because they were built that way, or is it because of years of gender stereotyping, starting with what colour clothes the parents put on the baby right after birth?
Essentialism is the lie that African Americans are born dumber than whites because they have a lower IQ, rather than looking at the distribution of income and social equality that those people have (Bill Cosby may be rich, but most black folk are still way below the poverty line; in Canada, replace African American with Native to get the same effect).
"In feminism, Yashar Keramati understands that essentialism constitutes that women have pre-determined characteristics. This goes beyond simple body parts, those being the vagina and the penis. Rather, this means that women are born 'emotional,' 'inferior,' 'irrational' and so on. Therefore, essentialism could circulate false information about women which results in lowering their status. Though this necessarily depends upon the value judgements a society adheres to. It also depends upon the supposition that these qualities are negative and don't possess the ability to be sublimated -- just like the lower qualities in the male sex. Essentialism can also be taken to an extreme by characterizing different races in such a way -- though it is true that every school of thought is subject to distortion."
Essentialism is what Hitler used as justification for putting Jews and Gays and other undesirables into furnaces. To say you support this point of view is carte blanche for a return to eugenics and all the other madness that implies.
Re:What is essentialism? (Score:3, Insightful)
would be interesting to compare to other measures (Score:4, Interesting)
Respect (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, that being said, I have seen most women being viewed as technically inept. I have a friend who is working towards her masters in computer science who complained, quite frequently, that her classmates (entirely male) were not taking her seriously.
Could it be that our own geeky superiority complexes are keeping us from having the joy of female company? Something to think about before you suggest that a girl can't code.
MMmppphhh (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a fairly successful person (so far), in computer science.
People graduating from my current institution can expect to make about $70k a year with a Masters. A high number of people in engineering here leave to do something other than engineering, when they discover that they will be paid more in other fields (a friend of mine who is becoming a banker will start at $120K/year.
So, while there is a gender gap, one has to ask if telling women to go into computer science will be at all good for their careers. Certainly a certain percentage of all people would like to go into computer science, out of a genuine love for the field. I fall into this group. I hope that all women who fall into this group, do so. I would advocate, however, that we stop trying to push our kids into this field out of a perception that it will somehow make them successful.
Lets break down the facts. Even in the dot-com boom, the jobs that paid the most did not require degrees in computer science. It doesn't take a thick book of credentials to become a web hacker. Go to a web shop, and ask the people working there what their credentials are.
Now, go to any business, and ask their IT people what their credentials are.
There are a lot more of those people, and they only get paid marginally less than programmers. The programmers are in a very very tough job market, so mostly only good ones get jobs programming anywhere (though, there are notable exceptions, of course), and they're overqualified for networking.
As a programmer, without a masters, I made $40k a year. Does it sound like your daughter couldn't make more with a degree in marketing or accounting?
Now that we've got that one solved, you have to ask if pushing kids into the field is a good idea. Only a few of them actually like it, to the rest, even a bachelors is a hellish workload in a field that they dislike. Go ask your marketing student how many all nighters they pull a week. In the atrium here, students write things like "Why don't they let me sleep!!" on the whiteboards... and those are the undergrads, us grads are off in our offices or labs.
So, fine... perhaps we need to make sure that the women who want to be here get here. I am a hearty, strong advocate of THAT, but before you send your daughter off to some brainwashing session that says that she needs to become an engineer, remember that it's a person with an MBA who will be her boss, not someone with a degree in engineering.
Thoughts of a guy on seeing a girl in his CS class (Score:5, Funny)
if (g.hotness > -10) {
while (true) {
hair.smooth();
lysol.spray(armpits);
mouth.stammer();
mouth.tellJoke(lameBinaryJoke);
if (g.noticesYou()) {
return semen;
}
}
}
Dude. Women don't like being treated as objects. (Score:5, Funny)
Women out of the kitchen and into the lab (Score:3, Insightful)
I was thinking about the dearth of women in science just the other day. I think, as has already been concluded and probably supported, that the difference stems at least in part from the fact that women from a very early age are treated differently. This treatment includes not just how they are treated in the classroom, it also includes what is expected of them. Boys get mechanical toys, erector sets, legos, and other toys that encourage engineering and scientific tendencies. Girls get dolls and other toys that encourage maternal and domestic tendencies. It could certainly be looked at as a chicken-and-egg argument, but perhaps we could start to remedy this phenomenon by encouraging women to build and experiment at a younger age.
It's also evident that girls and boys emulate the people around them, so a more stimulating, interactive and intellectual environment at home could be a boon for either gender.
Negative Stereotype!? (Score:3, Funny)
A Bigger Tragedy (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is, often girls like certain thing and boys like certain things. It has nothing to do with a social standard or any other kind of garbage these people make up to get grants. It has to do with the same reason more men are found roaming around best buy looking at electronics than girls.
