
My Experience as a Female CS Major - worldvoyageur
http://www.jeanhsu.com/2011/01/17/my-experiences-as-a-female-software-engineer/
======
chrismealy
It wasn't that long ago that women made up close to 0% of graduates in law and
medicine. There were lots of scientific-sounding essentialist arguments made
about gender to explain that. Nowadays close to 50% of graduates in medicine
and law are women. Remember than when you hear people spouting off about why
women aren't suited to programming.

[http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0300.p...](http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0300.pdf)

~~~
yummyfajitas
Translation: people who disagreed with me were incorrect on a different topic.
Therefore, everyone who disagrees with me on this peripherally related topic
is also likely to be incorrect.

See the logical fallacy?

~~~
starwed
Ooh, it's the strawman!

Oh... you meant in the OP?

------
DarkShikari
_Something that frustrates me about the field of computer science is that
there are a lot of jerks who think that just because they've "mastered" some
programming language or know some obscure unix commands, they are gods and you
are nothing._

I don't think this is at all unique to CS, or even to technical fields: it's
the Dunning-Kruger Effect all over again.

Regarding women in CS, it would go a long way in helping to simply _treat them
as people_. As an IRC op, I find it sickening how often, particularly in
online programming communities, people hear the word "female" and start acting
like utter idiots. This results in both unwanted negative and positive
attention: but furthermore, continually reinforces the idea that a female is
some sort of odd, unusual creature deserving of special study. This doesn't
merely bother the victims -- it also helps convince _them_ that they're the
odd one out, and that they don't belong.

This doesn't have to be blatant sexism -- it can simply be comments like "oh,
you're a girl?!" when someone uses a female pronoun. I've seen this happen
dozens times in a single channel _in response to a single person_ over the
course of a few months.

Some of you may be thinking that this is just a problem for 4chan and Reddit.
But the interesting thing that I've noticed is that the incidence of this
problem doesn't seem to be reduced much with more professional communities, or
in more mature environments.

Rather, the _only_ statistic that seems to be consistently correlated with
these kinds of problems is the perceived male/female ratio in a community. The
instance the perception gets created that "this community is almost entirely
male", problems begin to occur. This seems to be a constant everywhere from
programming communities to writing communities to roleplaying communities to
fandoms.

If you're male, you've probably been responsible for some of this at some
point. Maybe it was just one comment. I mean, what harm could one comment do,
right? But a hundred people making "just one comment" stops being a joke
quickly -- and instead makes half of the smart aspiring programmers out there
feel unwelcome. This is of course self-reinforcing: by making women feel
unwelcome, the "almost entirely male" perception is perpetuated.

(An interesting question might be why the reverse problem rarely exists in
communities perceived to be almost entirely female.)

~~~
Androsynth
Its not the Dunning-Kruger effect, I would call it the osx effect (or
alternatively the nosql or ruby effect). It goes something like this: if you
can do something in an esoteric way that gets your more respect (both real and
imagined) from people in your community, you will do it and lord it over
others who do not have this particular knowledge or skill. The respect you get
tends to be inversely proportional to the actual value being provided. (ie osx
barely gets you any respect nowadays becuase it provides true value for
programmers, using nosql at your startup gives you lots of respect even though
a sql/mc combo would probably take much less time and effort to actual get
running and fine-tuned). This effect generally appears in the following form:
i use osx so therefore I am better than Windows users. I know sed so I am
better than cli noobs.

The opposite of this is the windows effect (aka the php effect), where you get
disrepected for using a particular technology regardless of how talented or
productive you actually are with it.

~~~
paganel
> The opposite of this is the windows effect (aka the php effect), where you
> get disrepected for using a particular technology regardless of how talented
> or productive you actually are with it.

