
Six women computer scientists respond to why women don’t pursue computer science - jnordwick
https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/yes-women-can-and-do-want-to-code-uw-professors-and-alumnae-say/
======
geebee
I read through the responses. It appears all disagree with Stuart Reges. The
first few responses disagree, a couple toward the end go farther and discuss
the harm that occurs when someone expresses this opinion. One essay does
insinuate that perhaps he should lose his leadership position for expressing
this opinion.

I read all these responses with interest. The only strong opinion I hold is
that we should accurately represent the thesis that we are discussing, even if
it means we need to use more words to describe it. Mr. Regis didn't argue that
women don't pursue computer science. He didn't say that it surprises him when
some of the top computer scientists are women, he didn't say it surprises him
when a woman has great interest in computer science. He made a ratio argument
- that he believes that about 20% of the top computer science students and
scholars will be women.

The sad thing is, I believe there's plenty to discuss, argue, even rightly
object to in that thesis. But we must not claim that he said women can't be,
or won't be computer scientists. He said the opposite - that some of the top
computer scientists will and should be women. If someone believes that 20% of
the elite computer scientists will be women, does that mean a woman in a class
should worry that this professor doubts her competence or commitment?

This isn't a purely rhetorical question. If you deeply believe the main reason
that women are less represented in computer science is because women ace
powerful social deterrents, and that in the absence of these deterrents the
percentage of women in CS would rise dramatically (far above 20%), then it
could follow that a professor who openly states that 20%/80% represents the
natural equilibrium must only be a professor who fails to see the issues that
women face - and that this disqualifies him from a leadership position in a
top computer science department.

~~~
weberc2
It is frustrating how often misrepresentation occurs in this particular topic.
So many words are wasted misrepresenting the record and then setting it
straight again.

A similar thing happened w/ the Google Memo when so many prominent media
outlets (as well as commenters all over the Internet, including here at HN)
attacked it for saying things it never said before the accusation was changed
to "well, it was based on bad science". By the time it got to that point, the
conversation sort of dissipated, and I didn't get to hear much debate about
the science.

I don't have an opinion in either case, but it does seem like one side is
consistently doing the misrepresenting. And it leaves me (a more-or-less
neutral observer), suspicious: after all, why would you resort to
misrepresentation if you're confident in your position?

~~~
stevecalifornia
Why is this (and children) being down-voted? These seem like perfectly
rationale comments on the topic.

~~~
dang
Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvoting. As they
say, it does no good and makes boring reading. And once the unfairly downvoted
comment has been corrected by other users, your comment lingers on
inaccurately.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18087888](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18087888)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
dnautics
Begging pardon, but is this not the wrong group of people to ask this
question? Shouldn't we be asking women who didn't pursue computer science, not
women who did?

~~~
stcredzero
I dated a woman for 9 years who has a Masters degree and who certainly can
code. She just finds coding to be tedious and could never imagine doing that
as a job. My wife has a PhD, an MBA, and is working on another higher degree.
She can also code, but she also finds coding to be tedious and tells me she
feels sorry for me in my coding job, because she can't imagine how I could
feel otherwise.

One of my female Computer Science professors used to _brag_ about how she
didn't code.

~~~
Paul-ish
> One of my female Computer Science professors used to brag about how she
> didn't code.

It's not uncommon for academics to stop coding at some point in their career.
They basically become managers.

~~~
stcredzero
It wasn't that. She was one of those Comp Sci == specialized discrete math
people.

------
jlos
Quick summary of respondents reasons for low % of women in C.S. (In order
given):

1\. Lack of coding in K-12 means fewer women are exposed to coding and thus
don't become interested in it during the career selection phase of life.

2\. Individuals bias' subtly steer women away from C.S.

3\. Once inside a C.S. career, women are systemically marginalized.

4\. Once inside a C.S. career, women face overt (and often sexual)
discrimination as well as subtle displays of disregard due to their
gender(i.e. microagressions).

5\. Discriminatory comments from peers before entering C.S.

6\. The palpable fact of being a minority and, thus, feeling isolated,
irrespective of discrimination.

