Girls not Going into CS 1095
An anonymous reader writes "The Times has an article about what you already know: few girls go on to be IT women. For example, the 2001 AP exam in computer science drew 19,000 boys and just 2,400 girls. Information technology, despite its relative youth, has been far slower to approach gender equality than law or medicine, fields which decades ago overtly excluded women. The problem is not lack of smarts: Girls statistically outperform boys overall in grade school and make up 57% of college graduates, margins that are growing to the point that some colleges are toying with affirmative action for men."
Girls in CS (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not to say that they can't be good at it, though. It seems that women will study harder and get better grades, but its gonna be guys hanging out after class discussing the stuff in the pub because they have a genuine interest. Just my two cents.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
True, but you might want to investigate why this is so. Perhaps there is something inhibiting them to make a free choice.
Dave
why would anyone go into CS now? (Score:5, Interesting)
go scan the classifieds in any major city. it ain't 1997 anymore. (this is where you say "no one hires from the papers anymore") okay, go look at dice, craigslist or some major corporation's website. looking pretty sparse.
my brother was working for one of the large corporations that helped push the h1b program through congress several years ago. they had a website full of programming jobs...hundreds. yet the company was laying off people? they were getting hundreds of resumes every month, and hiring no one. a scam to show an artificial shortage...big business and congress looked each other in the eye and winked.
adios, CS careers.
Hard to be a woman in CS... (Score:5, Interesting)
The real problem, IMO, is that there seems to be a couple of guys in any given CS class who seriously cannot handle women, and who one way or the other make life hell for the women in the class. Some are just plain creeps, some are always trying to upstage them, some seem convinced that women in CS get through just because they're given preferential treatment. My sis used to get comments like "Geez, you're smart for a girl" at least once a semester -- that's a pretty shitty thing to say; if you think it's a compliment, it's not.
Then there are the usual stalker types who get their jollies sending out creepy emails and eyeballing girls in the class -- my friend decided to work rather than go to grad school at Madison because this happened *twice* (on the level of restrining order), fer chrissake.
Granted this is just anecdotal and two people does not a study make. But say what you want about societal pressures on girls not to be scientific or a predisposition against math, what I've seen drive them away is a hostile environment that doesn't seem to exist in most other fields.
What can we do to fix it? I just don't know. When they bothered my sister, the solution was obvious but definately not constructive. My friend used the law to help her (restraining orders and all), but that didn't seem to help in the overall scheme of things either -- who needs that sort of pressure while taking 400-level CS courses?
Anyhow, that's the problem as I see it. I don't have a good solution, but it's something we *must* work on.
Re:It's all about mathmatics (Score:5, Interesting)
However, research has shown that if you take a black kid and put him in a rich white kid's family and put the white kid in the black kid's family, their performances will switch along with the family. In the argument of nature vs. nurture, our modern day concept of intelligence seems to favor nurture.
The same with this thing. Perhaps it is the enviornment that girls are introduced to computers, or the fact that it's kind of presented as a guy thing to do, that attributes to the fact that they're just not interested in it.
because they think its boring (Score:3, Interesting)
Geek Superiority, and an Uninviting Atmosphere (Score:3, Interesting)
I would say that the environment is not one to be condusive to a female. Let alone the hormone factor.
A very appropriate comic [stanford.edu].
I think that much like females outperforming males in elementary school they also do so in engineering programs. I knew a few Engineers at school that could kick any guys but in what they did.
Re:you call this a career? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that has something to do with it.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe you may be slightly off on that there. I have never heard of a school accepting a person based solely on gender or race. What normally happens is that there are several areas considered in admission: standardized test score, GPA, gender, race, geographic location, and so on. Then you, say, get 3 points for a 33 on the ACT, 4 points for a 4.0, and 1 point for being a female. The idea is to give a slight benefit of the doubt to the female/male/white guy who happened to get a 28 on the ACT.
