The Hidden Engineering Gender Gap 807
ifindkarma writes "Joyce Park, CTO of invitation site Renkoo.com, has written a two-part essay exploring why there is no pipeline of self-taught female engineers entering the tech industry via Open Source or other individual efforts. In The Hidden Engineering Gap, she asks why there are so many self-taught male software engineers in startups, but no similar pool of women. In A Modest Proposal, she discusses a potential short-term fix to the problem: a one-year, co-op, certificate-granting program for women set up and sponsored by Silicon Valley companies."
let's condescend to women (Score:5, Insightful)
I think complaining there aren't emough women in tech is disingenuous and a little condescending towards women. There has been a wide open door for women for years, self-taught, or otherwise. To claim otherwise ignores so many other attempts and programs.
The reason there aren't more women in tech, self starters or otherwise is because they don't want to be and aren't interested! No program, encouragement, coersion or other methods will change that.
Consider a telcom I worked for... In the mid-80s a memo was circulated admonishing IT for the "underutilized" women. An IT policy was thus implemented picking women from myriad other jobs (call centers, anywhere!). These women were given free training, often at universities and were given 6 weeks and more to be trained. Most of these women were looking at more than a doubling in salary, all they had to do was "participate"...
Even with that policy, we could not even approach fifty percent of women in the IT work force.
(As an aside, an unexpected (to management) side effect of this monumental effort was a flood of women (those that signed up), only a small fraction of whom had any interest at all in tech, and only a fraction of those hitting stride in any reasonable time join It without even close to the skills necessary to contribute. We burned a lot of money to skew a population and saw productivity tank.)
It is no reflection of women's abilities. I know it's really cliche, but some of the very best IT people I worked with were women. But, as in the male population, many women were incompetent as were men. The difference isn't in ability, it's in the proportion choosing a field... For some reason men choose computers, women don't.
Ultimately, if you build it (the program), they will come, but not in droves. Like it or not, there seems to be a difference in wiring between the sexes. And, as in any large population, there will always be exceptions. IT welcomes (at least in my experience) women as much as men.
In the meantime, these old harangues only condescend to women who have chose not to enter IT as a career choice. They do have the options today... they're still not choosing it. Nudging them with these initiatives somehow implies their non-IT choices weren't valid, or good.
This hand-wringing is as silly as wondering why more police officers don't enter the tech fields (and some do as a recent /.
article pointed out -- a state trooper wrote a traffic ticket
application). They didn't/don't because they like being police
officers better.
Self-taught? (Score:2, Insightful)
Better question: (Score:5, Insightful)
Do computers designed by women run quicker?
Does software written by women take up less memory?
Do processors designed by women emit less heat?
Certainly we shouldn't do something that inhibits a particular gender's ability to participate in the profession of their choice. But an engineer is an engineer - why should we care what their gender is?
Maybe there are not so many self-taught female engineers because women mature socially earlier and thus don't spend as much time talking to their monitors. Maybe women tend to be emotional thinkers and engineering doesn't jive well with emotional thinking. Maybe there's just a shortage of women who are nerds.
And maybe there's nothing wrong with that.
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no crisis, there is no emergency, there is no problem. I wish people would stop trying to force a non-issue onto the rest of us.
Sad, but true (Score:1, Insightful)
Sadly, a lot of women really aren't interested.
I think this is wrong: this is interesting stuff, but there is so much garbage floating around on the subject, up to and including the ridiculous notion that computer stuff is intensely mathematical (say what?!), and that mathematics is Something To Be Avoided (BULLSHIT!).
Another sad truth is the fact that self-taught women generally need not apply for jobs that might use their skills. Somehow, self-taught men are OK, as is. But self-taught women need a piece of paper with magic letters on it.
Sigh.
- somebody who wishes things were different
Re:facial hair (Score:5, Insightful)
First Post confirms that a big part of the problem is that women are judged by their appearance rather than engineering skills.
Re:Better question: (Score:5, Insightful)
The potential doubling of your talent pool.
It's just one industry (Score:5, Insightful)
And a side note - regardless of gender, if you don't want to do IT you won't do a good job. You have to have a certain passion for the work. No amount of financial incentive can change this..
Re:Better question: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:5, Insightful)
I see this study as another of these wrong-headed assertions that because there aren't equal numbers, something must be wrong.
