Calling All Computer Science Women? 191
SemiBarbaricPrincess asks: "I'm currently in the middle of starting a 'Women In Computer Science' group at my college, and I'm wondering what other groups are out there, and what they do to help boost the number of women in CS." Slashdot last touched on this subject in this article from January. For the women readers in our audience: what do you think would be helpful in attracting more women to the world of computing?
Women In CS? (Score:5, Funny)
This should be the easiest first post ever!
(It's just too bad I'm male) In my CS faculty they had a saying - that they could count the number of women in CS on one hand... with three fingers cut off
Let's count the IANAW (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Women In CS? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Women In CS? (Score:3)
Re:Women In CS? (Score:2)
Re:Women In CS? (Score:2)
Re:Women In CS? (Score:2)
Re:Women In CS? (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds like something a CS scholar would say... 'cuz with two remaining fingers you can count in binary... you just need to sign the number serially. Use one finger as the clock and the other as the data indicator, or use one for "zero" and the other for "one", and consider any movement to be a clock tick.
Re:Women In CS? (Score:2, Insightful)
You know what would draw more women into CS? Men taking us seriously. Really.
It would help ME a lot if Slashdot would have done me the favor of retracting/correcting that heinous 'women can't use a computer UI as well as men can' summary that had nothing to do with the article linked.
That's just me, though.
Re:Women In CS? (Score:2)
Men in CS (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Men in CS (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Men in CS (Score:3, Interesting)
I just wanted to say that I meant no offense, really. What I said was halfway tongue-in-cheek. And I'm not against single gender groups. What I am against, however, is any sort of double standard. When it comes to gender, race, or anything of the like. I don't feel that any race, regardless of history, should be allowed to exclude any other race, but gender is a different issue. It just seems that often the people who are interested in female-only grou
Re:Men in CS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Men in CS (Score:2)
More often than not, these groups are formed by the women already in CS who want protection or to stand out or a place to talk to like minded ladies. I don't see them really helping at all, rather, they provide a place where more diversity can occur. If you want to help, form a tutoring session or a CS group tha
Re:Men in CS (Score:2)
Your lack of familiarity in these groups is telling. One of the most common efforts that the women-in-engineering groups I've seen make is in developing mentoring and tutoring programs. More general community outreach, like classroom visits, are another common activities. Also, networking is very important -- for many group members that's all they're interested in. Some male CS types can make it very difficult for women to network with them; they tend to interpret professional interest from a woman as an o
Re:Men in CS (Score:2)
I think the important thing is what kind of group it is.
For instance, part of the main feature of an all-female group is that it is generally a "safe place" to be female.
Most groups that were men-only in the past were simply groups that wanted to do things that were really unrelated to gender. So, say some guys set up a Linux Users Group. The goal of the group would be to explore and learn about Linux, not to revel in their manhood (hopefully -- boy, that's
what is keeping the women out? (Score:4, Insightful)
In my engineering classes, there were plenty of normal women (and normal men for that matter) who were intelligent but weren't freaks. They didn't struggle more than you'd expect, and most of them stuck with it and were just as good as men.
In my CS classes, there were very few women, and the few there were, well, off the bell curve, let's say. I remember talking with more than one female who seemed to have a gigantic ego chip on their shoulder.
I did notice there were plenty of women in my intro CS classes, but they seemed to vanish very quickly.
My theory: computer science is still really not a "science"
So basically, CS is a bunch of people who already "think" in algorithms and the classes are just a formality.
Now that leads to the question: why are there so few women who already "basically know everything" about computers? Who knows. My guess is that women just don't think that way.
Could be they are also intimidated by the "men" that are in CS. However I don't know about that. Business major are usually a bunch of sexist pigs as well, for instance.
Another question: WHY does any of this matter? I'm thinking, how can we get people NOT to go into CS, so they can maybe have social lives, bathe regularly, and not go blind staring at screens all day. Oh well, maybe I'm just bitter and need to get laid.
Re:what is keeping the women out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that leads to the question: why are there so few women who already "basically know everything" about computers? Who knows. My guess is that women just don't think that way.
