Why are there so few girls in programming?
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Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
But part again is encouragement. Women are discouraged from IT careers by A) overzealous male IT students B) social stereotypes of adults C)social stereotypes of peers.
I doubt that any teen fully realizes the impact of all these things in a high school level. I'd wager it would be more to do with other factors in regards to individuality of each gender. Jeremy Falcon
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
I doubt that any teen doesn't fully realize the impact of all these things in a high school level. I'd wager it would be more to do with other factors in regards to individuality of each gender.
I doubt any teen consciously considers them. But high school and middle school students can be expressively cruel. No one chooses to be the school cast-outs. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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code-frog wrote:
As I was going through it though I had to take a C programming class and the counselor told me not to do it he said do something else C programming is too hard. I looked at him and said what can be so hard about it? He said, don't do it.
Geeze, what a lousy counselor; he probably flunked at it I bet. You're like me though, if someone says I can't I tell them "just watch me" - well assume I want to that is. I got a D in my CompSci class actually. I passed up the teacher within the first semester and started correcting her in class (big mistake). I got bored with the stupid assignments (if Joe bought 5 apples kinda crap) and didn't do my work. I had a F, but at the end of the year wrote her a black jack and math trivia game to her in her other class, so she had mercy on me and passed me with a D. Those were the days.
code-frog wrote:
I got an A
Good for you.
code-frog wrote:
I'll never forget my first program either.
What hooked me in was I met a friend that made a game called "Invasion of the Pac-Man planet. It was a cheesy side-scroller in DOS that had pac-man shooting the ghosts with missiles. But still, to watch this cheesy game and talk to the guy that actually made it, made that world seem so much more doable.
code-frog wrote:
I loved that class and still have the book. K & R BABY!!!
I wish K&R was my first class. I started with QBasic, but I try not to let that get out much. :laugh: Jeremy Falcon
My counselor was a Mechanical Engineer. If programming was his thing he would have done it instead. No fault to him from trying to steer me from rocks that claimed the GPA of many another ME major.
"You have an arrow in your butt!" - Fiona:cool:
Welcome to CP in your language. Post the unicode version in My CP Blog [ ^ ] now.People who don't understand how awesome Firefox is have never used CPhog[^]CPhog. The act of using CPhog (Firefox)[^] alone doesn't make Firefox cool. It opens your eyes to the possibilities and then you start looking for other things like CPhog (Firefox)[^] and your eyes are suddenly open to all sorts of useful things all through Firefox. - (Self Quote)
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Jeremy Falcon wrote:
I doubt that any teen doesn't fully realize the impact of all these things in a high school level. I'd wager it would be more to do with other factors in regards to individuality of each gender.
I doubt any teen consciously considers them. But high school and middle school students can be expressively cruel. No one chooses to be the school cast-outs. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
I doubt any teen consciously considers them. But high school and middle school students can be expressively cruel. No one chooses to be the school cast-outs.
I doubt this. CP offers a great explanation. Just look at how they embrace a real, live girl on CP. Why should this be any different in grade school? And if they are not picked on by the other coders, one *would* think they would find solace if they are that susceptible to being teased. But, since they don't flock to the world of programming I'm still inclined to believe that the potential of being socially ostracized would wouldn't stop them. After all, a fair amount of girls do join band, the term "band nerd" does exist for a reason. You don't see them stopping band do you? [edit] One day I'll learn to type. :laugh: [/edit] Jeremy Falcon
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Okay, I'm a girl and I like programming. I'm not very good at it yet, but I do like it. I've done research on women in science and the number of girls going into "computer" (whether programming, IT, etc.) keeps dropping significantly every year. For those of you with a formal education I'm curious how many girls you had in classes, how they acted (shy? open for discussion?), ethnic diversity (we had a few foreign girls but i was the only "white" girl in most of my classes.) But why do you think so few girls go into programming/computers? Other girls please give your feedback!
I think that should be from your perspective. India, in IT at least, presents a more broader picture with more opportunities for girls in programming. There are tangible evidences for this, as you flip through the daily newspapers or weblogs too. Even the matrimonial advertisements that you can check out in regional news papers in Chennai, you can find that there are a lot of girls in top positions and looking out for on par life partners. Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage namespace LavanyaDeepak
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The World of Deepak and Lavanya
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My counselor was a Mechanical Engineer. If programming was his thing he would have done it instead. No fault to him from trying to steer me from rocks that claimed the GPA of many another ME major.