I would suggest that finding ways of depoliticizing the discussion would help
everyone out in the long run, especially since nearly all political issues
appear to have become zero-sum games. I think putting the experiences of women
who are in C.S. within a broader context would help give more clarity to the
issue. I would think of including the following:

1) The experience of women in non-STEM careers with low percentages of women,
particularly the trades (for example, women in Canada make up only 4.5% of
people in the trades[0]).

2) The experiences of women who did not go into STEM and why they did not
choose it.

3) The experience of men who did go into STEM careers and why.

4) The experience of men in careers with large percentages of women (e.g.
teaching, nursing, etc).

I would suspect we wound find a mix of bias, discrimination within industry,
and personal preferences corresponding to gender. The interesting question is
what is the mix?

[0] [https://globalnews.ca/news/3823621/women-skilled-trades-
manu...](https://globalnews.ca/news/3823621/women-skilled-trades-
manufacturing/)

~~~
nirelBRACITOS
My two cents about the summary:

1) Lack of IT courses in K-12 affects both genders, why make this a female
issue?

2) Completely subjective.

3) Pretty much the opposite. There are tons of events for women only, as well
as grants and positions that are available for women only or where they’re
more likely to get hired than men (so quota is filled).

4) Most of women (as in 99%) in CS don’t suffer this. Even this being of
importance, I believe this happens in all industries.

5) Similar to point 3.

6) Well, empower yourself? What do we tell to male nurses then?

Edit: formatting

~~~
bytematic
I would personally avoid any career that has lots of events for my specific
gender/race. Like a big flag to say you will be an outsider.

------
nradov
My alma mater Harvey Mudd College has rough gender parity in Computer Science
so it's clearly achievable for colleges that make a focused effort.

[https://www.hmc.edu/about-hmc/2018/05/15/harvey-mudd-
graduat...](https://www.hmc.edu/about-hmc/2018/05/15/harvey-mudd-graduates-
highest-ever-percentage-of-women-physics-and-computer-science-majors/)

~~~
geebee
Is it achievable at scale for all colleges once they all start to make that
effort, though? And if so, it it achievable the way Harvey Mudd did it?

Harvey Mudd is a very elite college with considerable resources, and it has a
relatively small class, especially compared to large public universities.

[https://www.hmc.edu/institutional-research/institutional-
sta...](https://www.hmc.edu/institutional-research/institutional-
statistics/institutional-statistics-graduates-and-alumni/majors-by-class-
year/)

It looks like there were 27 CS majors out of Harvey Mudd in 2017. We can
probably add in another 20 from the joint CS-Math degree. So, about 50.

Here are the numbers for Berkeley:

[https://eecs.berkeley.edu/about/by-the-
numbers](https://eecs.berkeley.edu/about/by-the-numbers)

Berkeley graduates almost a thousand students in EE or CS every year. The
accounting is tough here because the degrees at Harvey Mudd and Berkeley are
different, so I may be over or under counting, but I hope you can see my point
- Harvey Mudd succeeds in a way that might not apply once you try to reach
scale.

Consider that 27% of the high school students who take the AP Computer science
test are women. This next part is a big assumption, but let's say that this
reflects the percentage of students in the current pipeline, and that a "5" on
this test clearly represents a high talent student. It's not the only way to
identify such as student, but it is a strong indicator.

Harvey Mudd could probably fill it's entire class, all 50 spots, with women
who got a 5 on the AP CS test. Harvey Mudd could probably go up to 100% women
without meaningfully compromising admissions standards. Remember, this debate
is about ratios. The author of the controversial piece is not under fire for
saying that talented women don't go into CS, he's under fire for saying that
20% is a natural equilibrium.

Yes, Harvey Mudd could fill its small but very elite CS class entirely from
the 20% of the top cohort. But could Berkeley, and Michigan, and UW, and
Georgia Tech, and...

I'm not saying that these schools can't achieve parity, nor am I arguing that
they shouldn't. But the process for getting to parity across lots and lots of
large schools is very different from what Harvey Mudd can do. There would
still be lots of men with "5"'s looking for a spot, but not as many women -
simply because there aren't as many women taking the test.

At some point, the elite programs will be unbalanced if they simply reflect
the pipeline. That doesn't mean they shouldn't try for more equity, but we
should recognize that Harvey Mudd's approach won't necessarily scale, it may
reflect the recruiting advantages of an elite, well funded school with lots of
resources and very few undergraduates.