I think in algorithms. Because of it, CS was very much a breeze for me. I have other female friends who also think in algorithms. So obviously, there are some women who "think that way."
Why are there so few who "basically know everything?" Because women are social creatures. Knowing everything about a subject implies long hours of learning it... locked away in your basement or whatever... and not being social. I'd personally be out hanging with my friends than learning everything there is to know about computers. When I have the time (and interest.. after all, I could be reading Feynman, Fermat, or something on the all-pairs closest points problem), I ask my SO to teach me about networking, but I highly doubt I'm ever going to get to the stage of knowing everything.
Oh, and I believe one of my female friends in CS grad school said that the ratio of men to women gets more even up there.
Re:what is keeping the women out? (Score:3, Interesting)
No-ho-ho... at least at CMU, there are definitely fewer women in the grad program than the undergrad. (Our undergrad program is pretty good now, something like 30%-40% women). I don't know about other schools, but certainly the students that visit us (and from my visits to other grad schools) indicate similar numbers.
Re:what is keeping the women out? (Score:2)
Here at Univ. I've been sorely dissapointed with the instruction, but I've seen a couple good teachers. Back in HS, I took the advanced placement compsci course.
It was interesting: me and 12 others studied C++ and algorithms and data structures for a year. Very useful. Anyway, back to the point: 13 students. 13 of those (yes, 100%) took the A.P.
Re:what is keeping the women out? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the high school I worked at, the Cisco instructor decided it would behoove her and the program in general to inspire females who showed aptitude in computers (and when she couldn't find enough of those, essentially any female who could type) to sign up for the program.
What they wound up with were a smattering of females who, to put it bluntly, exhibited the female stereotype to a 'T'. One would concentrate on her cosmetics during class, one or two would flirt with all the guys in the class, one would fret about when she could get out to have a snack (and roam the halls, talking with friends as high school girls do), and the rest just plum didn't get it.
Test results were abysmal. CCNA Semester 1 Chapter 1 is a basic introduction to computers. "This is a Central Processing Unit (CPU). This is a Network Interface Card (NIC). This is a network cable.", yet atleast a third of them failed it miserably, the others went on to either fail, drop out, or barely pass (which wouldn't have happened if Cisco hadn't dropped the >70% requirement to pass right out of the starting gate, but I digress).
Moving on to college, I found about a 15% female population in a networking course. Most of them were very bright women who were sure to go far in the career of their choice. However! Information Technology (sorry, I never was much for CS, but they're analagous enough for my point) is not that career.
Many of them were obviously there because they'd found themselves in similar situations in high school - pushed through the CCNA program by faculty, parents, or administration. The vast majority of CCNA grads picked up the routers again after the summer within hours, but the female CCNA grads had to resort to 'cheat sheets' to configure the routers, not realizing they had to modify their implementations, specifically WRT the IP addressing scheme on the 'cheat sheet' versus the assignment. Other females in the class were sore over the fact that (and I quote) "There were no requirements for computer courses spelled out beforehand."
I've known some brilliant female IT, and I've known some females in IT who should seriously consider a career change. I've also known some females in IT who just plum have too much resentment over their lack of success to be working with other people. (n .b. the same applies to men, but since we're singling out women, I'll talk about women).
For example; I've had several women, right out of the blue, accuse me of sexism because of their lack of understanding of the subject material. Be it a discussion between peers, or helping out people with problems, it's happened several times. In one case, a female's keyboard and mouse stopped working after she'd re-assembled her PC. I suggested, after listing a few possibilities, that it's possible the connectors (both PS/2) were reversed (this being before they were all colour coded; I've done it myself, it sucks, but you flip it and move on, lesson learned - take the extra 5 seconds to do it right the first time). I was treated to a barrage of how wrong I was, about how she wasn't inferior just because she was female, and how my "boys club" mentality and blatant sexism weren't appreciated, etc. etc. as she dug for a manual that explained how the PS/2 ports were interchangable (based on the voltages). I'm thinking Information Technology isn't the right career choice for anybody with this mentality, regardless of the size and shape of their frontal appendages.