"You have an arrow in your butt!" - Fiona:cool:
Welcome to CP in your language. Post the unicode version in My CP Blog [ ^ ] now.People who don't understand how awesome Firefox is have never used CPhog[^]CPhog. The act of using CPhog (Firefox)[^] alone doesn't make Firefox cool. It opens your eyes to the possibilities and then you start looking for other things like CPhog (Firefox)[^] and your eyes are suddenly open to all sorts of useful things all through Firefox. - (Self Quote)
Hey, that was a perfectly good rant I had brewing that you just ruined. ;P Jeremy Falcon
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Okay, I'm a girl and I like programming. I'm not very good at it yet, but I do like it. I've done research on women in science and the number of girls going into "computer" (whether programming, IT, etc.) keeps dropping significantly every year. For those of you with a formal education I'm curious how many girls you had in classes, how they acted (shy? open for discussion?), ethnic diversity (we had a few foreign girls but i was the only "white" girl in most of my classes.) But why do you think so few girls go into programming/computers? Other girls please give your feedback!
That is an interesting question. I propose that we get you, me and as many of the other female CPians that are interested in this topic to meet in person, for about 5 days to discuss the issue.
"Just about every question you've asked over the last 3-4 days has been "urgent". Perhaps a little planning would be helpful?"
Colin Angus Mackay in the C# forumled mike
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I think that should be from your perspective. India, in IT at least, presents a more broader picture with more opportunities for girls in programming. There are tangible evidences for this, as you flip through the daily newspapers or weblogs too. Even the matrimonial advertisements that you can check out in regional news papers in Chennai, you can find that there are a lot of girls in top positions and looking out for on par life partners. Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage namespace LavanyaDeepak
Personal Weblog
The World of Deepak and Lavanya
ViewPoint 24x7 -
leckey wrote:
Okay, I'm a girl and I like programming.
Sorry, i don't buy it. Hardly any girls like programming, everyone knows that - but plenty of programmers like to play fast and lose with the sex of their online personas. I suspect you are merely one of the latter... :suss:
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Shog9 wrote:
plenty of programmers like to play fast and lose with the sex of their online personas
Please don't tell me you are really a girl! :~ :laugh::laugh::laugh:
"Just about every question you've asked over the last 3-4 days has been "urgent". Perhaps a little planning would be helpful?"
Colin Angus Mackay in the C# forumled mike
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The numbers are even worse in electrical engineering I remember when I was in school there were 65 guys an 2 to 4 girls in most of my core EE classes. John
John M. Drescher wrote:
The numbers are even worse in electrical engineering
yep, I have seen that too. One big surprise for me was the civil engineering class in undergrad. Some how we had 2 clsses for civil engineering, where as one for every other field. One of the civil eng. class had more than 80% girls and other one had 40-60 or may be 50-50 girls and guys. I can't explain that now :-D Ankita
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That is an interesting question. I propose that we get you, me and as many of the other female CPians that are interested in this topic to meet in person, for about 5 days to discuss the issue.
"Just about every question you've asked over the last 3-4 days has been "urgent". Perhaps a little planning would be helpful?"
Colin Angus Mackay in the C# forumled mike
led mike wrote:
I propose that we get you, me and as many of the other female CPians that are interested in this topic to meet in person
And yet in your profile you keep on referring to yourself as "He". Yeah, women do that all the time. :doh: Jeremy Falcon
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Okay, I'm a girl and I like programming. I'm not very good at it yet, but I do like it. I've done research on women in science and the number of girls going into "computer" (whether programming, IT, etc.) keeps dropping significantly every year. For those of you with a formal education I'm curious how many girls you had in classes, how they acted (shy? open for discussion?), ethnic diversity (we had a few foreign girls but i was the only "white" girl in most of my classes.) But why do you think so few girls go into programming/computers? Other girls please give your feedback!
Try of the places I have worked had females. The first place had a few and they seemed to well, but where not aggressive in their work, much more willing to listen and produce what they were assigned. Many of the males where more likely to enhance the designs and push more. The other place I worked that had females, had only one but that was 1/5 the developers :) She was much like the females at the other shop that had them, in that she would build to spec and not go outside that spec usually. She was a really good and fast developer, she could crank out the code and do repetitious work that most of us did not like. The only battles there on design came from the male developers :) So far, my view of female developers have been a positive one! Rocky <>< Latest Post: Visual Studio 2005 Standard, whats missing? Blog: www.RockyMoore.com/TheCoder/[^]
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Okay, I'm a girl and I like programming. I'm not very good at it yet, but I do like it. I've done research on women in science and the number of girls going into "computer" (whether programming, IT, etc.) keeps dropping significantly every year. For those of you with a formal education I'm curious how many girls you had in classes, how they acted (shy? open for discussion?), ethnic diversity (we had a few foreign girls but i was the only "white" girl in most of my classes.) But why do you think so few girls go into programming/computers? Other girls please give your feedback!
leckey wrote:
But why do you think so few girls go into programming/computers?
Coz most of them don't like programming? :rolleyes: --- With best regards, A Manchester United Fan The Genius of a true fool is that he can mess up a foolproof plan!
