[Edu-sig] My Opinion

[David Scherer]

Katherine wrote:

> I recently read with interest an article called "Why
> Women Aren't Hackers" well written by Dorothea Salo.
> One of her many points was that there was a low
> percentage of females in the computer science field.
> I am curious as to why.

Carnegie Mellon has studied the problem:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~gendergap/Reports.html
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~gendergap/working.html

So has MIT:

http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/ellens/Gender/pap/pap.html

Here's a somewhat relevant student project:

http://cse.stanford.edu/classes/cs201/Projects/gender-gap-in-education/

and another paper:

http://www.resnet.wm.edu/~slharr/WomenCsci.html

This issue does get attention, but there isn't widespread agreement about
how it can be solved.  Unfortunately, it can be hard to separate cause from
effect in a positive feedback loop.

I hope there is some way for CP4E to help.  Unfortunately, improving
computer science classes isn't likely to help much, because there aren't
many women IN the classes.

I'm in a CS program now, but I learned programming and became interested in
computer science on my own.  In fact, I received my first programming
lessons in BASIC from a woman (my aunt).  Does anyone have ideas about how
to reach women *outside* school?

Dave