So, to make a long story even longer, either you'll believe me to be sexist to the Nth degree, or you'll (hopefully) see my point; diversity for the sake of diversity does not work. Trying to shoehorn people into CS, IT, or any other discipline for which they do not have a) the mindset, or b) the desire to succeed will only lead to failure, resentment, and under-capable graduates flood
Re:what is keeping the women out? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you are onto something here. Look at the hobbies that a lot of CS guys have: anime (porn), newgroups (porn), web (porn), video games (soft porn), porn (getting redundent here huh?).
Maybe women find porn sexist, perverted, unwholesome. But consider how prevelant it is even here on slashdot, which is usually considered a geek tech
Re:what is keeping the women out? (Score:2)
sometimes i think women want to have a more sociable subject to do a career on, because of the whole stereotype of the talkative wife and the too-quiet husband,
I know plenty of women in CS (Score:2, Insightful)
WICS @ SFU (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to state the obvious.... (Score:1)
Simple... (Score:1)
create an ACM-W Chapter (Score:3, Informative)
and there is a women's division that supports student chapters.
Here's the details on setting this up [acm.org].
To: SemiBarbaricPrincess (Score:2, Insightful)
(Wait, that might be the reason why...)
Whoa! (Score:2)
-psy
Re:Whoa! (Score:1)
Why is there a penguin on my monitor!!!
CS a Man's Game? (Score:2)
I think it's still a fairly open question whether the under-representation of females is because of the societal situation that pushes them away from it, or because male and female brains work differently, and thus more males end up being the right "type" for CS, or other similar fields. It would probably be an interesting research topic for someone who was both psychologically and computer-science saavy.
In any case, whatever the causes are, the results are obvious. There are women who makes great CS peo
WIT (Score:3, Insightful)
Stanford WICS group (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/wics/ [stanford.edu]
It has some with WICS-related links, resources, articles, and of course contact info. One of the more interesting (and probably relevant to your questions) things they do is a mentoring program [stanford.edu]. These links should give you some idea what at least one group out there is doing.
Good luck!
SWE (Score:3, Insightful)
women in science. (Score:5, Informative)
The solution to getting more women in CS is to look at the problems. I almost didn't go into CS. My mother (who is a software engineer) thought I wasn't taking enough classes at one point and suggested I give CS a try. I took it the same quarter I took a chemistry lab. Suffice it to say, I spent Monday and Tuesday writing my lab papers, Wednesday and Thursday coding my projects, and then crashing on the weekend and sleeping through it. I burned myself out badly that quarter and almost never went back. It was because I didn't get into medical school and needed job skills that I took another course. My math background (and the algorhythmic thinking that supported it to begin with) was why I was able to easily pick it up in a quarter where I wasn't already over taxed. I actually stuck out in the class of 300: the teacher took a liking to me when I picked out a coding error that he'd had on his slides for the past five years so he'd pick on me lots (in a joking manner). I suppose I would have stuck out being that I think I could have counted the other females in the class using both hands. That first class nearly did me in, though.
The first class did my sister in. She had a crap teacher. When I tried to tutor her (I suck as a tutor), I found out that the teacher was just *not* teaching certain concepts to the class (my sister is an honors student and it was known that the entire class was having trouble due to this instructor).
I was never intimidated by the guys in the class. Hell, I actually got hit on more in my physics class than I did in CS. Maybe I intimidated the guys
So going back to the problems: Organizations like WIT (women in technology) and WIS really help women. It gives them a place to go in a non-threatening environment where they can often get tutoring and not give up on a subject. As I mentioned in another post, WIT has events where they urge junior high school women to stay with math and science. It's those fundamentals that come before CS classes that will definitely make a difference.
As for discrimination: I had a male friend who was actually part of the campus WIS group. It was targeted at women, but men were not excluded. To the person who wants to start a Men in CS group: go for it, but you've already met your objective (to get a significant amount of men in CS) so what's your point?