Just wanted to add my related $0.02 rant: Everybody bashes PHP for its
associative arrays, but when Python finally implemented the same data-
structure (ordered dicts I think they are called) a long, long time after PHP
first got them, then everybody started congratulated themselves and saying
"what a nice idea the Python guys implemented!".

~~~
JonnieCache
Sorry to go down _that_ road, but the reason people rag on PHP's associative
arrays, is that its the _only_ array that PHP has.

A hashmap with mixed keys is hardly the most practical choice for an all
purpose primitive data structure.

Python already has proper arrays where you might have some chance of fast
sequential access. The ordered dict or whatever is just another tool in the
box.

Basically, PHP makes you do shit like this:
<http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.is-array.php#102652>

~~~
chalst
The same people don't seem to bash Lua's tables.

~~~
bxr
They've probably never _used_ Lua's tables.

------
barnaby
There's some good general observations in here. I remember tutoring a student
who was really good (I'm sure that by now he's a better programmer than me)
but who felt inadequate (enough so to get a tutor) because other people in the
class were bragging about how they did certain tasks in just a few minutes
while in reality spent hours on it... or just turned in crap. And it was that
same kind of macho sentiment that the author talks about... except it
intimidates a lot of guys as well.

Also, most of the people who are jerks about it, don't know just how much they
don't know (because that one obscure Linux command is all they need to master
to be CS gods, right) and they turn into that guy you fire because his code
has no sense of industry best practices (seriously, why unit test like a mere
mortal if you're a CS god who knows obscure Linux commands.... FIRED).

So take heart. You're probably a better programmer than you give yourself
credit for (whether you're a guy or a girl), because everybody else is a worse
programmer than they tell others they are.

~~~
meric
If everyone is a worse programmer than they tell others they are, that means
I'm probably a worse programmer than I give myself credit for, too. :(

------
tokenadult
"One of the challenges for me while I was at Google was to speak up when I
didn't understand something, as I often assumed it was common technical
knowledge and that people would pass judgment."

Of course, it is generally good advice in most workplaces to speak up and ask
questions to be sure what the colleagues are talking about. But, yes, male or
female, many new employees lose out on learning opportunities by not asking
questions when they know they don't understand, and perhaps even more from not
asking questions when they suppose they do understand. What I've learned by
becoming a lot older than the author of the interesting submitted blog post is
that I still have plenty to learn, and sometimes I can make a good impression
by being willing to ask a possibly dumb question[1] to be sure I know what my
colleagues have in mind.

[1] The best teacher I ever had was a teacher who said, of course, "The only
dumb question is the question you don't ask," and he really meant it. He tried
his utmost to make sure any student who asked him a question got a thoughtful
response that implicitly acknowledged that it's important for learners to
check and recheck their understanding.

~~~
Dove
I've been surprised how often a software engineer will describe something
technical and arcane, and _everyone_ in the room assumes it must be
comprehensible to _everyone else_. After a few such incidents, I decided it
was my responsibility to ask questions until I understood what was being
described to my satisfaction, and to hell with trying to pretend I'm smarter
than I am.

The result was surprising: I appeared _smarter_. When you say, "Excuse me, I
don't understand this," and everyone else is thinking that, too, and
especially if it turns out to be a bad presentation or a fundamentally
incoherent concept . . . well, you look perceptive.

And if you make sure you understand things? You look pretty darn smart later
on.

~~~
JonnieCache
_> The result was surprising: I appeared smarter. When you say, "Excuse me, I
don't understand this," and everyone else is thinking that, too, and
especially if it turns out to be a bad presentation or a fundamentally
incoherent concept . . . well, you look perceptive._

This is massively massively important point. It goes beyond looking
perceptive, it actually makes you look supremely self confident and powerful
within a group.

Whether the point is incoherent or not doesn't really matter, when you ask the
question, suddenly you're the only one in the room thats not afraid of the
conversation, and everyone instantly knows it.

------
throwaway94583
I'm pretty sure this will get downvoted and deleted in 2 seconds, but i'm
honest to god not trying to troll, just state some of my personal experiences.

I'm currently working at a pretty small company with women coworkers, and most
of them are at least as smart as some of the men i've worked with and one is
way smarter than most people i've met. Having said that, in my experience both
in college and at work (been working about 6 years now), on average the girls
were less capable and smart at CS and programming. From my experience it
seemed A LOT like they just didn't commit at nearly the same level as the
guys. For most men who are programmers it's almost a way of life - I have
never met a woman for whom the same could be said. The one woman I know who is
vastly better at her job than anyone I've met, even she is simply a extremely
dedicated professional for whom it is just a job, not truly a passion.

