4 ms·

There’s no good excuse for lack of women in tech in their freshman year of college. But the reason there’s fewer women in tech in their sophomore year in colleg

by jmpman 4y ago

There’s no good excuse for lack of women in tech in their freshman year of college. But the reason there’s fewer women in tech in their sophomore year in college can be traced to the number of women in tech in their freshman year of college… keep working backwards through the pipeline. The problem I see with programs like First Robotics is that the female participants I’ve interacted with are typically children of female engineers. It doesn’t seem that they’re dramatically increasing the funnel to pull in female engineers who wouldn’t have normally gone on to the STEM fields. Start surveying Jr High female students?

olliej 4y ago
> There’s no good excuse for lack of women in tech in their freshman year of college. Have you seen how woman in CS departments are treated? The amazing amounts of creeper behaviour and stereotypical nerd crush BS? Those are actually really good reasons for not being in those departments. There's also the standard roll model and ability to look at what research groups look like that act as good signals to anyone starting out that they aren't welcome.
- Siddarth1977 4y ago
  I've seen this claimed online, generally by people with no actual connection to university CS programs who are just repeating what they read on Tumblr/Twitter/etc, but I've never witnessed it in real life. Sometimes I wonder how much faster we could end the gender gap if instead of giving a megaphone to everyone who had a bad experience at some point, we instead told girls in middle school and high school the uncomfortable good news that they'll probably never have discrimination impact them in any significant way and that literally every single school, scholarship, corporation, conference and governmental organization is trying to recruit more women, and that their resume will always go immediately to the top of the pile, they'll win every "tie" against a male candidate and any deficiencies in their resume/CV can be made up for by diversity goals. If you want more women in tech, maybe step 1 is telling pre-college girls "you'll have a good life if you pursue a career in tech" instead of constantly indoctrinating them with the doom and gloom? It seems like we could simultaneously fight against sexism if it happens around us, without discouraging the next generation by making the problem seem more likely to impact them than it really is.
  - olliej 4y ago
    Good for you for finding a truly sexism free university. However I _do_ have experience in CS departments, as both a student and as a tutor/TA, and I have had multiple women in classes I TA'd complain to me about how some of the men in the classes are behaving. The other thing to realize that those women who complained were not alone in the labs or classes - there were plenty of other people in those classes and no one intervened. So either people in those classes and labs did not noticed the harassment as it occurred, or they did see it and chose to do nothing. I'm sure that there was plenty of creeper nerd obsession that was occurring while I was present and didn't notice - I certainly didn't notice in the case of the people who explicitly told me they weren't feeling comfortable in classes I TA'd until they told me and I deliberately paid attention to behaviour of the people involved. I want to be really clear here: If you are not the victim of many of these behaviors you are unlikely to notice it, because what to you might be an occasional weird comment for the victim is often continuous, because by definition they are there for all of the behaviour that they're subjected to. For people who do do the obsessive nerd crush: ask them out, or move on. If they so no, then move on. They subject[s] of any obsessive "nice" behaviour aren't going to generally say explicitly "stop it" as the rest of their life experience tells them that doing so can be directly harmful - my back up here from plenty of friends of mine they have experienced negative consequences from saying "no", I'm a white dude so haven't had to deal with anything similar so can't provide first person pov here - everything I have is second hand or me seeing/hearing people making sexist (and racist) comments about other students in my department.
    - Dracophoenix 4y ago
