Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
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I can really see myself in this -- as a teenager I wrote a lot of code recreationally, writing scripts to automate playing text-based computer games ("go north. a monster attacks!") and writing my own games.
It was the first CS classes that drove me away from it, and led me to think:
- CS isn't for people like me
- CS problems aren't interesting
- CS doesn't do anything to make the world a better place.
It took me many years to come back around to the coding career I'm in today. I really believe that small changes to the classes could've prevented me from developing those misconceptions and being driven away from it.
Now this is fine in a vacuum, but when you put students with different experiences into one room, the ones with prior experience will naturally tend to do better. This relative lack of experience is often misinterpreted as a relative lack of ability or aptitude by the students with less experience, even if their potential is equal if not better than their more experienced peers.
Since gender currently correlates with experience, one way to help balance things gender wise is to even the field wrt experience. This is something Harvey Mudd has done well. (Granted, their stats will be inflated since Harvey Mudd is an excellent STEM school that attracts some of the most technology inclined female students in the country to apply).
I guess I would ask for your basis for this comment. Unless I'm completely off-base on current teenage culture, kids who sit at their computer to program all day are pretty much universally shunned in high school whether a girl or boy. At least at my high school, the advanced math classes were pretty much 50/50 split between boys and girls and I'd argue passing AP calc in high school is 90% of the battle. If you can tackle that the basics of programming are nothing.
>This relative lack of experience is often misinterpreted as a relative lack of ability or aptitude by the students with less experience, even if their potential is equal if not better than their more experienced peers.
I guess I don't get where you're going with this. The teachers will expect you to complete homework and tests. If you're saying professors are somehow making girls feel bad if they go in and ask for help on problems, you should be reporting that to the university. I appreciate the opinion but it feels like a huge reach. CS101 is literally as basic as it gets. If you've passed advanced mathematics and are lost in basic programming, CS probably isn't the best profession. I REALLY am struggling to believe the next Diane Greene missed the boat because they couldn't make it through intro to programming.
I cannot for the life of me grasp this insistence that we have equal representation across all professions from both genders. It turns out males and females literally have difference chemical make-ups and gravitate towards different professions naturally.
If there are women truly being discriminated against, as insinuated above, by something like a professor not giving them the help they need - let's absolutely address it. Fire the professor, sanction the school, throw the book at them. If the issue is "there's way more boys than girls applying for X degrees" - who cares? If they aren't being actively discriminated against, stop trying to force the issue. Let people pursue the professions they enjoy and stop being so caught up in the breakdown of what they naturally drift towards.
> If you've passed advanced mathematics and are lost in basic programming, CS probably isn't the best profession.
I think you're vastly underestimating the benefit of preparation, especially an advanced form of thereof. CS may also require more preparation than other fields do due to its inherent unintuitiveness. The gap between those who dabbled enough to get the basics and those who have never seen it before is rather large.
CS 101 is not basic. Even a high school CS class is not basic. Especially at some places. You're lacking perspective here.
> I cannot for the life of me grasp this insistence that we have equal representation across all professions from both genders. It turns out males and females literally have difference chemical make-ups and gravitate towards different professions naturally.
Many people are not ready to simply accept the latter conclusion because of recent history. Most of those people are similar to the same people who have found that kind of conclusion to be false previously.
I had literally 0 CS prior to college. I am not a programmer and have no desire to ever be one and I would likely be a mediocre programmer at best if forced to do so for a living - CS101 was literally the easiest class I had in college. If you're claiming it's not basic I guess we're just at an impasse. I have NEVER met a person who failed out of CS101 and had any place trying to become a professional programmer. I assume you have statistics backing up this wide swath of the population who have failed out of CS101 due to a lack of previous experience who have gone on to be successful programmers? If not, you are making such a massive leap of faith - you're right, I can't get there.
As for the conclusion, based on what? You've got scientific evidence proving the chemical make-up of men and women are identical? You're rejecting... reality? I assume you're advocating millions of dollars be pledged towards the funding of a program to increase the population of male nurses, correct?
What exactly does 0 CS mean? If you've never picked up a programming book that doesn't mean you had 0 CS exposure, 0 CS exposure is if you've never seen a computer and never reasoned about a logical system. Extremely rare among programmers yet actually not at all uncommon among many people I grew up around.