Further, almost all schools have a bare minimum requirement for tests/GPA (it's frequently a composite score sort of thing, 3.5 & 1200 on SAT, 3.0 & 1400 SAT). And state schools, at least in all of the state I know of, are rigidly bound to these. Schools are allowed a specific number of exceptions for admittance every semester, so that they can use to admit someone, say, like myself who had no high school GPA to speak of.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:umm.. Duh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, in my experience, the large drop-out rate in CS is partly based on the expection of people. They think, they are going to play with computers, but they aren't. They are going to play with ideas and information.
In other languages (French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish) CS is dubbed as "information science".
Re:So what? (Score:2, Interesting)
I opt to retain my female status unless I'm obviously getting treated unfairly (common occurence when communicating with tech support staff at various mobo manufacturers, hosting providers, and ISPs, oddly enough.) then I swap over to my alternate male ego and get treated as though I know what I'm talking about.
Dammit, why do some guys feel the need to explain what a traceroute is when you just SAID you used it? I'm NOT confusing it with a bloody ping.
And, walking into a computer store? I wish I could successfully pull off dressing like a guy and spare the schmeel about "This great new thing called Windows95" as some pimply teenager tries to hand me a dusty box full of upgrade floppies.
-Sara
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. This is politically incorrect, but it is no less true. There are NO barriers to women entering IT or Engineering. Indeed, when I was at UCL (incidentally, the first University in Britain to admit women) there were even special scholarships open only to women studying in the Faculty of Engineering. There were a few females in my class, but only 10-15%.
And you know, females outnumbered males in English and Speech Therapy and a bunch of other subjects too. Why was there no outcry from the "national organization of men" about that?! And while I'm here, why is there a minister for women in the government, and not one for men?
Men and women are different. It is a fact that men's brains are optimized for spacial awareness, and women's for language processing. We should be celebrating differences, not trying to force everyone into the same mold!
Other Reasons (Score:2, Interesting)
Back to the genuine interest, as someone mentioned men like their toys be it cars, computers or even that ball you bounce around while thinking. We love to play with things, break things, make things work. We tend to have a passion for our toys, we could spend days just tweaking things which would seem pointless to others. Simpily put we have a passion for playing. Whereas women tend only to hold things such as releationships as close to them as we hold our passion for playing.
Image of the IT industry (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at the author's agenda ... (Score:1, Interesting)
I have serious reservations about gender-oriented education. I'm female, and I *don't* fit in with the averages. I *was* outspoken in my classes, and I *did* major in CS. I didn't even know what "programming" was when I took intro to CS, but after the first assignment, I was hooked.
In this article, they talk about trying to change the CS curriculum to involve fewer "girl-unfriendly" elements.
From the article:
"The environment isn't girl-friendly. Intelligent, creative girls want to do larger-scale programs that actually do something. They don't want to look at a logarithm that deals with a math thing and how we're going to apply it. They don't like puzzle problems -- or they don't exclusively, and yet that's a lot of what the Advanced Placement test is about."
Give me a break. If someone doesn't enjoy or do well at puzzle problems, how on earth are they going to turn customer requirements into a working product? Maybe there's a reason the AP test focuses on these things?
And sure, I don't remember a lot of the math I learned in college now, but understanding the foundation for algorithms, why this one is faster than that one, etc. when you're learning them is pretty damn important.
If these people had their way and the educational world were divided into girl sections and boy sections, misfits like me would definitely lose out. Maybe instead of trying to separate kids because the girls (on average) won't speak up in a class with boys, we should *gasp* look at the root causes -- the socialization that goes on in the home and on the streets.
I saw a little girl the other day, maybe 2.5 or 3 years old, with her mom in the store. They were looking at some themed candy -- different cartoon characters decorated the containers. The girl picks the Batman candy, and mom puts it back. "Batman's not for girls, honey. Why don't you pick something more appropriate? How about Tweety? You like Tweety?"
Until parents learn not to put predispositions in the minds of their kids (girls, don't do math or contact sports, the boys won't like you; boys, be tough and never show the hurt, or you'll look like a fairy), there will be uneven numbers in the different disciplines. That's just the way it goes.
On a side note, and I may be totally off-base, but I wonder if anyone does studies on how many young men major in english lit and education?