Its Software Programmer! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Better question: (Score:5, Insightful)
Computers designed by women may be more attractive to women; that will let you tap a market currently underserved and increase your customer count. That directly translates into more cash, so it matters.
Unscientific indeed.... (Score:3, Insightful)
You might as well ask... (Score:4, Insightful)
Men and women are different. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional. And those who think that men and women need to be exactly equal in every area of life need to get over it, and stop trying: There's a few hundred thousand years of evolution working against you, and you're going to lose.
steve
Re:Self-taught? (Score:1, Insightful)
IMHO, self-taught programmers are the worst kind - producing poor-quality, inefficient code. The usually have a chip on their shoulder about "not needing to go to university" and complain if you point out the short-comings in their code, usually retorting with the reply "It works, doesn't it?"
What is needed is not more self-taught programmers, but more university-taught programmers - be they male or female.
Re:Better question: (Score:4, Insightful)
This would be a good example of emotional thinking. I see that you read "Women being underrepresented in engineering is not a problem", and you responded with "Writing off 51% of the population is not acceptable!"
Unfortunately, this does not make any logical sense. Your response appears to be based on a rather poor assumption - what if developing great products, and finding innovations that make things better, also involve professions OTHER than Engineering?
Clearly this is the case. Let's take the converse of your statement. What if EVERYONE was an engineer? How well do you think the world would function then? Not very well, I'd imagine.
Engineers should be people who choose to be engineers. If women choose to be something other than an engineer, it's quite possible that maybe, just MAYBE, they're BETTER AT SOMETHING OTHER THAN ENGINEERING?
Maybe to develop great products, to find the innovations that make things better, you shouldn't write off the 99% of the population that arn't engineers.
The fact of the matter is, there are many professions, and all of them are important. We should allocate people to the professions they are best suited for, regardless of gender. And again, if women WANT to do something OTHER than be an engineer, what is wrong with that? Just because YOU wanted to be an engineer doesn't mean every other woman should want to.
Men and women are not the same (Score:4, Insightful)
The paucity of women in engineering is not solely an artifact of lack of opportunity, nor of cultural conditioning, though both of those things obviously have an impact. In a typical Silicon Valley tech company, you'll find far more Chinese and Indian women than white women in engineering, even though the white population is much larger than the Chinese or Indian populations in the area. So clearly culture matters, and to that extent there's a problem we can and should address. But you'll find even more Chinese and Indian men than women in those same companies -- it's not clear that culture alone can explain the gap.
So by all means, provide good opportunities for girls and young women who would be interested in engineering (or physics, or...) but for the lack of exposure. We all benefit from that. But please don't try to force the issue beyond the levels they'll naturally settle at when everyone has the appropriate opportunities -- even if those levels are still male-dominated.
Don't paint engineering pink! (Score:5, Insightful)
How is it that nobody bitches when there are so few female trash collectors?
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:3, Insightful)
No matter how different they might be, you MUST treat them as equal. Just because women generally don't choose tech careers, doesn't mean we should in any way discourage individuals from doing so if it appeals to them. Recognizing difference in another race or sex is not prejudice-using that preconceived difference to change how you treat any individual absolutely is.
Going out of your way to promote workplace diversity isn't bad either. I would respect any company that tries to lure a few more women into technical careers, as well as other races you may not see as often in our lines of work. Perhaps even if they aren't the absolute perfect person for the position. We make value judgments about each person we interview--does it hurt to give a little plus to someone who's nationality, race or gender is underrepresented in your group?
Truthfully, I'm just tired of working with a bunch of nerdy white guys like myself.
Re:Its Software Programmer! (Score:3, Insightful)
I have degrees in both CS and EE (computer specialization). The two are incredibly different, and everyone I know with a traditional engineering degree (and in the software field) resents the abusage. I may have the title "Software Engineer", but I'd prefer "Software Developer" since it fits my job desciption far better. In becoming a better developer, I have never once had to use scientific research. As an graduate student in engineering, every bit related. Even for very logical aspects, such as designing high speed adders, intimate knowledge of physics was necessary (e.g. VLSI, logical effort). You can't escape nature as an engineer.
