5 ms·

Seems a pretty childish analysis... The question is - why do girls "not want to" by the time they reach age 18?

Prrometheus 18y ago
My general feeling from the articles I have read on the issue is that there seems to be a significant biological factor and a significant cultural factor. That being said, I'm not sure that there is anything "wrong" with a world with few woman engineers, or that we should be doing something to address it outside of fighting concrete instances of negative discrimination.
rufo 18y ago
Devil's advocate: What's wrong with them not wanting to? Assuming there is no discrimination or other judgement going on in the workplace causing them to choose a different career, and women simply choose not to enter IT/engineering fields, what's the problem with that?
- projectileboy 18y ago
  There's absolutely nothing wrong with them not wanting to. What's wrong is a society that for 18 years tells them "you don't want to do this, you want to do that".
  - yummyfajitas 18y ago
    "Society" is a concept we need to banish from these discussions. "Society" exists at a higher level of abstraction than what we are discussing. A particular woman may want babies because women around her said "babies rock, all women want babies." Was it wrong for her mother to discuss the rewards of motherhood? A particular man may like computers because his father told him how cool it is to bend machines to your will. Was that wrong? If neither of those acts is wrong, then what is wrong with "society" telling people stuff?
    - silencio 18y ago
      Those two are not wrong, but from personal experience, what's been happening is too many people telling me that CS is a bad choice based on my gender and not my interests or anything else. That is wrong.
      - yummyfajitas 18y ago
        I've been told by many people that I should play basketball not based on my abilities (I have terrible eye-hand coordination) but based on my height. Was that wrong in any moral or normative sense? I'll grant that the underlying positive belief is incorrect, but what makes giving out well intentioned (if bad) advice wrong?
- demallien 18y ago
  What's wrong? Fr each individual, nothing, but for the country as a whole, this is a quick path to economic disaster. These are exactly the types of skills needed to maintain an economic advantage against large countries such as India and China.
  - Prrometheus 18y ago
    >What's wrong? Fr each individual, nothing, but for the country as a whole, this is a quick path to economic disaster. These are exactly the types of skills needed to maintain an economic advantage against large countries such as India and China. How does female engineering differ from male engineering? Why wouldn't male engineering allow us to maintain an economic advantage over India and China? And why does relative economic prosperity matter? As long as we're all getting better, shouldn't we be happy?
    - demallien 18y ago
      Sorry I didn't reply earlier - there's nothing wrong (well, mostly! :-) ) with male engineers, except that there just aren't enough of them. Encourage women into the career, and you double the number of engineers you can put into industry each year... Sorry if you got the impression that I had something against male engineers :-)
- Goladus 18y ago
  Fewer ideas, not as much innovation, and more difficulty creating products and services with broad appeal. So long as they're more productive in fields like medicine and epidemiology it may not be a net loss. Note though that a couple of my friends work for scientists and claim gender discrimination is pretty bad. The picture they described of a scientific research company is nothing like what I've seen in the IT industry for the past 8 years or so.
- jcl 18y ago
  Devil's advocate: What's wrong with them not wanting to? I think the reason people are uncomfortable with the gender imbalance in IT is because of earlier studies showing that women tended to get paid less in jobs where they are doing the same work as men. Now whenever we hear of a gender inequality, we assume -- perhaps incorrectly, in this case -- that the inequality is due to a hidden, unfair bias. So there is nothing wrong with women preferring non-IT jobs, per se. But I think we are right to feel cautious about conclusions in this area: Someone could take this general result and erroneously apply it to specific women, thereby assuming that female IT employees are less interested in their jobs than men and thus less deserving of raises or promotions... which creates a new source of gender bias.
m0nty 18y ago
'The question is - why do girls "not want to" by the time they reach age 18?' For the same reason not many men become maternity nurses or kindergarten teachers? Frankly, you couldn't have kept me away from IT if you'd tried. Despite low wages (when I started, at least), poor conditions, working on short-term contracts, being required to educate myself, putting up with being treated like some kind of idiot savant, etc, etc -- still, I wanted it very, very badly. Now, for people who don't feel that way, we're supposed to engage in this collective hand-wringing exercise: "Oh dear! Not enough wimmin in IT!" If they don't want it, I would seriously question the morality of (so to speak) tricking them into joining the profession on the basis of a collection of half-truths. Either you want to play with the shiny toys or you don't. And if you don't, good luck, because 90% of the time it's not exactly what you'd call fun anyway. Incidentally, I've been around a bit and I have never, ever witnessed any indication of prejudice against women in IT. Where I've worked with female engineers, they've always been welcomed and treated with respect. Maybe we should just accept what any parent can tell you: there are gender differences, and we need to accept those rather than pretend we're all the same. /rant. calming down now ;) talk amongst yourselves...
- projectileboy 18y ago
  I actually agree with everything you said - I, too, have never felt or seen bias against women in IT, once we're all adults. My perspective is that of the parent of a six-year-old girl, and if you actually believe that society doesn't start drilling into girls' heads from day one that their mission in life is to play with dolls, put on make up, and do little else... well, then you don't see much mainstream media.
  - m0nty 18y ago
    Please don't think I was ranting at you, I really didn't mean it to come across like that :) It's just this daft idea that there should be a 50/50 M/F split across any profession, let alone IT. I have two children (1 boy, 1 girl) and they have very different interests, so I'm approaching this from a parent's viewpoint as well. As for encouraging them into the profession, I always say "do something you like and ignore computers, because it will grind you down in a relentless, soul-destroying fashion." I'm being a bit cynical and if they showed a genuine interest I'd encourage it, but I'll be damned if I say it's the most rewarding, happy profession out there. Cos it ain't.
axod 18y ago
Same reason most men don't want to be midwives?

