The first computer scientists that I knew personally were women. Many years ago (and perhaps when MiamiDAP entered the field), most men and most women undergraduates started out roughly even in computer experiences, when they entered college. Now, quite a few men but not so many women have the kinds of experiences discussed in the first paragraph of the Slate article.
I also think that it is possible that in middle school and high school, some boys may make it difficult for some girls to acquire experience in parallel with the boys. For example, more than one parent on CC has posted about robotics teams of boys excluding the poster’s daughters from the interesting work, taking tools from girls’ teams, and generally being discouraging.
I did not have to contend with that sort of thing as a young woman in a STEM field (well, not much). There is stronger anti-feminist backlash at present, in my opinion.
^Good article. My DD who is majoring in CE but taking many electives in CS says there is a big difference in the way she is treated by other male students in her classes. In the engineering classes, she stands out but she is respected. In the CS classes, she endures comments about why she is there, group projects are very difficult, and many male students are very condescending. It has been hard for her, but she only has 1 more year. She has not found this attitude in the workplace.
If women don’t go into CS in numbers the field won’t change. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend CS over an MD - especially since I know tons of unhappy MDs.
Thanks for the article. As the mom of a daughter who just started as a CS major it was eye opening. I do worry about her as she is also very short and she doesn’t come in with oodles of experience. Her college (small LAC) talks a very good talk about wanting to see women succeed in CS but the only female CS prof left just before school started because her husband got a job out of state.
At her initial advising appointment the prof. pointed out that she didn’t have to take the abet accredited track, but could also choose the less rigorous non-abet track. Maybe he says this to all freshmen or maybe it was just her. I don’t know. She was surprised to find only 6 females out of 36 incoming CS majors. I don’t know what she was expecting. On the other hand I just got off the phone with her and she was bemoaning the difficulty of motivating herself to do homework in the evenings. “Except for the CS work, 'cause that’s just fun.” As long as she has that attitude she will be just fine.
“I agree with Miami on one thing. Being a MD is a better path for a woman than CS. The problem is medical school is not for everyone.”
Interestingly enough, I told my D. that being forced to hop jobs frequently is NOT for everyone. So, I basically told her the same thing but in regard to CS. It was based on my personal experience and my colleagues’ experiences at 8 prior places of my employment. My last place is by far the best and not many people have left in 10 years, but I heard, the times were rough here also and they let many IT go. It is very depressing and require certain personality to be leaving (on you own or being “kicked out”), “collect yourself” and start looking for another job. This experience is significantly more demeaning if you happen to live in the economically depressed area and cannot re-locate. Frankly, it made me personally much stronger, but it can put person thru a major depression. And when you finally get a job after many interviews (I was not choosy, I was taking ANY job, some with significant salary cuts and greater travel time), then you are stepping into entirely unknown territory and have to learn anew at every single job. Believe me, it is NOT for everyone at all.
@MaimiDap - you are right, there is a lack of loyalty to employees in the tech field. My DH, who is a field application engineer (the technical person on a marketing team) has been let go about 4 times in the last 15 years. He has always been able to find another job within 3 months even in his 50’s. Many of our friends have also had this experience and have been in other fields - marketing, accounting, and management - but they have taken a significantly longer period of time to find a new job. You are right, I have not seen this in the medical field but there are a lot of professions out there where there is not much job security.
Without knowing the school, it is hard to say what the difference is. However, in general terms, an ABET-accredited CS major requires at least 33% of the course work in CS and 25% in math and non-CS science. Many non-ABET-accredited CS majors do not require any non-CS science (beyond the school’s general education requirements). Whether the CS course requirements are any different at a school that offers both depends on the school.
ABET accreditation in CS is not generally considered important for employment or graduate study by itself, although it can be applicable in some situations (e.g. the patent exam). Some schools without ABET accreditation in CS have very small and limited CS departments, though some very strong schools for CS also do not have ABET accreditation in CS. When the school offers both, a student who chooses the non-ABET-accredited version of the major may want to take CS courses that those in the ABET-accredited version of the major would take, even if s/he does not want to take all of the non-CS courses that the ABET-accredited version of the major requires.
I’ve noticed the reduced number of female developers over the last 30 years, but haven’t seen the negative attitudes towards women that some of you have. Could be because I’m not in Silicon Valley and not in a start up culture. Have had numerous female managers over the years, so getting into leadership roles doesn’t seem to have been an issue at my jobs.