Re:The problem (Score:2, Interesting)
When I (a women) was in college [rpi.edu] and trying to declare a major, I told my advisor that I wanted to get my degree in CS. He immediately replied that I should go into biology instead, because the math in CS would be too difficult. I am not even remotely bad at math, so his statement was somewhat shocking to me. I can only assume that it was caused by the general "girls are bad at math" mentality. I'm not debating whether women are worse than men at math or science, but when a professor at a top ranked engineering school automatically assumes that the girl student in front of him doesn't have enough math skills to get a CS degree, then there is definitely a problem.
I also have to add that my mother discouraged me from getting a CS degree too. She said, "Computer Science is so lonely... you don't want to do that. Wouldn't you rather do something that involved people?"
In the end I decided to get my BS in biology with a minor in computer science. Perhaps it was my fault for listening to them, but I ended up wasting time learning about e-coli when I should have been focusing on what interested me... (I'm now running my own software company.)
heh (Score:2, Interesting)
News flash: NOBODY going into CS, now. (Score:2, Interesting)
We did have a number of female CS students, in the low 20s (percentage). They've thinned out in the last year, I'm not sure what the ratio is now, but I think there are less than 10 female students (full time), so it's around 3%.
My experience (Score:2, Interesting)
The majority of the girls in CS that I've come into contact with fall into one of three groups: those that could be good but are too self-deprecating to push themselves, those that think they're hot shit but aren't and those that cheat and just suck. I've only known one true "computer geek girl" and she wasn't a CS major.
At my university you have to have an overall 3.0 GPA in your freshman CS classes to be guaranteed to be allowed to declare your major and register for sophomore classes. In my last freshman class, I was probably the best one in there and the professor had no problems hinting that he felt so at times. I wasn't the teacher's pet, he demanded more of me than the other students. I noticed that only one of the girls would talk to me, the rest acted like I was an asshole or something. I'm not the stereotype of a geek. I dress like a cross between a prep and a skater, am built a bit like a football player and tend to not act like a geek in general public. So here I am, scratching my head about why this is and I realized something.
My theory goes something like this. In school, before college, girls are given a lot more attention than boys because of "past discrimination." It doesn't matter of course that we've moved past that point. Girls do really well because they push themselves and beat all the guys who don't take their math and science classes seriously and as a result they think that they're hot shit. When the girls get to college and do math and science, lo and behold, they're surrounded by mostly geeks and nerds. Yeah, the guys who do take math, science, hell practically every other remotely interesting study, seriously. For the first time, they're surrounded by a lot of guys who are good, know it, and can best them everytime.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that none of the girls in our CS program could match the best guys, regardless of which CS chic you picked. A large part of the problem is that the girls tend to not be adventurous. Here I am, downloading the D compiler to see what it's like. I'll probably never use it for more than a few code samples on my website, but it's another language I can get familiar with. All of the girls I know, know only 2, maybe 3 languages: C++ and Java and some, VB. I have a solid grasp of C++, Java, PHP, C# and a decent understanding of VB and Python. I'm at the point where I can often figure out a language's syntax just by looking at sample code, unlike the average girl in our CS program. I can read Pascal and little bit of ASM, and I've never formally tried either.
It's my experience that "geek girls" don't make good girlfriends. There are exceptions, but most of the ones I've met are too neurotic and immature to make good girlfriends. The drive to have a geek chic seems to be the reason why this topic keeps getting posted. I've come to the point where I've realized that geeks are generally a waste of time. Stop actively trying to recruit girls because it's a waste of time. Coding isn't for most people, regardless of gender and you're only doing a disservice to them and making yourselves look desparate. You think they don't know the real reason why most guys want a larger female population in CS?
If you want to have a chance to encourage them, make HS more like college. Stop babying them in HS and push them no harder than the guys. I saw too much of that at my HS. I was frequently insulted by a math teacher who would bend over backwards to help the girls, but who looked at me like I was a bumbling idiot when I asked a simple question. Which amused me then and still does. My GPA was about
This topic is just another way for most guys here to say "how can we enlarge our dating pool." Here's my suggestion, pick up a musical instrument and start hanging around the music crowd. I've found that I have more in common with musically-oriented girls than computer geek girls.
