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

and do the same with men, and compare

not sure that we have to tools to understand these sorts of questions quantitatively, but i'd like to see at the least some qualitative data instead of opinions (whether reges or this group)

The problem with that is that there is a clear agenda by both sides on this issue. No one wants to be discriminated against. I (male) don't want to be discriminated against in order to force women into CS. I (male) also DO NOT want women to be discriminated against to force men into positions. I assume most (not all) people agree with this even if they flip the gender. But how to execute this is political.

If we can instead approach this scientifically. To determine if there is a predisposition towards a specific career based on gender, societal pressure, discrimination, bias, etc. We can then propose political solutions that can drive society towards equilibrium.

Then I provided data. I don't care about anecdotes

American women are not far behind Scandinavian women on the equality index. Same applies to them.

In this article, 6 women in prominent CS roles each wrote essays in response.

1 is professor at the same school, says his thesis is wrong because the numbers are changing to be closer to equal (On a intro-to-code website for students K-8, genders were split 55/45 boys to girls).

2 is professor at the same school, says the gender gap happens because by not expecting girls to be programmers, then girls don't expect it of themselves, and when they do they don't get offered as much help, so it becomes self-fulfilling.

3 is PhD alum from the UW and lead data scientist at a startup, says girls often don't like CS because they feel unheard or taken advantage of, and that the article is a mean but ironic example of women's opinions being ignored. She also insinuates that the professor should be reprimanded for writing it.

4 is professor at the school, says discrimination (sexual harassment, unequal pay, condescending attitudes) are rampant in the field and make it hard for women to stay motivated.

5 is undergrad alum from the school with high honors & PhD student at Cornell, says girls lose interest because they're frequently undermined. She also thinks the wrong people get recommended to CS at a young age (e.g. kids who like computer games but not kids who like math). She says having supportive parents and good role models is necessary.

6 is undergrad alum from the school and software engineer at Microsoft who TA'd for the original professor, says it's hard to stay confident because the field is male-dominated, and that articles like these make it worse.

Everyone agrees that the issue is very complicated, and says so in their essay.

[1] https://quillette.com/2018/06/19/why-women-dont-code/

edit: removed names of the responders