What are we going to do about the lack of boys/men in higher education?
Write NY Times op-eds bemoaning the scarcity of quality marriageable men in ten years.
Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University
101–110 of 154 posts
Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University
#102As a foreigner, can someone explain me why this is important?
Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University
#103As a foreigner, can someone explain me why this is important news?
Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Programming was originally an exclusively female profession because it was seen as lowly-paid "women's work". Later it became a male profession. I just glanced at Wikipedia on this topic ... and, apart from the convenient mention of Ada Lovelace at the very beginning of both the articles[1] (makes you curious why they do this), history of programming is evidently a mostly -- no, nearly all -- male profession. Just…
In the early days, hardware was men's work, and programming was women's work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC#Programming ENIAC started with an exclusively female group of six programmers. This Cosmo article is from 1967: http://boingboing.net/2015/07/31/the-computer-girls-1967-c.h... In a line sure to make heads explode, it quotes Grace Hopper explaining how programming is just like planning dinner.
> In a line sure to make heads explode, it quotes Grace Hopper explaining how programming is just like planning dinner.
It is just like planning dinner. Programming isn't magic and it's wankery to suggest otherwise.
Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a physician, I don't think any of us have the perception that programming is lower status. Our in-jokes are usually about how we can't find housing on our salaries because the former computer science majors are driving up the prices.
Driving up housing prices is in itself indicative of income, not status. Of relevance is the following snippet from http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/ "Does the staggering wealth of particular engineers and programmers mean that there is any chance for nerds to rise socially? Stammbach worked with a colony of longtailed macaques. In the paper cited above, the running header is "Responses to Specially Skilled Java M…
Original article: http://www.loper-os.org/pub/codemonkey.pdf .
Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
You don't get it. Please reflect on this more.
Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University
#108I don't quite understand if "Majoring" means completed degrees or not. In my old University, women were common in the first year of Comp Sci, as it was the easiest department to gain entry to for them as females because of quotas or whatever positive discrimination is called. However in the second year, they would typically transfer out to another department they were more keen on, but probably wouldn't have won a pl…
Do you actually have any evidence of it being easier for women to get into CS because of quotas?
Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University
#109As a foreigner, can someone explain me why this is important?
[deleted]
Re: Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Woz, Bill and Larry were coders, geeks and nerds at some point, and in many ways still are. Are they prestigious? I guess it's up for the reader to decide.
They're famous and respected as businessmen and philanthropists, not software engineers. The media and general public are largely ignorant of the technical accomplishments of those men and would pay them little notice had they not been so phenomenally successful in business. Compare the responses to the deaths of Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie.
I've never seen Woz celebrated as a businessman or philanthropist. He's a geek's geek, a nerd's nerd, an amazing engineer, etc.