
1984: The Year Women Left Coding – Why women don't hold 50% of tech jobs - SarahJune
http://www.codefellows.org/blog/1984-year-women-left-coding
======
cafard
"but now men such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg—the modern
trinity of the tech world—are hailed as the innovative programmers of the last
30 years."

Not a confidence builder. I do not doubt that Gates and Zuckerberg have done
serious programming, and that some of what Gates did was definitely
innovative. I do doubt that they made their fortunes as "the" innovative
programmers.

------
rdlecler1
It's actually not clear from the data whether women left coding, or did men
just enter the field at a higher rate them women as the field grew? Maybe
coding was a more attractive path for a single lonely nerdy guy who was too
shy to ask a girl out. Of course as more lonely nerdy guys entered the field
and that culture came to dominate, I'm sure that made it less and less
attractive to women. But again, the author hasn't shown data to make the case
that women were leaving the field.

~~~
danielvf
Your hypothesis at least lines up with the big points in the data.

Computer science enrollment went through a huge boom and bust centered on
1984-1985. In a five year timespan the number of computer science majors
increased by five times, before falling back to approximately half the peak.

The second big increase in computer science graduates was in 2005.

These both correspond with the major drops in the percentage by gender chart.

Points to you if you make a graph for us of the absolute historical Computer
Science graduation rate by gender.

------
vedaprodarte
During World War II, a "computer" was a job title for someone who programmed
the first general-purpose electronic computer, commissioned by the Ballistics
Research Laboratory of the U.S. Army. It is interesting. I did not know that
was a job title.

Besides, the stereotype is serious. A lot of females are not willing to study
programming or computer science just because the imaged built by the media. In
some engineering school, the ratio of Male to Female is 9:1!

