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Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

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Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

#41

Post by yareally »

reagency wrote: post #36
natmaster wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious why I haven't seen any uproar about the numerous majors where men are in minority.

Because men haven't found gender related hostility or exclusion from high paying jobs in those majors.

> Because men haven't found gender related hostility or exclusion from high paying jobs in those majors.

Men do face discrimination in nursing. However, men are still paid more on average than female nurses[1]. Make of that what you will. The thing I find most striking is that before the 20th century, most nurses were men and in the early days of computing there was a much higher number of women in the field.

[1] http://medcitynews.com/2015/03/male-nurses-earn-maybe-gender...

https://www.reddit.com/r/nursing/comments/1l1k75/any_male_nu...

http://www.jacksonvilleu.com/resources/career/men-in-nursing...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21272837

Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

#42

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

redbluff wrote: post #39
samfisher83 wrote: post #17

How many of them are just doing it for money since salaries are high right now? How many of them actually would do it if it paid 50k instead of a 100k?

Actually as an old hand (been in the game since the late 80's) the proportion of women I saw has decreased from when I first started and has only turned around in the last five or so years. Admittedly this is mainly in a corporate environment, but most of the women I started with tended not to come back when they started their family. I think with more family friendly hours and policies such as remote and flex workin…

> Actually as an old hand (been in the game since the late 80's) the proportion of women I saw has decreased from when I first started and has only turned around in the last five or so years.

That's backed up by the data. There was an NPR piece [1] with graphs of what proportion of people taking various other degrees and Computer Science were women. They were increasing in lockstep until the 80s, but then after that CS just kept falling and falling, even (to my surprise) into the 2000s.

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...

Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

#43

Post by mitchty »

tomp wrote: post #29
samfisher83 wrote: post #17

How many of them are just doing it for money since salaries are high right now? How many of them actually would do it if it paid 50k instead of a 100k?

This is exactly what I think every time someone says "We need to encourage more women/people to study CS." If you're only doing it for the money, you're probably doing it wrong. Studying CS for 3 years does not a programmer/hacker make; staying up coding all night or while other kids are playing outside, for years, is what it takes.

Umm, what?

Do we say this kind of crap to Lawyers? Doctors? Engineers? (scratch the last one i'm sure we do say this kind of crap to them)

Why must programming be such a soul sucking life encompassing thing? It doesn't matter if you're a woman or man, this stupid mindset that somehow the only way to be a programmer is to be a stereotype needs to be launched into the sun and forevermore forgotten.

Just today I met a girl that was in her last year for aerospace engineering. She didn't look like any nerd you might think. She just looked normal. Great fun to talk to as well.

Maybe when us nerds stop thinking of ourselves as some sort of promised race of super humans we can move past some of this nonsense.

Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

#44

Post by this2shallPass »

mitchty wrote: post #43
tomp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I think every time someone says "We need to encourage more women/people to study CS." If you're only doing it for the money, you're probably doing it wrong. Studying CS for 3 years does not a programmer/hacker make; staying up coding all night or while other kids are playing outside, for years, is what it takes.

Umm, what? Do we say this kind of crap to Lawyers? Doctors? Engineers? (scratch the last one i'm sure we do say this kind of crap to them) Why must programming be such a soul sucking life encompassing thing? It doesn't matter if you're a woman or man, this stupid mindset that somehow the only way to be a programmer is to be a stereotype needs to be launched into the sun and forevermore forgotten. Just today I met a g…

Medicine and big-firm law are life encompassing things. Less true of engineering. But for the future doctors, usually pre-med and definitely medical school and being a doctor forces this on you, and for the big firm lawyers, the same.

Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

#45

Post by hkmurakami »

mitchty wrote: post #43
tomp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I think every time someone says "We need to encourage more women/people to study CS." If you're only doing it for the money, you're probably doing it wrong. Studying CS for 3 years does not a programmer/hacker make; staying up coding all night or while other kids are playing outside, for years, is what it takes.

