4 ms·

So Where Did All the Women Coders Go?

48 points by nagrom 12y ago

supercanuck 12y ago
Has anyone thought to maybe, I don't know... Ask them?
- stealthlogic 12y ago
  That would require a lot of courage.
stealthlogic 12y ago
They were tired of being hit on by nerds. :P
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- crimsonalucard 12y ago
  Sorry bad joke.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
aninteger 12y ago
Maybe they didn't go anywhere? I honestly believe the rate has been a steady 15-20% for the past 30-40 years. It's possible women had degrees in computer science but then pursued careers as system analysts, data entry, QA, "web masters" or IT. None of these are pure software development positions, but maybe they were classified as that in the 80's.
m1117 12y ago
They apparently went to biology field http://archive.aacu.org/ocww/volume39_1/images/StRoseGraph1.jpg http://archive.aacu.org/ocww/volume39_1/images/StRoseGraph1....
throwawayaway 12y ago
The comments here and a moments worth of overhearing the details of conversations held at any of the employers of coders can attest. It is not for historical reasons, it is for the reek of sexism and "gamma males" trying to assert themselves as men in the absence of "betas" and "alphas" and failing miserably.
cliftonk 12y ago
Law, medicine and natural sciences are very different than computer science (plus the latter two are graduate degrees). I'd like to see the same graph but with applied mathematics and physics added.
- Jare 12y ago
  This may help a bit (from a previous HN thread) http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...
- maxerickson 12y ago
  The data for that comparison is here: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/degrees/ http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/degrees/ (I guess that's what NPR used anyway) The trends show some in the tables here: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/databrf/sdb97326.htm http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/databrf/sdb97326.htm Between 1985-1995, mathematics (all, not just applied) declined but not as much as CS, physics increased moderately.
scoofy 12y ago
Here the articles points to childhood experiences with hardware, commodore 64s, etc. However, i think this is absolutely nonsense. Now, many people go into college with little idea of what they want to do. Perhaps this is a result of the expansion of college from building a unique skilled career path, to simply being expected. When talking about demographics and college degrees, i think popular culture is certainly relevant. We are talking about high school and college freshmen discovering themselves. Thus, i'd like to point out that 1984 is the same year the film Revenge of the Nerds came out. Thus, i'll throw out the hypothesis that, since 80's popular culture was a very regressive era in terms of anti-intellectualism, desire to enter STEM probably took a serious hit at the time in general, much more so with women. That is not to say that previous generations were much better, but gone were the days where the space race inspired tons of kids to pursue STEM education regardless of gender.
- jlees 12y ago
  The graph of overall CS enrollment backs up your comment that there was a decline in STEM degrees in the 80s. Interestingly the next peak of CS degrees hits in 2002-3. While the obvious explanation of the dot-com boom fits, I would say students graduating at this time were considerably affected by the 1980s home computing culture and that early experiences with a C64 or other computer could have been positive, not negative, influences on their choice to study CS. (The reason I say this being that I graduated with a CS degree in 2003, so am squarely in that camp, and the dot-com boom had no bearing on that decision - by the time I had picked my A-level subjects and applied to university, the dot-com craziness was not in full swing, though I was in the UK. However, growing up in the C64/BBC Micro/ZX Spectrum era was definitely a big factor in my ensuing nerdiness.)
- flomo 12y ago
  As someone who grew up in the 1980s, I think the pop-culture argument could go both ways, as the nerds got their revenge, and there were also movies such as War Games (1983) and many other portrayals of genius computer hackers. 'It's hip to be square', as the song went. More importantly, the PC industry crashed in 1984 as did the video game industry. To some extent, it was all perceived as as a pop-culture fad akin to disco and it retreated into the underground. There was also a general cultural shift within the computing world from mainframe systems to UNIX/DOS/C, and I suspect that may have had a greater effect on women's CS enrollment than anyone has identified.
jameshart 12y ago
Would be interesting to see the equivalent analysis of enrollment in CS degrees in China and India. I work with dozens of female coders; 90% of them are from China, India or Russia.
- tomp 12y ago
  I imagine that being a programmer is a much more lucrative job in China and India than being a lawyer/doctor, compared to the US. Programmers are always present on the global market, while lawyers and doctors are inherently local. I might be wrong though, this is pure speculation/no data.
  - jameshart 12y ago
    That's... true, I guess. What impact do you think it would have on gender ratios?
    - tomp 12y ago
      The better paid the job is, the more ambitious people choose it against their preferences (e.g. lawyer/doctor/banker). The push for low gender ratios correlates quite nicely with salaries - the push for more women in programming has only started after programming became a more lucrative job, and there is much less push for more women in construction/men in nursing. I imagine being a programmer was comparatively better paid in India than in the West.
