When Women Stopped Coding • Hacker News Board

Re: When Women Stopped Coding

#151

Post by balls187 » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 10:41 PM UTC

I'm curious to know:

* Rates of women in Computer Science jobs.

* The number (not just %) of women studying computer science. Did those numbers fall, or stay the same? Was it just that more men entered the field of Computer Science?

My hunch (clearly not backed by any data) is that prior to the mid 80's, Computer Science was a niche field, so there weren't many people who went into CS.

As CS jobs became more mainstream (given the advent of the personal computer) more men went into Studying CS, instead of other fields they had been in. With more men studying CS, more men ended up in CS jobs, and eventually you end up with male dominance.

I would love to compare these rates, with what were the top engineering/science jobs in those times, and see of there is a correlation between the decrease in manufacturing/engineering, and the increase in Computer Science jobs.

Perhaps it's also cause and effect. There were more medical and legal jobs, so women entered those professions, and were able to fight to get equality. Since CS was relatively new, the barriers that women face hadn't been knocked down. As time goes on, there were more female doctors and lawyers for girls to have as role models, leading to more women studying in those fields.

Re: When Women Stopped Coding

#152

Post by TheMagicHorsey » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 10:46 PM UTC

jonny_eh wrote: post #138

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #132

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…

Then why the drop off in the 80s? Did the female genome change at some point?

I don't know, but here are some possibilities: 1) Change in competition in classes that were graded on a curve. If CS became more popular, it could have become more difficult to be an A student. 2) Change in curriculum. CS could have gone through a change in subject matter. At my alma mater in the early nineties, CS included a huge amount of math. The Math and Physics majors also had the same kind of ratio distortion as CS. There were no advertisements to boost male enrollment in Math and Physics. 3) A few new majors were created (like Operations Research and Industrial Engineering) that offered admission into lucrative jobs like banking and consulting, while being much lighter on the algorithms and math. A large number of people from CS went into those majors (both male and female). There were certainly a lot more women in Operations Research. People used to comment on how OR had all the women, and CS had all the immigrants from Asia.

Re: When Women Stopped Coding

#153

Post by kaitai » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 10:48 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #80

nathan_long wrote: post #2

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…

"They were marketed almost exclusively to boys" Back before anyone was really marketing computers in any mainstream way, I remember gathering around the few that were available in the school library or in a math teacher's classroom. The only people interested EVER were boys. It had nothing to do with marketing.

I was interested in high school but felt like I wasn't allowed in the computer room. It was full of boys who knew the teacher, and I didn't know the teacher and wasn't a boy, and just didn't really want to deal with the social discomfort given that I had a computer at home and could use that for an hour in the evening. Instead I skipped class in a computer-less room with the IB coordinator's blessing.

That hour or two a day of skipping class or eating lunch would have had a different effect if I'd spent all the time playing with computers.

I started making up for it in college as a CS class was required, I couldn't afford my own computer & so discovered the trash and Linux, and there was a badass female sysadmin who demonstrated perfect ease in owning the computer lab.

Re: When Women Stopped Coding

#154

Post by brandonmenc » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 10:50 PM UTC

Dewie wrote: post #85

orionhenry wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaming has been a hell of a gateway drug for programming.

If I wanted to get involved with making games, it would probably be in order to design games. Not coding per se.

Up until the mid 90s, designing games generally required that you also program them.

In the 80s, even the musicians had to hack assembler (Martin Galway, for example)

Re: When Women Stopped Coding

#155

Post by rverghes » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 10:50 PM UTC

jonny_eh wrote: post #138

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #132

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…

Then why the drop off in the 80s? Did the female genome change at some point?

Looking at the raw data, there's a boom in computer science degrees in the mid-80s, for both men and women. Then there's a significant drop-off, again for both men and women. However, in percentage terms the drop-off for women is larger.

To me, that suggests a narrative where the "bust" painted computer science as a less reliable, more risky field. As a result women were less likely to go back into it.

A similar boom/bust happens in the early 2000s. Again, the female share drops more and recovers slower.

