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Why is computer science a sausage fest?

stubbornella.org

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Re: Why is computer science a sausage fest?

#151

Post by cabalamat »

natrius wrote: post #128
cabalamat wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If women have the same potential both to succeed at computer science and to enjoy the work as men do, the underrepresentation of women in the field is a sign of problems that, if fixed, would result in more people leading more fulfilling lives. I think that is worth spending money on, and Google seems to agree. If some _individuals_ have a potential to succeed at computer science and are currently not doing so, the…

If those assumptions about the underrepresentation of women in the field hold, then it's much easier to identify women for whom computer science would be a good fit but haven't chosen it than it is to identify similar men. Paying the costs for any qualified college student to attend JSConf would be less effective than paying the costs for qualified women. Can you suggest gender-blind criteria that would be successful…

> Can you suggest gender-blind criteria that would be successful?

Well, the original formulation was "potential to succeed at computer science". So we need to measure potential (P) and success (S). Then the people we are interested in satisfy (P and not S).

S could be defined as being a professor of computer science (or related discipline), or as earning more than a certain amount in a computing-related field.

P could be determined by getting someone to submit a computing-based project they've worked on; the submission might consist of a tarball containing documentation and source code, which would obviously have to be assessed according to subjective criteria (to avoid untoward discrimination at this stage, the submissions might be anonymised so reviewers wouldn't know the name of the submitter.

Or P could be determined by some objectively-assessible criteria, for example asking people to write a program whose performance would be measured objectively (e.g. the Google AI Challenge -- http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/index.php )

But however you determine S and P, the set of people you're interested in falls naturally from that.

Re: Why is computer science a sausage fest?

#152

Post by random_guy »

This is really sexist, and the very fact that she can get away with it (and even get lots of praise) should make us all reflect on how fucked up social conventions and politically correctness are.

I've written about the topic here -> http://usingimho.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/men-and-women-on-r... and i've been smiten to death in the comments because i dared to state the fact that only around 1% of the opensource projects on rubygems are made by women and that we all should reflect on that.

Here's a passage of her article:

I believe it is these tangential code-cowboy qualities women are unable or unwilling to emulate, and not their skill or capacity for abstraction, problem solving, creative thinking, or communication — All of which actually make them better developers

Think about if a man dared to write the following:

I believe it is this inability to go straight to the point that men are unable or unwilling to emulate, and not their ability to understand other's needs and to understand how social situations work — All of which actually make them better marketers

Re: Why is computer science a sausage fest?

#153

Post by yummyfajitas »

Confusion wrote: post #150
yummyfajitas wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually, we generalize from other research: there is no reason to suppose CS is miraculously free of discrimination against women, considering the variety of areas in which this kind of discrimination has been shown exist. There is also no reason to assume that all or most of the gender gap is caused by discrimination. If we generalize, we discover that lots of other fields (e.g., medicine, law) have sexism, but they…

If we generalize, we discover that lots of other fields (e.g., medicine, law) have sexism, but they also have 50% women Firstly: in neither medicine, nor in law, are 50% of the graduate students women. Secondly: even when the number of students in the field is 50/50, that doesn't mean there is no discrimination. Here's a nice study about discrimination among students of medicine[1], the consequences of which you can…

Firstly: in neither medicine, nor in law, are 50% of the graduate students women.

Oops, my mistake. The actual numbers are 49% and 49.4%.

http://www.aamc.org/data/aib/aibissues/aibvol6_no7.pdf

http://www.lawschool.com/femalemajority.htm

The women have to perform better to be even considered and only if they are then rejected, then they are being discriminated against?

You've completely misinterpreted what I said. Women overperforming at a given level is a consequence of discrimination, not a precondition. Discrimination is equivalent to a higher standard. If women (or any other group) are held to a higher standard than men, then they should overperform men.

Another (non-emotionally loaded) example: colleges have a higher academic standard for regular students than for football players, equivalent to discriminating against non-football players. As a result, non-football players tend to perform academically better than football players.

For this reason, I'd like to see a study that measures performance rather than opinion.

Re: Why is computer science a sausage fest?

#154

Post by Confusion »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #153
Confusion wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we generalize, we discover that lots of other fields (e.g., medicine, law) have sexism, but they also have 50% women Firstly: in neither medicine, nor in law, are 50% of the graduate students women. Secondly: even when the number of students in the field is 50/50, that doesn't mean there is no discrimination. Here's a nice study about discrimination among students of medicine[1], the consequences of which you can…

Firstly: in neither medicine, nor in law, are 50% of the graduate students women. Oops, my mistake. The actual numbers are 49% and 49.4%. http://www.aamc.org/data/aib/aibissues/aibvol6_no7.pdf http://www.lawschool.com/femalemajority.htm The women have to perform better to be even considered and only if they are then rejected, then they are being discriminated against? You've completely misinterpreted what I said. Wom…

  Oops, my mistake. The actual numbers are 49% and 49.4%.
Those are the numbers of applicants, not the numbers of students actually finishing their education, where women used to have a larger dropout percentage. But that doesn't matter: even if the same amount of men and women start and finish law school, that doesn't mean the women aren't being discriminated against. It may mean they are just working harder to overcome the disadvantages. That works in school, but it doesn't work in the workplace, as research shows, when it once again turns out that women in the exact same position as men earn less than their male counterparts.

  If women (or any other group) are held to a higher standard than men, then
  they should overperform men.
They probably do. However, it doesn't show, because their performance isn't rewarded equally. They may work harder work or have better brains, but they will not be rewarded accordingly, so there is no way to show, by position or salary, that they are better.

  I'd like to see a study that measures performance
I feel that's rather like saying you'd like to a study that actually measures how a lack of oxygen causes death, instead of accepting that all kinds of laboratory experiments show that various part of the body can't do without oxygen. Men have discriminated women for centuries and it's impossible that we suddenly stopped doing that during the past century, as many experiments show. The only things that have disappeared are the egregious cases, where it is easy for anyone to point out there is discrimination. Now we can only show it through statistics.

I have the distinct feeling that I'm misunderstanding the point you are trying to make, because we seem to agree on many points. Must be some fundamental assumption about what we are discussing, but I can't put my finger on it :/.

Re: Why is computer science a sausage fest?

#155

Post by yummyfajitas »

Confusion wrote: post #154
yummyfajitas wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly: in neither medicine, nor in law, are 50% of the graduate students women. Oops, my mistake. The actual numbers are 49% and 49.4%. http://www.aamc.org/data/aib/aibissues/aibvol6_no7.pdf http://www.lawschool.com/femalemajority.htm The women have to perform better to be even considered and only if they are then rejected, then they are being discriminated against? You've completely misinterpreted what I said. Wom…

Oops, my mistake. The actual numbers are 49% and 49.4%. Those are the numbers of applicants, not the numbers of students actually finishing their education, where women used to have a larger dropout percentage. But that doesn't matter: even if the same amount of men and women start and finish law school, that doesn't mean the women aren't being discriminated against. It may mean they are just working harder to overco…

They probably do. However, it doesn't show, because their performance isn't rewarded equally.

That's why I'd like to see studies comparing (women's performance)/(women's reward) to (men's performance)/(men's reward). If discrimination harm's women, the ratio should be higher for women.

I don't really trust opinion polls (except as a measure of opinion), particularly when they ask questions like "is your failure to get promoted/paid/etc caused by $YOUR_FAULT or $NOT_YOUR_FAULT?"

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