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No need to be defensive about it, it's basic math. If, say, 20% of CS grads are female, they're competing against 80% of CS grads for distinction. So it's surpr
by inanutshellus 10y ago
No need to be defensive about it, it's basic math. If, say, 20% of CS grads are female, they're competing against 80% of CS grads for distinction. So it's surprising when, "despite the odds", they succeed faster.
Perhaps more importantly the article does not mention confirmation bias, which is surely at play here. (e.g. "average" women are being discouraged from CS degrees before they even start, so only superstars stick it through, so of course they move faster through the ranks after graduation.)
- stale2002 10y agoBasically this. If you aren't a super star you'll be driven out of tech before you even graduate college. I've seen it happen to many women techies I know. Unless you are awesome, it just isn't worth it to put up with the crap that they have to.
- brassic 10y agoI think your latter point is closer to the truth. A similar example: in the UK about 20% of girls and 40% of boys study physics at A-level (the final school exam before university). Every year everybody seems surprised that the girls outperform the boys. However, it is likely that the students who study physics are mostly the students with the greatest aptitude for the subject. If you split the students into any two arbitrary groups then the top fifth from one group are going to outperform the top two fifths from the other. This is unremarkable. Yet when the groups are boys and girls, people are surprised. Anyway, I would be surprised if something similar isn't happening in CS. With so few women studying the subject, it's likely that those who do are fairly dedicated.
- inanutshellus 10y agoFollowing it through, those superstars' success will embolden others, incrementally lowering the "superstar" requirement. Only question is, will it happen fast enough?