So to everyone replying to the parent saying 'nay'.. how many of you actually have an engineering background and the ability to make a fair comparision?
does it matter (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the thing about America is that we were born with a revolution whose basis was that the status quo was not efficient, and just because someone was not born to the proper family, and we can extend that to the proper color or gender, does not mean that the person does not have anything to contribute. Everyone of our founding fathers was forced to fight the respect they deserved, because every englishman in power assumed that anyone not of the proper family were automatically morons. No amount of money or education could change that
It also reminds me of some people I knew and know. They were always complaining that they could not get into a good school because of affirmative action. The reality was that they were lazy spoiled gits, and the 'minorities' were just willing to work harder. Of course, now it matters not how smart you are, or how hard you are willing to work. As long as you're family has money and can hire a good lawyer, you can get into a good school. We are back to the aristocracy being more important than ability. Not that smart people don't get rejected from school, but America is very competitive. Competitiveness is one reason why america is so great, and corruption, graft, and nepotism is why much of the rest of the world is in the piss pot.
So here is the deal. At my engineering high school there was no shortage of girls, and the valedictorian was a girl. I know a few that made it to advance degrees. In college there was a good number of women in engineering school, significantly less in the sciences. Texas A&M, along with most schools, work hard to attract women because they know what our founding fathers knew. That talent does not depend solely on how you were born, but also on the effort you are willing to make to master and apply a skill. And that throwing away a significant percentage of the population just because they were not traditionally in the trade.
Everyone is different, and the differences, if we treat it as a benefit and an annoyance, can be a great benefit. Although I don't like the movie, many of the posts on this topic reminded me of the kids in the 'freedom writers'. They all live in fear of those that are different, and all believe that the world would be a better place if they didn't have to deal with 'the others'. I really enjoyed working for and with the women engineers and scientists.
I will leave on a more positive note. The main impediment with attracting women engineers and scientist is that women often are not exposed to such things. This is the same of the majority of the population. Most have not been exposed to the possibilities of the art, so do not understand it. In schools boys are still more likely to be exposed to the technology, while girls will be moved to cosmetology. While there is nothing necessarily wrong with this, we again need to ask if our competitiveness can stand not fully utilizing human resources just because they do not meet our preconceived notions. There are those that want to protect their family by limited the competition, i.e. limiting the opportunities to those outside their family. This is not good for the country. Just like so many other things, they want to profit at the expense of the country. The graft in the contracts for Katrina and Iraq show just how willing engineering firms are to trade their profit for the good of the country.
Re:Its Software Programmer! (Score:1, Insightful)
Computer Scientist are not Software Engineers for the same reason that Electrical Engineers are not Physicists and Chemists are not Chemical Engineers.
Computing fields are still young enough that we are fairly free with the titles we are willing to assign people, including the titles given by academic institutions. However I think there is a real distinction between Scientists, Engineers, and craftsmen and the use of computers does not allow you to grab whichever title you find convenient.
If you are a Computer Scientist then be proud of the fact that you are a Scientist, likewise for a Software Engineer, but have enough respect for each other to not assume you have the background to arbitrarily swap titles.
As the field matures I expect us to see a similar distinction as with the other fields. Including the expectation that you will hold at least one of these degrees to do serious design work.
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Don't paint engineering pink! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm surprised that so many were so quick to cast aside the entire situation. Engineers and problem solvers in general should recognize that the best solutions come from diverse teams with widely different POVs. This whole dolls vs. legos debate is absurd. There is room in all of IT for those who like dolls and those who like legos. If only the latter weren't such a bunch of disagreeable know-it-all assholes.. I wonder about the relationship between the lack of woman in IT and the misadventures (or lack there of) IT males have with women...
Re:Don't paint engineering pink! (Score:5, Insightful)
I also didn't think about the money when I ripped apart my toys, to see how come they worked the way they do. I was curious, and that's what excited my brain. I still take apart my toys, but they are just a lot bigger, and cost a lot more(and I wish I was better at putting them back together)
I went into computer, because I actually loved working with them. I will admit, that when it came time to make a choice as to what to take in university, the hope of being gainfully employed help it win over taking music, but it would have been in the running without that.
If I had been interested in money, I would have just gone into business. Funnily enough, a lot of the girls I knew in school were taking business...
Re:Don't paint engineering pink! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:5, Insightful)
I can tell you about my experience in that regard, if you're interested. It's a long story, and it ends with me going for a Master's in Transportation Planning, and hauling my IT experience over to a line of work where people appreciate it, rather than looking at me like "isn't that cute, she thinks she knows what's wrong with the network!"
