So, they're engaged in other STEM fields at 2x-3x the extent they're engaged in CS, despite the fact that those other fields are often more intellectually rigorous and challenging and despite the fact that most of those fields are dominated by computers and software --- in fact, many of them are even more challenging from a CS perspective than computer science itself as it is practiced in the industry, which is mostly about connecting database rows to HTML forms --- but despite all that, you're convinced that women just "tend not to be interested enough in software development"?
> So, they're engaged in other STEM fields at 2x-3x the extent they're engaged in CS...
That statement is so broad as to render it utterly meaningless. I don't doubt it applies to medicine, for example. But does it apply to automotive or mining engineering?
And even if it did apply to every non-CS STEM field, that still would not preclude the possibility that women, as a group, are simply not as interested in CS to the same extent men are.
All double-digits better (some have actual parity) in female representation than computer science, which shares its gender disparity distinction with only two other (generally defined) STEM fields: ee/mech engineering and physics.
Nobody is disputing that women are less interested in working in CS than men. They clearly are. What is obvious to some of us is that the reason for that disinterest is that the field is hostile to them. It is hard to explain otherwise how something like three times as many women might obtain post-graduate mathematics degrees --- a pursuit that is more intellectually demanding and less lucrative than computer science, which routinely pays six-digit salaries to people immediately out of school simply to wire database rows up to HTML tables.
tptacek I agree with you that software needs more women, I think it would be good for women, and good for software. And contrary to that recent memo I think we should do more to encourage women to join CS.
I think it's really important to get the cause right because if we fix the wrong problem we'll be spinning our wheels instead of getting women to join tech. And I haven't been entirely convinced the gender gap is due to sexism and hostility in the workplace because what my female friends and developers say doesn't jive with that theory.
When I ask my female friends, who are very smart and would kick ass as developers, "why don't wanna you wanna join programming? Pay is great you could double your salary in two years", they usually say something along the lines of "I don't think I'd like it" or "sounds boring to sit in front of a computer all day".
And when I've heard my female friends talk about leaving programming its never been because someone made a slightly sexist comment once every couple of months. They all talked about how that was annoying but didn't really bother them. But they usually said that sometimes they fantasize about a job where they get to work with people more, and make a positive impact one they could see like therapy and teaching. (granted the female developers I know work for large companies with powerful HR departments so the level of sexism probably isn't representative of the startup scene)
I'm curious if you've had a very different experience. Do the women in your life like to program but have been turned off from doing it professionally because of perceived or actual hostility and sexism in the workplace?
What resources(ideally empirical) would you recommend to convince someone who was skeptical but open minded to the hostility hypothesis that it's true? Do you think this hypothesis is tentative but likely or do you think the evidence is so overwhelmingly in support of this hypothesis that it's an open and shut case?
> They clearly are. What is obvious to some of us is that the reason for that disinterest is that the field is hostile to them.
Oh yes, hostility manifested by half-century old magazine ads or phrases like "cowboy coder." If they're allowing their career paths to be altered by innocuous stuff like that, or what a teacher might have told them, I don't think they want it that badly.
There are no qualified women banging on the door of the software development profession demanding to be let in. The door is wide open to them, and it always has been.
No, sorry, I'm not going to play Calvinball. You directly challenged a statement I made upthread, and now that I've taken the time to clarify it, you've decided to respond to an earlier comment I didn't write. If you'd like to keep discussing this with me, you're going to either have to rebut what I said, or acknowledge it.
> No, sorry, I'm not going to play Calvinball. You directly challenged a statement I made upthread
Could you clarify? In every one of my replies to you in this thread, the part I quoted came directly from the post (of yours) to which I replied. And where did I directly challenge any of your statements? I think you have me mixed up with someone else who responded to you.
You claimed that my statement about greater female participation in what turns out to be most of the rest of the stem fields was "so broad as to be meaningless". I responded in greater detail. You re-rebutted Rayiner's original comment without acknowledging mine. Acknowledge it or rebut it; don't pretend you didn't see it.
> You claimed that my statement about greater female participation in what turns out to be most of the rest of the stem fields was "so broad as to be meaningless". I responded in greater detail.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you thought naming a handful of other STEM fields along with a rough participation ratio made your premise any more meaningful.
You seem to think that, from the fact that women participate in other STEM fields at a greater rate than CS, you can infer the reason they aren't well-represented in software development. To you, it's "obvious" that "the field is hostile to them." And others who share your view have defined "the field" so broadly as to include boys in jr. high school computer clubs.
Well, to me at least, it's "obvious" that your logic there is faulty.
> Are you acknowledging that I have effectively provided that accounting? You should, but it's not clear to me that you have.
Well, I think its noteworthy that you distinguished statistics from mathematics, but apparently felt automotive engineering (which I specifically asked about) to fall under ME, and you didn't comment on mining engineering, which does not fall under EE/ME.
But for some reason, you seem to think it's meaningful, so I'll acknowledge that for the purposes of this discussion, you have indeed effectively provided that accounting.
And I stand by my earlier response, to wit, that even a full accounting of all STEM fields would not make your logic any less faulty.
Thank you. Now, to avoid what would otherwise be a special-pleading argument on behalf of CS, you'd have to explain what innate preference would lead women to avoid CS despite:
* The fact that the other STEM fields are usually more intellectually rigorous than CS.