hajile 12y ago
My answer is that women were never there to begin with and the number of women has always been fairly constant. My mother started her degree in the 70's because CS was a relatively new field and seemed interesting (let's not forget the "computers will solve the world's problems" marketing of the time). She took lots of programming courses and discovered that she was good at programming (and sometimes did a bit of coding at work), but preferred administering the machines and doing keypunching (and later other forms of data entry) where programming is minimal. From what she has told me, this was fairly common for the women she knew (not a matter of sexism nor of ability -- only of preference). As the 80s progressed, computer jobs shifted. Data entry no longer required a CS degree, so although the number of women doing that job increased, they were relegated to other non-CS degrees (and weren't really interested in CS to start with). As a more general idea, I think former Harvard president Larry Summers was potentially correct when he said that studies have repeatedly shown that men and women are different in many ways and some of these (IQ for example) have a huge impact on STEM (he was then forced to resign -- not because anyone disputed the numerous studies in this area, but because it is politically incorrect). For example, men outnumber women in the top and bottom of IQ spectrum (a couple standard deviations either way) note: the AVERAGE is very similar. There are good evolutionary reasons for this. Dumb women were a greater liability to children than dumb men and the tradeoff of some really smart visionaries (and dumb muscle if you would) worked well for human advancement (but was only possible in men). As a quick aside, though IQ does not accurately reflect overall intelligence, it does reflect many of the most important the parts of intelligence needed in STEM fields. At the top of the IQ spectrum (the place where the most successful STEM people tend to be grouped), men outnumber women 2-4 to 1 (depending on the study). The total number of STEM jobs in the USA is 4-5% of the population. If most of those people are in the highest IQ quartile, then we would expect men to greatly outnumber women with women accounting for 20-30% of the people "smart enough" to perform the job. This is very closely reflected by reality and also explains why programs to "create more STEM talent" are largely doomed to fail because you can't train people to be more intelligent. Programs to recruit the best and brightest in impoverished and under-educated communities (where IQ scores represent lack of education instead of lack of intelligence) would reap results, but those don't seem to attract the attention of the powers that be. Another point of interest is that a higher Asperger's quotient (AQ) seems to correlate to programmers in particular (with most programmers being much higher on the autistic spectrum than the average person). Similar to high IQ ranges, Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) favor men 4 to 1 over women. A final note about sexism: Sexism exists in every job (and goes both directions to one degree or another). The degree to which it exists in CS is dependent on several interesting factors (for example, that AQ factor which means that it may just be bad social skills rather than actual sexism), but does not necessarily correlate to a significant difference in women and technology (that is, if differences such as IQ are a limiting factor, removing all sexism against women would still result in more men in STEM). This is true before we even account for women simply making the life choice to NOT be stuck in a tiny cubicle working excessive hours and weekends due to a salaried job while dealing with a pointy-haired boss who has the personality of an agitated wolverine. My mother chose to step out of the rat race and spend time with her children as we grew up (and my father picked up the slack -- despite it's effect on our relationship). When we were gone and she decided to go back to work, she needed to go back to college again because CS changes a lot in a very short time. I suspect that many other women face similar choices and make similar decisions (or simply opt to never try because those intelligent enough to do the job are more likely to make that life choice before entering college).
orionblastar 12y ago
In order to learn how to program, you have to have an interest in learning how to program. When I grew up in the 1980's girls and women didn't have an interest in learning how to program as much as boys or men had. When I went to UM Rolla in 1986 there were very few women in my computer science classes, and for some reason they were most likely to drop out of college before freshman year or change to a different university or different major. I asked and I was told that the classes were designed for males to learn, but not for females to learn. That because of this women and girls had a harder time to learn math and science because the books were written by men and not women and thus were sexist. That I am only a programmer because I have this male privilege? I really don't know what to say about that, I always thought males and females had the same potential to learn, and never thought of any book I read or class I took as sexist towards women and girls. But now more and more women are taking arts degrees instead of science and majoring in women's studies, politics, communications, and other areas. Just because they don't study computer science does not mean they aren't smart, just smart in other areas. They never developed an interest in learning how to code and I don't know why.

