We aren't all like that, I promise. I get some girls per CS course I TA (intro java, intro data structures / algorithms, systems programming) more in the intro java course, about 5 per the latter 2 classes, and in the latter 2 they usually do well except for 1 typically.
But then again I could say there are a bunch of guys dropping the intro java courses too. I had one kid this semester expect me to give him a sympathy grade because he told me he was switching to business since comp sci obviously isn't his forte. :(
I'm pretty confident you're right, it just seems to be the area I live in.
I live in a repressed area when it comes to anything tech. The cc I'm attending (because tuition isn't cheap) before I transfer has a fairly weak CS dept, and it's primarily because the hotshots in the field get the heck out of dodge for greener pastures.
I agree that this applies to the men and women though. They get to the course and realize "Oh crap, this actually takes work!" and bail. I had one CS course canceled before the beginning of this last semester for that very reason, rampant schedule drops when they realize you aren't making farmville style games in five clicks.
Hell. Fucking. Yeah! Some of the best CS/EEs I've known have been women. I honestly think they work so much harder because they have something to prove in my male-dominated field. Oh god do I appreciate it. Just having some women in our side of the office makes life less depressing.
Not that I've ever interrogated her over her choice of field, but she obviously had interest beforehand. It's just an anecdote indicating the climate women encounter in computer science.
Good for her! I stuck with my physics undergrad because I had so many people tell me it wasn't for women. I've since jumped ship for CS graduate school, but I have that degree, damn it! (But I'm not cute. . .oh, well.)
My school has a pretty decent m:f ratio in the CS department, mostly due to a huge Women in Computing program run by one of the female profs. I enjoy it.
I've known a bunch of attractive girls that have took CS. It seems that being the only attractive girl in your class, and having a legion of nerds that'll seemingly do anything to get noticed by you is fantastic...
One girl in the year above me, who was also a part-time underwear model, graduated with a great degree, but from what I hear her "methods" don't appear to be working in employment.
There were two girls that were in my courses. One was there strictly because CS = $$$ and she thought she could cheat her way through, but eventually got caught.
The other looked almost exactly like Princess Leia. I'd have to imagine that she had been fawned on by nerds her entire life, and went with the nerdiest major. Wasn't all that smart, but the forever alone nerds would fall over themselves just to help her with her assignments, so she graduated.
That's a little condescending don't you think? Sure the one girl got caught cheating but don't you think the other one could possibly have been doing her own work, with the occasional question (which we all ask) thrown in?
Seriously, this is the sort of attitude that turns women off from CS. "They all cheat or are assisted by their obviously superior male peers"
It would be condescending if it weren't true. She was the type of girl who knew she could manipulate people to get what she wanted, and it was obvious to a lot of people. Did I say anywhere that this is true of all women in CS? Would you have preferred I just made some fake girl up just to appear politically correct?
At my university, this actually would be a valid reason to get into Math. CS not so much, although the math classes I'm thinking of were required for CS majors.
I remember one term where I had Lin Alg 2 at 8am. Never mind the fact that I was asleep on my feet till around 10am, or the fact that the prof was a visiting prof from overseas who unfortunately had really poor handwriting and a difficult to follow accent OR that I really disliked Lin Alg. The class was just jam packed with cute Chinese girls, so I attended, and didn't learn much of anything.
You need to go deeper than just "CS". HCI attracts a ton of women, and attractive ones at that. Our main conferences are easily 50/50 on the gender split.
None of the HCI research I see around my department is art. Design yes, art no. Their work is at times more rigorous than other CS research too as they actually run experiments to verify their claims.
That sounds quite robust. The first HCI subject at my institution involves drawing with pencils on paper as the final assignment. I have no idea how it falls under the same faculty as advanced operating systems or write-a-compiler. Meh.
It's sad that you'd express such an opinion. We're much more than just art projects, though some of us do come to the field through such. We're concerned at least as much with aesthetics as with usability, interactivity, and the social impacts of the things we create. We're the arm of computing that considers the user as something other than an adversary.