The field is still quite hostile to women. Society in general is very hostile toward women with technology experience and knowledge; look at the first post in this article (when reading on +2 anyway), implying that the women who are in tech jobs all have beards! Maybe that's because it's really tough to get or keep a tech job, or be taken seriously in one, if you don't look like a guy?
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:4, Insightful)
Construction workers
Flight attendents
It's amazing how well all the massively unbalanced professions fit the legos vs. dolls model so well (these are all generalizations, and the generalizations create the percentage results. I totally respect that individual people make individual choices and there's nothing at all wrong with that.)
Before I had children I thought that boys and girls had basically the same odds for any skill set and that the difference when they grow up was largely based on how parents expose boys vs. girls to different things and create different expectations.
I have two children now, a boy and a girl, and I know how wrong I was. It's not just the differnece between my own children (which is, itself, blatantly dolls vs. legos just like the stereotype) - it's also what I've observed is virtually every other set of children I've been around in playgroups, malls, playgrounds, museums, etc. Most girls have a set of interests and behavior that is very different from most boys.
I've bought my daughter legos, I've tried to work with her to build them, I've tried to keep her interest - it can't be done - she thinks they're mildly fascinating since her brother has them but will not sit still to play with them, she frankly wants to put her doll in the stroller and push her around the house. I've even found her Dora Legos (on ebay, they don't make them anymore, can you guess why?) - she likes the dora character pieces, wants to carry them around, doesn't actually want to build anything.
My son (at 5!) has built a ~3100 piece star destroyer and is embarking on building a ~3500 piece death star (among many many other lego sets he's built) - I couldn't pry his interest from this if I tried.
Software programming is all about building things piece by piece from a limited set of basic shapes. System administration and building up IT infrastructure is also about putting pieces together to build something better and more interesting. Now, IT as a general profession has a wider array of jobs and skill requirements, and as such you do find more women in "people-centric" IT positions (marketing, IT HR, usability, call centers for non-techncial areas - those that haven't been outsourced anyway). In my area of work there is clearly a larger imbalance the more "technical" the job requirements are.
Re:Its Software Programmer! (Score:3, Insightful)
Many places take it one step further. In Canada, an "engineer" is someone who has professional licensure in engineering [www.ccpe.ca]. IIRC, they were trying to do the same in Texas. I honestly think this is a good idea.
The president of the IEEE gave a talk at my campus a few years back. He suggested that engineers were not respected (and compensated) for their skills because of the public's perception of engineers. This included two parts. First, engineers are usually portrayed as the source of the hero's problem in movies. Now, part of this is because engineers' lives aren't usually that interesting, and little can be done about this. Second, many people call themselves "engineers" who are not actually qualified to be engineers. The argument is that you can train someone to do something complicated, but an engineer has the understanding to invent many complicated things. I've met lots of people who have "engineer" job titles that don't actually do any engineering. Electricians, mechanics, and plumbers are not electrical, mechanical, and hydraulics engineers, respectively. In contrast, a physician is a physician. If a radiology technician tries to diagnose someone, it's going to cost somebody a buttload of cash.
I think a better statement would be "Graduates of a computer science department are not engineers, they are mathemeticians." That said, if someone can prove they know software engineering by getting licensed, they are an engineer. I'm not talking about being certified to administer a database. I'm talking about designing complicated programs, proving algorithmic complexity, and optimizing for the range of applications from embedded to high-performance systems. A lot of that sounds like CS, and if they can prove it, a CS can be a PE (professional engineer).
Ask Harvard about this subject... (Score:1, Insightful)
He had the gall to suggest that there may actually be a gender difference that makes men more interested in technology than women. His only crime was to suggest that the subject needed hard research rather than slogans and politically correct proposals.
What if women just aren't interested in technology?
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
If you are hiring someone to do a job, you should select the candidate who is best for the job. If you do anything else, you don't have the best man (or woman) for the job.
A core American value is not to discriminate based on race, or gender. You suggest doing exactly that, and you are exactly unamerican for doing so.
