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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

#81

Post by naasking »

blihp wrote: post #47
naasking wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

I'm skeptical of this sort of claim. The sexism barriers in medicine and law were much higher, yet women persevered and achieved gender parity despite them. I don't think women are so easily deterred as you seem to imply.

That said, of course it's still worthwhile to eliminate overt sexism of the sorts described in the article, but I don't think for a second it will change the gender ratios by very much. The sort of sexism described is unfortunately everywhere.

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

#82

Post by dnautics »

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…

conversely no one is asking why there aren't more women in oil drilling.

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

#83

Post by dnautics »

jolmg wrote: post #28
lph wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this live demonstration of how to dismiss the opinions of women in CS. I assume you were doing this ironically.

This comment is an excellent example of the kind of thing that causes disrespect for the feminist movement. It's totally counterproductive. If anything, dnautics's comment is in favor of feminism by improving the study. In order to get more women into CS, it would be more valuable to know the reasons of the women that didn't apply, rather than the reasons guessed by the women that did.

thank you, that was my intent.

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

#84

Post by weberc2 »

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…

I fully agree with you, and I'm really interested in understanding how pervasive these issues are--if they are as pervasive as some claim, then we should absolutely take corresponding action.

The puzzling thing is that many of the proponents of the "sexism => gender disparity" hypothesis seem to regard digging deeper into their claims as sexism. It's almost as though they think "not being sexist" demands that we only sample/write-about/etc those women-in-tech who have horror stories about workplace sexism and anything else is "denying their lived experiences" or some such.

For example, when I try to understand why women in medicine and law in the 80s and 90s were so much more successful than women in tech today, proponents of the discrimination hypothesis come after me like I've committed some grievous moral infraction.

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

#85

Post by weberc2 »

skj wrote: post #57
stcredzero wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

> Minus the woman specifier. So, "you should leave this field so someone more deserving can have a place"? When you take out the gender qualifier it doesn't seem so ominous.

Right. Was she asked to leave so someone more deserving (who happened to be a man) could take her place, or was she asked to leave so a man (who happened to be more deserving) could take her place? It seems like someone went out of their way to make the phrasing unusually ambiguous, as though they wanted to make an accusation of sexism but with plausible deniability in case they get called out (motte & bailey fallacy?).

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

#86

Post by weberc2 »

Someguywhatever wrote: post #78
majormajor wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-extrem…

I don't think you can honestly argue that there is as significant an effort to get men into Nursing as there is to get women into programming.

Hey, there are dozens of us! Dozens!

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

#87

Post by stcredzero »

weberc2 wrote: post #85
skj wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Minus the woman specifier. So, "you should leave this field so someone more deserving can have a place"? When you take out the gender qualifier it doesn't seem so ominous.

Right. Was she asked to leave so someone more deserving (who happened to be a man) could take her place, or was she asked to leave so a man (who happened to be more deserving) could take her place? It seems like someone went out of their way to make the phrasing unusually ambiguous, as though they wanted to make an accusation of sexism but with plausible deniability in case they get called out (motte & bailey fallacy…

Are you referring to my comment? My comment involves a man being told that.

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

#88

Post by majormajor »

Someguywhatever wrote: post #78
majormajor wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-extrem…

I don't think you can honestly argue that there is as significant an effort to get men into Nursing as there is to get women into programming.

I think anyone who reads HN or other tech media is incredibly disproportionately overexposed to the tech gender conversation compared to the general public.

It just isn't a thing that registers much for the non-engineering people I know.

I have no idea how much I'd see discussion about men in nursing if I was a nurse. I know a few (women) nurse, it's something they've mentioned occasionally, same with teachers. But in both cases, you see much less of anything about those fields in the news right now.

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

#89

Post by dang »

stevecalifornia wrote: post #53
weberc2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is frustrating how often misrepresentation occurs in this particular topic. So many words are wasted misrepresenting the record and then setting it straight again. A similar thing happened w/ the Google Memo when so many prominent media outlets (as well as commenters all over the Internet, including here at HN) attacked it for saying things it never said before the accusation was changed to "well, it was based on…

Why is this (and children) being down-voted? These seem like perfectly rationale comments on the topic.

Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvoting. As they say, it does no good and makes boring reading. And once the unfairly downvoted comment has been corrected by other users, your comment lingers on inaccurately.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18087888

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#90

Post by dang »

sievebrain wrote: post #35

It's a wider issue with feminists and arguments, not specific to computing. Look at the interview of Jordan Peterson by Cathy Newman. Newman constantly misrepresented and lied about what he was saying in the interview itself, right in front of him , to an absurd level ("are you saying we should model our society after the lobsters"). The whole thing is on YouTube, it's worth watching if you can get through it without…

Please avoid classic flamewar topics on HN. Such discussions are endlessly repetitive and, perhaps because people get bored otherwise, lead to nastiness.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18086490 and marked it off-topic.

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