Aren't those teachers great. (Score:2, Interesting)
The sciences had always come easily to me before that class, but after it, I had a
Re:Aren't those teachers great. (Score:2)
A past A-level exam paper had a question on two particles of equal mass that colide with each other. The question was why is it possible for there to be enough energy for them merge (or some reaction to happen - i forget what) if they both travel at each other at 5m/s, when there isn't enough energy for the merging when one is stationary and one moves at 10m/s.
I remember arguing about it and saying that it goes any relativity if this happens, and after
If you'd like to address the real problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
<OSU [our story unfolds]>
My Dad was an outstanding high-school math teacher, and (as his profession would suggest) we couldn't afford a sitter much. Thus I ended up sitting through many years of high school math. When I got to high school, of course, I had little use for math instruction and ended up assisting others during all the "you may now work quietly" times.
My observation is simply this: The way high school math is taught is the way boys will most easily understand it. Obviously, there are men that assimilate data like women and women that do the job like men. I'm not dismissing the diversity of human cognition but asking for a moment that you acknowledge that there is a trend in the teaching methodologies that work best with a particular gender, and that they are not identical.
The male teachers were by far the worst. They taught, and thought, right down the line like men think. When asked why you do operation X to dataset Y, they had exactly one answer each time. That was the best answer, and if you didn't get it, then you didn't get math. Since teenagers, typically riddled with self-doubt, are prone to hear this kind of negativity whether it exists or not, they are very quick to pick up on it when it is in fact their teacher's opinion. At that point they just give up. And I got to hear them say, "I'm just not good at math." It raises my blood-pressure twenty points just to type that phrase.
In keeping with their superior networking skills the girls in high-school were more accepting of help than the boys, and (in my heteropinion) much cuter. So I ended up helping girls almost all the time. And though there was one girl who drove to the edge of my sanity getting the points across, without exception they were all capable of getting A grades.
The problem (besides male/academic snobbery) was knowing how to teach. As Alton Brown, or Bill Nye or other excellent teachers illustrate so plainly, there are a nearly infinite number of ways to explain something, and any good teacher has 2 to 10 available for any given subject. Where he or she doesn't have a handful of explanations, as a true master of the discipline s/he should be able to come up with them.
What is more, a teacher should observe the trends of the kind of explanations that work for a particular student, and, whenever possible, answer that student's questions with that class of explanation.
In each case where I studied regularly with student, I was able to change their minds about the most important problem they had to solve. The simple belief that they were in fact "good at math." With that lesson learned, they could go to class with confidence and not just shut down when the teacher explained something poorly. Shortly after that conclusion, they would usually make up excuses to hang out with the cute football players, but I digress.
</OSU>
When this problem is addressed and solved, I think you'll see the CS applicant numbers come closer to where actual cranial aptitude would have them. I'm not certain it would favor the men either. Perseverance in the face of failure and broad multi-tasking awareness are far greater assets in my programming endeavors than any I gained in calculus. If we ever get there, I'd love to compile the stats.
Re:If you'd like to address the real problem... (Score:2)
This is r
Re:If you'd like to address the real problem... (Score:2)
Although there might be some effect at work such as that the women in those fields have to be better than the people around them to be there at all, a big personality factor that I think can make a difference (running the risk of genderalization here) is the tendency of women to be less dogmatic, in the exact sense you de
Why do women need support? (Score:1, Troll)
Let women do what they want, seriously.
If women are so deficient that they need support groups to survive the industry, they don't belong there. I'm not trying to berate women: I don't think this is the case, but the fact that there are these women in CS clubs all over the place makes it seem like someone is saying it is so.
On a note that's much more important, how about attracting more women to MY 'world of computing'?
more info... (Score:5, Interesting)
(Yes, I know it's slashdot; I can dream, can't I?
Re:more info... (Score:2)
Sexiest Geek Alive! (Score:2, Interesting)
Btw, I only know about her because she spoke at an Ig Nobel Prize ceremony...
two problems... (Score:3, Insightful)
The other problem is ancient, and possibly imaginary; you can blame it on nature vs. nurture, society, or whatever you like, but the fact is that people do what they like, and if less women are interested in Computer Science, then there will be less women in Computer Science.
For example, what sort of comments do you think we would get if slashdot ran an article that said "We need more men in Biology; what is the problem, are men not prepared for biology, are they driven away by all the women in the field, or are they just not interested"?
