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Comment by alsomike | Hacker News Reader

Here's actual data: http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/cwsem/PGA_049131

What "natural disinclination" do you think women have, exactly? They don't like math? Women received 47% of math undergrad degrees in 2002 and that number has been stable for 20 years. They don't like computers? The physical sciences use computers pretty heavily, and women received 42% of undergraduates degrees in those fields in 2002, compared to 28% in 1983. They don't like the geeky sci-fi image? 42% of astronomy degrees went to women in 2002, compared to 25% in 1983.

Engineering degrees are still male dominated, women only got 20% of those, but that's still 7 points higher than the 1983 number. The percentage of computer science degrees that went to women decreased from 36% in 1983 to 27% in 2002, to 18% in 2008.

At least we can agree that there's something unique about computer science that it goes against the trend.

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I think you think you are disproving my point with those numbers, but I think it reinforces it. In what exact manner has the computer field failed to be accepting of women in the way that somehow math and the other physical sciences haven't? In the strongly-politically-correct environment that all women entering college have grown up in (and I reiterate my parenthetical in my first posting for those who may have forgotten), can someone show me exactly what it is that computer science and engineering have somehow failed when the evidence clearly shows that efforts to reach out to women have been very successful on the whole?

Is tarring thousands of people with the charge of rampant sexism really the only hypothesis we can discuss every time this issue comes up?

You ask me what "natural disinclination" I think women have, but you're getting the logic backwards. I'm suggesting that if you look at the data that it may suggest the idea that maybe there is a natural disinclination, not that I axiomatically assert that there is one and therefore it is the explanation. Can we at least consider that hypothesis, rather than implicitly and rather frequently accusing engineering of being somehow the sole holdout of troglodytes and evilly conspiring to hold down the little girls, who have somehow managed to transcend all the other evil conspiracies in all the other fields but just can't seem to shake this one?

I think you misunderstand. Your point is that computer science, as a field, has done many things to attract women and that it has still been unsuccessful. Furthermore, since so much effort has been put forth in this pursuit, the computer science community cannot be held responsible for the gender inequality.

I'm not sure that that is what you are trying to convey, but that is about the clearest argument I can read from what you wrote. If this is indeed your argument, then it sounds like you are in violent agreement with the author of the article. The major difference appears to be that you argue the gender discrepancy is just women's preference whereas the article posits it to be a consequence of gender mores (an admittedly subtle distinction).

If I have misunderstood, I'd be interested in clarification.

Um, I think that jerf is trying to say that your figures can be interpreted another way. For example, maybe back in '83, computer science was comparatively friendlier towards women than other maths-oriented degrees, such as engineering, medecine, and astronomy. But as these other degrees have become less mysogynistic, they have successfully taken women away from maths disciplines that had previously been comparatively friendlier to women. It would be interesting to know how the percentage of women choosing maths-heavy degrees has evolved over the same period.

According to the link above, there were approximately equal amounts of 24-year-old men and women getting bachelor's degrees in 1980, but undergraduating men proportionally outnumbered women in natural sciences and engineering 2.66:1. By 1998, bachelor's degrees had increased by 34% for men and 85% for women, but in NS&E the increases had been 23% and 110%, leaving the proportional gender ratio of NS&E undergraduates at 2.14:1. Notably, engineering degrees for men fell by 21%, which had a larger impact than women entering.

I didn't hunt for post-bubble figures.

You don't have a hypothesis, you have an unfalsifiable conjecture that maybe women have some mysterious natural disinclination that you leave undefined and then conclude there's no problem.

I only have anecdotal data, but in my experience most women getting a math degree are doing so with the goal of being a math teacher. Also, if you break physical sciences down by field, just under half of women in physical science are in biology (vs one quarter of men).

Here is a possibility: women got into CS in the 80's and 90's for the money. Now that CS is not a path to quick dotcom riches, the women (and men) who were chasing the money have gone back to business.

As for astronomy, there were 276 astronomy majors nationwide. I think if you pick one of the smallest fields and draw conclusions from it, you should at least admit you are cherrypicking.

Perhaps those numbers mean that programming has finally become a true engineering discipline :).

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