Indeed, the core problem facing women who want to advance in academe appears to be at research universities. The higher up the academic-prestige ladder a university is, the fewer women it usually has in tenured faculty positions. Research released this year shows that while the nation is doing a good job of turning out women with research doctorates, the top 50 institutions in research spending are not doing such a good job of hiring them. —Robin Wilson —Where the Elite Teach, It’s Still a Man’s World (Chronicle)
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Women are in general more suited for academic life.
A man is not born to be a book worm.
Professions suited for a man is a taxi driver, cop, military
etc etc. However computing and enginering are academic branches most suited for men. Men like to build bridges, houses software etc. The women are smarter than men and more emotional. They can have their emotions.
No problem at all, Dennis. I speak as a researcher in software marketing as well as an IT project manager; been up against the gender thing for some time and I can see it continuing with my daughter's generation.
Robert Scoble recently asked from his blog Scobleizer about getting kids more interested in science and technology; the replies he got were overwhelmingly from men, advocating from men's perspective. Concerns me that the echo chamber continues even when individuals try to reach out -- in this case, it was an opportunity for Microsoft that might well perpetuate its current culture instead of changing or improving it. More blue screens for everyone...
Rayne, thanks for that passionate and informative response. If you hadn't already put it on my blog, I'd have blogged it!
I beg to differ with Will. Many women I know love research; it's not about their interest in the topic. It starts much earlier than the point of hiring. We lose women in the sciences in grade school, just before or at puberty. Here are just a few resources for consideration:
The Incredible Shrinking Pipeline
http://www.mines.edu/fs_home/tcamp/cacm/paper.html
Educational Pipeline Issues for Women
http://www.mills.edu/ACAD_INFO/MCS/SPERTUS/Gender/pipeline.html
Women in Computer Sciences:
Closing the Gender Gap in Higher Education
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/index.html
The critical shortage of women in IT
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/1999/1122women.html
Note carefully that last article; although written in 1999, I still see some of the very same influences at work on my own 10-year-old daughter. At prepuberty there is much pressure on girls and boys to conform to certain norms. Much of this is part of their current level of maturation, where they are learning who and what they are as evolving young men and women. But this phase is not being shaped much by their grade school educators or even their parents; children at this age receive far more coaxing to participate in sports than they do in the sciences. In the case of girls, they have virtually nothing that competes for their attention that is based in science. Hence the greatly increased participation in sports by girls over the last couple of decades -- and a continued flat to falling interest in science by the same.
As an example in my own school system, girls can participate in intramural programs like American Girls or sports or crafts; a Lego team is available to them, but since boys overwhelming dominate the team, girls are more reluctant to participate. The school makes no effort to promote the Lego team to girls, nor is there any overt effort by the school to socially norm sciences as being open to either gender. What becomes of a girl like my daughter, who dearly loves to research topics and enjoys the thrill of hunting for a solution, were she not to have an understanding advocate like me?
At this rate it will be at least another generation before the pipeline is fixed. It's not because of the lack of social networking; it's about social norming.
As parents of girls we need to do more to promote the sciences to our daughters, provide them with role models (scant though they may be). Sally Ride Club is one opportunity, as is active encouragement to participate in the FIRSTUSA Lego competition. We need to be conscious of the focus it must take young women to ignore social pressures in order to become science majors; we need to do more to make them comfortable with being a geek, take pride in it. We need to get them past stereotypes that tell them science and research aren't for them.
Our failure to deal with this lack of diversity may critically impact our bottom line. Every time I get a blue screen of death using a Microsoft product, I wonder to myself how many women were on the team that designed the product...with a broader range of perspective, would there be as many product design failures?
While this may be true, it may also be worthwhile to consider that there may be some reasons why this is. Perhaps women aren't quite as interested in research, as females as a group tend to like more social things.
At least, that's my best theory as to why there are so few women in the programming field.