~~~
nradov
You're essentially asking if Mudd succeeding in expanding the total worldwide
applicant pool, or just managed to take a slightly larger share of a fixed
size pool. It's a fair question, but there are so many confounding factors
that we won't know for sure until multiple large colleges make similar
efforts.

Mudd is a relatively new college and actually doesn't have the same level of
resources as some other selective colleges, at least not when measured on an
endowment dollars per student basis. I'm not convinced that this is a resource
issue. It seems like focus and commitment by the administration and faculty
are more important.

------
enriquto
The title looks paradoxical... It seems that they would be precisely the less
qualified people to talk about this subject. Maybe the women who didn't become
computer scientist should know better why.

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
If you read the article you would have probably gleaned that these women had
to overcome certain challenges to get into CS.

Maybe those hurdles are what other women face, hmmmm

------
nodesocket
Instead of interviewing women who decided on computer science it would be
better to interview women who were thinking of or who switched from CS. I am
willing to venture that sexism, gender bias, and unfair policies aren't
reasons women would cite.

In fact in my personal experience talking with women while I was in college
who started off in CS or others that took intro CS courses typically the
responses were:

    
    
      "Didn't click for me"
      "Didn't like all the math requirements"
      "Found it boring and teadious"
      "Isolated, rather work with people"
    

Those reasons are much simpler and frankly make more sense then a grand sexist
and biased plot by men to oppose and opress women from getting into CS.

------
lph
The Seattle Times did a nice job here of presenting viewpoints from women
Computer Scientists at different points in their careers.

~~~
geebee
I agree. I am disappointed with the headline, though.

The headline reads: "A UW professor argued that women don’t want to code. What
do women computer scientists have to say?"

The sub headline reads: "Six women computer scientists from the University of
Washington respond to an essay about why women don’t pursue computer science
as often as men."

In some ways, I think that misrepresenting these headlines can be harmful. A
young woman considering CS who reads the headline might conclude that a
professor at UW things that women, across the board, are uninterested in the
CS major. If she reads the sub-headline, she might conclude that he believes
that fewer of the top students will be women, but that certainly some of them
will be.

I can't say that the second is welcoming, but it's a very, very different
statement from the first.

~~~
closetohome
Seems like a dangerous bias for a teacher to have. It's a self-fulfilling
prophecy as he makes sure his female students don't rise to the top of the
class.

~~~
geebee
Does he, though? That's a stretch. If someone believes that 20% of the elite
computer scientists will be women, why does it follow that he would not have
confidence in the women who take his class?

For instance, suppose about 20% of his class is women. He's not saying that
this 20% of his class shouldn't be there, or won't rise to the top. He _is_
saying that it may not be productive to even out this ratio. Plenty to
disagree with and object to in that thesis. But that is very different from
not believing in the women who take his class, and it is _utterly_ different
from sabotaging the women in his class (making sure they don't rise to the
top).

I want to be very clear in this comment and elsewhere that I believe that
there is plenty to object to in the claim that 20% represents some kind of
natural plateau. My position is that we need to accurately represent the point
of view that we are debating.

~~~
manicdee
If you want to accurately represent the point of view being debated you need
to consider the motivations and insinuations surrounding the 20% number,
rather than performing semantic onanism with the ratio itself.

------
GreaterFool
At my last gig I was paid ~30% less than the person I worked with on the
project. They joined a bit earlier and negotiated a better deal, that's all.

All this talk about being promoted and receiving pay raises is funny to me.
Never in my work history I was just 'promoted'. One climbs up by looking for
new and better job. Same goes to pay.

Where is this magical land where men climb up by being men? I'd love to
experience that!

Also, coding is not some magical job. For most people I know the line between
work/free time barely exist. People that are good 1) code all day at work and
then 2) go home and code some more at home. 1 and 2 may be unrelated but only
on the surface. By coding at home they improve their skills and do better at
work. But there's a price to pay. Other hobbies/interests have to be
sacrificed. So is social life.

