
Percentage of Bachelor's degrees conferred to women by major, 1970-2012 - rhiever
http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/
======
StefanKarpinski
A much more informative look at the trend in CS:

[http://m.blogs.computerworld.com/it-careers/21993/women-
comp...](http://m.blogs.computerworld.com/it-careers/21993/women-computer-
science-visual-trendline)

Just looking at the percentage is rather misleading. Popularity of CS has
undergone booms and busts. The recent drop in female percentage is actually an
increase in the raw number of women choosing CS but men have been choosing the
major at an even faster-growing rate.

~~~
rhiever
Agreed, those charts do a great job of showing what's going on in CS. But it's
also useful to look at percentages because college enrollment has gone up
severely in the past decade, so the increase in the raw number of women in CS
could merely be because there's more people in college in general. Showing the
percentages communicates if women have _proportionally_ enrolled more/less in
CS.

~~~
StefanKarpinski
Absolutely – the percentage of women vs. men over time is definitely
interesting, but taken by itself can be misleading. What would be informative,
which none of these charts show, is the percentage of women (respectively men)
choosing CS out of the total number of women (respectively men) – over time.
That would factor out the growth in college attendance.

------
ffn
Can someone explain to me why 90% women graduating in healthcare is not
considered a gender gap but 90% men graduating in compsci is?

Why isn't anyone pushing to have more men go into K-12 education, nursing,
etc.? And if you're considering the argument "because men tend to be less kind
than women, and more likely to be child-molesters", do you also consider the
argument "because women tend to want to interact more with other humans than
computers" when asked why there are fewer women than men graduating compsci?

~~~
Fomite
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially if you can't be
bothered to look.

For both teaching and nursing, there is an acute concern about the lack of
men, as role models for boys in school, and in basically any healthcare
profession besides "Doctor".

It should be noted however that unlike the common experience of women in CS,
men in nursing frequently report that despite being a distinct minority, their
opinions and ideas are often given _more_ weight than they should be because
of their gender.

~~~
brighteyes
Actually no, men in nursing are discriminated against and have it pretty hard.
See for example this link:

[http://www.minoritynurse.com/article/men-
nursing](http://www.minoritynurse.com/article/men-nursing)

> studies have shown that male student nurses experience additional barriers
> and discrimination, such as: lack of information and support from guidance
> counselors; lack of sufficient role models; unequal clinical opportunities
> and requirements; isolation; poor instruction on the appropriate use of
> touch; and a lack of teaching strategies appropriate to male learning needs.

See also the section headline "Why Men Do Not Pursue Nursing" which goes into
more detail in the difficulties they face.

~~~
Fomite
There are definitely some pretty serious barriers - the male nurses I've
talked to reported some of them _and_ that their opinions seem to carry more
weight. They're not mutually exclusive.

The most common negative complaint I've heard is that, despite being nurses,
they often get cast as "muscle", holding down patients and the like, which is
both dangerous (struggling patients, needlestick, etc.) and also pretty
antithetical to the reasons most nurses chose their profession.

------
Almaviva
"Even better, a majority of Biology degrees in 2012 (58%) were earned by
women."

Why is it "better" that men are underrepresented in a particular discipline of
science?

~~~
jballanc
Look further up in the article where it's mentioned that women make up 60% of
the undergraduate population in general. In this case, 58% is just approaching
gender parity adjusted for base-line admissions.

~~~
parennoob
(I think) this merely redirects the question to, "Why isn't it an overriding
concern that men are underrepresented in the undergraduate population in
general?"

~~~
Fomite
To many in higher education, it is a fairly acute concern, and one they're
working on figuring out the root causes of.

Seriously, the underperformance of boys in school and the declining number of
men, and especially minority men, in higher ed. is a pretty active area of
discussion in both education and most gender studies departments.

