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As a little anecdote, during my computer science studies i had exactly one female student in a ~50 student class. A mandatory class, so that was it for female s

As a little anecdote, during my computer science studies i had exactly one female student in a ~50 student class. A mandatory class, so that was it for female students that semester. That was general computer science. Those then split up into different specializations for their future line of work. From personal experience, quite a few theoretical computer scientists and more or less the rest into big data. Who went there for the math. People might be shocked to hear this, but not many little girls dream about becoming computer engineers. And i cant really blame them. Having to deal with registers and assembly isnt such an attractive proposition. Dont get me wrong, they sure exist, however not enough of them to fill any sort of meaningful quota. I have one female colleague in the department and she is very annoyed to be begged to be the token female. And not at all interested. It was somewhere along that road that it dawned on me that i have yet to meet any female colleague in computer engineering who thought any sort of quotas to be a good idea. They are obvious nonsense implemented by people who never in a thousand years would think about about going into that profession themselves. You cant use them to force people into existence. And outside of kidnapping first semester Psychology or MBA students there isnt much reason to be optimistic for quotas in the future.

hulitu 5y ago
This is because of " boys are prince, girls are princesses" and "blue is for boys and pink (or red) is for girls" propaganda. I went to faculty in an eastern europe country and we did not had such crap shaming of jobs based on gender.
- gedy 5y ago
  I think it's more rich countries where women have options, many decide to do what they enjoy instead.
- cf141q5325 5y ago
  edit: Did you actually have noteworthy ratio in computer engineering? Unless you do something about the attractiveness of Psychology and Medicine, there will always be fields with a lack of female students. Computer Engineering being on the lower end of the list. Its a zero sum game, you wont get quota in waste disposal management without an upper limit in every profession that has more then the male/female ratio of the workforce. You opinion also assumes that socialization is everything. I would argue that there is ample evidence that women are more drawn into professions that help people vs building something alone in their basement. So unless you want to engineer a new women with less compassion and more obsession on tinkering i dont know what to tell you. Add on top of that the big bias of large parts of a given years computer engineering alumni being on the spectrum.
- Aurelius3 5y ago
  The question is complicated. On the one hand you claim that in the west certain people are pushed away from certain fields, whereas others have claimed that in more egalitarian countries people are actually pushed into certain fields against their will. In my opinion, as someone that has seen both eastern europe and the west, I tend to agree with the latter idea, as I have personally witnessed large social pushes towards equality in the west, alongside a highly capable female demographic that achieve well in schools, it dosen't add up to me that women in the west are being pushed out of these programs, they simply prefer others. In comparison I see the same high capability and well achieving demographic in the east, with no positive or negative societal pressure on them, with a much more egalitarian professors/students ratio. Clearly there is something else besides capability and social pressure, and as others have pointed out, that is freedom of choice.
aahortwwy 5y ago
> not many little girls dream about becoming computer engineers This simply isn't true in many cultures. So why is it the case in the West?
- chii 5y ago
  i'd say it's the same reason not so many little boys dream of becoming a nurse. And i also think that there's no reason to have such quotas for professions. What needs to be done is giving young people exposure to as much as possible as early as possible.
- cf141q5325 5y ago
  Please source this.
  - 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
    Why? Did you provide a source for your claim? No.
    - cf141q5325 5y ago
      The poster i responded to didnt claim what i said was untrue in the West. But there being an exception in other cultures. So which ones? Sorry if that sounded confrontational. edit: Best i could come up with is Russia and they have heavily biased gender ratios as well https://www.statista.com/statistics/1240183/university-courses-preferred-by-graduates-russia-by-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1240183/university-cours... china: https://image5.sixthtone.com/image/5/9/809.jpg https://image5.sixthtone.com/image/5/9/809.jpg India has an equal ratio in CS, still looking for CE. The ratio is explained as follow >Limited Career Choice in India: Among families who send their children to university in India, engineering or medicine is the default expectation (both for men and women). Parents place great pressure on their children to study specific subjects for reasons of socio-economic prospects –career and marriage partners are a prime concern. For the most part, children feel they must comply. http://www.hcixb.org/papers_2017/hcixb17-final-37.pdf http://www.hcixb.org/papers_2017/hcixb17-final-37.pdf That seems to be a general trend, the less pressure, the worse the ratios. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
bakuninsbart 5y ago
> People might be shocked to hear this, but not many little girls dream about becoming computer engineers. In my experience the majority of new high school grads do not choose their uni program based on a deep passion. Usually, they don't even have one or don't know what it is. I studied CS in Germany at 2 different faculties, and there was a large discrepancy between the first (~15% non-male), and the second (~35% non-male). The second faculty had a lot more female professors, I also suspect that having a more equal gender ratio benefits an even more equal gender ratio: The idea of being a small minority in your degree is just not very appealing, and the negative stereotypes on male CS students are pretty off-putting to women. These do also seem to hold true for a sad subset of the student body.
- cf141q5325 5y ago
  I dont think you can compare the two faculties out of context. One driver for the especially abysmal ratio in my case was there being a competing degree. A more media focused computer science degree gutting out the low level stuff. There the ratio was great, but that was due to poaching of design students. Same with a data science masters degree poaching of the mathematics department. While there has been a great example to the contrary of the Arab world (which requires more consideration), it seems that the more choice you give female students to get around some stuff the more likely they will do. That would boil down to some stuff being less attractive. So the question is do you trick/nudge/force people to do it either way?

