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> We are veterinary technicians not veterinarians, dental assistants not dentists, medical assistants not doctors. Women are now a slight majority of medical students and ~95% of nurses. Women make up >75% of the students in veterinary school, and around ~50% of students in dental school.
CS education works best for people who already know how to code before they begin. CS teaches the theory behind a practice in which they assume you already have some skill. Women are less likely to already know, because they don’t play video games as much. This does not make any sense. How does playing video games translate to coding skill?
I don't know if that's as true nowadays, but back when I went off to school in '97, video games were essentially the only way a kid could get exposed to computing in a way that was fun, interesting, and challenging. They directly led to my interest in programming.
The diversity we find in humanity is exactly what has been required for us to get as far as we have. Its an absolute necessity, yet many are troubled when we see different types of people pursue different things. And just as many are troubled when other individuals pursue things they're "not supposed to".
I think we all need to learn to go with the flow.
CS education works best for people who already know how to code before they begin. CS teaches the theory behind a practice in which they assume you already have some skill. Women are less likely to already know, because they don’t play video games as much. This does not make any sense. How does playing video games translate to coding skill?
ugh. I really can't help but cringe whenever anyone tries to throw their hat into the ring and take on this problem, even if they have an inside take. CS education also focuses a lot of effort on puzzles and very abstract concepts when practical applications where you can see the why and how might work better for women (and a hell of a lot of men). I like yummy algorithms, but we could make CS education more accessib…
> We are veterinary technicians not veterinarians, dental assistants not dentists, medical assistants not doctors. Women are now a slight majority of medical students and ~95% of nurses. Women make up >75% of the students in veterinary school, and around ~50% of students in dental school.
None of which in any way contradicts what she said.
CS education works best for people who already know how to code before they begin. CS teaches the theory behind a practice in which they assume you already have some skill. Women are less likely to already know, because they don’t play video games as much. This does not make any sense. How does playing video games translate to coding skill?
Also of note : according to http://gamegirl.blogfaction.com/article/107252/top-7-statist... and http://www.grabstats.com/statcategorymain.asp?StatCatID=13 nearly 40% of video game players are women.
Casual games typically don't make you think, "Can I run this?" or "How would this be better if I had better hardware?"
A "sausage fest"? Classy rhetoric! Is nursing a "tits fest" or elementary education a "vagina fest"? It'll be great when intelligent people can stop identifying themselves or their sense of humor by their genitalia, race, or any other physical characteristic that has little to do with how good they can be as people . I agree that women might not want to hear "dick jokes" or "be groped" but most people don't regardles…
The antonym for "sausage fest" is usually "clam bake" or "taco party".
CS education works best for people who already know how to code before they begin. CS teaches the theory behind a practice in which they assume you already have some skill. Women are less likely to already know, because they don’t play video games as much. This does not make any sense. How does playing video games translate to coding skill?
This stinks of jealousy. Why not be happy for the female students? Why rain on someone else’s parade? Something good happening to someone else seems to disgust fringley. Frankly, it comes off as childish.
That's a terrible argument. Can't you say that about any form of discrimination? "So what if all the nice houses and neighborhoods and schools and drinking fountains and restrooms and universities are all restricted to white people? Can't you be happy for them? Why rain on someone else's parade?" There are good arguments to be made for reverse discrimination, but "can't you be happy for someone else?" isn't one of them.
Other issues:
I believe CS and Web Development currently select for certain masculine qualities that are largely unrelated to someone’s prowess as a coder. I believe it is these tangential code-cowboy qualities women are unable or unwilling to emulate, and not their skill or capacity for abstraction, problem solving, creative thinking, or communication — All of which actually make them better developers.
Then she lists a lot of code-cowboy vs. good-developer differences, involving things like "working in teams" and "understanding human elements" and "respecting people" (which are implicitly feminine traits, according to the OP, unlike the focused solitude that "code-cowboys" employ.) This is triply problematic--she dismisses out of hand the idea that men are better than women at abstract reasoning and such, but implicitly argues that the qualities of "good developers" are feminine and the qualities of "code cowboys" are both bad for development and masculine.
After all this, she complains that her talents were viewed as better suited to management, when all that supposedly-feminine stuff like teamwork and respecting people are important parts of management.
Incidentally, I think the reason for the gender gap is something she pointed out in all of this--women are less likely than men to engage in deeply focused solitary activities. Unlike her, I don't see the deep focus and solitude of programming as a bad thing at all--even if it does keep out women.
EDIT HISTORY: Added "There are good arguments to be made for reverse discrimination..." sentence.