Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

"There's a perception that being a computer science major leads to a job as a programmer and you sit in a cubicle where you type 12 hours a day and have no interactions with other people"

Sounds pretty accurate to me...

Call me crazy and out of touch with reality, and this is only partly off topic: but I'm one of those guys who still doesn't understand why people go bonkers to see a girl who knows her way around a computer, much less plays a video game.

Then again, my current love interest is a Network Security student so...maybe I'm just naive anyway.

We're still here. Based on my personal experience, there are plenty of reasons why geek girls are avoiding CS. For starters, I've had to deal with a few of my classmates make lame jokes,like boobs and brains being an inverse ratio and following that up with "Oh hey, you're not flat chested. Haha." It's a no win situation for me. If I complain, I'm too sensitive. If I say something back, I'm a bitch. I've also had problems with one of my professors, who seemed think women only took CS classes because they were gold diggers in search of a MRS degree. Most of the guys in my classes are decent, if occasionally awkward when we do group projects together. But the ones who aren't tend to be the ones who go out of their way to be an ass.

I think the article nailed it with this quote: "These roles would probably be ideal for women who prefer to be in communication-focused roles, if they know computer science and can communicate to all parties involved." My husband and several of our friends work at the same company. They are write code. All the women on their floor are relegated to "communication-focused" roles, like project/product managers. I've also run into this when people at my husband's office ask what I'm majoring in. When I say computer science, everyone's reaction is "Great! We could always use another project manager! You should talk to so and so about an internship." They look sort of baffled when I explain that no, I want to write code, not manage coders.

People aren't analyzable by computers, at least on an individual basis. Women tend to be more interested in individual relationships than men, and you can't have a relationship with a computer.

In my opinion, it is pretty obvious from the clearly differing motivations of the genders why there is such a gender divide in academics. Maybe it has to do with intelligence, but "intelligence" seems to largely be determined by what a person loves and focuses their time on, i.e. genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Today, we measure intelligence in quantitative/technical terms, and men are much more interested in technical subjects than women. Who memorizes thousands of intricate statistics about hundreds of people they'll never meet? Who gets bored stiff by that stuff and wants to share personal experiences instead? The difference here is quantitative vs qualitative.

So, again, I think it's pretty obvious why there are barely any women geeks. People only think it is a big issue because they think it is important for women to be self determined, and you have to be technically smart to succeed in what we consider success (career, wealth, material goods, etc). I think our modern worldview is way too narrow.

I really enjoy coding, so I plan to stick with it. I am hoping that programming jobs will be similar to other jobs I've worked, in that where you work does make a difference as far as "corporate culture" goes. I've been researching internships, and I've found a couple of companies that might be a good fit. I'm sure I'll find somewhere to fit in doing what I want, but I also expect to have to look a bit harder for it than the average male CS major would. But hey, isn't that what internships are partly for?