Re: When Women Stopped Coding

#156

Post by nojvek » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 10:54 PM UTC

tonyplee wrote: post #37

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.

I know one of top female coders in Google who worked on Maps. She said her dad taught her a few things in java when she was young. Her dad would give her some sort of reward of every little school problem she could solve with java. Before she even grew boobs, she made a word problem solver based on the STUDENT paper http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/5922/AIM-066.p...

Re: When Women Stopped Coding

#157

Post by pXMzR2A » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 10:57 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #73

nathan_long wrote: post #2

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.

> So i[t]'s not marketing.

The article seems to agree, since the underlying reason is attributed to institutionalized sexism in the mainstream culture.

Re: When Women Stopped Coding

#158

Post by kaitai » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 11:03 PM UTC

inmygarage wrote: post #21

I am a female born in 1983 and have always been deeply interested in computers, but have nonetheless felt inexplicably out of place for it. I was in advanced math classes my entire life and placed out of calculus in college. I took a summer programming class at a different university in 2000 and fell in love with programming. But when I got back to school, I took another CS class that was exactly as described in this…

I think the responses you're getting here are indicative of the environment. "Oh, you felt uncomfortable? That shows you're weak, because I was uncomfortable and I didn't quit. Not my problem, sucker!"

You're not alone. I've been in those environments. I have not battled on to conquer, although I've continued in math and computers. I have kept my head down, avoided a lot of people, and cultivated only those who I like to work with. Once I have a base of nice people I can deal with in a field, plus some competence, I feel free to roam further. But it's not in my personality to sacrifice my mental health or happiness for the pleasure of hanging around with assholes or people who don't want me around. I've made some peace with that.

Hanging around mostly with people who can work with me respectfully also leaves me the energy to deal with the others now and then.

Re: When Women Stopped Coding

#159

Post by stdgy » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 11:09 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #128

stdgy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does 'not interested' connote? And how do you frame it? Consider these two statements: 1) The female sex is intrinsically(biologically) uninterested in Computer Science. 2) Girl's are raised in an environment that pushes their interest away from Computer Science. In each statement, girls are not interested in Computer Science. But the first statement carries a tremendous amount of baggage with it, and comments o…

How about "Computer Science field has innate properties that discourage the female sex (biologically) from it"? Why is it fantastic? Because last time I've checked, women were also less interested in recreational fishing than men.

And those properties that statistically discourage an entire sex from pursuing Computer Science are...

The problem is that I have seen no significant evidence to support such a claim. And on the flip side, it seems rather straightforward to argue for culturally guided decision making. Marketing, toys(Barbie vs Tools), socially approved courses(home economics vs woodshop), socially approved professions, 'traditional' family roles, historical religious convictions... These make for a convincing argument. And they're especially so when you begin to dissect the progress women have made in other professions, and the changes in cultural attitudes over time that have helped them make and hold on to such gains.

Re: When Women Stopped Coding

#160

Post by byEngineer » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 11:10 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #73

nathan_long wrote: post #2

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.

Grew up with Atari 800xl in 1980s in communistic Poland and confirm the same. It is quite obvious what happened but first what I really don't like about the article: Object ovation of women. You have "agents" who decide for themselves -- men -- and objects who need to be told/encouraged or have stuff explained as otherwise they will apparently not understand why they should study CS. Or have mammography ( when was the last time you seen an ad explaining men to have prostate checked? ), participate in politics, etc? You don't tell agents what to do. Agents take action by the definition of being an agent. Objects on the other hand need to be told. Feminism is objectifying women this way.

And explanation of why not these many women are in the CS percentage wise today as in 1984? Easy. As CS became very popular instead of being highly scientific niche subordinate to mathematics department, it just became as any other engineering department - overflown with men.

Btw, I studied English language for my Masters. Hihhly recommended : male/female ratio 1 to 7. 😉 And no, there are no articles encouraging men to take foreign languages as their University Major. As we are not objectifying them as feminists are objectifying women. We know that advising agents would be inappropriate. But if you want to spend 4 or 5 years with chicks around you -- go study foreign language. And you can still pick up programming after partying with them for five years 😉