Comment interesting... (Score 1) 343
Guys, women who might possibly have an interest in entering CS often are discouraged from pursuing them in ways that you might not even *notice*, because they might not happen to you. It's bad to be a geek in high school, but it's worse to be a female geek, at a time when, as a girl, there is *tremendous* pressure to be *beautiful*. Not strong, or interesting, or intelligent or anything that would differentiate you from a Barbie Doll, but *beautiful*. This puts a big strain on girls who are intelligent, or strong-willed or weird in various ways, to conform, and play dumb and pretty in order to be popular, have friends, dates etc etc. These traits conflict with the intellectual confidence, competence and ambition necessary to succeed or even consider pursuing a career in a technical field. I mention high school because that is a fairly decisive time as far as potential careers go, since that is often when people will choose, or not choose, to take math and and hard science classes that will open the doors to technical programs at university.
Another stumbling block is how much the communication style that prevails in technical cultures differs from what girls are taught. It's not that it's worse, or better, but it's different, and takes some getting used to if it's not native to you, and for most women, it isn't.
That said, although I have encountered obstacles to studying and working in CS, they've all been worth overcoming for the fun and awesomeness that I have every day. I wouldn't trade what I have today for the chance to be a popular girl in high school, ever.
As for some guy above saying female programmers don't make good wives...boo hoo hoo: cry me a fucking *river*. Despite the fact that I get paid more money that my parents make to do what, to me, is playing with fun ideas and toys, work with insanely intelligent people, come and go as I please, get paid to travel and go to conferences, have such wonderful jobs offers that I agonize about what to do about them and don't have to wear anything else but a t-shirt and shorts to work, I feel *utterly* *unfulfilled* by the fact I am unfeminine and unsuitable to be some illiterate luser's wife. Yeah, right.