Re:Its the damn calculus (Score:1, Interesting)
I like math AND computer science because of their extremely close relationship. There's no ambiguity; both stick strictly to logic. Both work in a building block manner. Both are problem solving intensive. Both give me that feeling of awe when I solve one of those problems, especially if it was done creatively.
The problem I have seen with a lot of people is they view mathematics as a set of rules to memorize for some random symbols given to them. I don't know if this way of thinking is the only way they know how to perceive mathematics or if it's that they just don't care enough to go beyond that (ie. "I just want my grade for the class"... anything beyond that doesn't matter to them).
I guess it's the same reason why I hate literature: I view it as simply a bunch of reading I have to do (ie. "I just want my grade for the class"... anything beyond that doesn't matter) rather than taking the time to appreciate everything behind it. I just don't have any interest in investing my time that way, even though I realize I'm probably missing out on some good stuff.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
> Now, back on topic, if the girls don't want to be in IT,
> what's the problem? Again, don't push them in to
> something they don't want to do. And it's not a case of
> men not letting them in. I think, if anything, that us
> geeks are typically more accepting of differences (OK, OS
> holy wars excepted!) than the rest of society on the
> whole.
Take me for an example. I'm one of the women that made it into IT (been in IT since 1986). For as long as I can remember, as a child, my brother always got the cool toys (trains, video games, etc.). When I wanted to play with them, or gasp, actually wanted some of my own (baby brothers don't share well), my mother would always lecture me on how these were toys for boys, and not appropriate for girls. What was appropriate for girls? Things like a toy sewing machine with the needle removed (for safety).
When I got older, my IQ and constant A's in science and math did get the rules on appropriate toys bent a bit (being a bit of a prodigy was more important at that point than my being a girl - parental bragging rights and all). I started to get more interesting toys: a chemistry set, electronics kit, "computer" thingie programmed with wires, etc. It still never entered my mind to be a programmer. No guidance councillor ever brought it up.
I majored in chemistry in college, and got into an undergraduate research stipend program. Ironically, that was my real introduction to computers, as the professor I wound up working for used computers to analyze x-ray crystallography results and come up with the structure of whatever molecule he was studying. This professor informally taught me my first programming language, Fortran. I eventually decided I liked the computers better than the chemistry, switched majors, and graduated a BSCS.
From my story, I should think the reason we don't have more girl CS graduates is obvious. It's not that they don't want to be in IT, it is that it never occurs to them that they could be in IT. If it weren't for the professor I did chemistry research with, I would still be a chemist, not a programmer. Heck, if I wasn't so good in school, my parents would have tried to pigeonhole me into some even more traditional role for a girl.
The blame here falls squarely on society itself. Society, in the form of parents and guidance councilors, is still trying to tell girls what they can and can't be. I've been in this industry for 16 years, and it hasn't really changed. In fact, the last time I even had a job where I worked with other female programmers was in 1991, eleven years ago!
The only positive sign I have seen is in the twin shows "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" which are careful to show female characters using computers to do research, programming computers and robots, and even feature a female computer science teacher. And, of course, the Mothra series of movies that has brought us strong female characters for 41 years (including one of Mothra's fairies that flew around on a robot dragon she built).
This is not an issue that can be entirely resolved in college. The only way to fix this problem (and it is a problem) is to make changes in people's attitudes throughout society itself, and definitely in junior high and high school. The media, teachers, guidance councillors, and parents are all part of the problem, and need to be part of the solution. Only then will girls be free to dream of being programmers, and only then will the question "if they want to" apply.
"Heart can reach where hand cannot. Climb over any wall..."
Mothra (via Moll) "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
No, it isn't (Score:2, Interesting)
Usually white males hire other white males
That's a bit presumptuous, don't you think? What if instead you said "usually Hispanics hire other Hispanics" or "usually blacks hire other blacks"? Would either of those more or less true? Do you really think only white males are racist?
Until we get rid of the biggots, we need affirmative action.
So to get rid of biggots, we need more discrimination? A company should hire whomever is most qualified for the position. If someone doesn't want to hire me because of my race, I'd rather work for the competition, and try to put them out of business. THAT is the way to show them that they need to hire the most qualified person.