I'm not saying this means guys get the right to be assholes, I'm just saying I
don't think this is entirely because there are so few girls or because of
stereotypes, i think there is more to it than that, there is a statistically
discernible difference in skill - from my limited personal experience. Please
proceed with the downvote into oblivion :).

~~~
forensic
People who make computers their life are doing life wrong.

There's no doubt that computers serve as a solitary outlet for many lonely,
ostracized, and anxious people. The fact that computers become the only good
thing in their life is not a positive and it's usually not a choice. It's
something thrust on them by their psychological circumstance.

The real tragedy is that there is an entire cohort of people doing computer
programming because they suffer from anxiety disorders and programming is
capable of affording them a solitary way of making money as well as giving
them something to escape into.

Anyway these people are not really helping themselves or the industry. They do
sub-standard work, they suffer from depression and anxiety, they find
collaboration difficult and uncomfortable and they accept being underpaid due
to low self-esteem. The low self-esteem causes them to lash out against others
when they have a chance, like insulting people who don't know something.

It would be better for everyone if these people got therapy and came to enjoy
the other things that life can provide. Warm and fulfilling relationships
being the big one.

Life is about a lot more than just working. If this applies to surgeons and
Presidents and astronauts, it should apply to computer scientists as well.
Never judge someone negatively for having a life.

~~~
nadam
You could say also that 'people who make mathematics/science/art their life
are doing life wrong'. Almost all the great mathematicians, physicists, etc
are doing it wrong? Maybe. At least this is how they get into the field.
Programming was the life for me until I met my wife and had 2 children. With a
family, things are different. But our topic is mostly about how people get
into the field. True and early passion for programming, and social-acceptance
ignorance is more rare (although existing) amongst women. In my opinion this
is the real difference between women and men and not that women are not
intelligent enough.

------
Duff
There is a masochist bent to many CS programs, where students are basically
told that they need to "sink or swim", then get pushed into the water. I saw
more than a few people just hit a wall and give up.

I think that in general, women tend to thrive in different circumstances than
men. A big part of the way that CS is presented to students is that it is a
"lone wolf" endeavor, and students are expected to just figure stuff out. That
appeals to the hardcore, anti-social nerds and feeds the male ego. It's not
appealing to women or most men.

The IT team that I run now is probably 60% female. They rock, and only one of
them has a degree in CS. It's a real shame that in a field where top companies
claim to be short on talent, keyword filtering is virtually eliminating half
of the potential workforce.

~~~
jackowayed
One of the great things about Stanford CS program is that it tries very hard
not to have the "sink or swim" mentality, especially for the first 2 classes.
For those classes, you have a large lecture, but then you have 10-person
sections once a week, 6 hours a night where you can come and have section
leaders help you with assignments, and "interactive grading" with your section
leader where you spend 10-15 min going over your assignment and hearing what
you did well and where you can improve.

This has been hugely successful; on the order of half of undergrads take the
first class, and gender balance is pretty good in them.

~~~
mitjak
It's infomercial o'clock.

------
nadam
This is only part of the story. As far as I can see it, the biggest difference
between men and women is that there are less women who don't give a shit about
'social acceptance'.

The OP's post is mostly about schools, social issues, etc...

Since I have seen a computer as a 12 year old guy, I did not give a shit about
other people's opinion on my programming skills, I did not learn programming
in school, etc... I just needed to program. My mind did not rest until I did
not give it a programming poblem to solve. When I created a little game, I
felt that I created a new world from scratch.

The real question is why this kind of enthusiasm and this kind of social-proof
ignorance is more rare (although existing) amongst women.

------
ataggart
To save everyone a lot of time, here's the HN post of this article from last
year:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2110756>

~~~
worldvoyageur
Thanks for this.

It was a thought provoking blog. When I submitted to HN, I expected it would
end up like most of my submissions and simply add a point of karma to someone
who had already posted the same thing ages ago.

However, it appears that the blog author re-arranged how she recorded her blog
entries, giving this one a different address.

Interesting that the conversation this time feels quite a bit different than
the last time.

~~~
T-R
You wouldn't get the impression looking at it now, but it actually was pretty
similar. HilbertSpace's post came a bit later, and overwhelmed the entire
conversation. You can see that some of the replies to it are from as much as
10 days later.

------
olalonde
I'm going to get down voted for this but the main reason CS doesn't attract
women is that it is not a regulated profession. Competition is high and you
have to stay on top of your game regardless of your diploma. It's the same
reason there are few women who are entrepreneurs.