Why do we constantly have this mission from some groups to force 50-50 on everything? Why is it that we have to take natural patterns out and force things on people. So now what, if a girl wants to study CS they make it free to encourage more girls to do it? Who cares who studies it! Race and sex don't matter!
On these same grounds have you seen any studies advocating to get more boys in school? The numbers are going way down for males while females continues to rise. Why don't we see a coalition focused on getting boys into colleges. Especially white boys who are showing the sharpest decline in enrollment?
Sure I'm going overboard here but my point is this: It's not a *problem* that fewer girls are going into CS. It's a fact. And that's all it is. They make guesses as to why and this is fine but do not try and manipulate things and make them unfair for everyone else to strike some unnatural balance. To me, it's irrelevant if fewer girls are going into engineering and CS programs.
A female perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason I'm asking this is that the Chinese (and the inhabitants of at least a few of the other East Asian countries) seem to have figured out something that us Westerners haven't. The only explanation that I can think of is that the Chinese (at least appear to) obsess less over what gender dominates what field.
I don't know about other girls, but I get kinda irritated when people, be they men or women, exclaim "Good for you!" or "You go girl!" when I mention my major, as if I'm overcoming some incredible hardship by just -- get this -- interacting to guys and *gasp* doing my coursework without female encouragement!
I also get sick of people going on and on about how comp sci is desperately lacking in women and it's masculine and discrimination is rampant and hard for girls to get into and blah blah blah... and then they wonder why the hell girls are being driven away from the subject "despite" all that advertising. I mean, seriously: do you think you could get more men into nursing by saying something like "Nursing: not just for girls anymore! Not girly at all! You won't be laughed at for doing it! Trust us!"? So why does anyone think that strategy would work on women?
Oh, and incidentally, as a 3rd year student, I have never been harassed, excluded or otherwise treated in a negative manner based on my gender. I have never felt that I was intruding into any kind of boys-only club, and I have never found myself wishing that I had more female friends to talk to. Oh, and my grades are pretty decent too (with the notable exception of math, but I've always been weak in that area).
Re:A female perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that the a big element of this is the era that we're from is a different era (I'm a male grad student at the moment).
One of my advisors that I have been fortuate to work quite closely with feels that women arediscriminated against. I have to wonder how much of the difference, however, is the difference in experience between our generation and her generation (not quite 20 years difference).
Re:A female perspective (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A female perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A female perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A female perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
The difference in China is that as a new society (not in the sense that China is new, but in that the current Chinese society is the result of extreme social revolution) -- Chinese people are very much in tune with what is practical for getting ahead, both as a country and individually. There is a combination of old Confucian elements and government direction stemming from revolutionary ideology here. In China, there is no such thing as a 'nerd.' There can't be, because science and technology is considered the career path of choice, much like law school is in the states. In China, it's in fact the 'arts' majors who are looked down on.
Look at where the politicians from the US and China come from. American politicians are mostly law school graduates who studied history or english or god knows what in undergrad. The top leaders of the communist party in China are almost all engineering graduates.
So basically yes, the parent is right-on. Chinese girls are in fact much more inclined to study science and tech because that's what's expected of them. And in my opinion, if this trend continues, we will see the consequences a few decades down the line in the form of a growing East-West technology gap. A society which respects litigation and playing the stock market more than science and technology won't stay ahead too long.
Re:A female perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers has the Go Eng Girl [ospe.on.ca] program that is supposed to reach out to girls in grades 7 - 10. One of the big things they want to do is lower math and science requirements because most women don't seem to like math and science (not my words, don't flame). Girls can then swap out a course they don't like for another, more 'softer' course when applying for university.
In my experience (I'm a guy), every girl I've talked to who's applying to university doesn't want to go into engineering. They'd rather save the world by going into life science or take hybrid programs like biomedical computing [queensu.ca].
Re:A female perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
My highschool actually tried to set up an all-girls programming class one year. I doubt any girls signed up. The whole concept was incredibly sexist and smacked of segregation -- the implication was that us poor stupid little girls just couldn't handle having big smart intimidating boys around, and that we needed extra time and attention if we were ever to learn the terribly difficult concepts involved in programming "Hello World" in Pascal.
If people want to reach out to girls, they need to reach out to boys too. You can't teach people about equality by treating either gender as if it needs special attention.
Oh, and incidentally, I do hate math, I just don't think it would be fair for the powers that be to allow me to do softer courses because of my gender. I'd rather suffer through calculus, possibly even failing it (which is quite likely given how unprepared I am for my final tomorrow morning), than do a bird course and graduate with a degree that is somehow less valid than that of a male student.
