

Computer science lacks women, minorities - dp619
http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=33742
The National Science Foundation says that women and minorities are not seeking jobs in computer science. A job shortage looms.
======
kobs
This article reminded me of a comment posted by manvsmachine in a previous
thread (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=105295>):

 _I'd suggest that a large part of the reason is the issue of prestige. In
America, intelligent black people will tend to choose high prestige, low-risk
career paths more often than not. A lot of it is about the uncertainty of
failure; In black communities, a lot is expected of the really smart kids.
They're seen as not just representing themselves, but also their communities
and, to an extent, their race. It sucks, but it's the truth. So a lot of them
choose to be doctors, lawyers, etc, because you're viewed differently by
society. If we ever get to the point that being a software engineer is viewed
in the same light as the aforementioned occupations, I'm sure there would be a
sizable increase._

Seems plausible.

------
Tichy
I think women are underrepresented in garbage collection, too (among other
jobs).

~~~
compay
Sure, society has loads of examples of jobs being divided up along gender
lines, and of unfairness against men too.

But does that mean we can't even _talk_ about why our profession in particular
attracts so few women, while lots of other "knowledge worker" professions are
more balanced? Do we have to resolve all other fairness issues first, before
we can even talk about it?

I think it's an interesting topic and that the hostility and derisiveness that
usually surrounds these articles are unjustified.

~~~
Dellort
It's not hostility or derisiveness, it's just pointing out that it's not just
our particular profession that attracts so few women.

A lot of work in all professions is needed to solve this problem and we must
devote all of our time to point that out equally.

Hookers for example is another problem area, most hookers are women. Where are
all the male hookers?

~~~
compay
So your logic is basically, "I have cancer, but it's ok, lots of other people
do too. No need to see the doctor."

~~~
Dellort
No sarcasm, I really mean we have to commit ourselves to investigate and point
out all areas where there is an imbalance. Not just where we would want more
women or men, in this instance computer science.

I think also there is a lack of women in the fishing industry, out on the
boats.

------
speby
Why is this news? Well, it isn't. And, why is it that whenever an article
comes up like this (and it's not just computer science), it's almost always
written in a way that seems like there's something wrong with the current
state of affairs.

I mean, so what if women are "underrepresented." Who says there should/needs
to be a balance in every profession of men and women working in the same
fields?

Like Tichy said below, women are underrepresented in garbage collection, too.
No one seems to write articles about that, though.

~~~
natrius
Underrepresentation matters to the extent that the differentiating factor
shouldn't have any effect on one's desire to be in a given field, nor on their
talent in that field. Maybe you don't care if some people aren't ending up in
the careers that would make them the happiest, but some people do, and they
investigate the causes to try to fix it.

If women, for instance, are genetically predisposed to liking engineering less
or being less capable at engineering, then it's not an issue. If they avoid
engineering because of other factors, don't you think that's something that
should be fixed?

------
msluyter
What does the term "minority" mean in this context? Am I alone in assuming the
article means african-americans and hispanics, and is excluding asian/indian
americans?

~~~
tybris
Non-computer scientists are a minority in computer science.

------
tybris
Well, they're very welcome to join.

------
myth_drannon
What ? Is this a joke ? I think more that 80% of my comp-sci class were
minorities (a university in Canada) and I know for sure it's the same
situation in other universities.

~~~
compay
Well, the first sentence of the article starts off with:

"Large segments of the _U.S._ population are not considering careers in IT"

------
der_ketzer
I think it's all psychological and the way we are educated. Many people
doesn't study an engineer career because math is very difficult. But in fact,
at the math faculty where I study, there are more females than males studying
math, and in engineering there are more males than females. Something I don't
understand.

