3 ms·

Unlike men, women pay attention to detail and tend to get the job done, she said. "They are more willing to do whatever it takes," said Malcom. "Men want to

by orborde 16y ago

Unlike men, women pay attention to detail and tend to get the job done, she said. "They are more willing to do whatever it takes," said Malcom. "Men want to delegate the nasty part of the job, like handing off the baby when it's number two." Really? Really? Ouch! The rest of this article is interesting for the light it sheds on historical women in computing, but the bits where it talks about how the industry is lacking in some crucial way because there are few women range from unfounded to offensive. Does anyone know of any evidence that the presence of women in a technical team affects results in any way (positive or negative)? It seems like "there are not enough women in computing" people frequently make the claim that more women will improve the field; has anyone measured to check?

RobertL 16y ago
The problem with that quote is that there are no women programmers and there have never been any women programmers. In every programming environment I've ever worked in the programmers were all guys. There were women clerks, women marketing types, and even women "power users", but no women programmers. It's always been this way. Probably always will be. It's OK except that, for some silly reason, some people need to create an illusion that there are women programmers.
jat850 16y ago
I certainly don't have any good answers (does anyone? This is probably an intensely difficult area to quantify/qualify) but here is a decent article discussing women (edit) in IT, put forth by the National Center for Women and Information Technology: http://anitaborg.org/files/abi_wherearethewomen.pdf http://anitaborg.org/files/abi_wherearethewomen.pdf Section 8 addresses some of the issues of why the declining numbers of women in computer science may matter.
bootload 16y ago
"... Unlike men, women pay attention to detail and tend to get the job done ..." If you consider the operations of Bletchley Park, UK in WW2 as important with half the staff women [0] I would say your question has been answered. Effectiveness in wartime is measured by competence, not perception. Jean Valentine a "bombe operator" at Bletchley had this to say about the type of work and importantly the effectiveness: Q:Was it unusual to have women working on the machine? I'm thinking that, when telephone switching systems were first invented, men were found to be inferior to women at organising the system. Was the same true with the bombes? To which Valentine answered: "On the first bombe there were men working on the machine, but later more women were brought in to do the job, which I don't think some people liked. You must remember that there were 210 bombes, with three shifts of workers so they could run constantly. The shifts were 8am to 4pm, 4pm to midnight and then midnight to 8am. That's a lot of people doing the job." [1] Effective in the constrained role they had? Yes. There was a demarcation in tasks between the boffins - which included women - and the operators - mostly women - but that in no way diminishes the role played. [0] http://skirtsandladders.com/?p=504 http://skirtsandladders.com/?p=504 [1] http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/analysis/2260231/q-jean-valentine-bletchley-park http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/analysis/2260231/q-jean-valentine-ble...
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
sabat 16y ago
"... Unlike men, women pay attention to detail and tend to get the job done ..." 1) Highly generalized statement. 2) Demonstrably untrue -- computer science requires attention to detail, and save for Lady Lovelace, the biggest contributors to this field have always been men. But why bother getting into gender at all, especially if you're going to just trot out generalizations? "Men are X, women are Z" is so 3rd grade. People are individuals, affected but not controlled by their gender.
- wlievens 16y ago
  You forgot about Grace Hopper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
  - sabat 16y ago
    Sure, and Adele Goldberg (Smalltalk) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adele_Goldberg_%28computer_scientist%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adele_Goldberg_%28computer_scie... helped OOP really evolve. Women have had serious influence on computer science since the very beginning.

by orborde 16y ago

RobertL 16y ago

The problem with that quote is that there are no women programmers and there have never been any women programmers. In every programming environment I've ever worked in the programmers were all guys. There were women clerks, women marketing types, and even women "power users", but no women programmers. It's always been this way. Probably always will be. It's OK except that, for some silly reason, some people need to create an illusion that there are women programmers.

jat850 16y ago

I certainly don't have any good answers (does anyone? This is probably an intensely difficult area to quantify/qualify) but here is a decent article discussing women (edit) in IT, put forth by the National Center for Women and Information Technology: http://anitaborg.org/files/abi_wherearethewomen.pdf http://anitaborg.org/files/abi_wherearethewomen.pdf Section 8 addresses some of the issues of why the declining numbers of women in computer science may matter.

bootload 16y ago

"... Unlike men, women pay attention to detail and tend to get the job done ..." If you consider the operations of Bletchley Park, UK in WW2 as important with half the staff women [0] I would say your question has been answered. Effectiveness in wartime is measured by competence, not perception. Jean Valentine a "bombe operator" at Bletchley had this to say about the type of work and importantly the effectiveness: Q:Was it unusual to have women working on the machine? I'm thinking that, when telephone switching systems were first invented, men were found to be inferior to women at organising the system. Was the same true with the bombes? To which Valentine answered: "On the first bombe there were men working on the machine, but later more women were brought in to do the job, which I don't think some people liked. You must remember that there were 210 bombes, with three shifts of workers so they could run constantly. The shifts were 8am to 4pm, 4pm to midnight and then midnight to 8am. That's a lot of people doing the job." [1] Effective in the constrained role they had? Yes. There was a demarcation in tasks between the boffins - which included women - and the operators - mostly women - but that in no way diminishes the role played. [0] http://skirtsandladders.com/?p=504 http://skirtsandladders.com/?p=504 [1] http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/analysis/2260231/q-jean-valentine-bletchley-park http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/analysis/2260231/q-jean-valentine-ble...

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

sabat 16y ago

"... Unlike men, women pay attention to detail and tend to get the job done ..." 1) Highly generalized statement. 2) Demonstrably untrue -- computer science requires attention to detail, and save for Lady Lovelace, the biggest contributors to this field have always been men. But why bother getting into gender at all, especially if you're going to just trot out generalizations? "Men are X, women are Z" is so 3rd grade. People are individuals, affected but not controlled by their gender.

wlievens 16y ago
You forgot about Grace Hopper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
- sabat 16y ago
  Sure, and Adele Goldberg (Smalltalk) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adele_Goldberg_%28computer_scientist%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adele_Goldberg_%28computer_scie... helped OOP really evolve. Women have had serious influence on computer science since the very beginning.