All articles of this kind make it sound like coding is some sort of magical
job that's easy and well paid and has no downsides. My life experience is that
finding a _good_ programming job is incredibly hard and only very few people I
know are happy with theirs. More often than not it's just daily grind.

------
hfdgiutdryg
_For example, from 2007 to 2017, the number of males taking the AP computer
science test went up by a factor of 7,_

Are AP CS exams relevant now? I took both in the early 90s, then got to
college only to find out that _nobody_ accepted AP credit in CS. Every school
said "we use C, and the AP exam uses Pascal".

Curious if anyone younger has a different experience.

~~~
maceurt
A lot of colleges are using Java which is what is on the AP exam or at least
the AP exam I am taking. I don't know many colleges that are actually teaching
CS with C anymore sadly. Tbh, the AP exam does not prepare one for programming
at all, any self respecting university should not accept credit for passing
it.

~~~
hfdgiutdryg
_Tbh, the AP exam does not prepare one for programming at all_

That's why it's called the AP _Computer Science_ exam rather than the AP
Programming exam.

 _any self respecting university should not accept credit for passing it._

I don't think you appreciate what a CS degree means.

~~~
maceurt
> I don't think you appreciate what a CS degree means.

Yeah, I will admit am not too keyed up on what a CS degree entails. I thought
it was like CS 101, CS advanced or something like that, some other choice of
CS electives like visual programming, and then the usual course load that is
required for most other degrees like English, etc. I know for certain though,
just by looking through some of the videos on MIT's opencourseware and
Harvard's videos and problem sets for their beginning CS course, that the even
if you could get a perfect score on your AP computer science exam you could
easily be unprepared for advanced programming classes at university. I don't
think an exam and a high school cs class is anywhere near enough to be worth
college level cs credit.

------
s09dfhks
does anyone have a link that doesnt hit me with "we noticed you're blocking
ads"

~~~
probably_wrong
[https://archive.fo/7Phr0](https://archive.fo/7Phr0)

 _Edit:_ Putting "archive.is" in front of a URL works often for me.

------
nqzero
the six are professors, phd candidates and a recent graduate that hasn't
started working. it would be much more interesting to hear from women (ideally
chosen at random) that graduated with cs degrees 5-10 years ago and talk about
their own personal career paths

and do the same with men, and compare

not sure that we have to tools to understand these sorts of questions
quantitatively, but i'd like to see at the least some qualitative data instead
of opinions (whether reges or this group)

------
temp-dude-87844
It's bizarre for a few passionate women, subject to survivor bias of having
survived an allegedly women-hostile education-to-CS pipeline, to paint Reges
as a part of the problem. One would naturally expect them to vehemently
disagree on account of their own experience -- not unlike Reges uses his own
experience in his journey to develop a nuanced understanding of the debate and
to foster a more inclusive environment for women and other historically
underrepresented groups -- but then why dismiss his viewpoint as selfish and
anecdotal, while theirs is exactly the same?

It's ironic that Reges' carefully crafted letter drew as much ire as Damore's
sophomoric, easy-to-nitpick essay, when his entire letter is a trap laid bare.
Given his keen awareness of the possibility of his employment's termination
and his mention of displeasure of what he sees as chilling effect in tech and
academia against voicing criticism of current sociopolitical headwinds, he's
armored a reasonable discussion with indications that he knows some people
will call for his head. And unremarkably, it happened in the one response that
addresses his points the least!

------
funkythings
So, all these women present anecdotal evidence.

If you are interested in an opposite opinion from another woman coder:
[https://medium.com/@marlene.jaeckel/the-empress-has-no-
cloth...](https://medium.com/@marlene.jaeckel/the-empress-has-no-clothes-the-
dark-underbelly-of-women-who-code-and-google-women-techmakers-723be27a45df)

Reality looks very different.