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think anyone is arguing that women should be excluded or treated unequally. I think the point is that there's a fine line between trying to provide equal opportunities and trying to shoehorn people into jobs, education, etc. where they just aren't good fits. Anyone who has ever witnessed a badly implemented affirmative action program knows what I'm talking about. Real progress in terms of equality (racial, gender, etc.) takes generations; it doesn't happen overnight, and anyone who says they can make it happen overnight is probably just trying to win a lucrative government contract.
Programs to encourage women in IT are certainly welcome, but beyond a certain point, you will see diminishing returns. I think we're already at that point (if not past it), considering that probably 10% of the folks in CS programs at both my undergrad and grad school were women. That's not a small number of people, and it certainly isn't a small enough number to suggest widespread discrimination in any meaningful sense.
The reality is that engineering fields like CS/CE tend to be self-selecting, and people---male or female---who are naturally adept at these sorts of thought processes tend to gravitate towards those fields, while those who aren't tend to gravitate away from them. Thus, trying to go significantly beyond guaranteeing equal opportunities for women is not likely to result in any meaningful gains, and the people you are likely to get as a result will tend to be those who will not do as well in the field as their self-selected (male or female) counterparts. It's pretty basic sociology, really.
Re:Don't paint engineering pink! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:facial hair (Score:5, Insightful)
God forbid scientists try to actually answer a question if the answer might be politically incorrect. Everyone knows that if your data suggest something that's not PC, massage the data, or at least don't have the nerve to publish, right? Everyone rants about how the Religious Right wants to make certain scientific subjects off-limits, but the Left is just as bad. In fact, Sweden has already banned research into gender differences in mental characteristics [salon.com].
And his answer("Women aren't as good at men at math and science,") was offensive and incorrect, and rightly struck a blow to his reputation among the faculty.
It pisses me off to no end that everyone thinks Summers said women weren't as smart on average as men. He explicitly did not say this. What he did say is that there is evidence the standard deviation (not the mean!) for intelligence for men appears to be higher than the standard deviation for women. He proceeded to discuss the implications of this (more male morons, but also more male geniuses).
Go find a transcript of what Summers actually said (the whole damn thing, not a soundbyte), read it, and stop slandering the poor man.
Is the price worth it? (Score:4, Insightful)
We've done an admirable job as a society in removing coercive legal barriers against genders. Most of the remaining gender based barriers do not come from the state, but from nature and culture instead.
We can do nothing in regards to nature based barriers, lest we end up a pathetic dystopia. The unavoidable fact is that men and women are differnt. But what about cultural barriers? Indeed, many radical feminists act strangely similar to radical cultural conservatives. Therein lies the danger. Trying to mold culture through laws is a perilous activity. We can attempt to modify culture through voluntary persuasion, but once we get the government involved, we are headed down the path to tyranny.
If there are laws that act as barriers to women, they must be repealed. But we cannot go around punishing parents who encourage their daughters to be nurses instead of doctors. We must change that part of culture through the slow process of voluntary persuasion.
For those of you who would like to believe women.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been in IT for 27+ years, first as a COBOL programmer on a Honeywell DPS/8, then as an SCO Unix developer, and now as a Windoze developer/lead. I'm female. EVERY STEP OF THE WAY I have been discouraged, disparaged, talked down to, brushed aside. Granted, it's been less in the past 10 years than it was earlier, but it's STILL there. It's run the gamut, from my parents (who leaned on my heavily to become a secretary or bank teller), to fellow (male) students who pointedly excluded me from study groups, to clients--sight-unseen. One potential client, when told by my boss that I would be on site the next day to troubleshoot their problem, told him in a crestfallen manner "...can't you come out instead? She's just a woman..." They'd never even heard of me before - this was not related to my performance, but simply to my sex. This was NOT an isolated incident.
YES, I love to tinker. I work on my motorcycle (CBR600RR, thank you very much) in my spare time.
YES, I love to code, AND I'm self taught (from the time I was 12, using Basic on a CP/M system).
NO, I wouldn't be doing this if I had listened to ANYONE who sought to "help" me by steering me toward a more "suitable" career. I know MANY women who gave up and left pursuing a computer-related career because of the discouragement. I'm too thick-headed, I guess.
YES, it still is like this for women. I recently went back to university to pursue an advanced degree - last semester, I took an undergraduate course; the first week, one of the other women in the class was lamenting the fact that so many male students were always telling her she shouldn't be in CSE because she was a girl, and it was a "man's field." Excuse me!? This is 2006... in the United States??
