4 ms·

Part of the problem as I see it is that male dominance in CS extends all the way to the top. At a particular university I have in mind (but will not name for le

by ZoFreX 16y ago

Part of the problem as I see it is that male dominance in CS extends all the way to the top. At a particular university I have in mind (but will not name for legal reasons) nearly all of the lecturers were male. Most women who were staff in the department were secretarial (in fact, all of the administration staff were female), and the male staff were every bit as bad, if not worse, than your stereotypical male IRC user. We're talking about ignorance and disrespect running so deep that the way some girls (undergrad and postgrad) have been treated by staff is tantamount to sexual harassment, so I find it... amusing when we're talking about the behaviour of students, or social fixes, when to me it feels like the whole damn system is stuck in the 50s.

_delirium 16y ago
I might be oblivious (I'm male), but I've found that mostly among fairly old CS professors, some of whom are indeed not very progressive on gender issues, and not even very good at hiding it. I haven't noticed a lot of trouble from male professors in their 20s, 30s or 40s, though. Most of them seem genuinely concerned that the percentage of students in their courses is so low, and interested in whether there's anything they can do to improve the environment. In many cases the gender balance is noticeably lower than when they were CS students, since female enrollments have dropped considerably over the past 20 years.
mitcheme 16y ago
I've been pretty lucky with my uni, for the most part the profs and students are all very level-headed and don't care about gender much. There are maybe two somewhat-douchey but bearable guys and one prof who's always saying weird, stereotypical things about women during lectures, but mostly the guys just want to talk shop. Between 2nd and 3rd year I switched from wearing mostly jeans & sneakers to wearing mostly skirts & dresses & pretty flats and the way I was treated didn't change noticeably. The most atmospheric douchiness was during 1st year. For several months there was a man sexually assaulting dozens of women on and around campus, and I remember some idiots who kept talking about how it was sooo sexist that female students were being offered free rape whistles and self-defense classes as a result, and how the guy just had needs so you couldn't blame him, and how rape was just so much fun. It wasn't straight-up harassment, I guess, because they weren't talking to me, but being alone with them late at night in the computer labs made me feel very unsafe. It was a frequent and rather unavoidable occurrence and I can see how a woman considering CS as one of multiple possible majors would have been seriously put off. I was pretty put off and CS was the only major I'd even considered since I was 13; that year I worried a lot about what I would do if the guys in the working world were like that, too. (Never saw them in the second year labs, guess they spent too much time chatting and not enough time doing their homework, haha.) Even with a decent school environment it's nice to have some female profs around as role models. I have male role models too, of course, but it's so awesome to get to see hard proof that hey, that awesome woman I want to grow up to be is not only attainable but standing RIGHT THERE in front of the classroom. Two in particular seem so fulfilled, well-rounded, and passionate about their fields that it makes me know that I made the right choice. I think if all my lecturers were male, or if the few female profs I had were the grudgingly-teach-from-the-textbook variety (of which I've had in both genders), I would feel a lot less secure. I could honestly see my alternate-universe self switching over to math or econ if the comp sci department at alternate-universe uni was as bad as the school you're talking about. Comp sci is great but it's not worth crushing your soul for, especially when there are so many other fields these days where good programming skills can give you an edge.

by ZoFreX 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago

I might be oblivious (I'm male), but I've found that mostly among fairly old CS professors, some of whom are indeed not very progressive on gender issues, and not even very good at hiding it. I haven't noticed a lot of trouble from male professors in their 20s, 30s or 40s, though. Most of them seem genuinely concerned that the percentage of students in their courses is so low, and interested in whether there's anything they can do to improve the environment. In many cases the gender balance is noticeably lower than when they were CS students, since female enrollments have dropped considerably over the past 20 years.

mitcheme 16y ago

I've been pretty lucky with my uni, for the most part the profs and students are all very level-headed and don't care about gender much. There are maybe two somewhat-douchey but bearable guys and one prof who's always saying weird, stereotypical things about women during lectures, but mostly the guys just want to talk shop. Between 2nd and 3rd year I switched from wearing mostly jeans & sneakers to wearing mostly skirts & dresses & pretty flats and the way I was treated didn't change noticeably. The most atmospheric douchiness was during 1st year. For several months there was a man sexually assaulting dozens of women on and around campus, and I remember some idiots who kept talking about how it was sooo sexist that female students were being offered free rape whistles and self-defense classes as a result, and how the guy just had needs so you couldn't blame him, and how rape was just so much fun. It wasn't straight-up harassment, I guess, because they weren't talking to me, but being alone with them late at night in the computer labs made me feel very unsafe. It was a frequent and rather unavoidable occurrence and I can see how a woman considering CS as one of multiple possible majors would have been seriously put off. I was pretty put off and CS was the only major I'd even considered since I was 13; that year I worried a lot about what I would do if the guys in the working world were like that, too. (Never saw them in the second year labs, guess they spent too much time chatting and not enough time doing their homework, haha.) Even with a decent school environment it's nice to have some female profs around as role models. I have male role models too, of course, but it's so awesome to get to see hard proof that hey, that awesome woman I want to grow up to be is not only attainable but standing RIGHT THERE in front of the classroom. Two in particular seem so fulfilled, well-rounded, and passionate about their fields that it makes me know that I made the right choice. I think if all my lecturers were male, or if the few female profs I had were the grudgingly-teach-from-the-textbook variety (of which I've had in both genders), I would feel a lot less secure. I could honestly see my alternate-universe self switching over to math or econ if the comp sci department at alternate-universe uni was as bad as the school you're talking about. Comp sci is great but it's not worth crushing your soul for, especially when there are so many other fields these days where good programming skills can give you an edge.