If you are a smart nerd, you realize that you are dealing in anecdotal evidence and know the pitfalls of that. Your thought process seems to be : "I got beat up, therefore girls in general have it easier than I did." If that is truly your thought process, it tells a lot about whether or not you are a smart nerd or not. High school was a social meat grinder with no positive memories for me, and I still recognize the advantages I have had even through that horrible time.

Logically, you know those who were drawn to CS and actually made it into the program, but have negligible information about those who were drawn to CS and discouraged from it.

You really don't believe in a gender bias? Really? There is ample evidence for it. http://blogs.scientificamerica...
[ tldr: a study shows that the exact same resume gets statistically significant different responses when male or female names are attached to it ]

Of course sons are praised for being strong, and they are also praised for being smart. Even the dumb ones are praised for being smart the few times they do something not stupid.

I am not saying that women can work harder than men can.
I'm saying that the work men do is often given more merit.
I'm also saying that women are more actively discouraged from tech than men are, and men are more actively encouraged to get into tech. Why you would think 'good' in the same thought as 'discouraged' is a mystery to me.

Historically sons are praised for being clever and daughters for being pretty. That is an enormous societal pressure right there.

Were you discouraged because of grades, or because of your gender?

She had _great_ grades in high school and was still discouraged. She did more than what was asked and worked solid and hard and did not let herself get distracted by drugs or booze.

I know as well as you do that there isn't a guaranteed correlation between grades and success. What correlation there is, however, is a whole lot less arbitrary than gender is.

While you were in high school getting discouraged, were you working your ass off for high school and working your ass off at a job only to go home and be expected to clean the house spotless every day? Did you pay that many dues? Did you have time to watch TV or drink or toke or anything like that?

She was trying to get out of there fast. She went to the first place she could afford to work her way through and pay for on her own.

"Constant discouragement from everyone" sounds a little fishy to me. Were you ever told by a guidance councilor to not bother?

So you consider yourself sabotaged? Actively discouraged? Are you one of those who thinks a mere 10 hours a day of hard work is something special? Did you know beforehand what you wanted to be? If you have a single interesting path, you will fight tooth and nail to keep it open. If there are 10 interesting paths, you will not fight as hard to keep a single one from closing.

You might not realize this, but there is a societal myth of the ignored loner male turning into some brilliant computer guy. It's possible that did not influence you, but it is more likely that it did.

Well, you didn't get your acceptance letter from Carnage Mellon University engineering program tossed in the trash without being told until later, didya? Happened to my wife.

I would bet that you've never ever been discouraged from tech one bit. But now you are an expert of how to behave when discouraged? Yeahno.

There is no evidence that female programmers write any differently than male ones, but there is plenty of evidence that they are treated differently.

You are right in that there has been a push to get women into computer science. There has to be a pull from industry, too. The students should be taken just as seriously as any other, but that does not happen and nor is it likely anytime soon without a push from people inside the industry http://blogs.scientificamerica....

In other words, many women have left tech because they were treated like shit there and they decided they would no longer going to take that crap any longer. You can pretend that is not so and turn a blind eye to it. I don't know if it is a learned behavior or if there is something intrinsic in humans that causes this. All I can do is hope for the former.

You mention wartime and yes, women did get a big boost in careers to fill the void that working men left behind, see the Rosie the Riveter character. Once them men came back, the women were expected to leave the workforce, to leave their jobs that they were doing perfectly well, and get back to raising children. You might be somehow immune from social pressure, but it weighs heavily on most people.

 

I'm just going to leave this here : http://blogs.scientificamerica...

Of course a person is not going to be so hot for a career where they are paid less for the same value and have to deal with not being taken seriously. That is not on the women, that is a matter of corporate culture. That is a huge disadvantage. You seem to be claiming that this bias does not exist and that all is a fair level playing field. Is that what you believe? How would you tell one way or an other?

No one is stopping a fracture victim from a race; they can crawl if they want to. They didn't win, well that is on them - they did not try hard enough.

Irrelevant. Do you know what a guidance councilor is for? Remember, the internet was not always around for instant answers. What are you going to do when told those classes you want are not available to women?

Consider :

Diner "I want some steak"

Waiter "The steak is terrible tonight. How about chicken?"

Diner "OK, give me the chicken."

I guess that diner WASN'T SERIOUS ABOUT GETTING THE STEAK.

The guidance councilors might have been right in a way. "Go in that career and they will underpay you, insult you and generally treat you like shit and you'll have to work with assholes all day." Yeah, nice as the career might be, I can see how a different choice might seem more attractive.

My point is that there is no intrinsic gender difference with regards to programming ability, but there is a needless social bias. The field was dominated by women, then by men, and the only cause of either dominance was societal convention.

What is your point? The opposite of mine, I suppose, given your tenor.

Did you know that the first compiler was written by _Admiral_ Grace Hopper of the US Navy?

If you want to dispute the assertion, you should really use facts rather than an ad hominum attack, which weakens your credibility.

The majority of the first programmers were women. Deal with it.

OK, long ago for people, but the majority of programmers used to be women. They started this field : http://womensenews.org/story/b.... It was considered clerical work at the time. When it was recognized as pretty substantial work, companies turned to universities for recruiting and male graduates were far more prevalent at the time and the graduates quickly dominated the field.

My wife was told by her guidance councilor that she shouldn't be a programmer because she'd just be typing stuff in and working with dusty old tape. My mom was steered away from engineering, so she got an RN instead. The dominance of boys over girls in this field was culturally manufactured. What else would one expect from a culture that teaches girls the importance of being pretty, their parents giving praise when they are pretty, and boys being praised for being strong or smart?

There is nothing intrinsic in boys or girls that makes them good or bad at computer science and programming. People will cling to the myth that they have some rare super ability in their brain to do programming; it gives someone a sense of self worth which is important for people to have. What you need is a reasonable memory and time to practice. Can everyone do it? No, but the bar is not sky high; the majority could pass it.

Mostly just coffee shops really. I rather dislike bars.

I wouldn't have cable, but my wife likes watching the shows. My way of getting back at the cable companies and the MPAA in general? I like local entertainment - open mic nights, concerts, jams, plays, reading, writing. I know that's not for everyone but those are the things I prefer. It will take a while to make all of those illegal.