The fact of the matter is, I was never that interested in biology; I might have been more interested in it if it had been more concrete, if we knew more about how things actually worked. However, I was fascinated with computers practically from the moment I laid eyes on them, and I seem to have a natural aptitude for them as well.
Therefore, people who are already predisposed to a given field are not a problem at all, and no effort should be given in trying to change their minds to equal out some demographic notion of equality, on either side of the fence. Believe in yourself, figure out what *you* want to do, and then go do it.
Re:two problems... (Score:3, Insightful)
Look, not only are fewer women starting CS programs, their dropout rates are higher than for men -- about the only academic track for which this is true. There is obviously a real problem here.
There will probably always be more female interior decorators than (straight) male, and more male mechanics than female. Fine. I buy that. But CS is, by its nature, pretty gender-ne
lies, damn lies, and... (Score:2)
Stereotypes have power if people believe them; if a woman grows up learning that "men are better at X and women are better at Y", then she might get discouraged when she's trying to do X, give up, and do Y instead. That's why I stressed building self-esteem in my post.
Statistics are tricky things; it's also possible that working adults are going back to school t
Re:two problems... (Score:2)
These are exactly the problems that we are faced with and, as you mentioned, only 1 is really a problem. My girlfriend is a perfect example of both, actually. She could never do my job only because where I work we mostly sit at cubes and write code...it's how we're productive. There's not a lot of interaction going on. If my girlfriend stays at home for two days straight, she goes nuts from lack of socializing. A lot of girls are like this and I personally
How to attract more women to CS (Score:3, Troll)
First, women have far less variation in IQ then men. Thus they have less representation at the bottom of the scale, and less at the top. They average out about the same as men. Moreover, they tend to do better with verbal tests and not so well with mathematical tests.
Women are also likely to value emotional attachment and emotional stimulation higher than the averge man. (An interesting side point is Aspenger's syndrome and like emotional introversions that tend to strike men at much higher rates.)
Anyone familar with computer science sees how this disadvantages women in the field. Luckily, it's probable that the brain development track that men take is mostly influenced by hormone levels throughout childhood. Therefore the solution to getting more women in CS is simplicity itself. Testosterone shots from the age of 6 months until 18 years. Hell, we could even sterilize the females and get rid of the secondary sexual organs through surgery. With this program of hormone treatment and surgery, I think that we can finally get rid of inequality between the sexes by erasing most of the major biological differences. I'm glad to live in this age that truly recognizes the uselessness of all 'feminine' characteristics and pursuits, and understands that it is only men, and people who are able to act like men, that accomplish anything interesting in the world. If women on average enjoy mathematics less then men, we'll goddamn have to make them enjoy. After all, it's not like some people could find it somewhat unfulfilling...
Re:How to attract more women to CS (Score:2)
Any anybody familiar with actual breathing human beings who are studying to be computer scientists these days would say you're a full of shit crypto-misogynist.
For one, I've met a whole lot more CS students who are also majoring in something in the fine arts than I have physics, bio, etc. majors.
For two, anybody who has seen kids being raised can tell that boys are taught to be less emotional than girls. If a boy gets a
Re:How to attract more women to CS (Score:2)
Now, first off, your claim that many CS students major in something other than a mathematical or science field is interesting. Leaving aside the anecdotal nature of the claim, it is actuall
Re:How to attract more women to CS (Score:2)
Your mention of Camille Paglia is the closest you get to a direct statement on my actual arguments, and you can't seem to say that you find her statement untrue -- only appalling. Her full quote is appropriate here:
Re:How to attract more women to CS (Score:2)
Your statement about Jack the Ripper shows exactly how silly this line of reasoning can get. It's not that the majority of serial killers that are male -- it's that the overwhelming majority are male
Re:How to attract more women to CS (Score:3, Insightful)
Vibrating cases? (Score:2)
Then again, maybe Apple's on to something, I can't tell you how many girls at the art school I met only because I was a CS guy who uses a Mac. Of course, like a true geek, I never actually did anything with any of them. But I did learn that women really aren't impressed if you have the latest processor or video card, or what (computer) languages you knew, but what you can do with your tool.