Not Just Computer Science (Score:4, Interesting)
We are told that this is a problem, and to some extent, I agree. Sexual harassment or gender bias is obviously out of line, and we should not be creating an environment such that our coworkers feel uncomfortable, but some work guys simply tend to be more interested in. If a woman is more interested in the workings of the human body than how to program computers or (in my case) build forklifts, let her go study biology, chemistry, or nursing (majors which seem to have as many or more women than men). We don't need to BS people into thinking they'll like spending 8 hours a day debugging code or playing with hydraulic oil, just so the statistics impress Oprah or Hillary Clinton. Some women will like CS or engineering, some won't.
Of course, there is the question of why women often don't want to do the same things as guys, and any implication that women are fundamentally different from men different in their interests or the way they think will inevitably be called sexist by someone. Some times I get the impression that the thoughts of the politically correct mafia can be summed up as, "We have to have equality, and by golly, we're gonna get it even if the only way is to make everyone equally miserable."
You know... (Score:3, Insightful)
One poster in a previous story about this said that a female friend had told him she wouldn't take CS classes because "the room smelled bad". Do you really think she was interested and would've made a contribution to science if something that little could push her away?
Two thoughts (Score:4, Interesting)
2. CS degrees are less and less relevant to working in an IT environment or even as a developer. Most IT tasks and many programming tasks don't require the rigorous education in mathmatics that a CS degree gives you.
Personally, I feel that CS enrollment problems says more about the relevance of the degree than anything else.
Chauvinist response -- but maybe true (Score:3, Interesting)
I own an IT company. We've hired women in the past. We've tried to get younger females with good brains to get into the computer science market and attend colleges and programs. Yet we've seen a very high quitting percentage over the past 10 years, and so have almost all of my competitors (who I'll get beers with).
The number one reason why women have left my industry has been child-rearing. If you're a guy, try leaving the business for a year or two, and see how competitive you are when you get back.
Many women I know today (younger ones, 18-25) seem to actually be thinking of babies, whereas when I was 18-25, most of my gal pals were thinking of becoming lawyers, doctors and, yes, even engineers. Maybe society is feeling a change back to the "old bad ways" of women raising kids and men working. I'm not saying this is the best or the worst way to live, but I don't have kids so it doesn't affect me, really.
Expect to see fewer women in the market place for a decade, either way -- in IT our in other industries.
women write 28% of software, but use 50% of it (Score:3, Interesting)
the obvious... (Score:5, Interesting)
The obvious conclusion is that there are less women in CS these days because the benefits are less than the penalty. In other words, the main reason there were more women in IT during the dotcom boom was because there was less competition amongst employees (in a mathematics-dominated field), and the field was seen as immediately beneficial and growing. Anyone with a modicum of technical or mathematic ability got into IT/CS because even those that were not the "best and brightest" in mathematics could get jobs in the field. (This is further illustrated by the supposed sallary gap between men and women in technical/CS fields: quite simply, the women pick the jobs that are less technically challenging, and thus pay less.)
Women, being the sensical (and sensual! but that's something else entirely) creatures that they are when it comes to something as unemotional as picking a career, saw the obviousness of the situation: unless they really liked mathematics, there was little incentive to go into CS.
There's also very little "staying power" in the skills acquired with a CS degree (theory aside - most employers don't seem to give a damn about anything but acronyms anyway), and for many women who were intent on getting married while they are still able to have children fairly comfortably, the payoff of a CS/IT degree was further decreased: you can't really jump back into the field after having and raising kids like you can into something that's less skill-based and more theory-based, like business or management.
Anyway, flame on. FWIW, I'm a guy who happens to be not so mathematically inclined, and I've changed my degree from CS for this very reason as well (the technical ability reason, not the childbirth reason).
Stop obsessing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why aren't there more women in CS? Because they don't want to be in it. The question we may want to be asking ourselves is why we obsess about it. Yes, I know that we're all look for some way we can look "inward" and try and correct our "gender bias". That MUST be the only reason women don't want to be in this business. Just like I don't want to be a nurse because it's a "female" job. It has zero to do with low pay, long hours and changing bedpans. Nope. Not at all.
The reason for women not being in CS is because of the pay, hours, and the social issues. It is, perhaps, possible that we could change the social issues by some introspection, but the question is: why bother? If we're doing it to gain a "female perspective" on programming, then the fact is that any benefit from that is going to be found and cause a change by itself. A change, I might add that would have little or none of the downside of being an "affirmative action" situation. Which is to say people with talent being looked down upon, and people with no talent looking for an easy ride. If there is a benefit to having women in CS because they are women, then someone is going to realize it and capitalize on it and when they are successful, others will follow suit or be left behind.