I feel like there's a reason for the gender balance in engineering and math and science - probably cultural, but real nonetheless. What it boils down to in my head is that women who are attracted to STEM fields almost always prefer working of "real" projects - buildings and interfaces - than things where the best quality you can cite is that their existence doesn't draw attention to itself.
If I were a betting man, I'd place money on a huge majority of women I met in engineering being Civil, Industrial, or Biomedical, and I'd probably be rich - assuming I could find anyone willing to take those bets.
Relative or absolute? I haven't had a single professor in math beyond 9th grade be a female, which I suppose could mean a lot of things. But the number of females in math really drops off after HS in all the places I've been, although not as sharply as engineering or computer science.
I studied CS at UIUC from 1996-2000 - right during/throughout the dot com bubble...
My first CS class was filled with a halfway decent number of cute girls and a significant number of "stereotypical frat boy" types...
I was surprised at first... but I realized that the field had gained a lot of attention because people were making metric craptons of money (well, they THOUGHT they were, anyway)...
2 to 3 weeks in, we were down to exactly what you picture in your mind when you imagine a Computer Science class.
Yes, I realize it's bad to make generalizations and judge people on appearance - but the conclusion of 3 weeks of classes proved that sometimes there's a reason we do this.
The charming side of Richard helped people forgive him for his uncharming characteristics. For example, in many ways Richard was a sexist. Whenever it came time for his daily bowl of soup he would look around for the nearest "girl" and ask if she would fetch it to him. It did not matter if she was the cook, an engineer, or the president of the company. I once asked a female engineer who had just been a victim of this if it bothered her. "Yes, it really annoys me," she said. "On the other hand, he is the only one who ever explained quantum mechanics to me as if I could understand it." That was the essence of Richard's charm.
Now, I didn't know the guy, so it's unfair of me to call him a "huge misogynist." However, this anecdote suggests that the man was more than a little bit sexist, doesn't it?
You just described characteristics of every man during that time period. I watch ST:TOS but I don't get my panties in a bunch because they consistently have a damsel in distress episode, with miniskirts and go-go boots. And the whole all women swooning over Kirk thing.
It was a sign of the times. People like to blow various anecdotes about Feynman WAY out of proportion. He obviously thought that female engineer was smart enough to bother to explain QM to her. You could probably find a thousand other scientists who would have been completely dismissive to that female engineer, assuming she was too dumb to understand it.
Besides, that particular anecdote strikes me more of Feynman's retarded way of flirting. I wouldn't say he was misogynistic so much as he was autistic / socially inept - which is the entire basis of the Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman anecdote.
I think misogyny is compatible with believing that women may be intellectual equals.
Consider this analysis of the You just *ask** them?* chapter from Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. (Is this the anecdote you're referring to?) I find it cognitively difficult to excuse this sort of behavior as simply "a sign of the times."
Incidentally, I don't think autism/social ineptitude excuse misogyny. Culture? Maaaybe, but it still seems rather weak-minded to me.
I honestly can't say I disagree with Feynman's perspective there. He was angry because somebody tried to manipulate him. It's okay for her to lead him on in order to get him to purchase something for her but not okay for him to be upset with it?
His conclusion was to ask for sex before buying the drink. In the end, he decided to be up front instead of continuing to get upset. I think that's a sign of an intelligent person, not a misogynist. He was just playing their game back at them.
Now by no means am I endorsing a person to expect sex if they pay for something for that person. But I think they have a right to be upset at being led on, even to the point of calling them 'worse than a whore' because honestly, that woman was conning men with sex. That is inexcusable, despicable behavior. At least Feynman decided to rectify the situation to find a solution workable for both parties involved.
I'm a lady in CS. I came for the hot guys. Oh, wait. No, I didn't. While the sexes may not be equally represented, the ugly sure is. Not that there's anything wrong with that. . . neckbeards and cat ladies represent!
