Sex and STEM: Stubborn Facts and Stubborn Ideologies

>>andren+(OP)
Once again: compared to other STEM fields, women participate less in CS than any other field except physics. By double digits percentage more in mathematics PhDs. Statistics is almost 50/50. Several rigorous earth sciences fields --- chem and biochem, for instance --- have 50% or greater female participation.

One thing all these fields have in common is that they are more intellectually rigorous and harder to succeed in than the computer software industry.

Clearly, they have something else in common. We just need to figure out what it is.

This essay, which invokes the "Google Memo", is subtly attacking a straw man. Even those almost the entire rest of STEM is better than CS, it's true that it's not balanced; it remains deeply imperfect. Physics and mechanical engineering, clustered with CS, remain the province of men. There's a expanse of STEM fields with female participation between 25-40% that you'd want to explain or correct. Is it stereotype threat? Implicit bias? Who knows? Probably not?

But that has nothing to do with why Google has so few women engineers. The work that a commercial software engineer does --- even at the lofty heights in which the profession is practiced in such a cathedral of software design as the Alphabet Corporation --- is simply not that hard; most of it is just wiring form fields to databases in new and exciting ways.

Whatever is holding women's participation in our field at or below twenty percent is artificial, and a travesty.

>>tptace+Ti
Artificial? I would say cultural. I would surely like there to be more women in CS. There are literally no women at my office, and the only women I met for the last six months are from HR. I am single, and so is about 50% of my coworkers - this is not a particularly good position to be in on the 'relationship market'.

On the other hand, I can't blame women for not wanting my job. IT has a reputation for attracting white, male, introvert nerds - and like many prejudices, there is some truth in this even if this is only because of the self-fulfilling aspect of it (I certainly do conform to this stereotype to some extent). It has been shown that females are generally more attracted to fields evolving around social interaction - and IT has quite a bit of the opposite reputation.

If we compare the situation in CS with the situation in sports the situation does stop appearing to be problematic. We never get worked up about the lack of male cheerleaders, ballerino's (have you even heard that word before?), or that few women play football. I fail to see the point of getting worked up about this specific example of inequality of participation.

>>meuk+Vv
> "I would surely like there to be more women in CS. There are literally no women at my office, and the only women I met for the last six months are from HR. I am single, and so is about 50% of my coworkers - this is not a particularly good position to be in on the 'relationship market'."

The workplace shouldn't be your dating pool...

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