Women tend to be more attracted to stable jobs with a well defined path to
success such as medicine or teaching.

~~~
mister_m
This is just flat out false and would be regarded by many as a blatantly
sexist remark.

~~~
olalonde
It is a personal observation and I might be wrong, but why would it be
regarded as sexist?

------
jrockway
The thing that I find most odd about this article is that she says someone
told her "this isn't a 200-level class, you know".

I never talked to anyone in my CS classes. Never.

It's weird to me to hear about CS classes where questions were asked in class
or where you interacted with your peers for anything.

~~~
Tichy
When I studied, there still were computer rooms. Not sure if they still exist
today. I had to ask for help in the computer room a couple of times. Like when
I accidentally launched Vim and did not know how to escape from it.

------
haberman
A few months ago Dr. Christine Alvarado gave a GREAT talk at Google about how
the CS profs at Harvey Mudd restructured their introductory CS course to help
attract women. I'm not usually that interested in this issue, but found the
talk really interesting and engaging. Highly recommended.

<http://www.youtube.com/eduatgoogle#p/a/u/1/HF_Gkxqf158>

~~~
ladon86
Thanks for posting this; Dr. Alvarado inspired me to go into UX research with
her work on sketch recognition in the early 2000's.

------
bruce511
From observing my own (non USA) CS class, some 20 years ago, (where we had
about 30% female), and having visited the campus on occasion since then, I
think I see the following in action.

Firstly - there aren't that many courses at college that start with students
who are well versed in their chosen area of study. The school of medicine for
example doesn't take in practicing doctors - architecture doesn't take
practicing architects and so on.

But often a large portion of a computer science class are already proficient
programmers, and a sizable number have probably already made money programming
in one form or another. In other words they choose this major not because they
want to learn, but because they're confident they can _already_ do the work.[
Aside: there is another group exactly like this - the sportsmen - which makes
the jocks and the nerds pretty much the same thing - but that's a post for
another day.]

So I hypothesize there's a direct correlation between the numbers of those
doing programming at school (formally or informally), and those doing it at
college level. During school years male and female behaviour is vastly
different (programming is very often an outlet for "loners" with poor social
skills - which let's be honest are mostly guys.)

Here's the thing though. I grew up in a non-US school where the labeling of
people was not encouraged. Also it was easier to foster your own self-identity
without belittling the identity of others. Sure we had beefy physical types,
and scrawny nerdy types, but at the same time the school went out of its way
to validate each person at whatever they did well. Excellence, of any sort,
was recognized. We had sporty girls, and nerdy girls and super-bright girls,
and (to be fair) some dumb girls - but "the computer club" wasn't some sort of
social dead-end.

So to college - where the class was split about half-half of those that had
programmed before and those that hadn't. And as I say, about 30% female. So
the ones-that-could would spend a lot of time teaching and helping the ones
that couldn't. If some of those I helped happened to be female, well that
wasn't my fault was it? And if some of the ones doing the helping were bright
diligent girls, who helped me apply my somewhat erratic studying habits to
actually passing exams - well, it's a win-win.

Of course we had some jerks - and sad to say the raw "jerk quotient" seems to
be climbing. But they're jerks to everyone really, and frankly you'll
encounter lots of jerks, from both sexes, all the way through life.

My advice to ladies doing CS - find the nice, smart, guys in the class.
They're there. Sure they may need some social help - but you can do that. And
I bet if you make a little effort you'll find they're _really_ keen for your
friendship.

To the guys (and I'm assuming that's most of you reading this post) apply just
a small amount of that alleged brain-power you have to consider how you would
feel in a class that's 90% female. Now take just a few moments to go be nice
to someone. Invite them into your study group. Offer some assistance when
they're struggling. Just be _friendly_. They may not yet know the difference
between a++ and ++a, but they will. In the meantime you'd be amazed at what
they can do for you.

