winscape 2198

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I think the decline is real, or at least it's the common perception among CS educators. It sure doesn't seem to be changing in the direction of more women, at least in the 30-something years I've been in the field. "Why are there so few women in CS?" is a perennial topic of discussion in academic CS departments, and probably elsewhere as well. No one seems to have definite answers, but it seems to be self-perpetuating to some extent -- not many women in the field means young women don't think it's a suitable field for them, hence not many women in the field ....

The theories I hear that make sense to me have to do with perceptions that CS is about having poor social skills and no life outside the computer lab, which apparently bothers young women more than young men, or a culture of intimidation, in which young women buttume that their male peers know a lot more than they (the women) do, based more on their ability to project self-confidence than on any actual facts. A fellow female academic says she almost dropped out of one of her first computer clbuttes because she figured based on chatter in the lab that all the guys knew far more than she ever would -- and then she found out how her grades compared to theirs. Not that grades necessarily tell the whole story, but.

But that's enough rambling. There is lots of literature out there on this subject, which I'm too slack right now to try to summarize or provide a bibliography for.

So .... It's okay for guys to compete with guys (which they do), or gals to compete with gals (which they do, though not in the same ways as guys versus guys), but somehow it's bad for guys to compete with gals and vice versa? I don't get it.

How so (on monitor guru-ness being the guys' area)?

-- B. L. Mbuttingill ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.