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The defensive tone of this article is alarming. If you don't study computer science now you will likely be in the same boat 30 years from now with illiterate fo

The defensive tone of this article is alarming. If you don't study computer science now you will likely be in the same boat 30 years from now with illiterate folks of today. Disparity in computer science education in Western countries puts women at a massive economic disadvantage and is a major geopolitical risk. Arguing that women naturally prefer non-STEM fields is sexist and dangerous. Helping drive up the numbers of women and other underrepresented populations in CS should be a major priority for developed countries.

sannee 9y ago
> If you don't study computer science now you will likely be in the same boat 30 years from now with illiterate folks of today. "Studying computer science" and "using a computer" are worlds apart. And the distance seems to be increasing even further.
BirdieNZ 9y ago
If women do actually naturally prefer non-STEM fields on average then is the science on the subject being sexist? I am more interested in the truth than in making the numbers between men and women be exactly 50/50 in everything.
- bluewave 9y ago
  Women don't prefer non-STEM fields on average, this is an artifact of Western countries. There's no disparity in many developing countries including China. It's not about 50/50, it's about 100% of the population being literate with respect to complexities of modern economy.
  - BirdieNZ 9y ago
    Developing countries have different influences on job choice than wealthier/Western countries. Countries in Scandinavia typically have high gender disparity between the sexes in most occupations, because they are wealthy enough that men and women can choose what kind of jobs they take rather than doing whatever earns the most money. Developing countries are biased towards survival-jobs, as it were, rather than enjoyment-jobs. If this is correct then we can expect the developing countries to slowly increase in disparity as they become wealthier.
orbifold 9y ago
I'm not so sure, CS is essentially a new blue collar job. There need to be lots of computer programmers, but they don't actually need a university education in most cases, so in countries with working vocational education tons of people get programming jobs without a university degree.
reitanqild 9y ago
> Helping drive up the numbers of women and other underrepresented populations in CS should be a major priority for developed countries. What if we try to respect womens choices and work to get them better pay for the very important work they actually do, first? Why is it that nursing or teaching should be paid so much less than software engineering? Or even worse: why is it so much cooler to be an engineeer like me than a nurse or teacher? The pay can partially be explained by supply/demand (qualified nurses are in high demand but buyers don't seem to be able to pay, at least not here.)
- bluewave 9y ago
  You've answered your own question. Supply/demand is not something we can negotiate or tweak to our liking. Teaching/nursing jobs need to be automated as much as possible if we want to deal with global issues like aging populations and educational inequality.
- purple-again 9y ago
  Because that’s how capitalism works. Money follows value generated to society not individual perceived value. A teacher at maximum capacity can only deliver a tiny tiny fraction of the value that a software developer can. 100 students per class 8 classes a day 40 year career. You have provided value to 32,000 children all of whom have two parents so value to 96,000 people well say.
  - ec109685 9y ago
    Valueable in what sense? Are what most programmers programming intrinsically valuable? If that teacher was a difference maker for 100k people, that seems very valuable.
  - reitanqild 9y ago
    Then what are teachers who create good engineering/programming students worth?
cazum 9y ago
>Arguing that women naturally prefer non-STEM fields is sexist While I agree with the entirety of your comment, I don't see how this is the case. If the physical differences between human groups cause one to prefer something over the other, how is it disparaging to attempt to validate this hypothesis?
- bluewave 9y ago
  Because it's false if you consider the entire human population. You can argue that women in US & Europe prefer non-STEM fields but generalizing to all of women is logically false because of numbers in China and other developing countries with large populations.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    Isn't that partially because those women are forced, through circumstances, to enter those fields even though they'd rather not?
mpweiher 9y ago
> Disparity in computer science education in Western countries puts women at a massive economic disadvantage How so? > is a major geopolitical risk How so? > Arguing that women naturally prefer non-STEM fields is sexist and dangerous How so? > Helping drive up the numbers of women and other underrepresented populations in CS should be a major priority for developed countries. Why? People should do what they want to do, not what you think they should be doing.
whataretensors 9y ago
> If you don't study computer science now you will likely be in the same boat 30 years from now 30 years is a long time. I suspect we'll have figured out how to close the semantic gap for the 99.999% of people who aren't programmers.

sannee 9y ago

> If you don't study computer science now you will likely be in the same boat 30 years from now with illiterate folks of today. "Studying computer science" and "using a computer" are worlds apart. And the distance seems to be increasing even further.