48 points by nagrom 12y ago

supercanuck 12y ago

Has anyone thought to maybe, I don't know... Ask them?

stealthlogic 12y ago
That would require a lot of courage.

stealthlogic 12y ago

They were tired of being hit on by nerds. :P

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

crimsonalucard 12y ago
Sorry bad joke.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

aninteger 12y ago

Maybe they didn't go anywhere? I honestly believe the rate has been a steady 15-20% for the past 30-40 years. It's possible women had degrees in computer science but then pursued careers as system analysts, data entry, QA, "web masters" or IT. None of these are pure software development positions, but maybe they were classified as that in the 80's.

m1117 12y ago

They apparently went to biology field http://archive.aacu.org/ocww/volume39_1/images/StRoseGraph1.jpg http://archive.aacu.org/ocww/volume39_1/images/StRoseGraph1....

throwawayaway 12y ago

The comments here and a moments worth of overhearing the details of conversations held at any of the employers of coders can attest. It is not for historical reasons, it is for the reek of sexism and "gamma males" trying to assert themselves as men in the absence of "betas" and "alphas" and failing miserably.

cliftonk 12y ago

Law, medicine and natural sciences are very different than computer science (plus the latter two are graduate degrees). I'd like to see the same graph but with applied mathematics and physics added.

Jare 12y ago
This may help a bit (from a previous HN thread) http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...
maxerickson 12y ago
The data for that comparison is here: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/degrees/ http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/degrees/ (I guess that's what NPR used anyway) The trends show some in the tables here: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/databrf/sdb97326.htm http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/databrf/sdb97326.htm Between 1985-1995, mathematics (all, not just applied) declined but not as much as CS, physics increased moderately.

scoofy 12y ago

Here the articles points to childhood experiences with hardware, commodore 64s, etc. However, i think this is absolutely nonsense. Now, many people go into college with little idea of what they want to do. Perhaps this is a result of the expansion of college from building a unique skilled career path, to simply being expected. When talking about demographics and college degrees, i think popular culture is certainly relevant. We are talking about high school and college freshmen discovering themselves. Thus, i'd like to point out that 1984 is the same year the film Revenge of the Nerds came out. Thus, i'll throw out the hypothesis that, since 80's popular culture was a very regressive era in terms of anti-intellectualism, desire to enter STEM probably took a serious hit at the time in general, much more so with women. That is not to say that previous generations were much better, but gone were the days where the space race inspired tons of kids to pursue STEM education regardless of gender.

jlees 12y ago
The graph of overall CS enrollment backs up your comment that there was a decline in STEM degrees in the 80s. Interestingly the next peak of CS degrees hits in 2002-3. While the obvious explanation of the dot-com boom fits, I would say students graduating at this time were considerably affected by the 1980s home computing culture and that early experiences with a C64 or other computer could have been positive, not negative, influences on their choice to study CS. (The reason I say this being that I graduated with a CS degree in 2003, so am squarely in that camp, and the dot-com boom had no bearing on that decision - by the time I had picked my A-level subjects and applied to university, the dot-com craziness was not in full swing, though I was in the UK. However, growing up in the C64/BBC Micro/ZX Spectrum era was definitely a big factor in my ensuing nerdiness.)
flomo 12y ago
As someone who grew up in the 1980s, I think the pop-culture argument could go both ways, as the nerds got their revenge, and there were also movies such as War Games (1983) and many other portrayals of genius computer hackers. 'It's hip to be square', as the song went. More importantly, the PC industry crashed in 1984 as did the video game industry. To some extent, it was all perceived as as a pop-culture fad akin to disco and it retreated into the underground. There was also a general cultural shift within the computing world from mainframe systems to UNIX/DOS/C, and I suspect that may have had a greater effect on women's CS enrollment than anyone has identified.

jameshart 12y ago

Would be interesting to see the equivalent analysis of enrollment in CS degrees in China and India. I work with dozens of female coders; 90% of them are from China, India or Russia.

tomp 12y ago
I imagine that being a programmer is a much more lucrative job in China and India than being a lawyer/doctor, compared to the US. Programmers are always present on the global market, while lawyers and doctors are inherently local. I might be wrong though, this is pure speculation/no data.
- jameshart 12y ago
  That's... true, I guess. What impact do you think it would have on gender ratios?
  - tomp 12y ago
    The better paid the job is, the more ambitious people choose it against their preferences (e.g. lawyer/doctor/banker). The push for low gender ratios correlates quite nicely with salaries - the push for more women in programming has only started after programming became a more lucrative job, and there is much less push for more women in construction/men in nursing. I imagine being a programmer was comparatively better paid in India than in the West.

