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I know you mention that women do better in formal education. That wasn't the case a few decades ago, when I believe there was far less prejudice. I had lunch

I know you mention that women do better in formal education. That wasn't the case a few decades ago, when I believe there was far less prejudice. I had lunch with a few female teachers several weeks ago. One of their conversations was around the over-enthusiasm of boys in class. They unanimously agreed that boys needed to "shut up" (literal quote) so girls could answer questions too. This view parallels that of my ex-girlfriend who is (and was then) a teacher who felt boys had some sort of natural advantage that needed to be suppressed. I also made mention of code.org that had one link only on the main page "why girls should participate in IT" (or very similar words). My young son noticed this and asked if he was welcome. I would not use today's metrics on boys vs girls in education as a basis for any measurements. If we stopped with the prejudice (which is extremely common today), the picture would look quite different.

wpietri 11y ago
I am fascinated by your theory that there was less prejudice a few decades ago. This graph, for example, does not look like a graph of increasing prejudice: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-... I read that as decreasing systemic bias in education. At least in law, medicine, and physical sciences.
- x1798DE 11y ago
  That graph doesn't look to me like something characterized by prejudice at all. Why would people suddenly become sexist in the computer technology field only, practically overnight? The article even suggests that the drop started with the boom of the personal computer. That is not inconsistent with the hypothesis that women do better in formal settings, since that inflection point is essentially the moment it became possible for large amounts of people to teach themselves to be a computer programmer. It seems likely that some pre existing bias (either in interest our ability from girls or more likely an interplay of interest and culture) was just amplified when the flood of autodidacts joined the field, not that everyone decided to exclude women just as the field was getting hot.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    My point is that the other three lines are indicative of decreasing prejudice in education, not increasing. The computer-science line is clearly different and why is an interesting topic, but it's not the topic at hand.
    - shkkmo 11y ago
      The computer-science line clearly indicates that 'prejudice in education' is not the only and may not be the strongest cause of that trend.
    - VLM 11y ago
      A pet theory I've been developing is the decline in the 80s began with a growth in self destructive behavior in the programming employment sector. Eating junk food, caffeinated energy drinks, lack of exercise, lack of good food, lack of sleep, lack of socializing, lack of overtime pay, lack of professionalism, obsessive game play, lack of life balance, lack of decent working environment. Before the 80s programmer culture felt very engineer / mathematician / academic, after the 80s its kinda felt like an introverts weird interpretation of an all night party, every night. Here have a hot pocket and type all night. A culture that prides itself on twinkies and monster energy drinks isn't going to fit the nearly 100% female readership of the typical health magazine. The stereotypical programming environment is nearly unique in the working world, isn't it? Are there any other job markets culturally like programming? If there were, we could compare how the two fields opposition to personal hygiene or opposition to dressing fashionably, or even dressing in clean clothes might not appeal to women at similar rates, for example. I've only found two work places kinda like programming/IT as defined above. One is military mechanic and the other is SOME trading desks at big finance. Both tend a bit male. That's directly on topic. I suppose from an "eating your own (addictive) dogfood" perspective its kinda self inflicted. It would be interesting to look at male/female relations and ratios for programmers at non-traditional employers, perhaps the government or military or maybe academic. I suspect the lifestyle at a unionized state government office is quite a bit different than "standard" programming environment and theorize almost anything would be an improvement WRT women's interest in that workplace. Perhaps addictive behaviors would vary in those circumstances. Surely there must be some HR statistics buried somewhere at a giant corporation or government about % of programmers participating in the corporate alcoholism project by decade, or something like that, WRT trends in addictive personality by decade.
Alex3917 11y ago
> That wasn't the case a few decades ago, when I believe there was far less prejudice. Keep in mind that in HS men are discriminated against in terms of their GPA. But then the ones that make it to college get some affirmative action in the admissions process, which partly makes up for it. Though there are still way more women who make it into and through college. But then Ph.D. programs arguably favor men. I guess my point is that there are lots of different types of participation in the education system, and lots of different types of discrimination. So saying that discrimination has on the whole increased or decreased, even in the limited area of gender issues, is probably difficult.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Compared to the past standard of 'you are a woman, you aren't allowed here', discrimination has decreased. The problem is when you focus on more recent history, say in the last 10 years. How has discrimination changed in the last decade and who are the winners, the losers, and the ones not impacted either way?