hulitu 5y ago

This is because of " boys are prince, girls are princesses" and "blue is for boys and pink (or red) is for girls" propaganda. I went to faculty in an eastern europe country and we did not had such crap shaming of jobs based on gender.

gedy 5y ago
I think it's more rich countries where women have options, many decide to do what they enjoy instead.
cf141q5325 5y ago
edit: Did you actually have noteworthy ratio in computer engineering? Unless you do something about the attractiveness of Psychology and Medicine, there will always be fields with a lack of female students. Computer Engineering being on the lower end of the list. Its a zero sum game, you wont get quota in waste disposal management without an upper limit in every profession that has more then the male/female ratio of the workforce. You opinion also assumes that socialization is everything. I would argue that there is ample evidence that women are more drawn into professions that help people vs building something alone in their basement. So unless you want to engineer a new women with less compassion and more obsession on tinkering i dont know what to tell you. Add on top of that the big bias of large parts of a given years computer engineering alumni being on the spectrum.
Aurelius3 5y ago
The question is complicated. On the one hand you claim that in the west certain people are pushed away from certain fields, whereas others have claimed that in more egalitarian countries people are actually pushed into certain fields against their will. In my opinion, as someone that has seen both eastern europe and the west, I tend to agree with the latter idea, as I have personally witnessed large social pushes towards equality in the west, alongside a highly capable female demographic that achieve well in schools, it dosen't add up to me that women in the west are being pushed out of these programs, they simply prefer others. In comparison I see the same high capability and well achieving demographic in the east, with no positive or negative societal pressure on them, with a much more egalitarian professors/students ratio. Clearly there is something else besides capability and social pressure, and as others have pointed out, that is freedom of choice.

aahortwwy 5y ago

> not many little girls dream about becoming computer engineers This simply isn't true in many cultures. So why is it the case in the West?

chii 5y ago
i'd say it's the same reason not so many little boys dream of becoming a nurse. And i also think that there's no reason to have such quotas for professions. What needs to be done is giving young people exposure to as much as possible as early as possible.
cf141q5325 5y ago
Please source this.
- 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
  Why? Did you provide a source for your claim? No.
  - cf141q5325 5y ago
    The poster i responded to didnt claim what i said was untrue in the West. But there being an exception in other cultures. So which ones? Sorry if that sounded confrontational. edit: Best i could come up with is Russia and they have heavily biased gender ratios as well https://www.statista.com/statistics/1240183/university-courses-preferred-by-graduates-russia-by-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1240183/university-cours... china: https://image5.sixthtone.com/image/5/9/809.jpg https://image5.sixthtone.com/image/5/9/809.jpg India has an equal ratio in CS, still looking for CE. The ratio is explained as follow >Limited Career Choice in India: Among families who send their children to university in India, engineering or medicine is the default expectation (both for men and women). Parents place great pressure on their children to study specific subjects for reasons of socio-economic prospects –career and marriage partners are a prime concern. For the most part, children feel they must comply. http://www.hcixb.org/papers_2017/hcixb17-final-37.pdf http://www.hcixb.org/papers_2017/hcixb17-final-37.pdf That seems to be a general trend, the less pressure, the worse the ratios. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...

bakuninsbart 5y ago

> People might be shocked to hear this, but not many little girls dream about becoming computer engineers. In my experience the majority of new high school grads do not choose their uni program based on a deep passion. Usually, they don't even have one or don't know what it is. I studied CS in Germany at 2 different faculties, and there was a large discrepancy between the first (~15% non-male), and the second (~35% non-male). The second faculty had a lot more female professors, I also suspect that having a more equal gender ratio benefits an even more equal gender ratio: The idea of being a small minority in your degree is just not very appealing, and the negative stereotypes on male CS students are pretty off-putting to women. These do also seem to hold true for a sad subset of the student body.

cf141q5325 5y ago
I dont think you can compare the two faculties out of context. One driver for the especially abysmal ratio in my case was there being a competing degree. A more media focused computer science degree gutting out the low level stuff. There the ratio was great, but that was due to poaching of design students. Same with a data science masters degree poaching of the mathematics department. While there has been a great example to the contrary of the Arab world (which requires more consideration), it seems that the more choice you give female students to get around some stuff the more likely they will do. That would boil down to some stuff being less attractive. So the question is do you trick/nudge/force people to do it either way?