If CS is so basic, why are there so many people who can't understand for loops? How often do we kick a person to the curb if they can't immediately understand simple algebra or don't instantly figure out how to read? Is simple algebra basic? Is reading basic? How long do those take? How hard it is to teach reading to a person who has never read? Among those who have never read, are there going to be a few who'll pick it up quickly anyway?
It seems you consider it simple because it was simple for you. Maybe you got the one 101 CS class that was actually reasonable? "CS 101" isn't a monolith, there are many of them across colleges and programs, and some programs have improved on the matter.
> I have NEVER met a person who failed out of CS101 and had any place trying to become a professional programmer.
Well, that's kind of a self-biasing conclusion, isn't it? And it's not going to be very encouraging to any kind of person to fail a 101 class in a field.
I don't trust any one person to decide who has a place to become a professional programmer so I don't see that as any sort of evidence or an argument. People not being able to see potential in other people is old news.
In every CS class I've been in there was a huge disparity between those who have coded before and those who haven't, and it was only greater in the earlier classes. That disparity was not replicated in other classes. Those who have coded before could effectively do nothing and pass the class with flying colors while the rest barely scraped by. I have taken multiple high school CS classes due to school jumping and every single CS class had this effect. No, not hard evidence, but something you don't seem to be mentioning at all, and I've heard similar reports from lots of people.
> You've got scientific evidence proving the chemical make-up of men and women are identical?
We're not discussing whether or not they're identical and never where. We're discussing whether or not they completely and utterly explain the current gender disparity. That we do not know and will not truly know for a very long time.
Assigning various things to gender differences has a very bad track record in history, which is why many of us will be skeptical of that easily available conclusion for quite some time, because there are other forces and motivations at play.
I don't need to prove that something isn't true. The onus is on you to prove that it is true.
You're generally not arguing in good faith, which, unfortunately, casts doubt on the sources of your convictions.
And everything after that at my university was pretty tough, although not always because the material was tough, more that some of the professors were there more for research and less for teaching and it was pretty obvious (one even said it flat out in class one day).
As a math major who took on programming later in life than most, I feel a lot of ambivalence about this statement. Data structures and algorithms, and even basic control flow, is more complex than I think you're making it out to be.
Zed Shaw made an excellent point about this when he wrote about the "pipe" for boolean OR. He pointed out that you aren't just teaching people about boolean logic. While they're trying to understand the concepts, they are also wondering what you mean when you say to use the "pipe". In fact, you can't even say use the | character, because very intelligent people may have never used this to the point that they weren't aware that there was a | character, yet these people could make exceptional programmers given a bit more time and the right intro material.
This isn't just a nitpick, I always cringe when I people downplay the rigor of programming, even basic programming. It isn't easy at all, it takes hard work. My own experience as a math major who took on programming a bit late in life is that there is a pretty tough hurdle at the beginning (one that I felt Zed identified very well through his "pipe" example).
I also think that people should take more pride in learning to program - while we could quibble over what the "basics" are, I'd put it up there with my more rigorous math and engineering coursework.
As someone who was programming long before I took AP Calculus, I don't think there's a whole lot of relationship between the two. Certainly, the scope of AP Calculus includes material which is necessary preparation either fairly directly or through other math that builds on it for some of what is covered in a normal CS curriculum, but its certainly not a prerequisite for either basic programming or introductory computer science (which aren't really the same thing.)
It's easy for CS teachers to get boys excited by introducing a new topic with something like "these algorithms are important in VIDEO GAMES!" Boys are vastly more likely to play video games than girls, so this example will likely be much more motivating to boys than girls.
Girls are often socialized to highly value a career that helps other people. An example like "these algorithms are important for helping doctors determine which patients have cancer" may be more inspiring to them.
As parent said, all it matters is writing code and if women aren't interested in that as much men typically aren't in professions usually filled by women, that's their choice.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games#Demograp...
"While 48% of women in the United States report having played a video game, only 6% identify as gamers, compared to 15% of men who identify as gamers. This rises to 9% among women aged 18–29, compared to 33% of men in that age group."
They might play a game now and then, but women are less likely to identify themselves as "gamers" or to think of gaming as a part of their identity. When we think about creating an inclusive environment where students can see themselves in the career, this is the sort of statistic to consider.