------
visualR
Whats important is that any woman who wants to do CS or Engineering is able
to. Equal ratios for its own sake isn't important. If these percentages are
the result of the choices of individuals Im not sure what you can to to change
them.

~~~
drabbiticus
To add to andylei's comment, I've pasted my own reply from Randal Olson's
follow-up article ([http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/15/the-double-edged-
sword...](http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/15/the-double-edged-sword-of-
gender-equality/#comment-2051)):

I agree that men and women most likely do make different career choices. Yet,
choices aren't made in a vacuum.

We have a culture that reinforces ideas of innate gender roles. Little boys
are told every day that they need to be tough when they get hurt, that they
shouldn't be a crybaby. Little girls are told that they can't handle rough
housing, that math is too hard for them. Little girls are told they should be
friendly and "nice", that they should play well with others and build
communities, mediate between friends. Little boys are told that they need to
be responsible and be able to take care of people.

These attitudes are shifting. I am glad that they are shifting. When we tell
boys and men that they have to be tough, we create a culture that makes it
harder for men who are struggling with things things like depression and
addiction to seek help or even admit that they have a problem to their
friends. When we tell girls and women that they are weaker and less capable in
certain fields, they begin to internalize those values. They begin to believe
that they really aren't cut out for it, that it is too hard.

There is a lot more that can be said on this topic, and to some degree it can
be debated about just how "innately" different men and women are. However, the
problem is that this viewpoint considers things in the aggregate. In life, you
are an individual. That means that you should be able to deviate from what
"men" are like or what "women" are like just because that is the way you are.
So why do we tell little girls and little boys that they should be one way? If
there is a difference between men and women, then we should be able to just
let that difference exist, without trying to shape people to fit into our view
of what those differences might be.

In general, as humans, we like to categorize things. This has been an
immensely useful skill. It underlies most of our science and most of
understanding of the world. It is fundamental to computer science since it
allows us to do things like DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) and OO (Object-
oriented). The problem is that when we see fields that are largely male
dominated or largely female dominated, many people draw conclusions about what
men and women are like. Relatively few stop to consider what societal
pressures might have shaped the decisions of the people who enter these
fields. They chalk it up to innate differences between men and women. And then
they question people who don't fit into those molds that they have created in
their own minds.

Think back to those male nurses and female coders that we keep talking about.
They don't seem to fit into a mindset that says that men prefer to do things
like code and women prefer to do things like caregiving. People express
surprise and sometimes even censure because these people don't fit. If we push
men out of nursing, we have an even more female-dominated nursing population.
We reinforce the idea that women are caregivers. Because why else would so
many nurses be women? We've created a cycle. This is why I get concerned when
the fields are so disproportionate. It's not just that men and women are
making different choices. It's that we have created attitudes that reinforce
those choices and make it harder for people to make different choices. It
makes it harder for people to succeed when they make a choice that strays from
our mental guidelines.

Again, sorry for the wall of text. Have another kitten:
[http://imgur.com/gallery/KWDadE1](http://imgur.com/gallery/KWDadE1)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
People get to make up their own minds, never mind who created the attitude.
It's patronizing to decide what someone else should choose for a career. So
the solution doesn't lie in that direction.

And societal pressure comes largely from individual actions. If its wrong to
overrule individual choices, then we're left with influencing folks early,
perhaps with better role models.

I happen to know male nurses and female programmers. Sometimes I find myself
thinking it a little odd, and take pains to show no surprise and make no
remark that would reinforce my internal stereotypes.

~~~
drabbiticus
Awesome! I am glad that you help to normalize people in those positions. I
definitely agree that better role models is one of the biggest things we can
do and ultimately is the best solution, albeit one that will mostly effect the
long-term.

I am a little confused about your first paragraph. I agree that it is
patronizing to decide what some else should choose for a career and I hope
that I didn't give that impression. Similarly, societal pressure does come
largely from individual actions, but I don't think that it is wrong to
identify problematic individual actions. Of course we should help those who
are bigoted to understand the hurt that they are causing. It's an application
of the golden rule (one statement of which is "don't do unto others as you
would not have done unto yourself"), and so individual choices which cause
harm to others should be overruled.

Note - obviously this is a simplification and it is often difficult to
determine what choices will hurt whom and to whose benefit. The world isn't
black and white and I acknowledge that.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
My thought (that was badly expressed) is that we can't blame men for staying
out of nursing, or women for wanting to enter that profession, on the grounds
that they're reinforcing stereotypes. Each of us gets to make our own choices
for personal reasons that are unavailable to pundits and well-meaning advice.

~~~
drabbiticus
That makes sense and is a great point. My point, however, was not that we
should demonize those who do go into fields that
stereotypically/socioeconomically favor them. I sincerely hope it did not come
across that way. Rather, we should be encouraging those who do have an
interest in fields that do not stereotypically favor them to explore those
interests. If we can do that, we will have a more equal gender split that will
help to break stereotypes by providing more role models. Even if they don't go
into those fields, we will have created a culture in which that choice was
made solely on the basis of their passions, goals and abilities.

I have never been harassed about being a man for my interest in computer
science, biology, chemistry, physics or engineering (in which I ultimately
majored). This is a good thing. Many women who have had an interest in those
fields have experienced harassment or discrimination because of their gender.
Some have also been fortunate enough to have been spared. Some men have
probably been harassed for being one of the many men in STEM/ET as if their
interest is their fault. Harassing anyone for wanting to explore their
passions is unequivocally wrong.

------
WoodenChair
From the article -

"Going back to Computer Science, we see a rather sad story unfold. The
computer scientists of today find themselves in the same disposition as the
computer scientists of the 1970s: Only ~15% of the CS degrees were conferred
to women. Then the late 1970s and early 1980s finally looked promising: With a
peak at 37% of all CS degrees in 1983, it seemed as though Computer Science
might join the rest of the majors with a more even gender distribution. But
1984 saw fewer women graduating with a CS degree, and the trend has followed a
downward spiral ever since. What was it about the 1970s and early 1980s that
made Computer Science more welcoming to women? And what changed?"

I want the answer to this question too!

