

How Girls Hold Themselves Back from Pursuing Computer Science (Infographic) - junelin
http://blog.play-i.com/girls-in-technology-infographic/

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asdfdsa1234
How do we know that girls study CS less due to misperceptions? The infographic
is a collection of factoids, logical leaps, and prescriptions derived from
those leaps.

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michaelt
I'd be interested to hear the source of the line that "in college women make
up 52% of math and science majors"

I'm aware that chemistry maintains gender parity [1] and that medical schools
are near-parity [2] (if you consider medicine to be math or science) but I'm
not aware of a 52% figure covering all math and science.

[1]
[http://www.rsc.org/Education/EiC/issues/2012May/Yellowlees-w...](http://www.rsc.org/Education/EiC/issues/2012May/Yellowlees-
women-chemistry-students.asp) [2]
[https://www.aamc.org/download/277026/data/aibvol12_no1.pdf](https://www.aamc.org/download/277026/data/aibvol12_no1.pdf)

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junelin
On page 25 of the NCWIT scorecard it states that in 2009 women earned:

57% of all undergraduate degrees, 52% of all math and science degrees, 59% of
the undergraduate degrees in biology, 42% of mathematics degrees, 18% of all
computer and information sciences undergraduate degrees

We cross-checked 2 other sources for 2012 numbers as well.

[http://www.ncwit.org/sites/default/files/resources/scorecard...](http://www.ncwit.org/sites/default/files/resources/scorecard2010_printversion_web.pdf)

~~~
michaelt
I was really hoping to find a field CS could look to for inspiration on
achieving-gender-equality done right.

Looking at citation 32 from the PDF you linked it seems to be based on IPEDS
[1]. Their data, for 2010 bachelors degrees conferred:

    
    
      IPEDS title                                | Table | Male    | Female
      Health professions and related sciences    |   326 |  19,306 | 110,328
      Biological and biomedical sciences         |   314 |  35,865 |  50,535
      Mathematics and statistics                 |   327 |   9,087 |   6,943
      Physical sciences and science technologies |   328 |  13,862 |   9,517
      Engineering and engineering technologies   |   320 |  73,833 |  14,896
      Computer and information sciences          |   318 |  32,410 |   7,179
                                                 |       |         |
      Total excluding health prof + related sci  |       | 165,057 |  89,070 (35% female)
      Total including health prof + related sci  |       | 184,363 | 199,398 (52% female)
    

So we seem to be relying on "Health professions and related sciences" to bring
the average up. I assume that's SIP code 51 but that seems like a very broad
category [2] - for example it includes medicine, dentistry, nursing, yoga,
dance therapy, and medical insurance coding.

I'm not sure science as a whole should be patting ourselves on the back yet.
It would be nice if we could get to gender equality without lumping all
medicine in with science.

[1]
[http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables_3.asp](http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables_3.asp)
[2]
[http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcode/cipdetail.aspx?y=55&cipid=8...](http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcode/cipdetail.aspx?y=55&cipid=88742)

~~~
junelin
Carnegie Mellon has done some amazing work that has raised female enrollment
in Computer Science from 7% in 1995 to 42% in 2000. We're going to do a
follow-up examining what they've done. In fact, one of our female engineers
went to CMU!

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rch
I'd rather see an info-graphic on athletes in CS (both genders). My experience
is likely skewed by living in Boulder, but the national stats might still be
interesting.

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ThomPete
Girls don't hold themselves back, they are just in general not as interested.
This might change over time. None the less it's a non issue.

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speeder
My counter to this, is the documentary "Brainwashing" from Norway.

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peterwwillis
I think the title and general argument here is horrible. Even if their point
is accurate, how are you going to blame them for what they don't even realize
they're doing? Wouldn't it be more effective to find a _positive_ way to
express the idea that we should introduce kids to technology and eradicate
stereotypes?

(Also, I would argue that "computer science as a career" is not necessarily a
wonderful thing; lots of jobs in technology don't require a CS degree, and we
don't have to push them towards that very specific track to get them working
beside other CS and non-CS geeks)

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junelin
Hey Peter, I do agree that the title missed the mark and should have had a
more positive spin. We didn't mean to put the blame on girls but merely to
highlight the social and cultural factors that discourage girls from pursuing
computer science.

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areyoumental
At least they aren't blaming boys for it like the usual trope.