Re:And this is a bad thing how? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe It Says Something (Score:3, Interesting)
2. Look around. If you were a women, would you want in? Remove the obsession with computing, and what's left? Long hours, stress, insecurity, etc.
3. Perhaps this says something about how non-geeks perceive the happy world of IT -- as a boys club.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
She does play with her Barbies with her brothers - a bad guy action figure kidnapps barbie, then the good-guy action figures rescue barbie. My daughter uses a giant teddy bear as one of the good guys, and barbie escapes on her own power frequently.
Girls and boys are different, and its not just the upbringing. Even when given the opportunity to do things generally "boyish" or "girlish" there is a real tendancy to pick the traditional stuff. They just enjoy the traditional stuff more. If fact I would say there is much more pressure on boys to do "boy" stuff han there is pressure on girls to do "girl" stuff.
Arrrrgh (Score:4, Interesting)
And don't make assumptions on what women do or do not want. I am perfectly willing to stay up all night coding surviving only on caffeine. I buy clothing based on whether or not I can carry my Leatherman in a pocket. I have attended many a Warcraft III LAN party with my boyfriend and his roommates. I build my own computers, run Linux, and for God's sake, I read Slashdot. ('Nuff said..) And I'm not unique -- I got to Olin College of Engineering, which has a 50-50 male to female ratio, and there are plenty of chicks there just like me.
Just keep in mind that it's very much a matter of exposure. For example, one girl in my class had never had any programming experience and only went into engineering on a whim, but loved our first CS class so much she soon after taught herself Perl in order to keep the college Quote Board organized. Another girl who had been considering journalism instead of engineering went crazy with her first introduction to CAD modelling and power tools. It's just that so many of the girls there had never seen any of this before, didn't realize it was out there, and only by some fortunate chance ended up finding it in college.
But please don't assume that women aren't interested. Think of it instead is that a lot of them just don't know what they're missing.
Re:I can assure you (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of my girlfriends just would rather not be thought of as geeks even with the positive meaning it now has. It would be incredibly hard to put into words what I've observed since starting my transition, but it is incredibly interesting. I wouldn't have ever actually believed it if I hand't lived it.
A lot of what I'm having to do is start over. Currently where I live, the computer job market has completely fallen apart. I just hope my future in computers isn't dictated so much by my gender.
And for the sarcastic person who remarked on how "hard" it was to tell the difference between a transsexual and a born woman on site, take it from me, it's not always as easy as you would think. I've never been clocked.
Fair assessment (Score:5, Interesting)
At my Uni. (at that time anyways) the business school offered a degree in Information Systems Management that would have been far more appropriate for most of the CS students.
More schools should offer MIS undergrad degrees (if they don't already, I really have no idea) and they should be promoted as credible alternatives to CS degrees for students that want to pursue careers in IT rather than 'pure' CS.
(I may be coming off sounding elitist here and I really don't mean to.. I think IT is a perfectly valid career path and universities should be adequately preparing students for that. Simply put, the knowledge and skills needed to design and manage a database system (or whatever) are a lot different than the skills and knowledge needed to write the database software itself)
Re:Yes, they are different (Score:3, Interesting)
Mother's don't. Actually, mothers have to multitask to w+n+c, where "w" is their job, "n" is the ammount of housework that they do, and "c" is the number of their children under the age of 30.
While the "in-depth" crack was a load of bullocks, it is true that women multitask far better than men--and that men "focus" equally better than women.
Of course, the REAL reason why CS doesn't appeal to women is that it's a boy's club. The tools, methidology, culture, and framework are all designed by rather cloistered geeks for their own use in putting out a rather arcane end product.
Plus, it's a psedudo-mechanical thing, and there aren't that many women auto mechanics, either.
Re:Geek Superiority, and an Uninviting Atmosphere (Score:1, Interesting)
Rubbish. What happens is that geeks tend to get ignored, bullied and beaten up in grade school/high-school, and get an *inferiority* complex, and hide themselves in technical crap to hide the pain/anger.