No really, to them it's no mo
Good luck. (Score:2)
There arn't any. Give up.
arm them with clue-by-fours (Score:2, Insightful)
Given the number of idiotic sexist posts on this topic, it seems the best way to help boost the retention rate of women in CS is to equip them with sturdy pieces of wood for bashing clues into the heads of fools.
Seriously. To all female /.ers, on behalf of the more rational possessors of Y chromosomes, I'd like to apologize for all the sexist gits in this thread.
Re:arm them with clue-by-fours (Score:2)
I think part of what drives them away is too many volunteers to do just that :-)
Women and men are different (Score:4, Insightful)
I *am* sexist. I believe that there are distinct, insurmountable differences between men and women. I believe these differences make us who we are, and to deny the existence of these differences is to deny our humanity.
That is why I married a woman and not a man. I will never be happy spending the rest of my life with a man, because I want a woman and not a man for a companion. I think this is because I am a man, and one of the characteristics of man is to desire a woman for a companion. (Luckily, the converse is true for women.)
These differences are more than just physical. They are also mental and emotional. They are not learned or forced. They are a fundamental part of their being.
That is why there are not many women in some fields, and that is why there are not many men in other fields. And amazingly, that is also why there are fields that seem evenly split between men and women.
This has nothing to do with "our oppressive white male dominated society" or whatever you lumpheads call it, and has everything to do with people doing what they like because they want to. The reason why there are not so many women in CS is because men tend to want to do CS more than women.
To tell you the truth, I am perfectly happy locking myself in a room to program for hours on end and read technical documentation and other people's code.
I don't think my wife will ever enjoy it as much as I, despite her high intelligence and reasoning abilities. I mean, she picked up HTML in an afternoon, but she has no desire to use it.
Now, here's the disclaimer. I don't believe one is better than the other. I don't think CS is the ultimate field that only the best people in the world can be allowed in.
And now for something that boggles my mind. "Feminists" try to take women out of their realm and place them in masculine roles saying they are better men than men. It would be really weird to see a group of men calling themselves "masculinists" dressing up like women and trying to be better women than women, yet we are comfortable with seeing a bunch of "feminists" that dress and behave like men. Just something to think about.
Re:Women and men are different (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you saying gay men aren't men?
Re:Women and men are different (Score:2)
Hmmm... You're going to have to define "choice", "unconscious", and "fundamental".
Don't try to pretend anyone understands exactly what determines sexual preference. It's not a choice in the usual sense the word is used. And from what I've seen, it is pretty fundamental.
Re:Women and men are different (Score:2)
Feminism was one of the greatest assets and one of the unholiest curses of the p
Kids don't get steered toward what they "like" (Score:2, Insightful)
My father is in CIS, and my mother is a housewife/ex-teacher. My brother went into CIS right away. Guess what I was heavily steered toward? Teaching-- a poorly-paid, stressful profession that I showed no talent for but which happens to be traditionally female.The alternative? At one point, my mom suggested that I just "be a mom".
There are huge pres
Re:Kids don't get steered toward what they "like" (Score:2)
Great! Now please come over to my house and explain this to my kids!
Re:Women and men are different (Score:2)
That's a somewhat uncommon definition of the word. Usually, it refers to those who deny choice based on sex. Unless by "insurmountable" you mean that no specific woman can ever excel at a particular thing, your belief does not constitute sexism. For example, in general, men have more upperbody strength than women, but if you have a job involving lifting heavy objects, a woman may in fact be your best appl
Re:Women and men are different (Score:2)
A similar thing happened with medicine. It used to be that all doctors in the U.S. were men. In other times and places, all medical experts have been women. My understand
Re:Women and men are different (Score:2)
The fights you say you're sick of are mostly examples where society has attempted to discriminate based on gender, whether or not the discrimination has any validity. The fights are fought by people who don't believ
No Obvious Answer (Score:4, Interesting)
I would like to see a women's group get together and research this topic and then publish the results on the web. I think only women will be able to really say why they don't currently like CS and what would need to change for them to become interested.