hajile 12y ago

My answer is that women were never there to begin with and the number of women has always been fairly constant. My mother started her degree in the 70's because CS was a relatively new field and seemed interesting (let's not forget the "computers will solve the world's problems" marketing of the time). She took lots of programming courses and discovered that she was good at programming (and sometimes did a bit of coding at work), but preferred administering the machines and doing keypunching (and later other forms of data entry) where programming is minimal. From what she has told me, this was fairly common for the women she knew (not a matter of sexism nor of ability -- only of preference). As the 80s progressed, computer jobs shifted. Data entry no longer required a CS degree, so although the number of women doing that job increased, they were relegated to other non-CS degrees (and weren't really interested in CS to start with). As a more general idea, I think former Harvard president Larry Summers was potentially correct when he said that studies have repeatedly shown that men and women are different in many ways and some of these (IQ for example) have a huge impact on STEM (he was then forced to resign -- not because anyone disputed the numerous studies in this area, but because it is politically incorrect). For example, men outnumber women in the top and bottom of IQ spectrum (a couple standard deviations either way) note: the AVERAGE is very similar. There are good evolutionary reasons for this. Dumb women were a greater liability to children than dumb men and the tradeoff of some really smart visionaries (and dumb muscle if you would) worked well for human advancement (but was only possible in men). As a quick aside, though IQ does not accurately reflect overall intelligence, it does reflect many of the most important the parts of intelligence needed in STEM fields. At the top of the IQ spectrum (the place where the most successful STEM people tend to be grouped), men outnumber women 2-4 to 1 (depending on the study). The total number of STEM jobs in the USA is 4-5% of the population. If most of those people are in the highest IQ quartile, then we would expect men to greatly outnumber women with women accounting for 20-30% of the people "smart enough" to perform the job. This is very closely reflected by reality and also explains why programs to "create more STEM talent" are largely doomed to fail because you can't train people to be more intelligent. Programs to recruit the best and brightest in impoverished and under-educated communities (where IQ scores represent lack of education instead of lack of intelligence) would reap results, but those don't seem to attract the attention of the powers that be. Another point of interest is that a higher Asperger's quotient (AQ) seems to correlate to programmers in particular (with most programmers being much higher on the autistic spectrum than the average person). Similar to high IQ ranges, Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) favor men 4 to 1 over women. A final note about sexism: Sexism exists in every job (and goes both directions to one degree or another). The degree to which it exists in CS is dependent on several interesting factors (for example, that AQ factor which means that it may just be bad social skills rather than actual sexism), but does not necessarily correlate to a significant difference in women and technology (that is, if differences such as IQ are a limiting factor, removing all sexism against women would still result in more men in STEM). This is true before we even account for women simply making the life choice to NOT be stuck in a tiny cubicle working excessive hours and weekends due to a salaried job while dealing with a pointy-haired boss who has the personality of an agitated wolverine. My mother chose to step out of the rat race and spend time with her children as we grew up (and my father picked up the slack -- despite it's effect on our relationship). When we were gone and she decided to go back to work, she needed to go back to college again because CS changes a lot in a very short time. I suspect that many other women face similar choices and make similar decisions (or simply opt to never try because those intelligent enough to do the job are more likely to make that life choice before entering college).

orionblastar 12y ago

In order to learn how to program, you have to have an interest in learning how to program. When I grew up in the 1980's girls and women didn't have an interest in learning how to program as much as boys or men had. When I went to UM Rolla in 1986 there were very few women in my computer science classes, and for some reason they were most likely to drop out of college before freshman year or change to a different university or different major. I asked and I was told that the classes were designed for males to learn, but not for females to learn. That because of this women and girls had a harder time to learn math and science because the books were written by men and not women and thus were sexist. That I am only a programmer because I have this male privilege? I really don't know what to say about that, I always thought males and females had the same potential to learn, and never thought of any book I read or class I took as sexist towards women and girls. But now more and more women are taking arts degrees instead of science and majoring in women's studies, politics, communications, and other areas. Just because they don't study computer science does not mean they aren't smart, just smart in other areas. They never developed an interest in learning how to code and I don't know why.