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I think that's debatable based on geography. You point to nurses and teaching being precedents but that was only true in certain geographies. The low interest i

by xal 15y ago

I think that's debatable based on geography. You point to nurses and teaching being precedents but that was only true in certain geographies. The low interest in of women in programming is a global phenomenon. It's important that we discuss the actual cause here if we want any hope in solving this. Let me throw out another one that I find has less weaknesses then the usual arguments: There is a tremendous lack of female programming role models. Yep, chicken and egg problem, but no one said this would be easy. Perhaps what we can do is start celebrating the ones we got more? I'm thinking of Marissa Mayer as a potential starting point but I don't know a lot about this part of psychology.

Kadin 15y ago
> The low interest in of women in programming is a global phenomenon. I'm not sure that's completely true. I've been told that the gender imbalance in CompSci programs is less severe in India than it is in the U.S., for instance, relative to the overall gender imbalance in their workforce. But in general it wouldn't surprise me if there is higher worldwide correlation among companies in software development than in other industries, because software development is so new, and because so many of the dominant companies are concentrated in the U.S. Other industries, e.g. healthcare, operate in very different environments from country to country, so you would expect them to be less highly correlated.
foobie 14y ago
"The low interest in of women in programming is a global phenomenon." Huh. Source? according to this: http://www.frauen.inf.ethz.ch/stats/international_stat_frauen.pdf http://www.frauen.inf.ethz.ch/stats/international_stat_fraue... "there is a wide range in participation in computing by women.... it is difficult to do a direct comparison between countries. ... participation is between 10% and 40% in most countries and courses, with a wide spread in this range. There are some countries and courses where women's participation is below 10%, some with participation above 40%, and a few where women are in the majority." ( I believe in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, women are in the majority )

by xal 15y ago

Kadin 15y ago

> The low interest in of women in programming is a global phenomenon. I'm not sure that's completely true. I've been told that the gender imbalance in CompSci programs is less severe in India than it is in the U.S., for instance, relative to the overall gender imbalance in their workforce. But in general it wouldn't surprise me if there is higher worldwide correlation among companies in software development than in other industries, because software development is so new, and because so many of the dominant companies are concentrated in the U.S. Other industries, e.g. healthcare, operate in very different environments from country to country, so you would expect them to be less highly correlated.

foobie 14y ago

"The low interest in of women in programming is a global phenomenon." Huh. Source? according to this: http://www.frauen.inf.ethz.ch/stats/international_stat_frauen.pdf http://www.frauen.inf.ethz.ch/stats/international_stat_fraue... "there is a wide range in participation in computing by women.... it is difficult to do a direct comparison between countries. ... participation is between 10% and 40% in most countries and courses, with a wide spread in this range. There are some countries and courses where women's participation is below 10%, some with participation above 40%, and a few where women are in the majority." ( I believe in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, women are in the majority )