I had hoped, when I was young, that by the time I was in my mid-40s the playing field would be a bit more level. Judging from the comments here, there's still a loooong way to go.
Is this really an issue? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet, many of the girls chose to do a humanities subject at university. Why is that? Could it be that they are more interested in those subjects than mechanical engineering or have they been socially programmed to shy away from the hard sciences? The flip side is that there is a disproportionately high group of females now studying Law and Medicine. In fact, apparently in some Western countries (like Australia, my home), more women than men study these disciplines and there could be a time when they outnumber men in the profession itself. Once again is this a problem and that we should be encouraging more guys to take up law or med? I don't think so...
One thing that was interesting to observe in my time as a HS and then undergrad student was that there were far more Asian girls doing engineering than westerners. In fact of the female population in my eng/sci courses, 95% of them were Malaysian/Sinagporean/Indonesian Chinese (I studied in Australia). Even now, I work in an engineering company and most of the female engineers are of Chinese or Indian origin (we have about 20% female engineer population). The exception are the Scandinavian countries, where there there appears to be a higher proportion of female engineers than in other Western countries. The female engineers I've worked with are no more or less competent than the guys, so once again it's not a matter of aptitude.
I think like any job or vocation, to be any good at it, you have to want to do it and do the hard work associated with it. This applies equally to pursuing a qualification or teaching yourself. If you don't have the passion for it, then you aren't going to have the single minded and borderline anti-social drive to be the best at it you can possibly be. Guys seem to do this more in the technical disciplines, particularly in the after work or school hours. Maybe girls and woman don't have the same passion for it and that their interests lie elsewhere? Should we be coercising girls into be interested in stuff like this? Hell no, in my opinion. If they are interested, they'll gravitate towards it just like some boys do.
At the end of the day, this all starts from early childhood. In modern times, how many rational parents are going to stop girls from playing with trucks or LEGO etc if that's what they like? I'm a parent of a girl and boy (both the same age) and it doesn't worry me in the slightest. If my daughter grows up and becomes an engineer or physicist I'll be just as happy as if she pursues a career in law. She's a smart kid and will most probably be good at either.
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not an engineer, but I am a lawyer for an internet company. I had to work my a$$ off to get this job, and all along I was sidetracked by managers and bosses who thought that they couldn't give me the same work experience or mentoring opportunities because I was just going to run off and have babies some day. Even bosses who weren't overtly sexist didn't treat me the same way as male associates because we just didn't "click" the same way - no invites to drinks after work, ski trips with the family, golf outings etc. So - no mentors, no advancement. Until there are more women in professorships and management, there won't be more women in engineering schools or jobs.
It's self-perpetuating - until there's a critical mass of women in the field so that every step forward isn't a massive f*cking ordeal (which I don't think anyone can deny given the comments here), there will be few women interesting in entering the field.
Self-taught is one of the keys here (Score:5, Insightful)
Schoolboy's bias suit [boston.com]
Where The Boys Aren't [weeklystandard.com]
Why boys can't be boys [guardian.co.uk]
The Trouble With Boys [msn.com]
and especially
How the Schools Shortchange Boys [city-journal.org]
It's not a big factor in this particular case, but one reason some guys are self-taught is because they've learned education isn't for them -- rather it's against them.
Re:Why does this matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:facial hair (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't paint engineering pink! (Score:5, Insightful)
While there may be some truth to women leaving the workforce being a primary factor in lower wages, your attack on stay-at-home moms is poorly placed. Have you ever actually watched someone do this? Consider their day:
Wake up self, wake up kids, gets kids fed, get oldest ready for school and out the door, change the baby's diaper, gets the 2nd oldest ready for pre-school, drive him to school, drive back, get the baby ready for morning nap, put baby down for morning nap, take care of dishes from breakfast, take a shower, get a load of laundry going, take inventory of food/plan shopping, sweep floor, move laundry to dryer, get another load going, get baby up, give baby snack, off to store for dinner fixings, come back and put food away, pick up oldest from kindergarten, pick up middle child from preschool, back home, fix lunch, feed kids, send kids to play, clean up lunch table, play with kids, get youngest two ready for nap, put youngest two down for nap, give the oldest some quiet craft/activity to do, move laundry to dryer, fold clothes that were in dryer, put clothes away, start dishwasher, wipe down counters and sinks **now you get a brief break until the youngest get up from nap**, get kids up from nap, feed everyone snack, begin prepping for dinner, keep kids entertained, keep baby in clean diaper, kiss boo-boos, bandage scrapes, defuse fights, start cooking dinner...
fuck working all your life when someone else can do it for you.
