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> Personally I believe that gender imbalance in this (and other) professions is only indirectly related to gender. At the risk of being downvoted into oblivion
by laureny 14y ago
> Personally I believe that gender imbalance in this (and other) professions is only indirectly related to gender.
At the risk of being downvoted into oblivion, I'll ask the question that nobody seems to want to ask: is it possible that females are genetically programmed to be less interested or less skilled than males for computer science?
- TheZenPsycho 14y agoit is "possible" in the sense that anything is possible. It is just as possible that the opposite is true: that women are genetically programmed to be more interested in computer science than men. Either proposal is a red herring though. This is not a worthy line of argument or thought to pursue, and is not backed up by any evidence. More likely is that these are cultural issues. Why is it not worthy? Because the number and proportion of women in computer science is declining. If you really believe this is due to genetic factors, then what we should really be thinking about is what factors are at work here to cause such rapid evolution! But clearly this is absurd, isn't it?
- astrobe_ 14y agoIt doesn't matter actually. On average men are stronger and taller than women. But I'm pretty sure you met a woman taller than you at least once, and a woman trained in, say, 400 meter run can ridicule you any day on a track. Same for CS, if ever a scientific study shows that women are "genetically" less fitted for CS, it doesn't mean that you can't find a woman that performs better in the field. I think employers are smart enough to get that. More problematic are some disadvantages of hiring a woman like birth vacations. My country made I think a smart legal move by making such a vacations available to men as well, in order to make both genders equal in that respect.