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Okay, I'm a girl and I like programming. I'm not very good at it yet, but I do like it. I've done research on women in science and the number of girls going into "computer" (whether programming, IT, etc.) keeps dropping significantly every year. For those of you with a formal education I'm curious how many girls you had in classes, how they acted (shy? open for discussion?), ethnic diversity (we had a few foreign girls but i was the only "white" girl in most of my classes.) But why do you think so few girls go into programming/computers? Other girls please give your feedback!
leckey wrote:
how many girls you had in classes
A while back, when I learned the profession Fachinformatiker[^] (German word for somebody who learned an IT job for three years in a company an a school), we were five girls in my class, and about 20 or 25 boys. Two of the girls didn't get it and don't work in IT anymore. Today I'm just about to finish the next part of german IT education, in a few days I'm going to be Techniker für Informatik[^]. When the class started four years ago, we were five girls, two of them left the school during the first year, the third one left in her second year. So we are only two girls (and six boys) who'll leave the school with the full certification. One of the boys wants to go to university. All others are happy to be finished with that stuff. Seven years of IT school seem short, now, when looking back ... but it must have been hard enough to reduce the size of our class from 28 (first day) down to 8 (people you actually did the final exams).
leckey wrote:
why do you think so few girls go into programming
Most of the girls I know have more social and less technical interests, and they have strange ideas about the IT business. They say they want to work with people, or that they don't understand all that tech stuff. Well, an IT worker has a lot to do with people, software is only there to be used by people - anyway, the image of the pale hacker in front of the screen seems to be programmed into girl's minds. Another point is that most of the girls I kno think that programming would be complicated and hard to understand. They are afraid of the "challenge" ... lazy and badly informed are those ladies... Anyway, we cannot force girls to do programming. If they don't like computer, well, let them do the low paid "women's
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But still the number is pretty less if you think about programming. Best Regards, Apurva Kaushal
In a way yes. Perhaps, it is by law of nature too. Even after joining work, females shoulder a lot of family responsibilities, which reduces thier contribution on par with thier male counterparts. Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage namespace LavanyaDeepak
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The World of Deepak and Lavanya
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leckey wrote:
But why do you think so few girls go into programming/computers?
Coz most of them don't like programming? :rolleyes: --- With best regards, A Manchester United Fan The Genius of a true fool is that he can mess up a foolproof plan!
Yes, that's a fact. But why don't they like programming? _____________________________________________________________________________ I don't expect too much, all I want is your vote for Halbsichtigkeit.
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led mike wrote:
I propose that we get you, me and as many of the other female CPians that are interested in this topic to meet in person
And yet in your profile you keep on referring to yourself as "He". Yeah, women do that all the time. :doh: Jeremy Falcon
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In a way yes. Perhaps, it is by law of nature too. Even after joining work, females shoulder a lot of family responsibilities, which reduces thier contribution on par with thier male counterparts. Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage namespace LavanyaDeepak
Personal Weblog
The World of Deepak and Lavanya
ViewPoint 24x7 -
apurva kaushal wrote:
but the things are changing rapidly
Yes... In 'Leaps and Bounds' :rose: Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage namespace LavanyaDeepak
Personal Weblog
The World of Deepak and Lavanya
ViewPoint 24x7 -
Okay, I'm a girl and I like programming. I'm not very good at it yet, but I do like it. I've done research on women in science and the number of girls going into "computer" (whether programming, IT, etc.) keeps dropping significantly every year. For those of you with a formal education I'm curious how many girls you had in classes, how they acted (shy? open for discussion?), ethnic diversity (we had a few foreign girls but i was the only "white" girl in most of my classes.) But why do you think so few girls go into programming/computers? Other girls please give your feedback!
Because nature and nurture conspire against them. Just this week I read a med sci piece on some bit of the brain that lights up like a christmas tree in autistic idiots savant and not at all in women, with blokes in the middle and nerdy engineers lighting up more than usual. That said, of the two (count them, two of forty) women in my computing course fifteen years ago, one was an oxygen thief and the other was so good it was scary. And she was a natural blonde with a radiant smile and a body to die for, with nice perky, oh wait wrong type of website. But you get the gist. I feel that we let down engineers everywhere when we failed to capture and clone her. Imagine, if you will, a world of hot chicks who like pizza, video games, programming computers and building gadgets, rode around on a trailbike... man, she even brewed her own beer! -- modified at 2:04 Thursday 22nd June, 2006
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leckey wrote:
Okay, I'm a girl and I like programming.
Sorry, i don't buy it. Hardly any girls like programming, everyone knows that - but plenty of programmers like to play fast and lose with the sex of their online personas. I suspect you are merely one of the latter... :suss:
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Hardly. But I personally know one who prefers programming to any other stuff. She's a bit tomboyish though, very independent, doesn't like make-ups and likes to wear her pants jeans. (No, she's not lesbian). "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner" - Ross Edbert Sydney, Australia