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On being a girl in computer science - a confession

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Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#121

Post by mpyne »

cletus wrote: post #102

I think these sorts of articles are asking the wrong question when they ask "why aren't there more women in CS?" or "how can we get more women in CS?" Instead the question should be (IMHO) "are there any barriers to entry for women in CS?" I suspect the opinion people have on this issue largely mirrors their view on affirmative action. Some believe in a meritocracy that is blind to race, age and gender. They believe…

> The other side believe that an artificial environment needs to be created to correct an imbalance. Rooted in this principle there is often a belief that this situation only exists because of artificially created and perpetuated gender roles.

If you're referring to affirmative action, the other side is more akin to the belief that without corrective action of some sort, that there will never be a fair environment in which to have a true meritocracy.

This is due to nothing more than competition theory; if you have two evenly matched teams, and one has a substantial lead on the other at the halfway mark of a game, you wouldn't expect the losing team to come from behind except in rare cases.

Given that Real Life is very much a Winner-Takes-All type of game that has sharp implications for later generations of each team.

Now it may be that there are other reasons for a gender imbalance in this case and so your revised question is probably as simple as it can feasibly get. But affirmative action, while being one of many distasteful choices for a distasteful situation, isn't necessarily just a bunch of do-gooders trying to force things into balance. It's an attempt to ensure a meritocracy is even possible at all.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#122

Post by goldfeld »

jfoster wrote: post #111
cletus wrote: post #102

I think these sorts of articles are asking the wrong question when they ask "why aren't there more women in CS?" or "how can we get more women in CS?" Instead the question should be (IMHO) "are there any barriers to entry for women in CS?" I suspect the opinion people have on this issue largely mirrors their view on affirmative action. Some believe in a meritocracy that is blind to race, age and gender. They believe…

If males and females think differently, CS is missing out on some unique perspectives by not having more females involved in the field. Barriers or not, less gender imbalance could enrich the the field.

Exactly, and that's the key, and why I'm always excited for initiatives to create more gender balance in the field. We sure are missing out on half of humanity's perspective by having women so dramatically under represented.

And if engineers tend to be judgmental introverts, I think that's a pattern that developed from being statistically more representative of the reasoning and frame of mind needed for the profession, to being a vastly socially constructed barrier. By which I mean, yes, it's statistically easier to find good engineers who don't mingle well with society at large, but you can find extroverts and people on the grey areas as well. The thing is they tend to repelled by the current status quo. Which affects a lot of women.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#123

Post by minamea »

Steuard wrote: post #83
minamea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could it be taken too far? But I'm under the impression that today we offer women-only CS courses and the norm has become women get hired over equally or more qualified men in the name of eradicating sexism. I humbly suggest this is taking it too far. I don't want to automatically get turned down for a job because a woman applied. I don't want to automatically get turned down for CS help because I am the wrong gend…

> I don't want to automatically get turned down for a job because a woman applied. I don't want to automatically get turned down for CS help because I am the wrong gender. Certainly! Nobody's goal is to reverse the historical situation so that men are systematically shut out of the field in some sort of vengeance for women being shut out for so long. A level playing field is absolutely the goal. But despite all the p…

Your tone suggests to inform rather than speculate and I would like to respectfully point out you might not be right: my fears are really happening, and we have actually got to the reverse of the historical situation.

Here is an article that was posted on hacker news saying just that, and notice the very positive reaction it got from the community here.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4730673

EDIT: I know this is anecdotal evidence, and it's from Europe not the US. But notice what a positive reaction this had from HN. To me it shows that we don't mind this reverse historical situation.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#124

Post by khuey »

javajosh wrote: post #77
timr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Computer science is an unusually unforgiving discipline, and it takes an odd combination of arrogance and masochism to get through it." That's just a gigantic load of horseshit, and the inference that women don't go into CS because it's hard is insulting to women. There are more women in physics than in CS. Is that a more forgiving discipline? How about biochemistry, or cell biology? Both are getting near parity, ev…

Physics solutions can be get partial credit, according to the proclivities of the grader. So yes, it's more forgiving (and I say this as a person with a BS in physics.) I would argue that even medicine is more forgiving, since a) most mistakes do not result in immediate death, and b) malpractice insurance. Get back to me when CS gets malpractice insurance! You also missed entirely the self-deprecating irony. I don't…

How often do software engineers get sued for bugs in their code?