~~~
guard-of-terra
What changed? Perhaps an influx of affordable home computers that drew a huge
amount of male youth to computer-related occupations.

~~~
tobinfricke
What is gender-specific about "affordable home computers"?

~~~
guard-of-terra
Boys tend to figure out how home computers work, and once they start, this is
an endless trip down the rabbit hole.

I don't usually observe the same in girls. They use computers for their worth
but they don't seek more.

Female programmers I know are usually taught formally, not self-taught as
opposed to male programmers.

~~~
tobinfricke
As far as I know, there is no actual evidence for this being a result of
innate differences between boys and girls.

------
jiggy2011
Let's say we increase the % of female CS grads, what happens then? Does the
number of jobs and degrees available in CS increase correspondingly? Does pay
in related CS fields go down due to extra supply of labour?

If % of degrees awarded to women is increasing overall, it's worth thinking
about what happens to the men if/when they get pushed out.

~~~
ForHackernews
> If % of degrees awarded to women is increasing overall, it's worth thinking
> about what happens to the men if/when they get pushed out.

Those men can go find jobs in some other fields, and the average competence of
CS students will increase.

I'm only being slightly facetious here: If we're going to blather on about
being a meritocracy, we can't be afraid of competition, or worry about the
poor men getting "pushed out".

~~~
chongli
>If we're going to blather on about being a meritocracy

Is it really a meritocracy if we afford special privileges to one group with
the goal of balancing the numbers? _Positive discrimination_ AKA affirmative
action is still discrimination and all forms of discrimination besides merit
undermine a meritocracy.

~~~
drabbiticus
Actually this is a question I asked myself a lot growing up. When I rephrased
the question as "Is it really a meritocracy if everyone is judged by the same
standard but have different access to resources?" I began to feel that in
certain contexts positive discrimination can play an important role.

A similar (facetious) situation would be if you were comparing two soccer
teams. The first team has to learn soccer by itself and is frequently told
that it would be better off learning some other sport. The second team is
coached by a good coach who encourages them and gives them specific drills and
feedback to help them improve in the skills in which they are deficient. When
they have a game (or several), a contest of merit, most of the time the second
team will win. But is this really the way to get the best soccer players? It
is quite possible that some of the players from the first team would have been
better than those in the second if they had had access to the same resources.

Obviously the ideal solution is to get everyone a great coach and support
them, but what do we do about the ones who already had to go it on their own?
If we are hosting a soccer training camp and really want the overall soccer
training system to be "fair" and "merit-based" doesn't it make sense to
consider how far someone has come in relation to what resources they've been
able to obtain? Or do we continue to give the camp coaching resources to those
who already had great coaching and deny those resources to those who didn't?

~~~
chongli
_I began to feel that in certain contexts positive discrimination can play an
important role._

I guess what I want to say is that I believe positive discrimination is too
blunt an instrument. If there is a problem with unequal access to resources
then solve that problem directly. Positive discrimination attempts to apply a
band-aid to the problem after the damage has been done. And this fix is so
broad that it may actually worsen the inequality of resources situation for
many people.

------
dragonwriter
I'm not sure that that really justifies saying anything happened to CS at all.

 _Most_ majors shown there -- even the female-majority ones -- seem to show a
drop-off in the share of degrees going to women from around 2000 (Agriculture,
Art and Performance, Education, and Public Administration seem, visually, to
be the only exceptions, and even most of them seem to show a reduction in the
rate of increase.)

What may have happened is that some broader change happened that made
_college_ less attractive for women, that interacted with the distribution of
women who were on the cusp of college/no-college.

But you need to look at a _lot_ more data than the gender breakdown to get any
defensible theory about causation.

~~~
Bahamut
I'm not sure this is a valid concern - the past couple of decades has seen a
surge in students attending college, and presumably in roughly equal
proportions.

~~~
dragonwriter
If the surge was in roughly equal proportions, you wouldn't expect to see a
decline in the share of degrees going to women in almost every reported major,
with fairly weak increases in the few exceptions, unless those exceptions were
by far the most common majors.

Its not an impossible explanation (there's certainly a lot more than the
presented data needed to make any firm diagnosis), but its not an explanation
which seems likely based on the data presented.

------
steanne
this does not look at all between gender disparity between students who enter
a program vs. students who stick through to a degree. i suspect the incoming
ratio is not quite so bad as the outgoing.

------
alexchamberlain
Don't forget a lot of the maths, stats and physics grads will go into Software
Engineering as a profession...