"because all the guys make them feel as such"
On what planet? If anything, as long as there's no *automatic superiority assumption* ON THE WOMAN'S PART, I can deal with female engineers. It's just that most of the women engineers I've met simply had the good fortune of having parents that pushed them that way and paid for the schooling, as opposed to actually having an interest in the field (like me, with a scope in high school and learning assembler). I've met a 20 year old girl engineering student who didn't know what 'OS' stood for. Oh yeah, that's going to be a brilliant engineer right there.
"females outperforming males in elementary school they also do so in engineering programs"
That's purely anecdotal. Women simply don't have the childish viewpoint necessary to be good engineers, period. Yes, that's right, childish. You have to be able to have a child's viewpoint to really understand engineering. Simply learning what has been done before and vomiting it up on command does not make for a good engineer.
That's why I have a problem with Chinese/Indian whatever engineers as well. They're great at memorizing and vomiting, but change the problem a little bit, and the confused-looks/shoulder-shrugging festival begins.
Being able to question, and have a sense of wonder, like a child, that's real engineering.
Re:Girls in CS (Score:5, Interesting)
I am an odd case - I switched into CS, and I am a woman. My original major was in the management department; when I decided I wanted to learn more about computers, I could have easily switched to an MIS degree. But I want to be taken seriously. So I became a CS major. It's been a long, hard year since I switched, but I don't regret it. I'm doing research on creating an adaptive website using a genetic algorithm [ithilien.mine.nu], and I'm only one class short of graduating on time. I plan to go on to grad school in CS - I want to get a M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction.
I switched after the dot-coms tanked, and I knew it. The important thing for me is not whether I get a job in IT (not likely right now anyway), but what I've learned about how computers work. I can open up my PC and muck around with it now, if I wanted to. I can hold an intelligent conversation about the pros and cons of a language. I know how to customize a Linux kernel.
People always told me college was about becoming an educated person, not about getting a job. I didn't understand them until I became a CS major. For the first time in my life, I'm studying something simply because I enjoy it (although I might not agree while doing some of my assignments). I think my study of computer science has made me a more well-rounded person.
Re:Fair assessment (Score:3, Interesting)
An excellent point, and probably one I should've considered. A lot of the co-op jobs (basically an internship, for those who don't know) offered at my university weren't programming jobs. Most were tech support or IT (management) jobs, which the CS department offered no training for.
Of course, this is completely apart from the issue of whether or not CS should be doing this at all. The idea of universities being for "job trainign" is a bad one, and the idea that CS is "programming job training" is even worse. That's part of most CS programs, but most don't do a very good job of it. IMHO, CS needs to be separated out from Software Engineering, too.
Re:Image of the IT industry (Score:5, Interesting)
But there always exceptions, which is why arguing by anecdote is dangerous. For example, my mother was a math major and was chosen in WW-II to be quick-trained as an engineer (they took the top 100 female mathematicians in the country for this), and then worked as an electrical engineer. After the war and her children were into high school, she took a traditional female role as a teacher - math, of course. My daughter taught herself calculus (and received full credit for it, btw) when she was in junior high school. One of the earliest and most well known programmers and inventor (or early promoter - I don't remember which) was Grace Hopper. I work with a female software engineer who also has a bachelors and masters in electrical engineering, have worked with many women programmers over the years.
But... on average, women and men choose different fields partly because of different *average* inherited aptitudes for them.
Re:Its the damn calculus (Score:3, Interesting)
Software engineering, on the other hand, is not. Perhaps there wasn't a separate major for it, where you went. Still, math is helpful to teach you logic and new ways of thinking. Discrete mathematics and formal logic might have been more helpful, but calculus is generally introduced before those topics, for whatever reason.
Lea
Re:why would anyone go into CS now? (Score:1, Interesting)
I think it is time to extend the H1-B visa program to include lawyers and corporate executives.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've heard that before, even from one of the most nurture-over-nature people I know (once she observed her nieces/nephews).
But I still don't buy it. Yes, you are the parent. Yes, your actions affect your child's development most of all, but your child does not live in a vacuum. Do your kids watch TV? Do they have friends? Then they interact with an outside world that teaches them things, especially subtle things, that you may not be teaching them - but they learn it all the same.
