The lack of women in CS is a problem because the CS field is missing out. There are a whole lot of intelligent women that could make important breakthroughs. The field is slowed because half the population is discouraged from joining it.
I agree, but there's a second half that people need to consider. CS is missing out on women, but are women missing out on CS?
To paraphrase Phil Greenspun (from the "women in science" essay), we need to ask if CS "is a sufficiently good career that people should debate who is privileged enough to work at it?"
CS at a reputable university is hard. Seriously, seriously hard. I have no doubt that people who can handle this can also handle the academic rigor of a bio major followed by med school, and they sure as hell can handle an econ major followed by an MBA, or sociology major followed by law school.
So I'd start by asking: what are the women who are able to do CS doing instead, and would it be in their better interest to stop doing that and study CS?
This, I think is the central problem. It seems that most of the really really intelligent women I know have gone into other fields than CS because that's where their interests lie. CS simply wasn't a fulfillment of their interests not some more nefarious discrimination problem.
Mindlessly repeating internet memes for one (except in Soviet Russia, where meme repeats you). That's at least 50% of internet humor. Obscure references, as well. It's a type of humor that makes no sense unless you're immersed in the culture.
And even when it makes sense it can be pretty damned tedious. (Of course, for the "joke" to be anything other than self-indulgent the reference can't be all that obscure, so what's the point?)
The convergence of "geek culture" and "internet culture" is one of my big complaints. lolcats were funny for about 5 minutes.
Would as much code get written if the industry was more socially mainstream? Would it be less but better or just less? There's no denying that the lone geek (male or female) staying up late gets an awful lot done.
The easy answer is: because they're missing at far higher rates than 'other intelligent men'.
But the deeper answer is: because western society thought we'd already patched that one. We had a long history of actively discriminating against women. But despite creating a stigma around that sort of behavior and 'officially' banning it, gender representation in our particular corner of society hasn't changed all that much. Not even the modest amount that other sectors have seen.
So the question of "where are the women" isn't only about the women, but about our seeming inability to fix society just by joining hands, singing kumbaya and declaring change.
If we'd gone through the trouble of a social movement to kick an industry bias against, say, stereotypical jocks, extroverts, or guys-who-know-how-to-talk-to-girls, then I suppose people would pay more attention to why those groups are still under-represented too.
Women are treated differently in bad ways, but it's by their mothers mostly. Nothing to do with CS.
As you point out, various personality types are underrepresented in CS. The particular ones that are highly represented are less common in women. There is a reason for that, and yes it's bad, but the personality type distribution among women in general has nothing to do with CS.
PS My theory on feminism is that it said, "Men must reform." And so they reformed some. Meanwhile it did nothing to help women. Hence women are now worse than men.
It's a rather broad resource, but to be honest I'm just starting to get into the subject. My earlier snarkiness was caused by frustration at how quickly people are willing to dismiss feminism or make sweeping generalisations about it, without bothering to learn much about it.
What are you talking about? Helping men improve is a great thing. I complimented feminism and took a position claiming it's had significant success. It didn't have the results it expected, but that doesn't make them less good.
It looked to me like you were saying that feminism has/had nothing to say about how women reinforce patriarchal norms, or that it focusses on men's behaviour much more than on women's. That's simply not true.
Sorry if I've overreacted, the comments on this article have made me hyper-sensitive.