I've watched my wife do it. It is exhausting work and worst of all it is tedious. The routine offers no intellectual stimulation. Staying at home is HARD WORK and it's selfless. Don't demean it.
Re:Why do women need preferential treatment? (Score:3, Insightful)
97% of CS curriculum is pretty gender nuetral. Memory allocators, NP-completeness, caches, etc. Is there a 'male' way versus a 'female' way to teach this? I hear a lot of complaints that games are often included in curriculum and are male centric. But every time I have seen a game in CS curriculum its been of the variety that typically appeal to females. ie they were similar to those easy to pick up games that you find on the web these days and have like an 80% female audience. I've also seen photo albums, family tree organizers, and social networking programs given as assignments. Frankly, I cant think of any assignments at my university that were male centric! (although I am sure that they are out there)
>After they sweat and study to get into a selective program, they aren't exposed to people sneering that they got in as a result of affirmative action (even if they did get in through "legacy preference" or some other euphemism).
I'll give you that it is wrong to sneer at someone who got in on their own merits if they are a member of a group where some people get in just for being members of that group. I think that the best solution would be to treat everyone equally regardless of gender. (or race, or eye color or whatever) Then the problem you describe wouldnt exist at all.
>They have role models.
I never got this idea that "that person cant be a role model for me because they are of a different race/gender/sexual orientation/whatever" But even then there are role models like Anita Borg out there.
>They have the comfort of being in a majority.
So does that mean that men going into nursing/human resources/whatever should get preferential treatment as well? After all they arent in the majority in those professions.
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:3, Insightful)
By the time that males and females reach college, most of their personality, at least with regards to learning and desires will be formed. It's still mutable at that point, but basically the damage, if any, is done at that point. Lousy professors and attitudes may change the percentages some, and I am sure that there are lots of women out there who'll say they left Engineering due to the profs and classmates they ran into. You will find that lots of men left those fields as well.
However, if women and men do start out at birth with an equal opportunity to reach the greatest levels of Engineering expertise, it is in grades K-12 and probably primarily K-6 that efforts will show the best benefits. There, is where the attitudes like "I'm a girl, I can't do math" are formed. You want to fix a problem, that's where you go. Once they are in the workplace, it's almost impossible to do anything effective on a large scale.
For college freshman, you're trying to cater to their desires. For those who are undeclared, just treat men and women equally. True, this may be easier said than done with some prevailing attitudes. For businesses, once again, treat them equally, and make your decisions based on their abilities and experiences.
Based on the current male to female ratio, women have an easy way in to the marketplace if they want to be, but do they want to deal with the disparate ratio? If they have made it this far, the answer is usually as much as the men want to stay in engineering. My office is about 50/50, though a related office is about 90/10 male. Plus several of the women have fallen victim to the family and are now part timers (all with 10+ years experience).
Re:For those of you who would like to believe wome (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I understand that there are some who do, and I agree with some here that it does both the company and the individuals involved a disservice in the end.
Re:facial hair (Score:5, Insightful)
To shout down a legitimate question on the grounds not that it is provably false, but that it is merely distasteful, is thus not merely reprehensible in the full sense of the word, but contrary to the interests of both sides of the debate. The star chamber that fired Summers has therefore likely done far more harm by this action than he did by raising his question.
Re:Better question: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:4, Insightful)
Well that's actually just cuz their pee comes out in different places...
"From there we move to separate names and separate pronouns"
I don't think they make any difference... being referred to as "she" isn't going to make someone less likely to be interested in computers.
"Separate clothing"
Now, more yes, but this wasn't always the case though from birth, even not that long ago (relatively speaking) boys would often use "girls" clothes until they were older.
"Separate responsibilities"
This is unavoidable; girls grow up to have children, guys don't get pregnant, this has a huge difference at the genetic level due to evolution. Guys who "spread the seed" were more likely to have their dna survive, whereas for girls, it's looking after your child that improves success. This means that a guys sex drive tends to be more immediate goal oriented, and a girls is more long term oriented. Even if you're not after a baby, sexual attraction is still steered by target dna (and for a women, the type of person she's physically attracted to changes during the red cycle).