Women have a 2:1 chance over men to get a job in STEM:
[https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2015/11/04/women-
favored-2-...](https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2015/11/04/women-
favored-2-to-1-in-stem-hiring/)

more detailed research on this:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4611984/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4611984/)

Then there's the Scandinavian gender paradox, which states that women are LESS
likely to choose a career in STEM the more equal society becomes. This is
because there's no more economic necessity, and other reasons. See
[http://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-
girl...](http://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-
girls-3848156-Feb2018/)

I'm not surprised by the responses of these women. They represent the
acceptable opinion of Silicon Valley.

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
In one breath you dismiss these women and their "ancecdotes" while in the next
breath you claim that what another woman says is "reality".

Hey, I guess as long as it supports your hypothesis, right?

~~~
dang
Please don't be uncivil in comments here, regardless of how wrong another
comment is or you feel it is.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
sievebrain
It's a wider issue with feminists and arguments, not specific to computing.
Look at the interview of Jordan Peterson by Cathy Newman. Newman constantly
misrepresented and lied about what he was saying _in the interview itself,
right in front of him_ , to an absurd level ("are you saying we should model
our society after the lobsters"). The whole thing is on YouTube, it's worth
watching if you can get through it without stopping in disgust.

~~~
geebee
Sadly, misrepresenting is a common political tactic.

Remember, "you didn't build that?" President Obama made the argument that
businesses do rely on substantial government services that are critical to a
healthy commerce sector. He said "If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build
that. Somebody else made that happen."

It was a clumsy way to put it, but it was clear to me what Obama was saying.
Yet many on the right attacked him for stating that people who have a business
didn't build their business.

Again, it's sad, because you know what? I think the center-right has a decent
point to make here. Perhaps the government should leave some of these services
to the private sector. Perhaps they are providing them inefficiently. There's
all kinds of ways to disagree, discuss, debate, and rightly object to
President Obama's thesis.

But we didn't get that debate. Instead, we got treated to a ton of
misrepresentation, 30 second attack ads, and non-discussion posturing around
something that someone didn't even say in the first place. And the public was
actually denied an important debate and discussion that might have led to a
greater understanding of the relationship between government regulation and
private business.

Yeah, the right does this all the time. I will agree with you, though, that
the left does this cynically and perhaps deliberately, especially on this
topic.

Another time, John Kerry said "You know education, if you make the most of it,
you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you
can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq”"

His scripted statement was supposed to be: "Do you know where you end up if
you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy? You end
up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."

It was a pretty dumb statement, and I gotta say, even the scripted one was no
prize winning quip. But of course the republicans of course had a field day
with this one, claiming that Kerry was arguing that only unintelligent and
uneducated people serve in the armed forces in Iraq.

And it was hard to watch a guy who received multiple educational deferrments
righteously scold a vet with shrapnel embedded in his ass for saying that
people use education to avoid military service.

Trust me, the right does this plenty. Plenty. So does the left. Plenty.

~~~
weberc2
I agree with everything you posted, but I don't think the parent was making a
right vs left argument; in particular, Peterson isn't particularly right-wing
(from what I can tell, we would have unambiguously classified him as 'liberal'
5 years ago).

------
ttty
Can anyone make a summary. I tried to skim quickly but I couldn't see any real
reason. Thank you

~~~
AlexandrB
I can't tell if this is meant to be parody.

The first essay is a bit high-level, but the second lays out some pretty
specific, straightforward ways that women get the short end of the stick in
the CS field:

> It is more common for men to get credit for collaborative work than women,
> something I experienced when a student wrote in a publication draft that an
> idea of mine originated with a collaborator — even though progeny of the
> idea had never been discussed.

If you don't care enough to read that far and then assume that this means
there's no "real reason", I think that's the definition of willful ignorance.

~~~
sievebrain
That happens to men all the time too.

Is there anything worth reading in these essays that is genuinely unique to
women? Because so far it sounds like damore round two. The only form of
unarguable, gender specific discrimination I see in computing is against men.

~~~
closetohome
Well known fact that men are all but extinct in tech because of militant
feminists.

~~~
zimablue
Kind of a circular point here because the whole argument on the other side is
that equal representation is not a good yardstick. What if it takes an
incredible amount of unfairness and discrimination to get the ratio to 60 40?
You'd still be making the same point that it's fine there are more men.