It's a smart man who thinks just a few years ahead of everyone else.

~~~
jcnnghm
I believe that, as you say, the core of the issue is that some students are
well versed at the start, and some have no knowledge whatsoever. As a student
that was well versed, I can say with absolute certainty that I found it very
frustrating to be paying thousands to learn the difference between = and ==,
and the function of if statements. If you are well versed, at least the first
two years of computer science curriculum are painfully easy, and the only
interesting thing to do is see how quickly you can complete assignments.

Perhaps Computer Science should be treated differently because of this issue.
If every student took a 1-credit skills evaluation and placement course, they
could be assessed and properly placed so the students that already have some
knowledge can move ahead and start learning right away, while the remaining
students can take the introductory courses at an appropriate pace.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_...assessed and properly placed so the students that already have some
knowledge can move ahead and start learning right away, while the remaining
students can take the introductory courses at an appropriate pace._

And enrollment would drop because half the class skips years 1 and 2. Not to
mention costs would rise, because instead of paying for a 250 student lecture
on "=" vs "==", you'd be paying for a 50 student lecture on compilers. Good
for the students, but bad for the college. Probably will never happen, except
at a few very good schools.

~~~
jcnnghm
I absolutely agree with you. This issue could be addressed, but won't be.

------
ZoFreX
Part of the problem as I see it is that male dominance in CS extends all the
way to the top. At a particular university I have in mind (but will not name
for legal reasons) nearly all of the lecturers were male. Most women who were
staff in the department were secretarial (in fact, all of the administration
staff were female), and the male staff were every bit as bad, if not worse,
than your stereotypical male IRC user. We're talking about ignorance and
disrespect running so deep that the way some girls (undergrad and postgrad)
have been treated by staff is tantamount to sexual harassment, so I find it...
amusing when we're talking about the behaviour of students, or social fixes,
when to me it feels like the whole damn system is stuck in the 50s.

~~~
_delirium
I might be oblivious (I'm male), but I've found that mostly among fairly old
CS professors, some of whom are indeed not very progressive on gender issues,
and not even very good at hiding it. I haven't noticed a lot of trouble from
male professors in their 20s, 30s or 40s, though. Most of them seem genuinely
concerned that the percentage of students in their courses is so low, and
interested in whether there's anything they can do to improve the environment.
In many cases the gender balance is noticeably lower than when they were CS
students, since female enrollments have dropped considerably over the past 20
years.

------
RandallBrown
"He once told me that even though the females are fairly quiet, and the boys
in the class showed off a lot, when it came down to projects and exams, the
female average was often higher."

I think that this is actually one of the reasons that so few girls are in
Computer Science. My girlfriend is a CS major and she very often feels
inadequate compared to all of the other super exceptional girls in the
program. It isn't because she's inadequate either. Her grades are fine. The
issue comes when every one of the other girls is at the top of the class.
She's not being judged against the whole class like the guys are, but she's
being judged against just the super exceptional girls.

I can only imagine that lots of girls feel this way in their first intro class
and give up.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
The article mentioned the HS experience, where other girls gave up on the CS
course. That was telling to me - how many people drop Anything in HS? I never
knew anyone who dropped a course - unless for severe illness etc.

Is it a female thing, to drop a course if it gets hard? That may be the
largest factor in the statistics by far.

~~~
dagw
I dropped a few courses (I'm a guy) in my GCSE's and later an A-level once I
came to the realization that there was no value in taking more than the
necessary number of courses. Why get 7 A's and B's plus 3 C's and D's when you
can simply get 7 A's and B's? More free time, fewer exams, less homework, no
downsides...pure win all around.

------
OwlHuntr
This is some delicious copy pasta. It's a great article and a good read but I
don't think it needs to constantly be thrust upon HN every few months.

------
cafard
This has been posted before. It was interesting enough the first time, but the
topic always seems to generate a high ratio of noise to signal.

------
scdc
I had never heard of the Impostor Syndrome, was interested to learn about it
via the link in the article _. Thanks-

_<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome>

------
xster
I don't think it has anything to do with girls. CS is just a relatively more
anti-social major and guys are masters at it.

------
drivebyacct2
I think this says something sad about the governing college. I don't know what
it's like for a "general CS" student at my University, but I'm fortunate to be
part of a community that is VERY inter and intrasupportive of each other,
especially when someone is behind or deficient in knowledge. This really
doesn't seem to suffer at all across gender lines as well.

But then again, this community recruits based on business skills and computer
programming skills. I don't know that sexism and arrogance would come off well
in an interview.

