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Six women computer scientists respond to why women don’t pursue computer science

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Re: Six women computer scientists respond to why women don’t pursue computer science

#41

Post by geebee »

closetohome wrote: post #34
geebee wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I am disappointed with the headline, though. The headline reads: "A UW professor argued that women don’t want to code. What do women computer scientists have to say?" The sub headline reads: "Six women computer scientists from the University of Washington respond to an essay about why women don’t pursue computer science as often as men." In some ways, I think that misrepresenting these headlines can be harmf…

Seems like a dangerous bias for a teacher to have. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy as he makes sure his female students don't rise to the top of the class.

Does he, though? That's a stretch. If someone believes that 20% of the elite computer scientists will be women, why does it follow that he would not have confidence in the women who take his class?

For instance, suppose about 20% of his class is women. He's not saying that this 20% of his class shouldn't be there, or won't rise to the top. He is saying that it may not be productive to even out this ratio. Plenty to disagree with and object to in that thesis. But that is very different from not believing in the women who take his class, and it is utterly different from sabotaging the women in his class (making sure they don't rise to the top).

I want to be very clear in this comment and elsewhere that I believe that there is plenty to object to in the claim that 20% represents some kind of natural plateau. My position is that we need to accurately represent the point of view that we are debating.

Re: Six women computer scientists respond to why women don’t pursue computer science

#43

Post by zimablue »

closetohome wrote: post #39
sievebrain wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That happens to men all the time too. Is there anything worth reading in these essays that is genuinely unique to women? Because so far it sounds like damore round two. The only form of unarguable, gender specific discrimination I see in computing is against men.

Well known fact that men are all but extinct in tech because of militant feminists.

Kind of a circular point here because the whole argument on the other side is that equal representation is not a good yardstick. What if it takes an incredible amount of unfairness and discrimination to get the ratio to 60 40? You'd still be making the same point that it's fine there are more men.

Re: Six women computer scientists respond to why women don’t pursue computer science

#44

Post by stcredzero »

dnautics wrote: post #2

Begging pardon, but is this not the wrong group of people to ask this question? Shouldn't we be asking women who didn't pursue computer science, not women who did?

I dated a woman for 9 years who has a Masters degree and who certainly can code. She just finds coding to be tedious and could never imagine doing that as a job. My wife has a PhD, an MBA, and is working on another higher degree. She can also code, but she also finds coding to be tedious and tells me she feels sorry for me in my coding job, because she can't imagine how I could feel otherwise.

One of my female Computer Science professors used to brag about how she didn't code.

Re: Six women computer scientists respond to why women don’t pursue computer science

#45

Post by dkersten »

close04 wrote: post #8
onion2k wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't read the article. The women are responding to an essay about why women don't want to code. As women who do want to code they're exactly the right people to ask.

They’re the perfect women to ask why they chose to code. Because obviously their reasons not to code weren’t enough to stop them so presumambly not too strong.

If you want to get more women to code, asking the ones who already cide why they code doesn’t seem as useful as asking the ones that don’t why they don’t.

Re: Six women computer scientists respond to why women don’t pursue computer science

#46

Post by majormajor »

Someguywhatever wrote: post #25
blihp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are definitely a group worth talking to as they can speak first-hand to the difficulties they had getting/staying in the field despite having a strong desire to be there/here. Understanding at least some of what they felt they were up against should make clear the most obvious obstacles that need to be cleared.

>to the difficulties they had getting/staying in the field despite having a strong desire to be there/here Why isn't it ok that they just aren't interested in it? Women have agency and intelligence and if they want to do something then they can and will do it. I find this whole obsession with "Women in X" to be suspicious because nobody is interested in gender disparities in other fields and starting up "Men in X". S…

> I find this whole obsession with "Women in X" to be suspicious because nobody is interested in gender disparities in other fields and starting up "Men in X".

A quick google search turns up groups for and mainstream media discussion of men in nursing and men in teaching.

Is it "suspicious" that one that you as an engineer see the most of is the one that (a) involves your own field and (b) involves a currently-extremely-prominent-in-media-overall field (fake news, election meddling, self-driving cars, Uber, etc)?