* The fact that some of those STEM fields are in fact the intellectual foundation for CS (Daniel Bernstein has an old quote about how mathematics is fundamentally the "easiest" of the STEM fields, and has as a result advanced much further into the frontiers of human knowledge than the other field, which creates the impression that it is more forbidding than it actually is).
* The fact that almost all of these fields are dominated by computers; in fact, I know professors in bio fields who do more hardcore programming than the typical CS grad does (to wit: they're sometimes forced to write things in C, even in 2017).
* The fact that many of the STEM fields that feature significant female participation are more "things"-oriented than CS, which, as it is practiced in the industry, is largely abstractions wrapped around human social interactions.
* The fact that the rest of STEM, in which women excel, feature large amounts of long-term solo investigative work, while CS as practiced in the industry is universally a team pursuit which has been recognized at least since Fred Brooks as being overwhelmingly about communications and coordination skills.
If you'd like to broaden the analysis outside of STEM --- for instance, to observe how much other professions impinge on personal lives, make demands of home life, have poorer work-life balance, have utterly inflexible hours and workplace location requirements, and require short-notice travel, and still have nearly 50/50 participation of men and women, we can do that too.
It seems plainly obvious to me that there's not much of an argument for an innate female aversion to computer science that wouldn't contradict these observations. When you have to gerrymander an argument around inconvenient facts like that, we call the result "special pleading". Can you make a clear argument that won't be that thing?
Tptacek, you're the one that seems hung up on the whole STEM aspect. Let's leave aside the fact that STEM is just an arbitrary grouping of fields that happens to include both doing research to find cures for cancers and hooking up database rows to HTML forms.
Your logic seems to be:
1. Women are well-represented in many STEM fields other than CS or software development.
2. These other fields often involve use of computers and software development.
3. Therefore, it logically follows that they SHOULD also be well-represented in CS and software development.
4. Since they're not, it's "obvious" that "the field is hostile to them."
I think that's ridiculous. Women, as a group, can, and do, pursue just about any career of their choosing in the US. For years, efforts have been made to lure them into STEM fields, including CS/dev, in greater numbers. For all of the pontificating from feminists, I have yet to encounter a single documented example of a qualified woman who is banging on a closed door demanding to be let into the profession, that is being denied entry. That woman, like Santa Clause, is mythical. She doesn't exist. Of course, I can't prove she doesn't exist any more than I can prove that Santa Clause doesn't exit. But neither of them exists.
Her existence can be proven by a single example. But for all of the years of male-blaming in regard to this issue, no one has yet provided such an example.
No, it's not OK for you to collapse 6 (10, if you want to stop "being hung up on STEM") bullets into a single "These other fields often involve use of computers and software development" bullet. That's a bogus argument with another name: the "straw man".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but your logic seems to be:
1. Women are well-represented in many STEM fields other than CS or software development. (I don't dispute that, or the bullet points you provided to support it.)
2. These other fields often involve use of computers and software development. (I don't dispute that, or the bullet points you provided to support it.)
3. Therefore, it logically follows that they SHOULD also be well-represented in CS and software development.
4. Since they're not, it's "obvious" that "the field is hostile to them."
I think that's ridiculous, for previously stated reasons.
Using CS as a tool to solve other problems is a different proposition than the study of CS itself. I don't see why they'd have to be connected in people's minds in the way you're suggesting.
For instance, undergrad math enrollment is almost at gender parity, but postgraduate math study has similar gender ratios to CS. This is because you need an undergraduate degree for teaching and other careers, and so the interest in pursuing math for maths sake appears to be much lower among women. This could be for a number of reasons, some of which might be fixable to improve ratios, but some may be innate.
Wrong on both counts. Mathematics PhDs are issued at a ~70/30 ratio, substantially higher than that of CS PhDs (and way higher than CS undergrad degrees) --- this despite mathematics being among the small number of heavily gender-segregated STEM fields.
Further: almost nobody practicing computer science in the industry has a PhD. There are, believe it or not, places where having a doctorate is frowned on. For the degree that actually matters --- the bachelors --- math has as you say something approaching parity.
Tell me again about the innate limitations women have performing in STEM.
> Mathematics PhDs are issued at a ~70/30 ratio, substantially higher than that of CS PhDs
It drops from ~50% to just under 30%, where CS degrees hover between 18-22%. Frankly, that's not "substantially higher than CS".
> Tell me again about the innate limitations women have performing in STEM.
No one is making that claim except people like you who love tearing down absurd straw man arguments. Please read more carefully and stop making assumptions.
You've ignored one argument in favor of hinging your entire argument on a double-digit improvement in women's participation in mathematics not being "significant"?
What argument have I ignored exactly? Your CS PhD argument has bearing on anything that I've said as far as I can see.
Finally, it's not a double-digit improvement, but of course we can quibble endlessly over how meaningful that exact number is, but it's irrelevant. The number is still piss poor compared to undergrad enrollment, indicating that women don't pursue higher math degrees for various reasons.
The link I initially provided cited evidence that they're interested in undergrad maths because of opportunities it provides outside of pure maths. It's not apparent that similar opportunities exist for CS undergrad degrees, which would be one explanation for the disparity in undergrad math and CS. So I'm still not seeing how anything you've said bears on this at all.
Certainly graduate maths have more women than does CS. So what? What exactly do you think this proves in light of the above?
