Posted on 11/15/2008 8:33:25 PM PST by neverdem
Digital Domain
ELLEN SPERTUS, a graduate student at M.I.T., wondered why the computer camp she had attended as a girl had a boy-girl ratio of six to one. And why were only 20 percent of computer science undergraduates at M.I.T. female? She published a 124-page paper, “Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?”, that catalogued different cultural biases that discouraged girls and women from pursuing a career in the field. The year was 1991.
Computer science has changed considerably since then. Now, there are even fewer women entering the field. Why this is so remains a matter of dispute.
What’s particularly puzzling is that the explanations for under-representation of women that were assembled back in 1991 applied to all technical fields. Yet women have achieved broad parity with men in almost every other technical pursuit. When all science and engineering fields are considered, the percentage of bachelor’s degree recipients who are women has improved to 51 percent in 2004-5 from 39 percent in 1984-85, according to National Science Foundation surveys.
When one looks at computer science in particular, however, the proportion of women has been falling. In 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. By 2004-5, the number had declined to only 22 percent. Data collected by the Computing Research Association showed even fewer women at research universities like M.I.T.: women accounted for only 12 percent of undergraduate degrees in computer science and engineering in the United States and Canada granted in 2006-7 by Ph.D.-granting institutions, down from 19 percent in 2001-2. Many computer science departments report that women now make up less than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates.
In 1998, when Ms. Spertus received her Ph.D. in computer science, women received 14 percent of the doctorates granted in the field...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Good for you, chronicles!
Though I took the humanities route in undergrad, during orientation I went on the tour for engineering students because I wanted to see a computer. This was in 1971. I was the only girl in the group (and maybe the only minority) and the speaker kept looking at me quizzically, but that was OK. I saw what I came to see. Who knew 30 years later I would be doing research on how people use computers at work?
Indians.
They have driven out many native born Americans, as formerly well paid jobs in the USA are transferred to India at much reduced labor rates.
Meanwhile, even the jobs remaining here are taken by Indian H1B visa holders working at sub-standard wages, living on stipends, and avoiding taxes.
I did not encourage my two girls to even look at this profession, despite many years in it myself.
The Company I work for has a temporary freeze but will need many CS folks coming up.
Science knows the answer. However, it cannot be disclosed for fear that someone might throw a hissie fit and run out of the room, and ultimately force another university president might out of office.
BTW, have you ever noticed that boys are more likely to find some stuff interesting than girls, and vice-versa? You don’t suppose this could apply to adults too?
Bump for later read
Why?
Because computer’s are based on logic... and women aren’t!
:-P
As a woman with a degree in computer science and who worked as a software engineer for many years before I had kids, I am not going to recommend it as a career choice for my daughters.
Software engineering changes too fast, and it is hard to break back into it after taking off 10 years or so to have kids. Also, most software engineers work long and hard hours, and that just doesn’t work well with a family.
One of my daughters is looking into accounting. My other daughter is thinking about teaching.
My advice to them has been to pick something that is flexible and can be done part time.
The men I worked with were very nice.
I think the problem is that it changes fast. Once you leave the field and have kids, forget trying to get back in.
I haven’t worked in 13 years, and I am so out of touch with what is going on. The kids in college know so much more than I do.
The CAD department of Lattice Semiconductor just got outsourced to China. I was out of a job for over a year, despite having designed chips AND written commercial software. Outsourcing and H1B influence is REAL, and it HURTS.
Not the real talent from overseas - we still need to attract the best and brightest - but our blessed home-grown MBAs drool when they see the masses of middle-grade software engineers, and shaft American engineers left and right.
My work was always interesting! I worked for a defense contractor, and I always loved doing that. I always had a window office (except when I worked on a project that was highly classified - everyone on the project did not have windows). I was never on-call. I was always paid well.
The coolest things was being sent on travel from Texas to California for over a year. The company paid for my car, hotel, food, laundry, etc for a whole year. Just out of college, and I made a ton of money!
Not all women are created the same, just like not all men are created the same.
I actually liked my job as a software engineer, but it just doesn’t fit well with having kids.
Only a small portion of software engineering is programming. Most of it is designing, and then just integrating and testing the software takes a long time.
It’s not as hard as Chemical Engineering!! I was in Chemical Engineering at first, and then switched to computer science. CS was much easier, and I didn’t have to worry about having to work outside in a hot, smelly chemical plant.
The ability to think RATIONALLY, be BRIEF and CONCISE?
Just asking or suggesting....
Really!
It can even change with age. For three decades, I enjoyed serious programming for hours, days and weeks on end. It was my dream job.
But then I looked around a month ago, and realized that I hadn't done any serious coding in close to a year, and really never wanted to again. The next day, I quit my job. If you had asked me even a week earlier if that could ever happen, I'd have said "no way."
Or that one-foot bit of wire she was fond of handing out with a smile.
Um ... Ada (As in Lady Lovelace, but to note the Intel 432 spoke only Ada), that well-known replacement of JOVIAL (another ill-fated language).
Myrddin,
So you went into electrical engineering and comp. sci. 30 years ago. That’s just about the time I got my EE and comp. sci. degrees. I worked 12 years before that as a mechanical eng. and chemical eng. before going back to switch professions.
I know all about the fact that not all software work is programming. I have had video games published, written code for embedded sensor systems, military hardware and lots of other stuff.
My daughter’s decision to go into nursing came after a couple of years working for a dentist, and a cardiologist as their computer network administrator. So far she’s been studying nursing for 3 years, and likes it, and that includes drawing blood and all the other things nursing students do in a teaching hospital.
I work with a woman Engineer and I mentioned something that is 36 inches.
She asked: “How many feet in 36 inches...?”
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