~~~
yummyfajitas
In my experience, most of those women are trying to be math teachers. If you
create an actual Math Education major, they will vanish.

~~~
btilly
My experience strongly disagrees. In my most advanced undergraduate math
classes, and then my graduate school days there were a lot of women. Most of
whom seemed to want to become mathematicians. The statistic I saw at the time
said that women were 40% of people in graduate school in math nationwide.

This struck me as incredibly odd when every discipline that used a lot of math
had very low numbers of women. Purportedly because "women find math hard".
With the result that when I took a third year differential equations course,
there was a sea of men. In my fourth year number theory course, half the
(admittedly small) class were women.

Those numbers may have changed radically since.

------
edw519
_Large segments of the U.S. population are not considering careers in IT_

I dunno, the last thing this field needs are more people without passion,
regardless of personal demographic. If someone isn't considering a career in
IT, why push them? They'll have a hard time achieving much success if they
don't care that much, and they'll make life suck for their fellow workers.

I can't imagine doing anything else. I would hope that others considering the
field felt the same way, no matter who they are.

------
thras
That's the way we are. Let me quote Fred:
<http://fredoneverything.net/HeadSpaces.shtml>

_It would be fascinating to get Zogby to run a poll which would ask the
following questions:

What does a camshaft do?

What is a vertical flyback interval?

What role does expansion play in refrigeration?

What does an address bus do?

Timed delay of arrival is the basis of what common technological service?

What is the role of a CCD in a digital camera?

Name any spacecraft now in orbit around anything.

What does TCP/IP stand for?

What is the purpose of a torque wrench?

The questions measure, I think, the degree to which people understand the
physical world in which they live. Now, I may be wrong (almost inconceivable,
I know, it has to happen sometime, like an asteroid strike) but I will bet
that anyone scoring perfectly on the foregoing will be male. In fact, anyone
coming close will be male. Should this prove true, the conclusion must be that
men and women inhabit utterly different head-spaces._

~~~
Kadin
I do not doubt the premise--that the vast majority of people who score well on
that "quiz" will be male--but I do not see how that leads to the conclusion,
namely that there's some sort of biological difference.

That strikes me as the reification of what's pretty clearly a social
difference. More men than women know what a torque wrench is, because we teach
boys about torque wrenches and let boys know that they ought to know what one
is, while we teach girls about other things and let them know that it's okay
to be ignorant about torque wrenches.

When I was a kid there was a common party game where the boys and girls would
break up into separate teams, and the boys would attempt to come up with
questions that they could all answer but would stump all the girls, and the
girls would do the same to the boys. It was, at least that I ever saw, always
much easier for the girls to come up with questions that would stump us guys
than for us to come up with "common guy knowledge" that would stump all the
girls. There were always more girls who knew "guy things" than guys who knew
(or were willing to admit to knowing) "girl things."

I'm not sure that really _proves_ anything except there was a wider diversity
(at least within the relatively limited sample of kids I grew up with) of
acceptable gender role behaviors for girls than for boys. Girls certainly can
know "guy stuff" when they're exposed to it, that much was pretty obviously
clear.

It may be that there's _some_ biological difference between how men and women
approach problems, or learn various skills. But I can guarantee you that those
differences are, like differences associated with skin color, far less than
the differences between individuals in the same group.

~~~
thras
_But I can guarantee you that those differences are, like differences
associated with skin color, far less than the differences between individuals
in the same group._

I always chuckle when people trot that one out. Did you know it's equally true
for the differences between dog breeds? Body size varies more within dog
breeds than between them. Also intelligence. Somehow that doesn't stop dog
breeds from being fairly different from each other. (Actually, somewhat more
than human races from the genetic studies I've seen.)

As for the differences between guys and girls being taught not inborn...how
many kids do you have? Parents get disabused of that sort of thinking pretty
quickly.

~~~
rkts
_Body size varies more within dog breeds than between them_

I have never understood what this means. "Within-group" variation can be
quantified as standard deviation (among other metrics). How do you measure
"between-group" variation? Sample the group means and find the standard
deviation? But that's obviously meaningless.

~~~
thras
Yes, it is fairly pointless. However, they do mean something exact. You
quantify the "within-group" variation not with standard deviations, but by
measuring all individuals in a group and finding the endpoints.

So you find the tallest white person in the world and the shortest, and note
that they differ in height by a number of feet. Then you measure the
difference between the white height average and the Asian height average, and
note that the difference is only a few centimeters. Wallah! Race doesn't
matter. Most variation is within group.

Like I said, I chuckle a bit.

------
rufius
No shit?

