That’s it, no more Slashdot gender stories for me. The latest one, about the dearth of women in computer science, got me so riled up that I actually posted a comment. Of course, my little anonymous remark never got modded up and sank into oblivion. So it goes.
What drove me to respond was, after reading nothing but comments saying “Men and women are different, you can’t expect them to be interested in the same things” and “There’s nothing keeping women from entering the field, why force it?” and “Don’t cater to women by dumbing down CS!” and “Women are just too smart to pursue careers in IT”, seeing a lone commenter completely mystified as to why so few North American women entered the field compared to their Asian counterparts. I wonder why? It couldn’t have anything to do with the overwhelming opinion that the absence of women is the natural state of affairs, could it?
But why should I care? I’m not a Slashdotter or in tech or comp sci. I’ve got no dog in this fight — better not to get into it in the first place.
Come for the rock, stay for the klezmer.
My ignorance in programming is what drove me from CS.
The “introductory” class for CS at my alma mater was a Java class. Very intimidating for even experienced coders, let alone complete beginners like me. (I’d written some BASIC programs, but most of my skill was in HTML. Not a programming language, but all I knew nonetheless.)
I went to computer camp for many years, but found I enjoyed the geek culture there more than programming. ::shrug::
I think the best answer to getting women into CS would be better education earlier on. If I’d been learning C++ in middle school, I might have a very different job than I do now. Or at least, a different paycheck. ;)