wpietri 11y ago

I am fascinated by your theory that there was less prejudice a few decades ago. This graph, for example, does not look like a graph of increasing prejudice: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-... I read that as decreasing systemic bias in education. At least in law, medicine, and physical sciences.

x1798DE 11y ago
That graph doesn't look to me like something characterized by prejudice at all. Why would people suddenly become sexist in the computer technology field only, practically overnight? The article even suggests that the drop started with the boom of the personal computer. That is not inconsistent with the hypothesis that women do better in formal settings, since that inflection point is essentially the moment it became possible for large amounts of people to teach themselves to be a computer programmer. It seems likely that some pre existing bias (either in interest our ability from girls or more likely an interplay of interest and culture) was just amplified when the flood of autodidacts joined the field, not that everyone decided to exclude women just as the field was getting hot.
- wpietri 11y ago
  My point is that the other three lines are indicative of decreasing prejudice in education, not increasing. The computer-science line is clearly different and why is an interesting topic, but it's not the topic at hand.
  - shkkmo 11y ago
    The computer-science line clearly indicates that 'prejudice in education' is not the only and may not be the strongest cause of that trend.
  - VLM 11y ago
    A pet theory I've been developing is the decline in the 80s began with a growth in self destructive behavior in the programming employment sector. Eating junk food, caffeinated energy drinks, lack of exercise, lack of good food, lack of sleep, lack of socializing, lack of overtime pay, lack of professionalism, obsessive game play, lack of life balance, lack of decent working environment. Before the 80s programmer culture felt very engineer / mathematician / academic, after the 80s its kinda felt like an introverts weird interpretation of an all night party, every night. Here have a hot pocket and type all night. A culture that prides itself on twinkies and monster energy drinks isn't going to fit the nearly 100% female readership of the typical health magazine. The stereotypical programming environment is nearly unique in the working world, isn't it? Are there any other job markets culturally like programming? If there were, we could compare how the two fields opposition to personal hygiene or opposition to dressing fashionably, or even dressing in clean clothes might not appeal to women at similar rates, for example. I've only found two work places kinda like programming/IT as defined above. One is military mechanic and the other is SOME trading desks at big finance. Both tend a bit male. That's directly on topic. I suppose from an "eating your own (addictive) dogfood" perspective its kinda self inflicted. It would be interesting to look at male/female relations and ratios for programmers at non-traditional employers, perhaps the government or military or maybe academic. I suspect the lifestyle at a unionized state government office is quite a bit different than "standard" programming environment and theorize almost anything would be an improvement WRT women's interest in that workplace. Perhaps addictive behaviors would vary in those circumstances. Surely there must be some HR statistics buried somewhere at a giant corporation or government about % of programmers participating in the corporate alcoholism project by decade, or something like that, WRT trends in addictive personality by decade.

Alex3917 11y ago

> That wasn't the case a few decades ago, when I believe there was far less prejudice. Keep in mind that in HS men are discriminated against in terms of their GPA. But then the ones that make it to college get some affirmative action in the admissions process, which partly makes up for it. Though there are still way more women who make it into and through college. But then Ph.D. programs arguably favor men. I guess my point is that there are lots of different types of participation in the education system, and lots of different types of discrimination. So saying that discrimination has on the whole increased or decreased, even in the limited area of gender issues, is probably difficult.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Compared to the past standard of 'you are a woman, you aren't allowed here', discrimination has decreased. The problem is when you focus on more recent history, say in the last 10 years. How has discrimination changed in the last decade and who are the winners, the losers, and the ones not impacted either way?