Umm, what? Do we say this kind of crap to Lawyers? Doctors? Engineers? (scratch the last one i'm sure we do say this kind of crap to them) Why must programming be such a soul sucking life encompassing thing? It doesn't matter if you're a woman or man, this stupid mindset that somehow the only way to be a programmer is to be a stereotype needs to be launched into the sun and forevermore forgotten. Just today I met a g…

Not arguing against the rest of your post, but yes, Doctors do have to go through such a gauntlet.

Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

#46

Post by Asbostos »

ngoel36 wrote: post #4
rahimnathwani wrote: post #2

~50% of undergrads at Stanford are female. ~30% of new Stanford computer science majors are female.

Ok, so women still choose CS at a smaller proportion than men do...that's alright for now. What's awesome is that women are now choosing CS more than any other major , and Stanford is providing them an environment where it's cool to do so. That's incredible.

Is that really awesome, or is is bad news for say engineering or physics which could be losing those same women and are traditionally even more male dominated than computer science is? If those subjects are losing as many women, then this is actually bad news for gender same-number-ness.

Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

#47

Post by JesperRavn »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #37
tomp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I think every time someone says "We need to encourage more women/people to study CS." If you're only doing it for the money, you're probably doing it wrong. Studying CS for 3 years does not a programmer/hacker make; staying up coding all night or while other kids are playing outside, for years, is what it takes.

Nerd elitism in programming needs to stop. The first hackers didn't have computers when they were kids, let me remind you.

I would like to see nerd elitism and nerd bashing both stop.

Some people claim that to be a programmer you need to have a certain personality or hobbies, and this is wrong.

But nerd elitism is also a reaction to having been excluded, ridiculed and sometimes bullied. That doesn't make it right, but it also means that bashing nerds and nerd culture, as is all to common amongst progressives, is both unfair and counterproductive.

What I would like to see more people saying is that it's ok that many people in tech have certain hobbies or personality traits in common, but that a person doesn't have to have these things to work in tech.

Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

#48

Post by this2shallPass »

reagency wrote: post #36
natmaster wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious why I haven't seen any uproar about the numerous majors where men are in minority.

Because men haven't found gender related hostility or exclusion from high paying jobs in those majors.

There's definitely hostility. If a prevailing doctrine is straight white wealthy males are the problem, isn't it hostile to people who are straight, white, wealthy, or male?

Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

#49

Post by this2shallPass »

reagency wrote: post #40
tomp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the proportion of Asians in CS/programming, it's probably one of the most diverse industries. Don't fall into the feminist indoctrination that "diversity" only means women or that women are a minority.

Having 1 or 2 races dominating the population doesn't make it racially diverse.

It doesn't. Should we include Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Indian people in one bucket? What about those descended from European Jews- are they just white people? With a finer-tooth comb, it's more racially diverse than the prevailing dialogue indicates.

Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University

#50

Post by Natsu »

mitchty wrote: post #43
tomp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I think every time someone says "We need to encourage more women/people to study CS." If you're only doing it for the money, you're probably doing it wrong. Studying CS for 3 years does not a programmer/hacker make; staying up coding all night or while other kids are playing outside, for years, is what it takes.

Umm, what? Do we say this kind of crap to Lawyers? Doctors? Engineers? (scratch the last one i'm sure we do say this kind of crap to them) Why must programming be such a soul sucking life encompassing thing? It doesn't matter if you're a woman or man, this stupid mindset that somehow the only way to be a programmer is to be a stereotype needs to be launched into the sun and forevermore forgotten. Just today I met a g…

Bad code causes real harm to everyone else on your team, so coders have more incentive to worry about the skill of their coworkers than other professions do. You don't need to be nerdy for that, just good, but the two are correlated because you gain skill if you willingly spend all of your free time on technical stuff.

As for workload, lawyers and doctors tend to be overworked and honestly that's really not okay for doctors, as it leads to dangerous mistakes. My cousin is a lawyer and she always seems to be working, but she's also great at what she does. Another cousin of mine is becoming a doctor and residency is quite a gauntlet for her to run. But those are other issues.

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