      > The other thing to realize that those women who complained were not alone in the labs or classes - there were plenty of other people in those classes and no one intervened. So either people in those classes and labs did not noticed the harassment as it occurred, or they did see it and chose to do nothing. I'm sure that there was plenty of creeper nerd obsession that was occurring while I was present and didn't notice - I certainly didn't notice in the case of the people who explicitly told me they weren't feeling comfortable in classes I TA'd until they told me and I deliberately paid attention to behaviour of the people involved. Or they're just non-omniscient 18 year olds who aren't consciously aware of other people's lives. They're not parents or teachers. You shouldn't hold them to the standards of mandated reporters. They have a right to be indifferent to events that don't affect them, whether they notice it or not. > I want to be really clear here: If you are not the victim of many of these behaviors you are unlikely to notice it, because what to you might be an occasional weird comment for the victim is often continuous, because by definition they are there for all of the behaviour that they're subjected to. This is a solipsistic and unpersuasive view of victimhood. "Weird" is different for everyone. What might be "unacceptable" for one person is not necessarily for another regardless of one's being a spectator or receiver of such comments. It's impossible to determine how one will react in advance. They're might be women in those classes who appreciate the "weird" comments, but those won't be ones reporting to you. You're holding the male students to the standard of the one's who are complaining, not the standards of their actual behavior as individuals. A school is a melting pot, not just of people and thought, but also of peeves and annoyances. It's impossible to know what'll set off one's own family member, leave alone the the difficulties created by differences in culture, socialization, religion, sex, etc among adults. > For people who do do the obsessive nerd crush: ask them out, or move on. If they so no, then move on. They subject[s] of any obsessive "nice" behaviour aren't going to generally say explicitly "stop it" as the rest of their life experience tells them that doing so can be directly harmful - my back up here from plenty of friends of mine they have experienced negative consequences from saying "no", I'm a white dude so haven't had to deal with anything similar so can't provide first person pov here - everything I have is second hand or me seeing/hearing people making sexist (and racist) comments about other students in my department For many 18 year-old male computer nerds in the United States, college is one of their earliest or only "real" social experiences. They're just getting their feet wet with the emotional discomfort and social interactions that students in less rigorous majors have already endured through middle and high school (when these boys were likely to have been loners). "Nice" comes from a sincere and unassuming belief in the summation of "received wisdom" acquired from parents, teachers, childhood female friends, movies, etc. in their descriptions of/expectations for acceptable and romantically desirable behavior. These boys-now-men seek to apply the advice (naturally) only to be given ambiguous if not negative results contrary to what they've been promised. Some will by one circumstance or another succeed, some will persist fruitlessly until they bow out in frustration, and some never learn. Your advice is correct. Rip the bandaid. However, it's not immediately evident to people who've likely lacked the opportunity to be comfortable enough with themselves to get to that point. And so long as you remain in your post, these situations will repeat themselves every year as a new batch of naive and unassuming teens matriculate into adulthood.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Reading this reminded me of a comment I saw on HN ages ago and that I quite liked as something to personally live my life like. Not claiming others should but I think it's a good recipe for me to follow https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8490434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8490434 > You know what stopped me from becoming a professional programmer? It wasn't the fact that I didn't get to study CS in high-school, nor that I didn't have a PC until I was a university student, nor the lack of Internet access at home until I was 20+ years old, nor the language barrier (English is my third language), nor being limited to free resources by my finances. > Nothing. Nothing stopped me from pursuing my interest.
- lemper 4y ago
  i have. they're treated well. and no, never in my uni years I heard any creepy behaviours done in our department by our students. oh, and it should be noted that half of our students are women (iirc almost all of them graduated in time).