If there are active harassment situations and artificial barriers to females who actually really like programming and want to be CS people, then that needs to be dealt with. But if we just want females because we think it's a good idea, then perhaps it isn't such a grand idea, especially if you have to prod females towards it with juicy incentives unrelated to a natural interest for CS. Never develop a program based on a nebulous concept about what has value without being able to demonstrate that value.
boys vs girls (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm the only white chick on this whole floor in anything remotely technology related. I was the only girl at all in my 2000 graduating class to get a Bachelors of Science in CS or CIS. So what? Yes, some men get defensive about my presence, others couldn't give a rats ass what gender I am as long as I make shit work. That's life. I guess you just accept it, adapt, and try to grow a thicker skin.
Unlocking the Clubhouse (Score:5, Interesting)
Lots of women drop out of CS because they feel like they need to be "perfect" to compete with the guys - even if they're already getting better scores than the guys. Most women in CS also don't have the same background with computers coming in to college that their male counterparts do. They probably had access to a computer, but most male CS majors already had their own PC for years before starting college.
The "socialization" (if you can call it that) in the CS world also discourages women. Even if they're not being drooled on or ignored by the guys, they're often looked down on, as if they were stupid. (Because every guy knows that having a vagina means you can't understand electronics.) They also feel that they have to be geeks and talk about nothing but computers - they see that kind of passion in the guys and figure that they have to be just as single-minded if they're going to succeed. Some simply give up and slip back into the "expected" role of women: "I don't understand these 'computer' things, they're so complicated. Can you help me?"
When I read this book, I kept saying, "That's me! I thought I was the only one!" In talking to the (few) other female CS majors I knew, I found that they felt the same way.
In a perfect world, I imagine that there would still be more men than women in CS, but it would be a much closer gap (maybe 60/40 or so). I don't pretend that this field is interesting to everyone, but there are so many girls out there who would love to try it if they could do it without becoming a "nerd". It's not that the field intentionally pushes women out, it's just that they're wired differently, and express their interest in computers differently; and because there are so many men in the field, these views are in the minority.
Another girl geek over here (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:you guys act like... (Score:3, Interesting)
Honestly, I find CS to be ridiculously boring, which is why I wasn't intrigued by it, why my wife wasn't intrigued by it, or frankly anybody I know. (Even those I know with CS degrees didn't find it too fascinating.)
It's a good point there are a lot more things than simply being a code monkey. (Which is what most CS majors I've met end up doing.) Most people I've met with degrees in information science have been women. Engineering seems to be male heavy, and the most successful UI designers I've known were
Re:Why most geeks are male (Score:5, Insightful)
I am
1. Not overweight. (120 pounds)
2. Not ugly. http://www.heartlandsi.com/HeartlandServices/IT.a
3. Not bi or lesbian (although the way men are, I have certainly considered going the other way, especially after dumping my last boyfriend -- in October)
4. Definitely not transgendered
Okay, so, am I a geek then? I call myself a geek cuz I would prefer to be in front of a computer than at some party somewhere. I do okay in social situations, but I do not enjoy them.
Yeah, I was not popular in school, but I didn't turn to computers, I turned to books. Computers weren't available to me until the middle 80's and even then, my favorite escape was a good fantasy Sci/Fi book. (aha! Another Geeky thing! I suppose I shouldn't mention that I never missed a Doctor Who episode while I was young?)
A few years ago, I just finished updating myself by getting a a second degree from Devry Online. There were a LOT of females in the online environment. There were at least 5 in every class and most classes had about 10 people.
I love my job. I love programming.
It's really sad that we females have to be stuck into a stereo type just to be good at something that is normally reserved for Geeks. In fact, I would have to say that I have met few "Geeks" as defined by Caspian, I have met many handsome, interesting, fun and exciting men who are in the computer field.
So, you don't want anecdotal evidence to the contrary. Why? Do you feel the need to justify yourself and your loneliness and don't want anyone to argue with you? What makes you the expert on the females in this field? Just because you don't happen to be someplace that is open to hiring females and to giving them a chance in what is still considered "a non-traditional" field for females?
I am not a feminist. I just happen to be happy what I'm doing. Programming. I did not go into this field because there are so few women. I did it because I enjoy it. I was always really good at it and loved the challenges that came from something that changes nearly every day.
I'm me, and I resent this and many of the other comments within this discussion.
Thanks for listening,
Kris (That girl in IT)
PS
I just gave up my moderation of this discussion to post this.
Re:Sadly this is not the most inviting of professi (Score:3, Interesting)
So?
My personal experiences with interviewing is that women can be just as evil, if not more evil, than men, in interview situations. As for interviews where you have to take tests, write code, solve problems - so what? Why shouldn't a company be allowed to as
Common sense is right here in front of you (Score:3, Insightful)
My "common-sense" theory is based on reading the comments by male CS students/professionals in this thread, the number saying women don't want to be in computers, that gender differences mean women won't be as good in computers, that the gender gap is natural like evolution, and of course it has nothing to do with men discouraging women from entering computer fields.
So right here on the pages of