But in my opinion, schools should not gear programming courses to favor a certain gender; a better response would be to create a culture that is supportive / inclusive towards everyone entering computer science and to have resources available when people need help.
http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Melanie_Upfoot
"Melanie took over as the math teacher for the girls, however she did not teach math, she used the subject for female empowerment, talking about "how numbers make you feel," "what does a plus sign smell like" and "is the number seven odd, or just different" while disapproving of men treating math like a problem that needs to be solved, none of these being actual math subjects as math 'is' about solving problems."
Boys born today are 40% less likely to graduate than girls. I think this 'problem' will solve itself.
EDIT: I was not very clear. This is not success rate after joining college. Today 60% of all students are women and this fraction is rising. In 18 years men will be a small minority at university education.
My wife was an Electromechanical engineer, in her program they had the same number of woman but a higher percentage because there were fewer students in the major in general. I think they all graduated although a couple of them had to retake some courses so they didn't finish on time.
But my guess is it is a cultural thing not an aptitude thing. Woman have certain standards they need to live up to that aren't necessarily expected of men. Especially in male dominated majors where I have definitely observed the attitude where woman need work harder to prove they deserve to be there than men.
Edit: summary: my hypothesis is men fail out due to apathy since they are told from birth that college is their right and expectation whereas woman have something to prove. As that changes I expect either the woman will become apathetic too or the men will step up their game. Either way, a system out of equilibrium seeks balance.
Could you name some? I have opposite experience.
However, it has been my experience that men are expected to have a fair amount of recklessness and irresponsibility that woman are not.
Examples:
- Men being with many woman during college is considered experimenting, whereas for woman it is considered slutty.
- A man answers wrong on a question in class and people just move on. A blond woman does the same and she's a dumb blond. (I've seen this happen)
- A man fails it's OK, failure happens and is a part of learning. A woman fails, and it's because maybe women aren't cut out for this.
Again, not my field just going by conversation I've had with woman I know.
Or it is considered a rape. General advice today is to treat college as a workplace and date girls outside, who are not students.
> A blond woman does the same and she's a dumb blond.
I seen many dumb men
> A woman fails, and it's because maybe women aren't cut out for this.
...or maybe it is because of environment, conditioning.. When women fails we need to raise awareness, funds...
When men fails it is natural, no help is needed.
Does this advice lead to less women feeling that they've been raped, or does it just minimize the consequences for the person accused because the accuser is poorer and lacks institutional support (such that it is)?
The women who would fail have already self-selected themselves out of CS due to believing they won't be able to hack it. Therefore women who actually do start a CS program are likely to be the most driven ones with the greatest likelihood of success.
Whereas men are conditioned to have more belief in their own ability and to see college as non-optional, so they're more likely to commit to a CS degree (or any college degree) without realizing they won't be successful at it.
Now that I have kids, I realize how early the push for conformation to some societal ideals starts. 3-4 yr old kids in day care already have this notion of how girls are not supposed to play with boys, they should look pretty all the time, they should not play rough with each other or other boys. Girls in 1st grade paying more attention to how their hair looks than how good they are reading/writing. I remember that many of my girlfriend's families passively discouraged them from going into male dominated majors, saying it would be easier for them in the long run.
Once, in a line at gamestop, I saw an altercation between a pre-teen girl and a pre-teen boy. The pre-teen boy was adamant that the girl should not be allowed to purchase a game he thought was meant just for boys. Neither of them knew each other. The girl's father interjected and made it clear to the boy that she can choose to play whatever game she wanted and it was not his job to keep her out of it. This is not abnormal in gaming world, grown men even today scorn on female gamers.
IMO, the best way to combat this problem is to have parents actively push their daughters into tech education from early years. Dads spending time with their daughters and giving them confidence that they can be as good as boys will work wonders. And I say Dad specifically because when the most important man in a girl's life shows her that she is as capable and can compete against other boys who will eventually become men, she cares less about fitting societal norms.
A gigantic survey (I could find references if you are interested) has shown that from ultra-repressive environments (Muslim or African countries) to ultra-liberal countries (Northern Europe) the percentage of women going into CS is about the same. It actually decreases a bit in progressive countries.
This strongly supports the fact that the environment does not matter, biological differences do.
