What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?

NY Times ^ | November 16, 2008 | RANDALL STROSS

[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...

[Melas]

Can’t agree. You might not know it, but medicine is a math heavy field. Yet, somehow the med schools are graduating women in record number. For one reason or another, more women are willing to subject themselves to the longer, more arduous path to becoming a doctor than they are to become programmers.

[Kevmo]

Let me guess... you’re a computer science guy.

If you want evidence for it, go fetch it yourself. I’m not your delivery boy.

[rbg81]

I teach Intro to programming (Java). Some women who are math education majors HAVE to take that. Boy, you never saw a more sorry or terrified bunch. When we get into Classes the trouble really beings. About one third drop out. Another third look around for a smart guy to help ‘em out. Another 20% are constantly in your office, trying to get you to write the programs for them. Maybe 10% make it though on their own.

[uglybiker]

[dfwgator]

There’s never been many women in Computer Science.

There are always exceptions, and if you don't know who this woman is, you shouldn't be in computer science.

[JRandomFreeper]

They say the Big Room (near the parking lot, outside of the EXIT door) has a fusion power source that lights everything, but it only works about half the time. The rest of the time, the ceiling is covered with small lights.

I don't believe the gossip.

/johnny

[JRandomFreeper]

Hell, I've got a nano-second within arm's reach! GO GRACE!

/johnny

[ansel12]

This is easy to fix, a simple, small bureaucracy can assign classes measured carefully on race and sex, and then our new community security force can make sure that the assigned students attend the assigned classes.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

What has driven white people, period, out of HR?

I never understood human resource departments. Forty years ago I went to work for one of the worlds largest construction companies as an entry level manager. I interviewed with the vice president of the territory and went to work the next day. Now I hear about companies having human resource departments. What possible advantage can they bring to a company? I can only suspect they are a result of equal opportunity employment laws requiring lots of boring useless paperwork. Do they have them in Japan or China?

[Centurion2000]

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.

Computer Science men.

[FredZarguna]

The problem is too many people don't understand that college is not much more than a union card, and the erosion of relevant knowledge estimates are like 20-25% per year, so if you aren't learning as much every year as you learned when you were in school, you're obsolete in very short order.

Even so, I've been pleasantly surprised when I've subcontracted to people who coded in niche applications -- like microprocessors -- for specialized applications and didn't learn much of anything until their particular specialization went bust. A don't doubt that large corporations would be reluctant to take a chance on them, but I have and it's usually worked out quite well.

You don't have to live the hideous life of a cubicle coder if you're willing to take some risks. I've done consulting for large and small shops and was a processing center manager in a University and on the outside before I decided I really just hate people and wanted to be a pure developer about 15 years ago. When people ask me about it, I tell them to go out on their own if they can stand the "insecurity," it's much more rewarding. Barring that, find a small shop, it's a lot more fun than working for IBM or Nortel.

I agree with you about foreign students. Three of the guys in my PhD year were from India and they were like The Borg, both in terms of "social learning" and an inability to solve problems creatively; very nice people, though.

[dfwgator]

The job of the HR Department is to keep you from getting a job with the company, especially if you’re a white male.

[Centurion2000]

[CE2949BB]

There are always exceptions, and if you don't know who this woman is, you shouldn't be in computer science.

Yeah, well, she doesn't have a language named after her. :) She does:

[grey_whiskers]

"Hail Admiral, full of Grace..."

(Screw that. RIP Seymour!)

[SuziQ]

I don’t believe women have been ‘driven’ out of Computer Science. Many were just never that into it, in the first place.

[dalereed]

My niece got out because her brother flew for Delta and when they bought Western where she programed their computers one of them had to quit (Delta rules) plus she married a guy that became CIO and a VP of Sears, since retired, and didn’t have to work.

[dfwgator]

Well, she's one letter away from having a language named after her. ;)

[MarkL]

There’s never been many women in Computer Science.

You're right, but then some very cool stuff has been developed by women - 2 come to mind:

Admiral Grace Hopper - OK, so COBOL isn't really cool, but she was instrumental in an awful lot of other CS developments over the years. And Radia Perlman (sometimes known as "the Mother of the Internet"), the person who is responsible for the IS-IS protocol, and the person who came up with the Spanning Tree algorithm. In a lecture I attended, she said that while working at DEC the management wanted to have redundant parallel links in a bridged environment: This resulted in "broadcast storms." So, she sat down and came up with "Spanning Tree." She also penned an "algorhyme" that she said took longer than coming up with the "Spanning Tree" algorithm. You can find it in her brilliant book, "Interconnections."

Algorhyme

I think that I shall never see
A graph more lovely than a tree.
A tree whose crucial property
Is loop-free connectivity.
A tree that must be sure to span
So packets can reach every LAN.
First, the root must be selected.
By ID, it is elected.
Least-cost paths from root are traced.
In the tree, these paths are placed.
A mesh is made by folks like me,
Then bridges find a spanning tree.

Mark

[FredZarguna]

Math heavy in what sense?