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#126

Post by gonehome »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #113
belorn wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's known that girls are more vocal and proactive in a classroom full of just girls. Isn't that an argument that all schools should then be boy/girl schools, always separating kids based on their sex? After all, this is the most effective model right? If schools has gone away from this model, I assume they had a good reason. We also used to separate women from men in the work place. That too was changed in the las…

>Isn't that an argument that all schools should then be boy/girl schools, always separating kids based on their sex? After all, this is the most effective model right? It might be, and I'm not completely sure it isn't the best model. But work environments are totally different situation. School is an exception because it is at a time where kids are in their formative years, thus creating artificial environments that…

I think that ignores the fact that socialization is one of the most important things you learn at school. I'd imagine separating sexes would just create even more stereotypes/generalizations from both sides.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#127

Post by jimzvz »

snowwrestler wrote: post #112
jimzvz wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kids are very perceptive, they notice the apparent differences in acceptable behavior very early on Yes and if young girls' early exposure to the industry consists largely of "Girl-centric CS activities" then they will immediately wonder why they need such special treatment. People do not want want to be segregated, even if it is, supposedly, for a good cause.

If you're right, what is the worst that could happen? That girls might opt out of pursuing CS? Well that is already the situation now. It's easy to poke theoretical holes in any proposed change...but the status quo should not get a pass just because we're used to it.

The problem is that it is using discrimination to fight discrimination.

What about the boy who can't afford the tuition for the computer science course, his best friend, a girl who he has just introduced to programming, gets a bursary to the course just because she is female? The boy feels that he is not wanted in the cs community because of this discrimination so he begins to pursue something different and the girl feels that she was given an unfair advantage over her friend and does not want to ruin the relationship so she pulls out of the course.

Anything like this that isn't based on merit or interest can be pretty devastating.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#128

Post by minamea »

mitchty wrote: post #59
minamea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could it be taken too far? But I'm under the impression that today we offer women-only CS courses and the norm has become women get hired over equally or more qualified men in the name of eradicating sexism. I humbly suggest this is taking it too far. I don't want to automatically get turned down for a job because a woman applied. I don't want to automatically get turned down for CS help because I am the wrong gend…

So I understand what you're saying about the "women only or prioritization". But, and note I'm obviously a guy, you're assuming the worst possible reasoning for this. Lets say the whole thing is trying to reverse the course direction of CS to help get more women in the field. We know that having equal amounts of both genders helps and strengthens teams. So while the preferential hiring of women might at first glance…

I believe what's morally wrong is morally wrong and should not be done. Someone could speculate that the US would be better off with the cheap labour of slaves but that's morally wrong so we'll stop doing it period. I don't care why you're hiring a gender over another. In my humble opinion it's wrong and should stop.

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#129

Post by minamea »

RougeFemme wrote: post #84
minamea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could it be taken too far? But I'm under the impression that today we offer women-only CS courses and the norm has become women get hired over equally or more qualified men in the name of eradicating sexism. I humbly suggest this is taking it too far. I don't want to automatically get turned down for a job because a woman applied. I don't want to automatically get turned down for CS help because I am the wrong gend…

I don't think that hiring women over equally or more qualified men is truly the norm, though it did certainly occur in some companies and with some individuals - and I'm sure it still does, to some degree. But I think it's a real stretch to call it the norm . And even if you accept the argument that it's the norm, the practice is certainly failing, isn't it, since men still dominate the ranks of programmers. They are…

Men dominating the ranks of programmers, I believe, is due to women being less interested in programming. You could easily see this if you look at CS class. There is no discriminating employer there, and yet still the classes are men dominated. I believe in getting women interested in CS, not discriminating against men in hiring and access to learning resources.

As for whether it's the norm or not, here is the article that gave me that impression: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4730673

Re: On being a girl in computer science - a confession

#130

Post by [deleted] »

gonehome wrote: post #118
cletus wrote: post #102

I think these sorts of articles are asking the wrong question when they ask "why aren't there more women in CS?" or "how can we get more women in CS?" Instead the question should be (IMHO) "are there any barriers to entry for women in CS?" I suspect the opinion people have on this issue largely mirrors their view on affirmative action. Some believe in a meritocracy that is blind to race, age and gender. They believe…

On somewhat of a tangential note affirmative action is an interesting issue. Assuming the goal is to provide equal opportunity for those that were unlikely to have the same advantages as others through their childhood, I think making this distinction by race instead of socio-economic standing perpetuates a lot of racism. It suggests someone is disadvantaged simply because of their race. While it creates an ethnically…

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