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This fits a hypothesis I've been formulating for a while: CS doesn't need to attract more women, it needs to attract more people. It's not a mystery that CS isn't appealing to women. Honestly, the atmosphere and culture of most CS departments just aren't appealing at all.

Can anyone answer, for their alma mater: unless you're already coding "10 hours straight, forgetting to eat and losing track of time into the wee hours of the night", what is the incentive to study CS?

edited for clarity



Software development is already overburdened with paycheck-chasing dilettantes who are barely capable of cranking out reams of code that sometimes works. Unless there's some reason to think people with even less interest in the field would do a better job than us "wee hours of the night" types, I don't see why anyone should want to draw them in. Instead they should find their calling, and if they're being turned away by trivia, this isn't it.


Even if we accept all of your assumptions, there is an alternative conclusion: that the problem is the CS culture, and the culture needs to change.


Sorry, it's a bit late here so I might not be thinking real clearly but, isn't that what I said?


No!

Your comment only implies that bringing more people will solve the problem. Sadly, that will just reinforce the current social proofs that loud assholes dominate CS.


"CS ... needs to attract more people."

"Honestly, the atmosphere and culture of most CS departments just aren't appealing at all."

I read this as saying that we need to fix the culture in order to attract more people.


The subtle implication of what you said is that the problem is with the women rather than the culture.




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