by jmpman 4y ago

olliej 4y ago

> There’s no good excuse for lack of women in tech in their freshman year of college. Have you seen how woman in CS departments are treated? The amazing amounts of creeper behaviour and stereotypical nerd crush BS? Those are actually really good reasons for not being in those departments. There's also the standard roll model and ability to look at what research groups look like that act as good signals to anyone starting out that they aren't welcome.

Siddarth1977 4y ago
I've seen this claimed online, generally by people with no actual connection to university CS programs who are just repeating what they read on Tumblr/Twitter/etc, but I've never witnessed it in real life. Sometimes I wonder how much faster we could end the gender gap if instead of giving a megaphone to everyone who had a bad experience at some point, we instead told girls in middle school and high school the uncomfortable good news that they'll probably never have discrimination impact them in any significant way and that literally every single school, scholarship, corporation, conference and governmental organization is trying to recruit more women, and that their resume will always go immediately to the top of the pile, they'll win every "tie" against a male candidate and any deficiencies in their resume/CV can be made up for by diversity goals. If you want more women in tech, maybe step 1 is telling pre-college girls "you'll have a good life if you pursue a career in tech" instead of constantly indoctrinating them with the doom and gloom? It seems like we could simultaneously fight against sexism if it happens around us, without discouraging the next generation by making the problem seem more likely to impact them than it really is.
- olliej 4y ago
  Good for you for finding a truly sexism free university. However I _do_ have experience in CS departments, as both a student and as a tutor/TA, and I have had multiple women in classes I TA'd complain to me about how some of the men in the classes are behaving. The other thing to realize that those women who complained were not alone in the labs or classes - there were plenty of other people in those classes and no one intervened. So either people in those classes and labs did not noticed the harassment as it occurred, or they did see it and chose to do nothing. I'm sure that there was plenty of creeper nerd obsession that was occurring while I was present and didn't notice - I certainly didn't notice in the case of the people who explicitly told me they weren't feeling comfortable in classes I TA'd until they told me and I deliberately paid attention to behaviour of the people involved. I want to be really clear here: If you are not the victim of many of these behaviors you are unlikely to notice it, because what to you might be an occasional weird comment for the victim is often continuous, because by definition they are there for all of the behaviour that they're subjected to. For people who do do the obsessive nerd crush: ask them out, or move on. If they so no, then move on. They subject[s] of any obsessive "nice" behaviour aren't going to generally say explicitly "stop it" as the rest of their life experience tells them that doing so can be directly harmful - my back up here from plenty of friends of mine they have experienced negative consequences from saying "no", I'm a white dude so haven't had to deal with anything similar so can't provide first person pov here - everything I have is second hand or me seeing/hearing people making sexist (and racist) comments about other students in my department.
  - Dracophoenix 4y ago
    > The other thing to realize that those women who complained were not alone in the labs or classes - there were plenty of other people in those classes and no one intervened. So either people in those classes and labs did not noticed the harassment as it occurred, or they did see it and chose to do nothing. I'm sure that there was plenty of creeper nerd obsession that was occurring while I was present and didn't notice - I certainly didn't notice in the case of the people who explicitly told me they weren't feeling comfortable in classes I TA'd until they told me and I deliberately paid attention to behaviour of the people involved. Or they're just non-omniscient 18 year olds who aren't consciously aware of other people's lives. They're not parents or teachers. You shouldn't hold them to the standards of mandated reporters. They have a right to be indifferent to events that don't affect them, whether they notice it or not. > I want to be really clear here: If you are not the victim of many of these behaviors you are unlikely to notice it, because what to you might be an occasional weird comment for the victim is often continuous, because by definition they are there for all of the behaviour that they're subjected to. This is a solipsistic and unpersuasive view of victimhood. "Weird" is different for everyone. What might be "unacceptable" for one person is not necessarily for another regardless of one's being a spectator or receiver of such comments. It's impossible to determine how one will react in advance. They're might be women in those classes who appreciate the "weird" comments, but those won't be ones reporting to you. You're holding the male students to the standard of the one's who are complaining, not the standards of their actual behavior as individuals. A school is a melting pot, not just of people and thought, but also of peeves and annoyances. It's impossible to know what'll set off one's own family member, leave alone the the difficulties created by differences in culture, socialization, religion, sex, etc among adults. > For people who do do the obsessive nerd crush: ask them out, or move on. If they so no, then move on. They subject[s] of any obsessive "nice" behaviour aren't going to generally say explicitly "stop it" as the rest of their life experience tells them that doing so can be directly harmful - my back up here from plenty of friends of mine they have experienced negative consequences from saying "no", I'm a white dude so haven't had to deal with anything similar so can't provide first person pov here - everything I have is second hand or me seeing/hearing people making sexist (and racist) comments about other students in my department For many 18 year-old male computer nerds in the United States, college is one of their earliest or only "real" social experiences. They're just getting their feet wet with the emotional discomfort and social interactions that students in less rigorous majors have already endured through middle and high school (when these boys were likely to have been loners). "Nice" comes from a sincere and unassuming belief in the summation of "received wisdom" acquired from parents, teachers, childhood female friends, movies, etc. in their descriptions of/expectations for acceptable and romantically desirable behavior. These boys-now-men seek to apply the advice (naturally) only to be given ambiguous if not negative results contrary to what they've been promised. Some will by one circumstance or another succeed, some will persist fruitlessly until they bow out in frustration, and some never learn. Your advice is correct. Rip the bandaid. However, it's not immediately evident to people who've likely lacked the opportunity to be comfortable enough with themselves to get to that point. And so long as you remain in your post, these situations will repeat themselves every year as a new batch of naive and unassuming teens matriculate into adulthood.
renewiltord 4y ago
Reading this reminded me of a comment I saw on HN ages ago and that I quite liked as something to personally live my life like. Not claiming others should but I think it's a good recipe for me to follow https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8490434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8490434 > You know what stopped me from becoming a professional programmer? It wasn't the fact that I didn't get to study CS in high-school, nor that I didn't have a PC until I was a university student, nor the lack of Internet access at home until I was 20+ years old, nor the language barrier (English is my third language), nor being limited to free resources by my finances. > Nothing. Nothing stopped me from pursuing my interest.
lemper 4y ago
i have. they're treated well. and no, never in my uni years I heard any creepy behaviours done in our department by our students. oh, and it should be noted that half of our students are women (iirc almost all of them graduated in time).