Whatever is deterring women from going into computing may be a US thing, since women in computing these days appear to be more likely to be immigrants than men.
youcee, "I’ve noticed the reduced number of female developers over the last 30 years, but haven’t seen the negative attitudes towards women that some of you have. Could be because I’m not in Silicon Valley and not in a start up culture. Have had numerous female managers over the years, so getting into leadership roles doesn’t seem to have been an issue at my jobs. " - I have EXACTLY the same experience, 100%.
The experience of @MiamiDAP and @youcee I think show that it’s very much an issue before the workforce, not in it. It’s very much a cultural problem compounded with an educational one.
I work for a small, growing company led by a president who is mixed African-american and Native american. On our senior leadership team, white males are in the minority. We have a very diverse employee base - with one exception. While we have many females in marketing, HR, UX, and front-end development, we have a terrible time trying to hire female Java developers. It’s not because they’re discriminated in our company - they’re just not applying for our positions.
I’ve been in IT 30 years, and always was in the minority regarding gender. I felt like IT - at least my experience in IT - was much more accepting - they cared about talent, not gender or racial heritage. It saddens me to see so few females coming up the ranks.
Sixty per cent of the women in tech have been sexually harassed and one third have feared for their safety. Based upon that would you as a parent recommend that your daughter go into tech?
I would recommend my son or daughter go into tech, but then I’ve never worked in Silicon Valley. I do work in an area noted for high-tech, and have not seen levels of harassment worse than other industries, and certainly haven’t met women who fear for their safety because of their job.
I have heard the numerous horror stories out of Silicon Valley, and clearly some companies need to take strong action, but my experience is that is not representative of IT everywhere.
Personally the flexibility to work from home at times was of tremendous benefit to me when dealing with family issues such as sick children.
I wonder what this survey would look like if conducted outside of the valley and in other industries. Some of the questions - such as have you had a male colleague make demeaning remarks - well, that happens everywhere. What matters if if you get support when you call them out on it. My experience has been my non-jerk colleagues have ostracized the jerk and supported me the few times that has happened.
Inigo why are they doing it in the first policy. What type of work culture allows it to even exist. What matters is they should be disciplined or fired not ostracized. Then just maybe you will get more women in tech.
1983 was really the advent of the personal computer era. The IBM XT with it’s enormous 5 MEGABYTE drive was out. The Apple IIe was going great guns. In in a few short months the MacIntosh was about to be released in a memorable Super Bowl ad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I It’s ironic that in that ad an athletic young woman comes running into the indoctrination hall of mostly male gray drones hurls a sledge hammer into the big screen…
And then women promptly drop out of the field of computer science en mass!
My quess: Men had a more natural tendency to exploit the new tool toward career and financial reward. And being good at this skill involves being comfortable working with the logical sequential portion of the brain for long stretches.
It would be interesting to know how the total number of programmers grew in the world from 1960 to today. Another piece of this I would think is that women had a larger percentage when the total number was significantly smaller and the field less competitive. Add money incentive to become the best and the field becomes less fun.
Solution? Encourage women from an early age to be competitive, smart, non-emotional and somewhat greedy without being shamed. Add a little computer training. Off you go. Of course there may be some groups that take issue with my proposal.
Unfortunately, gender related harassment exists in just about every work culture. And social culture. It’s the rare female who hasn’t experienced some type of harassment at some point in their life. Doesn’t make it right, but it is there. Which is why I’m glad in IT I’ve experienced far less of it than friends who work in other occupations. Talk to female law enforcement officers, investment bankers, judges - any number of occupations and you’ll find horrible sexual harassment stories. Just because some articles have been quoted that focus on this problem in tech doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist everywhere else. Again - that does not make it right. However, we have a long way to go before gender/racial/religious/sexual orientation and many other types of harassment disappear from our lives.
On a related note - when top female clinical researchers were surveyed, 2/3 reported being victims of gender bias and 1/3 victims of sexual harassment. This from a survey published by JAMA.
Interesting - I had no idea that all was so common in the Valley. I’m curious if that holds nationally as well, and also how that compares to other fields. I do agree, it’s an entire culture problem. From my experience though, it always seemed like it was better in industry compared to college academia, high school, and general social pressures.