By the way, in the Space Shuttle software group, it's about 50% women. I think everyone who works for the group, both men and women, is married and they also work only 8am to 5pm, no overtime. If more programming jobs were like that, I think you'd see more programmers in general, both men and women. A 60-80 hour work week is just no fun for the average person, especially if they have children or a social life.
As with the military, certain things must change in the computing world to accomodate more women. Many of the suggestions I've seen have been based on guesswork. I'd love to see serious discussion and suggestions from women who've chosen to leave CS for something else.
What would attract women to the world of computing (Score:2)
IRC.
Instant messaging.
Chat.
Sims.
Did I forget to mention the killer app for women - chat with tons of people at the same time for almost free?
As for computer science, why bother attracting women to that field? Those that are interested are already doing it, especially nowadays when barriers are at an all time low - computers are everywhere, free operating systems, cheap hardware, lots of online information. If they are that easily discouraged from computer science, I don't think computer science is fo
gender option (Score:2)
we've gone from helping the hens find more hens to cluck with (im in deap shit for that expression i know) to the horny nerd boys dreaming of 36 26 36 schooling them with less, more efficent lines of code and spanking them with keyboards.
Help improve frog populations in Antarctica! (Score:2)
Seriously, I'm all for encouraging women to enter whatever field they want to pursue but maybe there _is_ a genetic component to being a geek. Should strong women be firefighters? Sure. Should geeky women be programmers. Sure. Should there be support networks for women in geeky fields. Most likely. Should we recruit non-geeky women for geeky professions. Maybe not.
Good start (Score:2)
Systers (Score:2)
From the home page: We are an informal organization for technical women in computing that began in 1987 as a small mailing list for women in "systems", thus the name Systers. It was founded by Anita Borg. There are now over 2500 Systers around the world. If you are a woman in the technical end of computing, you are welcome.
Is this really a problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because there's not even 50/50 parity in the genders in a field isn't proof that there's some insidious conspiracy going on under the surface.
The greater crime here is forcing women who aren't interested or qualified into CS and chasing some perfectly capable men out just in the name of making the statistics look better.
Increasing Women in Computer Science (Score:2)
Motivation (Score:2, Insightful)
Disclaimer: What I'm about to say is a generalization.
Women tend to choose careers based on the social value the job brings. They like to have a job that makes an immediate difference in the lives of the people they interact with each day. If your group can show young women the impact they can have with a career in CS, you may be able to attract more of them.
Lotsa CS women! (Score:2)
The difference is this: CS women don't obsess over Perl vs. Python, Windows vs. Linux, and all that. They don't view geek-hobbyist stuff, like reinstalling Debian and comparison shopping window managers and all that to be relevant. They simply get off on the problem solving and do what they need to do, staying outside of modern geek circles. In that respect they're more pure geek
Perhaps theres a connection (Score:2)
Re:why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Um, you're very wrong. I happen to know several CS guys who know lots about other things: motorcycles, classical music, biology, irish dancing.. you name it.
And it isn't just guys who want women in CS. I particpate in Women in Science through IBM and one of the projects is once a year, we give a presentation at a local junior high school to women to try to interest them in science. Why? Because the majority of women don't stay in math and science (because our culture supports other fields.. boy do I want a barbie that says "let's go kill something" and a GI joe that says "math is hard" in a girlie voice) and are not able to get IT jobs in the future. I stayed with math because I was good at it. I was good at it because I had a teacher who let me work ahead as far as I wanted in the book.
I'm very luck to be at IBM. Not just because I'm employed, but because my particular group has a MAJORITY of women in it. In my team at some times, there has only been one guy on it (I want to say we had an all girls team at one point but I can't remember the time). I know that there are few other places that have that kind of percentage.
Oh, and to cover my legal butt, my statements are my own and I do not speak for or on IBM's behalf
Re:why? (Score:2)
I'm quite happy to know that you are a woman in CS. I just don't see the point of going out of one's way to put women in a career that they would not have gone into naturally by themselves.