My general feeling from the articles I have read on the issue is that there seems to be a significant biological factor and a significant cultural factor. That being said, I'm not sure that there is anything "wrong" with a world with few woman engineers, or that we should be doing something to address it outside of fighting concrete instances of negative discrimination.

rufo 18y ago

Devil's advocate: What's wrong with them not wanting to? Assuming there is no discrimination or other judgement going on in the workplace causing them to choose a different career, and women simply choose not to enter IT/engineering fields, what's the problem with that?

projectileboy 18y ago
There's absolutely nothing wrong with them not wanting to. What's wrong is a society that for 18 years tells them "you don't want to do this, you want to do that".
- yummyfajitas 18y ago
  "Society" is a concept we need to banish from these discussions. "Society" exists at a higher level of abstraction than what we are discussing. A particular woman may want babies because women around her said "babies rock, all women want babies." Was it wrong for her mother to discuss the rewards of motherhood? A particular man may like computers because his father told him how cool it is to bend machines to your will. Was that wrong? If neither of those acts is wrong, then what is wrong with "society" telling people stuff?
  - silencio 18y ago
    Those two are not wrong, but from personal experience, what's been happening is too many people telling me that CS is a bad choice based on my gender and not my interests or anything else. That is wrong.
    - yummyfajitas 18y ago
      I've been told by many people that I should play basketball not based on my abilities (I have terrible eye-hand coordination) but based on my height. Was that wrong in any moral or normative sense? I'll grant that the underlying positive belief is incorrect, but what makes giving out well intentioned (if bad) advice wrong?
demallien 18y ago
What's wrong? Fr each individual, nothing, but for the country as a whole, this is a quick path to economic disaster. These are exactly the types of skills needed to maintain an economic advantage against large countries such as India and China.
- Prrometheus 18y ago
  >What's wrong? Fr each individual, nothing, but for the country as a whole, this is a quick path to economic disaster. These are exactly the types of skills needed to maintain an economic advantage against large countries such as India and China. How does female engineering differ from male engineering? Why wouldn't male engineering allow us to maintain an economic advantage over India and China? And why does relative economic prosperity matter? As long as we're all getting better, shouldn't we be happy?
  - demallien 18y ago
    Sorry I didn't reply earlier - there's nothing wrong (well, mostly! :-) ) with male engineers, except that there just aren't enough of them. Encourage women into the career, and you double the number of engineers you can put into industry each year... Sorry if you got the impression that I had something against male engineers :-)
Goladus 18y ago
Fewer ideas, not as much innovation, and more difficulty creating products and services with broad appeal. So long as they're more productive in fields like medicine and epidemiology it may not be a net loss. Note though that a couple of my friends work for scientists and claim gender discrimination is pretty bad. The picture they described of a scientific research company is nothing like what I've seen in the IT industry for the past 8 years or so.
jcl 18y ago
Devil's advocate: What's wrong with them not wanting to? I think the reason people are uncomfortable with the gender imbalance in IT is because of earlier studies showing that women tended to get paid less in jobs where they are doing the same work as men. Now whenever we hear of a gender inequality, we assume -- perhaps incorrectly, in this case -- that the inequality is due to a hidden, unfair bias. So there is nothing wrong with women preferring non-IT jobs, per se. But I think we are right to feel cautious about conclusions in this area: Someone could take this general result and erroneously apply it to specific women, thereby assuming that female IT employees are less interested in their jobs than men and thus less deserving of raises or promotions... which creates a new source of gender bias.

m0nty 18y ago

'The question is - why do girls "not want to" by the time they reach age 18?' For the same reason not many men become maternity nurses or kindergarten teachers? Frankly, you couldn't have kept me away from IT if you'd tried. Despite low wages (when I started, at least), poor conditions, working on short-term contracts, being required to educate myself, putting up with being treated like some kind of idiot savant, etc, etc -- still, I wanted it very, very badly. Now, for people who don't feel that way, we're supposed to engage in this collective hand-wringing exercise: "Oh dear! Not enough wimmin in IT!" If they don't want it, I would seriously question the morality of (so to speak) tricking them into joining the profession on the basis of a collection of half-truths. Either you want to play with the shiny toys or you don't. And if you don't, good luck, because 90% of the time it's not exactly what you'd call fun anyway. Incidentally, I've been around a bit and I have never, ever witnessed any indication of prejudice against women in IT. Where I've worked with female engineers, they've always been welcomed and treated with respect. Maybe we should just accept what any parent can tell you: there are gender differences, and we need to accept those rather than pretend we're all the same. /rant. calming down now ;) talk amongst yourselves...

projectileboy 18y ago
I actually agree with everything you said - I, too, have never felt or seen bias against women in IT, once we're all adults. My perspective is that of the parent of a six-year-old girl, and if you actually believe that society doesn't start drilling into girls' heads from day one that their mission in life is to play with dolls, put on make up, and do little else... well, then you don't see much mainstream media.
- m0nty 18y ago
  Please don't think I was ranting at you, I really didn't mean it to come across like that :) It's just this daft idea that there should be a 50/50 M/F split across any profession, let alone IT. I have two children (1 boy, 1 girl) and they have very different interests, so I'm approaching this from a parent's viewpoint as well. As for encouraging them into the profession, I always say "do something you like and ignore computers, because it will grind you down in a relentless, soul-destroying fashion." I'm being a bit cynical and if they showed a genuine interest I'd encourage it, but I'll be damned if I say it's the most rewarding, happy profession out there. Cos it ain't.

axod 18y ago

Same reason most men don't want to be midwives?