Re: [TUHS] Women in computing

[Deborah Scherrer <dscherrer@solar.stanford.edu>]

There have been several studies.  As I remember, girls in school do 
indeed receive as much encouragement in computers as do males.  And 
girls do indeed have access to as many resources as males.  So the 
studies came to no conclusions.

My personal thought is that, in high school, it's the "nerd" factor.  If 
I were back in high school and saw the kind of guys that are getting 
into computers now, I would stay a thousand miles away from them and 
that field.  But, alas, I don't think anyone has tried to research that 
idea...

And/or: I have a friend who was a professor of CS in Amsterdam.  She had 
many grad students of both sexes.  She says she had to practically force 
the women to stay in the field.   They would see the guys getting overly 
focused on the computer details themselves, completely overlooking the 
goals of the project.  The women would get frustrated and complain to 
the professor.  She would have to convince them that the guys just did 
that, and that the women should stay on track.

I do admit, I have a husband who does that.  Personally, I have ALWAYS 
looked at computers as a tool to accomplish something grander than just 
being a computer.  But I am usually out-shouted.  ;-)


On 2/14/19 11:29 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>      > From: Deborah Scherrer
>
>      > In the early days of Usenix, I used to keep track of the women.
>      > Initially, about 30% of the organization was female.  That dropped every
>      > year.
>
> Interesting. Any ideas/thoughts on what was going on, what caused that?
>
> 	     Noel