A similarly plausible argument is that despite a lack of overtly regressive policies towards women in the West, there are still a number of cultural norms that influence their behaviour. Which is exactly the point the parent comment is making.
Also area's like India,when men and women are under more economic pressure, there is more gender equal distribution in fields.
I've had this explained to me as the "Nordic Paradox".
If women in Sweden are doing the same career choices as in Saudi Arabia, as a matter of fact one can rule out the society as a factor.
Unless you want to believe that Saudi Arabia and Sweden are equally oppressive to women.
It clearly must be something biological.
Also more available labor pouring in will always decrease salaries.
Half of those aren't about pushing men into nursing or teaching, not many are in valued news oulets( abc go). Its mostly blog posts, others are about the difficulties being a male nurse or teacher.
I also just googled "men in nursing" and "men in teaching" as quick sanity check.
Its pretty clear there is nowhere the same level of push we have going for women in tech and nowhere near the same social validation for pushing men into those fields.
The money is in tech at this moment. And women want it.
Seriously, the answer is the same as why half of the planet wants to be in tech, money, success, and influence. The general thinking is and has been that you try to fairly populate the mid-top range of jobs, and that's more effective than trying to shoehorn in more women driving dumpsters.
This is said every single time this comes up. People need to learn how to use a fucking search engine.
http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/135815/API_Study_Getti...
Because they're nerds?
[...]money, success, and influence.
Oh. Well, I'm sure they'll stay in the field when the find themselves crammed into an open office, working on yet another webapp, with little to no control over product direction. And a wage trajectory of a field that is leveraging it's current cultural cachet to drive a huge recruitment effort.
Once the jig is up, and exposed as just a way to drive down wages, we'll be back to being seen as the hate-worthy nerdy fuckers in the basement. And society will go back to encouraging girls away from the field.
If those are your primary concerns, odds are you'd be more interested in finance or politics.
Learn to search.
"I care about computer science. When I was in school in the 1980s, women got about 37 percent of computer science degrees and law degrees then. Law went up to 47 percent now. In medicine, we were at 28 percent in 1984. That’s gone up to 48 percent. Computer science went from 37 percent to 18 percent. I started to learn about it and say, my gosh. To me, the tech industry is one of the best places to work right now."
PS: I have also been outnumbered by female developers on a team before. But, never at 'toxic' work environments.
I don't see anything in the article about building websites. There is a lot more to Computer Science than building websites even if websites and mobile app are the chosen UI for a great many enterprise and B2C projects now.
Edit: What about women data scientists? Women firmware engineers? Women AI developers? Women database administrators? It's interesting that the mind would immediately associate woman with the more creative CS subsets vs one of the more math heavy ones.
But surely you have references that show those "many programme" and that the number of initatives to get men interested (and to remain once enrolled) is identical to the number of similar programs to get women into STEM. Or maybe it just Sweden with its self defined feminist government thats are backwards on this.
It's true that this doesn't always get stated, but it is the most likely reason.
But as for why tech: technology is increasingly a sector where people earn high wages: people care about some getting some share of that. More importantly, tech companies are becoming the center of our lives: they produce the products we spend our time with. Moreover, tech companies today are increasingly oriented around and dominated by technical employees, rather than "business" or marketing staff. If women aren't represented amongst these technical employees and founders, that will have a detrimental effect on society, because these products will be less likely to reflect the needs of women. Case in point: the ongoing failure of Twitter to properly ha for abusive behaviour and harassment, which overwhelmingly affects women.
Women consistently score higher in empathy and lower in spatial recognition tasks than men. Maybe that's something you shouldn't fight against?
I truly believe equal opportunity exists and the issue is more cultural than institutional.
In my CS class, the women had better grades in general, I was barely passing.
Looking at the data you would expect the high performing women to have amazing careers while I'm drowning in my sorrow on where it went wrong.
Turns out: the opposite happened.
They had better grades, what they didn't have though was: love for the craft. Their goal was to get good grades, they didn't have any love for it.
I enjoyed coding, for them, it was work, for me it was fun. Maybe this is a social construct or maybe it's biological, either way, I feel that who care about this should shift their perspective. If you shut down all programming jobs, I will still code in my spare time, can you say the same thing about people who only care about coding because it makes a lot of money?