Re: Six women computer scientists respond to why women don’t pursue computer science

#47

Post by blihp »

naasking wrote: post #26
blihp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are definitely a group worth talking to as they can speak first-hand to the difficulties they had getting/staying in the field despite having a strong desire to be there/here. Understanding at least some of what they felt they were up against should make clear the most obvious obstacles that need to be cleared.

> Understanding at least some of what they felt they were up against should make clear the most obvious obstacles that need to be cleared. That doesn't follow. The obstacles the women who succeeded in CS perceive aren't necessarily the same obstacles that drive women who don't succeed in or who don't pursue CS. Sometimes these will overlap, but not necessarily. Clearly the obstacles faced by women who succeeded were…

It won't provide a complete picture, only the picture of the common obstacles that were insufficient to stop them. Read the article and count how many things that you can say 'as a man, I never had to face this and would have considered it inappropriate had it happened to me'. To me those are candidates for obvious obstacles to try to clear. They are the sorts of things that numerous women probably were deterred by.

Re: Six women computer scientists respond to why women don’t pursue computer science

#48

Post by stcredzero »

blihp wrote: post #40
Someguywhatever wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>to the difficulties they had getting/staying in the field despite having a strong desire to be there/here Why isn't it ok that they just aren't interested in it? Women have agency and intelligence and if they want to do something then they can and will do it. I find this whole obsession with "Women in X" to be suspicious because nobody is interested in gender disparities in other fields and starting up "Men in X". S…

It's perfectly fine for women not to be interested in CS or any other field. There's probably a nature/nurture argument to be made for some of the disparity but that doesn't explain all of it. For example, one of the women in the article referenced a boss commenting about her breasts, another talked about being encouraged to drop out so a more deserving man could take her place... that's not lack of interest, that's…

Can any men here seriously recall in a professional context a boss referring to their 'package'?

I can recall someone who did that before he became my manager.

Or that they should leave the field so that some more deserving woman could take their place?

I know a man who was told almost exactly that by a professor. (Minus the woman specifier.)

Re: Six women computer scientists respond to why women don’t pursue computer science

#49

Post by jlos »

Quick summary of respondents reasons for low % of women in C.S. (In order given):

1. Lack of coding in K-12 means fewer women are exposed to coding and thus don't become interested in it during the career selection phase of life.

2. Individuals bias' subtly steer women away from C.S.

3. Once inside a C.S. career, women are systemically marginalized.

4. Once inside a C.S. career, women face overt (and often sexual) discrimination as well as subtle displays of disregard due to their gender(i.e. microagressions).

5. Discriminatory comments from peers before entering C.S.

6. The palpable fact of being a minority and, thus, feeling isolated, irrespective of discrimination.

I would suggest that finding ways of depoliticizing the discussion would help everyone out in the long run, especially since nearly all political issues appear to have become zero-sum games. I think putting the experiences of women who are in C.S. within a broader context would help give more clarity to the issue. I would think of including the following:

1) The experience of women in non-STEM careers with low percentages of women, particularly the trades (for example, women in Canada make up only 4.5% of people in the trades[0]).

2) The experiences of women who did not go into STEM and why they did not choose it.

3) The experience of men who did go into STEM careers and why.

4) The experience of men in careers with large percentages of women (e.g. teaching, nursing, etc).

I would suspect we wound find a mix of bias, discrimination within industry, and personal preferences corresponding to gender. The interesting question is what is the mix?

[0] https://globalnews.ca/news/3823621/women-skilled-trades-manu...

Re: Six women computer scientists respond to why women don’t pursue computer science

#50

Post by bluecalm »

666lumberjack wrote: post #24
dnautics wrote: post #2

Begging pardon, but is this not the wrong group of people to ask this question? Shouldn't we be asking women who didn't pursue computer science, not women who did?

I think the best people to be ask would be women who've left CS, either at undergrad level or after being employed for some period of time.

The best people to ask are women who didn't choose CS as a major. The big gender representation difference occurs there.
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