Re:why? (Score:2)
They wouldn't have naturally gone into it by themselves because women aren't encouraged to be in math and science to begin with. And with women being the minority in CS, then other women have fewer role models to look up to. Women are taught to think things like "math is hard." After all, why would a statement like that get chosen for a girl's doll?
I gotta disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
GI Joe is a pretty *dumb* character. If anything, he's probably portrayed as dumber than the newer Barbies.
There aren't particularly good role models in pop culture out of the intelligentsia in general, regardless of gender.
And for chrissa
Re:I gotta disagree (Score:1)
Biology is one of those oddities that I've also seen. I don't particularly know why.
I still want the dolls.
Re:I gotta disagree (Score:2)
Do you consider the early days of programming to be strictly pre Grace Hopper?
Re:I gotta disagree (Score:2)
I still stick by my "women are smarter about careers" theory here. Unlike my field (EE), you don't hear about biologists being expected to put in 60-80 hour weeks with no overtime, and then getting fired when the company decides to outsource their work to India because it's so much cheaper. The biotech and pharmaceutical fields are growing fast in the USA, despite the toilet-bowl economy, and they're a great place to sta
Re:why? (Score:2, Funny)
Improved dating prospects.
because. (Score:3, Interesting)
The poster suggests creation of a group of women who are already interested in CS.
CS is not the same as IT.
Natural-science and engineering fields (a category which for some reason includes CS and math, despite the fact that neither is more "concrete" than philosophy) tend to be male-dominated environments, often to (and past) the point of creating an uncomfortable environment for other folks, even when such folks might otherwise be interested in the subject at hand.
Relat
Re:why? (Score:1)
Ah, diversity for the sake of diversity? Yeah, I've always thought we needed more asian men on the Black Women's Alliance... I'm sure they would happy about that, too.
Affirmative action is *idiotic* (Score:2)
Up at Carnegie Mellon University, a couple of years ago the university started a push to get women in CS. They did this, predictably, by mucking with the admissions requirements.
The ratio of women that *know what they are doing* is, today, about the same as it was before CMU started playing with the ratios. Also, the upper classes start approximating
Re:Affirmative action is *idiotic* (Score:2)
Affirmative action is intended to prevent possible
Re:Affirmative action is *idiotic* (Score:2)
No, the story topic did not, but the parent of my post referred to "reverse discrimination", which I took to refer to affirmative action.
Re:Affirmative action is *idiotic* (Score:2)
How does one identify one-handed ambidextrous people, anyway?
Why aren't there more men in childcare? (Score:5, Insightful)
We may as well ask why there aren't as many women:
- plumbers
- electricians
- digger drivers
Before the abolishment of common sense in 1993, the question was never asked why some jobs seemed to be predominated by one particular gender.No, it's nothing to do with heavy lifting, hard thinking and so on. Surely by now we must understand that there are actually more than a couple of differences between men and women?
Re:Why aren't there more men in childcare? (Score:2)
If you want more women in the field, you much first slightly alter the way we interact with the machine. So far, Microsoft and Apple are light years ahead in research of
Re:Why aren't there more men in childcare? (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank-you. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who understands what I'd always thought to be fairly obvious.
When I heard that local fire departments were under pressure to drop the weight lift/carry requirements in order to accept more females, my first reaction was "I live in a basement; affirmative action can finally kill me." If a fire fighter can't haul my 240lb ass up the stairs and out to a waiting ambulance, sorry, but I don't want that person to be a fire fighter. Period.
Here I was under the impression that differences are a good thing, based on all this new PC propaganda we're seeing nowadays. So why is it good to be different, but only if you strive to be the same as everybody else?
Re:Why aren't there more men in childcare? (Score:2)
Ha! Good one. I'm 6'2" tall with a large, muscular frame. Sure, I've got a bit of a gut happening, but hey, maintaining an Adonnis like figure is hard work sometimes. ;)
Spoken like a true
Re:women "in IT" (Score:2)
Re:Sexist (Score:2)
Btw, if I may ask, do you have a proper slashdot account? I'm just after a yes or no - since I know quite a few women chose to not let on so they aren't treated differently etc..
JohnFlux