BirdieNZ 9y ago

If women do actually naturally prefer non-STEM fields on average then is the science on the subject being sexist? I am more interested in the truth than in making the numbers between men and women be exactly 50/50 in everything.

bluewave 9y ago
Women don't prefer non-STEM fields on average, this is an artifact of Western countries. There's no disparity in many developing countries including China. It's not about 50/50, it's about 100% of the population being literate with respect to complexities of modern economy.
- BirdieNZ 9y ago
  Developing countries have different influences on job choice than wealthier/Western countries. Countries in Scandinavia typically have high gender disparity between the sexes in most occupations, because they are wealthy enough that men and women can choose what kind of jobs they take rather than doing whatever earns the most money. Developing countries are biased towards survival-jobs, as it were, rather than enjoyment-jobs. If this is correct then we can expect the developing countries to slowly increase in disparity as they become wealthier.

orbifold 9y ago

I'm not so sure, CS is essentially a new blue collar job. There need to be lots of computer programmers, but they don't actually need a university education in most cases, so in countries with working vocational education tons of people get programming jobs without a university degree.

reitanqild 9y ago

> Helping drive up the numbers of women and other underrepresented populations in CS should be a major priority for developed countries. What if we try to respect womens choices and work to get them better pay for the very important work they actually do, first? Why is it that nursing or teaching should be paid so much less than software engineering? Or even worse: why is it so much cooler to be an engineeer like me than a nurse or teacher? The pay can partially be explained by supply/demand (qualified nurses are in high demand but buyers don't seem to be able to pay, at least not here.)

bluewave 9y ago
You've answered your own question. Supply/demand is not something we can negotiate or tweak to our liking. Teaching/nursing jobs need to be automated as much as possible if we want to deal with global issues like aging populations and educational inequality.
purple-again 9y ago
Because that’s how capitalism works. Money follows value generated to society not individual perceived value. A teacher at maximum capacity can only deliver a tiny tiny fraction of the value that a software developer can. 100 students per class 8 classes a day 40 year career. You have provided value to 32,000 children all of whom have two parents so value to 96,000 people well say.
- ec109685 9y ago
  Valueable in what sense? Are what most programmers programming intrinsically valuable? If that teacher was a difference maker for 100k people, that seems very valuable.
- reitanqild 9y ago
  Then what are teachers who create good engineering/programming students worth?

cazum 9y ago

>Arguing that women naturally prefer non-STEM fields is sexist While I agree with the entirety of your comment, I don't see how this is the case. If the physical differences between human groups cause one to prefer something over the other, how is it disparaging to attempt to validate this hypothesis?

bluewave 9y ago
Because it's false if you consider the entire human population. You can argue that women in US & Europe prefer non-STEM fields but generalizing to all of women is logically false because of numbers in China and other developing countries with large populations.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  Isn't that partially because those women are forced, through circumstances, to enter those fields even though they'd rather not?

mpweiher 9y ago

> Disparity in computer science education in Western countries puts women at a massive economic disadvantage How so? > is a major geopolitical risk How so? > Arguing that women naturally prefer non-STEM fields is sexist and dangerous How so? > Helping drive up the numbers of women and other underrepresented populations in CS should be a major priority for developed countries. Why? People should do what they want to do, not what you think they should be doing.

whataretensors 9y ago

> If you don't study computer science now you will likely be in the same boat 30 years from now 30 years is a long time. I suspect we'll have figured out how to close the semantic gap for the 99.999% of people who aren't programmers.