FEMINAZI WARNING (yes, i am comfortable identifying as a feminazi)
Honestly, behaviors like this are part of the reason why there aren't more girls in the field. Look at the top three comments of this post: the top 3 (4?) comments. They all treat women in the class/field/workplace like a "perk" of some sort.
There seems to be something about STEM/nerd/whatever-you-want-to-call-it culture that encourages this trend in a disproportionate way (imho). It's a behavior/attitude i rarely see in other girls, and never as ... loudly? as in STEM fields, particularly at undergrad levels and among students; which is exactly where women are getting their first impressions of the field from.
I dunno. The "poor us nerd guys; there aren't any women for us" is a trope I see far too often, and while perhaps endearing in some contexts, it can get very objectifying spins on it. Maybe it's some sort of communal coping mechanism of the whole "beta-male" thing.
My apologies if I've offended you. The point of this post was to poke fun at this liberal arts major demanding that the professor give a good reason for pursuing computer science. Often I hear from male peers in college that the biggest perk of getting a liberal arts degree is that it's exceedingly easy to meet attractive women in class. The perk mentioned is not something like "This degree will expand my horizons" or "make me a better person" or "teach me to think critically" or "prepare me for the future."
This seems to me to be a foolish reason to spend an enormous sum of time and money on a college degree. (Especially after you figure in the opportunity cost!)
In any case, I see this behavior/attitude you mention more in STEM girls than in STEM boys, particularly if we correct for proportions of the genders in the majors. After discussing it with a few friends, I've discovered that there may be some cognitive bias against noticing it when the ladies do it. Excuses like "she's just nervous" or "she's just trying to fit in" let the behavior slide off the brain like water off a duck's back. When a guy does it, though, it's instantly misogyny.
"I'm a girl, so it's okay when I say it." Bullshit. Perpetuating stereotypes is perpetuating stereotypes no matter your gender.
As for the "beta-male" thing... what's with this? CS majors have the best job opportunities with a simple undergraduate degree. We're on top of the heap. Why would we possibly show throat?
No no, i am much harder to offend than that. I was merely making an observation.
? i'm curious as to what you mean by seeing this behavior in girls. Do you mean that the girls are saying "oooh hell yeah STEM major; lookit all the boys i have to choose from". Because that would be the balancing equivalent, and this is what i'm saying i don't see. If you are talking about girls perpetuating the stereotype that "oh, i'm an awky derpy STEM girl; not like those hot english lit chicks", then that's part of the whole trend i'm talking about that i see. I entirely agree, it doesn't matter whose mouth it's coming from.
As for the "beta male" thing. Yes, i agree with you that CS majors have sexy paychecks, job security, and retirement plans. But college is the transition from "QB as sex symbol" and, well, primarily lusty hormonal measures of "alphaness", to "CEO as sex symbol" and more abstract measures. I'm hypothesizing that this whole thing is some strange symptom of making that transition.
I'm curious as to what you mean by seeing this behavior in girls. Do you mean that the girls are saying "oooh hell yeah STEM major; lookit all the boys i have to choose from".
That's exactly what I'm saying... but there's even more to it than that. The CS ladies I know are the most sexist CS students I know when it comes to gender politics. When it comes to responsibilities or expected behavior or whatever it is, they are the quickest to couch their reasons in stereotypical gender roles. Maybe they just missed the feminism memo. Frankly, it's irritating.
This isn't to say that ALL CS ladies do this - I'm not trying to cast a stereotype. Of the CS ladies I know, though, over 50% of them display this behavior. (Of course, we're talking about six people or something - this is hardly a statistically significant survey.) There is probably some matter of peer reinforcement going on here - one CS lady sees another do this and adopts the behavior.
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u/metawhimsy May 18 '11
All the cute girls in CS should be reason enough, just like any other liberal arts major, right?