"Separate locker rooms"
Tha's down to sexuality rather than sexism.
"Separate schools"
Again, sexuality... does distract!
"You can't possibly draw any meaningful conclusions about the true nature of something in the presence of interference like that"
Yeah you can, by understanding the interference; not all of it's cause, much of it is effect. And there are huge genetic differences between men and women, other than just reproductive organs. The curves of a woman to hypotise and say "you wanna stay look after me, despite your genes telling you you wanna sleep around". The muscles of a man, to inspire confidence in the woman that he can defend, and provide healthy DNA. Male DNA tells the brain to develop more spacial awareness capacity, whereas women have a larger chunk devoted towards social interaction.
This is not social conditioning, this is pure cold genetics, and the effects touch every part of life.
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:3, Insightful)
Would I have supported cosmopolitan, equal-rights reform if I were alive a long time ago? I can't say for sure, but I would like to think so. I hold moral opinions today which aren't supported by the majority of people.
I am absolutely in favor of income-based educational support. America should progress down the path of becoming a fair meritocracy. But to give money to rich Hispanic children for school while denying it to poor white children is anti-social racist hypocrisy. It was 50 years ago and still is.
Re:facial hair (Score:5, Insightful)
I am all for women attempting to improve in the scientific, mathematic and engineering fields, but I would be lying if I said they had the same potential as their male counter parts. But this is really no different than saying males do not have the same capacity for child birth, because, guess what, regardless of what science comes up with, females will still be better suited for this task. And yes the brain and the uterus are complete comparable as they are both cellular structure formed by information provided by DNA.
If men and women had the same potential there would be know reason for men to carry a Y chromosome. This in itself is an interesting topic since the Y chromosome is both benefit and detriment to Males. because Males contain only a single chromosome of each type they are incapable of regenerative replacement when a sequence is damaged, while women have a back up copy which can be used to repair each other. I'm sure it's ok for me to point out the male weakness, which in this case is very rarely disputed, but you are probably already offended by my support that male and females have different mental capacity, even though it makes logical since regardless of the evidence (which in this case happens to support the idea of gender difference) Maybe what this women is asking is "Given the evidence that there are less women undertaking the work necessary to be successful in engineering fields, is there a genetic or gender specific reason for this."
I don't know about anyone else, but the day Men an Women are identical (as compared to equal) is the day I give up on humanity completely.
Inherent Psychological Differences? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:facial hair (Score:3, Insightful)
Query: Why are they different with regard to engineering?
Problem: Axiom is insane. No rational conclusion can be drawn from insane first premises.
Straw man. Many people agree that there are psychological differences between men and women. That doesn't mean that observed gender inequality must be purely due to innate biological differences. Put your way:
Axiom: There are psychological differences between men and women.
Unwarranted Conclusion: Observed gender imbalance must be purely due to these psychological differences (and not, say, cultural preconceptions, subtle prejudice, or the presence of real-life Comic Book Guys with Beavis-and-Butt-head-grade interpersonal skills).
Further Unwarranted Conclusion: In regards to gender imbalance in engineering, the status quo is just fine.
Conclusion: As long as political correctness pervades our universities, any science they produce in these areas is warped.
I dunno. History shows it's devilishly easy to rationalize our preconceived notions. Politically correct != wrong. Politically incorrect != right.
Re:facial hair (Score:5, Insightful)
They pick jobs that can't easily be outsourced to India
I definitely see more ladies going in Law, Medicine, Accounting/Finance than Engineering or IT.
These jobs pay pretty well.
With all this, why bother encouraging uninterested women to go into IT?
There's no great scarcity, so it's a waste of resources. Better for them to do something else.
Why not encourage more men to do Nursing? Stronger = easier to carry/move patients around etc.
Re:facial hair (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't paint engineering pink! (Score:4, Insightful)
The girls I know who do IT stuff seem a little more like the guys and probably did alot more guy things growing up. The solution is not to have a program tailored to women, the solution is to treat women the same from when they are children and if they choose to do what ever their shouldn't be a problem. I think you would also see more women in IT. On anouther note you don't see that many strait guys going into fasion either
Re:facial hair (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:let's condescend to women (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a slippery slope indeed.
Anti-male bias, yet again (Score:3, Insightful)