131–140 of 190 posts
If you want to do some digging on your own, it's in XLS and PDF formats here-
More than 50% of my law school class (top ten law school) were women. In law school the know-it-all assholes were still mostly men. And that didn't seem to dissuade the women one bit from pursuing a career in law. In my first legal job, more than 50% of the first year associates were women. In my wife's firm, 70% of the first year associates were women.
When I was an undergrad (early 90s) there were about 40-50% women in the CS introductory classes, but by the 200 level classes, there were only about 10-15% women. I was pre-med for a time. Pre-med classes were just as hard ... the attrition did not change the sex ratio in the pre-med classes.
Why do people insist on making up all kinds of just-so stories to explain the discrepancy in numbers of women and men programmers. Isn't it possible that women might not be interested in programming in the same numbers as men. Even within the male population, those genuinely interested in programming seem to be a pretty small number.
Most of my classmates in the CS program did not stay programmers. Many of them went to work for places like Goldman, McKinsey, etc. In fact, those were the preferred jobs in those days. Only a very small number of us wanted to actually program for a living.
This story makes a compelling case that women stopped programming because - 1. Computers started being sold as consumer products - 2. They were marketed almost exclusively to boys - 3. Boys played with computers and learned about them, while girls were made to feel that computers weren't for them - 3. Men showed up to college with more computer experience - 4. Women felt they must not be "naturally good" at computers…
I find this explanation extremely hollow. Most programmers didn't start programming when they were kids. They started when they realized it was a good paycheck.
I have 15 year old daughter and would love to get her more interested in computer science. She is doing good in school getting A in math/science, etc. Any suggestions from HN on how best to guide her interests? Extra project? incentive? For now, her interests are typical teenage - school clubs, facebook, youtube, tumblr, etc.
Obviously suggest, not force.
This story makes a compelling case that women stopped programming because - 1. Computers started being sold as consumer products - 2. They were marketed almost exclusively to boys - 3. Boys played with computers and learned about them, while girls were made to feel that computers weren't for them - 3. Men showed up to college with more computer experience - 4. Women felt they must not be "naturally good" at computers…
I would add: 6. Males are far more likely to enter jobs they're not suitable for Of all the "programmers" without any aptitude that seem to plague corporate IT departments, virtually none of the ones I've come across have been female. If you take out these frauds when counting programmers, then the gender balance in many IT departments becomes more like the early 1980's. Added: When programming became a perceived sta…
This story makes a compelling case that women stopped programming because - 1. Computers started being sold as consumer products - 2. They were marketed almost exclusively to boys - 3. Boys played with computers and learned about them, while girls were made to feel that computers weren't for them - 3. Men showed up to college with more computer experience - 4. Women felt they must not be "naturally good" at computers…
In the Eastern Bloc countries nobody bothered to market computers, for many reasons including closed off markets and economical disasters. They also valued gender equality a lot. But the end result was absolute the same - massive male domination in everything computer-related. So i's not marketing.
This story just isn't convincing. If anything, the legal field has always been more hostile to women, and now it is becoming dominated by women. The same was true of advertising, PR work, sales, and any number of other fields previously dominated by men, and now slowly being taken over by women. More than 50% of my law school class (top ten law school) were women. In law school the know-it-all assholes were still mos…
This story makes a compelling case that women stopped programming because - 1. Computers started being sold as consumer products - 2. They were marketed almost exclusively to boys - 3. Boys played with computers and learned about them, while girls were made to feel that computers weren't for them - 3. Men showed up to college with more computer experience - 4. Women felt they must not be "naturally good" at computers…
It seems like a lot of CS programs focus more on filtering than teaching, which just intensifies the trend.
I have 15 year old daughter and would love to get her more interested in computer science. She is doing good in school getting A in math/science, etc. Any suggestions from HN on how best to guide her interests? Extra project? incentive? For now, her interests are typical teenage - school clubs, facebook, youtube, tumblr, etc.