That's why I see pointing the finger at biological differences as giving up. It's "oh well, there can't be any other explanation for it, so it's biology." And once you say it's biology, you don't have you explain or justify yourself any more, because honestly nobody really understands it anyway.
Sorry about the rant. That being said..
If fact I would say there is much more pressure on boys to do "boy" stuff han there is pressure on girls to do "girl" stuff
I definitely agree with you on that. Maybe not "much" more, but yes, more. And that's a sad thing, really. As Oscar Wilde said in The Importance of Being Earnest:
"Every woman becomes like her mother. That's her tragedy. No man does - that's his."
Re:My experience (Score:3, Interesting)
1. there may be some good reason they're avoiding you. maybe you smell. I don't know you, so I don't know.
2. coding is not CS. it's a useful tool, but I've found math to be much more useful. I know somewhere around 7 languages pretty well, but I don't use them, generally, becasue I do math. Yet I'm in CS! Oh my! Something must be wrong here! And it's not very unusual to be able to superficially pick up similar languages from observation, hate to burst your bubble.
3. women are differnt from each other, as are geek women. The guys I've dated had no complaints. I also think you're doing the other people around here a disservice in assuming they're recruiting becasue they want dates. Striving for equal rights and encouragement is often an altruistic pursuit. Don't ascribe one person's motives to everyone. Ans as for your comment about music people, that's rather common. In fact, at Berkeley, most of the Wind Ensemble is made up of engineers.
4. some teachers suck. it happens. If you want to swap horror stories, I'll do so, but I'd like to point out that I know some that are a lot worse that have happened to women of my acquantance. I've found it varies a lot by school district.
5. don't flaunt your scores if you're trying to prove that other people are dumb. Really. I got higher scores than you did, quite signifigantly higher in many cases, and I know that that says just about zilch about my intellegence -- the SAT's are justly deprecated. The AP's tend to be better, but vary widely between subjects. (and while I'm on the subject, the GRE's are pretty silly as well)
Just becasue the women that you know don't point out that they're smart, doesn't mean they aren't. Perhaps you haven't met smart ones -- since there's a smaller pool, it's a bit restrictive. I would simply be very, very careful about assuming women are not as intellegent or as educated as you belive yourself to be. I personally know quite a few very intellegent women in CS. I have been doing rather well for myself as well, thus far.
As for your statement that "for the first time, they're surrounded by a lot of guys who are good, know it, and can best them everytime," it's been my experience that a lot of guys have this issue. I certainly met a lot who expressed these sorts of anxieties, and when you go to grad school, at least at CMU, they point out to you that it's normal.
Feel free to email me if you'd like to discuss this further.
Lea
Who see's X's not in profession Y's as np?? (Score:3, Interesting)
As for anyone, if you'd like the flexability to go into any carrer, you need to be able to both handle sci/math issues and empathic/literatry fields. If many women don't strive to get the math/sci backgroud, then they won't have as much flexability. I see many men who do the exact opposite in shorting themselves in the empathy/literary vein. They couldn't write a understandable document to save their life, and they can't empathize what their co-workers are feeling.
I personally will try to get all my children to excel in BOTH areas. But if they don't I'll point out what flexability that they are loosing and be done with it.
From a Female Computer Engineering Student (Score:2, Interesting)
However, CS is in much better shape than computer engineering in this respect. In my electrical classes there have been many times I have been either the only female or one of two females in the class.
Why is this? I really have no idea. Personally have been interested in computers and their design for a long time. It seems that most females are no so interested in the design process. The only engineering major that actually has close to 50/50 male/female ratio is chemical. And for anybody that says that the girls have a good shot and finding dates if they are in CS or CPE all I have to say is the odds may be good, but the goods are odd.
Re:Girls in CS (Score:4, Interesting)
And as for the statement that
Girls do not like doing anything that involves concentrating on one single thing for long periods,
all I can say is oh my gawd such total BS. No one really belives that right? I did my undergrad in India in an all-women school and we used to compare ourselves with guys from other schools in our university and you know what we always came on top.
Re:I can assure you (Score:1, Interesting)