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Comment by imglorp | Hacker News Reader

This comment covered several hot topics.

1. Girls in STEM: society needs to quit telling people "math is hard, tee hee" and quit shopping in the Pink Aisle at the toy store and reinforcing that culture. Buy your kids Lego and Raspberry Pi circuit kits and see what happens.

2. CS is part coding, part science of algorithms, and part software engineering. We have to quit intertwingling all terms into the catchall "CS" bucket because sometimes "how to run excel" gets thrown in there too. Maybe best to drop the term altogether and use more descriptive names for each study.

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> 1. Girls in STEM: society needs to quit telling people "math is hard, tee hee" and quit shopping in the Pink Aisle at the toy store and reinforcing that culture. Buy your kids Lego and Raspberry Pi circuit kits and see what happens.

Girls in STEM =/= Girls becoming professional programmers.

There are plenty of girls in STEM fields such as medicine, biology, geology, physics, Math, civil engineering...

The fact that not a lot of them want to be forced to sit before a computer 10 hours a day for the rest of their lives certainly isn't an issue if you asks me...

> Girls in STEM: society needs to quit telling people "math is hard, tee hee"

To me, the very existence of "Girls in STEM" groups is sending a weird message to girls (and I’m apparently not the only one to think that). Something along the lines of “sure you can do STEM, you’re just not good enough to do it the regular way so we created a group just for you”.

Honestly that’s the message a lot of diversity initiatives end up sending.

True to some degree, but I think it does help girls get involved in areas where boys are dominant. In high school the comments from boys towards girls interested in such pursuits can deter them. Having a space free of that, at least until they've developed the motivation to continue, is important.

As a high school CS teacher, I've seen how boys can be towards girls interested in coding.

All of this swings both ways, of course, and men are deterred from positions like elementary school teacher, nursing, and secretary roles. Gender being attached to jobs is just dumb in general, and keeps a lot of capable people from doing what they'd love.

> As a high school CS teacher, I've seen how boys can be towards girls interested in coding.

I'm surprised. I was expecting the opposite (boys wanting more girls in the classroom!).

> All of this swings both ways, of course, and men are deterred from positions like elementary school teacher, nursing, and secretary roles.

It's interesting that there's an acknowledgement that we need more male nurses (from healthcare professionals) and male elementary school teachers (from experts in the field) and yet there are zero initiatives to do so.

By that I mean money being spent toward that goal. The same way there's a will to have more "diversity" in medicine... mainly so that people of color can go serve "their people" in underserved areas (read: not very attractive or lucrative).

But in computing we’re spending a fortune and investing time to essentially… commoditize ourselves.

> I'm surprised. I was expecting the opposite (boys wanting more girls in the classroom!).

I think they probably want to be around girls, but most boys are social morons at that age. There is also the element of them being able to get in cheap shots to impress their friends. They don't really think of the consequences.

> It's interesting that there's an acknowledgement that we need more male nurses (from healthcare professionals) and male elementary school teachers (from experts in the field) and yet there are zero initiatives to do so.

Agreed, especially on the school front, as I think it's important for kids in schools to have a range of influences during their early years.

couldn't agree more - have STEM groups and encourage everyone that wants in, to join, but don't make them sit in the 'special class' separate from everyone else.

Depends what girls think though, no? I know many who've taken part in such initiatives and enjoyed it, and seen it have an impact.

Sitting at a computer for 10 hours a day isn't a gendered thing.

There is nothing about computer science or programming that is gender specific. It, ideally, should sit around 50-50, ±5%. So yes, it is a problem that it so heavily skews male.

As to why, it's multi-faceted cultural issue, with how our society treats boys and girls starting from birth. In other words, a pipeline issue.

It is not clear that interest in extended computer use isn't gendered. For example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/

I never said or implied that programming was sexed, I told the parent that just because they are fewer female developers doesn't mean the sex imbalance is the same or even skewed heavily toward males in every STEM discipline.

> Sitting at a computer for 10 hours a day isn't a gendered thing.

Except the 10 hour a day part :) I believe the tendency to overwork is mostly a male thing.

RE: 2: I think I agree. There are lots of "CS" programs targeted towards high-school students which I have mixed feelings about. The goal shouldn't be to turn every student that walks through the door into a SWE (there's somewhat of a conflict of interest here considering most programs are sponsored by big tech companies who are desperate for talent – Microsoft does a lot in this space). Instead, I think it should serve a few roles: expose students to new opportunities (learn if you do want to be a SWE); give students the skills to understand that computers and algorithms are not magic (important from a public awareness perspective); and also to teach enough "deep" technical skills to prepare them for a world dominated by software (e.g., learning how to query databases, write small automations, etc.).

But I think most important is that intro courses need to serve as jumping off points (i.e., they should be INTRO courses). Give students a taste and let them decide if they like it and want to take another bite.

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