[Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL

Sun Oct 9 03:31:07 CEST 2005

In a message of Sat, 08 Oct 2005 19:31:46 CDT, John Zelle writes:
>As usual, I don't have time to comment on all the intriguing things that 
>have come out of this thread. But gender balance is something that I've 
>spent a lot of time thinking about and working on as regards our own 
>program. So I felt compelled to say something.
>
>Laura Creighton wrote:
>> Why females shy away from math and science is no big mystery.  It is
>> deemed 'not useful' by them.  See many posts by Anna Ravenscoft on the
>> subject here in edu.sig archives.  These days she is 'Anna Ravenscroft
>> Martelli' having married Alex Martelli.  (Hi Anna.  cc'd to you so as
>> to not talk behind your back, and in case you want to comment.)
>> 
>
>I hear researchers say this at conferences, and I read it in the 
>literature about gender balance in computer science, but I still don't 
>understand it. Can you explain why when selecting majors women consider 
>CS as "not useful" and therefore to be avoided when they seem to have no 
>such qualms about, say, history or English literature? Here in the 
>states, women are also severely underrepresented in natural sciences and 
>engineering, also areas of obvious utility.

When we interviewed the chemistry students here at Chalmers, as to
why they were 'bucking the trend' -- last years, decades, worth of
female students who lead the way seemed to be the answer.

I think that your question indicates your problem.  It is not that
women start with a list of 'everything is worthwhile' and cross
things out.  Rather, they start with a list of a few things that
are worthwhile.  Those not on the list are assumed to be worthless.

The problem is to get programming (you will never get
computer science as I know it on the list, since it is only done
for the sheer joy of it, and is mostly unuseful) on the list of
_useful applied sciences where women do well_.  For some
strange and largely  not undserstood reason that happened here
in Sweden about Chemistry.   

Lots of us are trying to understand this.

>>Speaking specifically to CS, both boys and girls are heavy users of 
>computers now (although girls tend to start a bit later). So why don't 
>girls perceive computing as a useful field of study? I don't think it's 
>because it involves mathematics, because frankly, most entering CS 
>majors (male or female) have no idea that CS involves much mathematics.

This is a new thing in the USA, then, and it has not spread here
where 'you have to be good at math' is seen as necessary for a 
CS major.

>I can understand this "usefulness" argument to some extent for 
>mathematics majors, but at our institution (liberal arts school in 
>rural, midwest US), we have little trouble attracting female math 
>majors. On the other hand, it is extremely rare to find a female 
>interested in CS, period. Virtually all of our female majors are 
>recruited when they take our CS1 class as either a Gen Ed. class or a 
>requirement for another major.
>
>To my mind, the "useful" argument is a nonstarter. There must be 
>something else going on. Any ideas on what that is?
>
><snipped part about Laura being a mutant>
>
>> But most women are not like this.  They want concrete usefulness.
>> Here at Chalmers in Sweden the women students outnumber the men in all
>> the Chemistry departments.  Chemistry is presented as concretely
>> useful.  
>
>As I mentioned above, this is not the case in the US. Chemistry is still 
>one of the fields where women are underrepresented.

Yes.  But what we see is that chemistry is here perceived as
'being useful' while   Computer Science is not.  It is around here
called -- 'Mental Masturbation' -- though actually something that
is plenty ruder and less alliterative.

I do not think that you understand the viceral dislike that
many women have of girls who do things, selfishly, for no reason
beyond that they enjoy them.  I think that only girls who have
fought this understand it, and for most, the path of 'make sure
that what you do is immediately justifiable in terms of
benefitting others' makes immediate sense.  Most women have mothers
who ingrain this overcompensation to prevent selfishness into
all girls.  But I was raised by my father and my grandfather.  
When Catholic Girls School was teaching me that I was being
Selfish and Wrong, my elders were teaching me that as long as I
did not actively hurt anybody, it was OK for me to be selfish.

This is a very male thing.  So -- math is cool, and dear God
I am Good at it, so why not persue it?  This is male thinking.

For hundreds of thousand of years, the job for all women has
been the raising of their own children.  Childraising is
difficult, and very few women have the natural talents to do
this well.  Thus the futhering of civilisation required 
the convincing of women that their best interests involved
sitting around doing something they do not particularly enjoy
and which they do poorly.

There is a two proned attack on this.  The first is to tell
women that 'raising children takes no skill, or training, only
love and unselfishness'.  This is wrong.  The second is to
convince women that being selfish is the ultimate evil.

>>When I offered a night-course of three weeks at the Chalmers
>> computer society (all chalmers students are automatically members) on
>> compiler design, pypy, and how to hack ...  only got 4 takers, and all
>> male.  A different 4 week course -- 'how to build a bot to take care
>> of seeing if your favourite websites are announcing the things you
>> want to know about -- NO PREVIOUS PROGRAMMING SKILLS NECESSARY' got me
>> 57 takers, 35 of which were women.
>> 
>
>This is interesting. But is the real difference here practicality, or is 
>it something else like the web (i.e. communication) or the NO PREVIOUS 
>SKILLS NECESSARY?

I don't know.  But we have had other NO SKILLS NECESSARY courses
without the turnout.  This was a large shocker.

>I speak to women all the time, and when I ask them why they're not in 
>CS, they tell me it's because they don't like computers. I've never ever 
>had one tell me they didn't find computers or computer progams useful.

What did they say to you when you asked them why they did not like
computers?  If your experience is like mine you will get some
version of 'they are useful, yes, to other people but not
useful to me'.  Which counts as not useful in my books.  Perhaps
my questioning biases the sample about utility, though.  This 
effect -- even if you try to not have leading questions, are
you leading anyhow? -- is hard to measure.

>
>As to why they don't see the Art and Joy, it's probably because they've 
>never been exposed to it. It seems as if boys like using computers, and 
>many of them, for whatever reason, are motivated to take a peek 
>underneath and end up hooked on programming. Girls are using computers 
>just as much, but don't seem to go that next step and try to see what 
>makes them tick. Why? I don't know. Someone please tell me so that I can 
>get my daughter interested in programming some day. (Not too soon 
>though; I don't think there's a need for any kid to spend much time with 
>a computer before at least Jr. High. But that's another thread entirely..
>.)

When I was 3 I took apart my first clock 'to find out why it worked'.
Over the next 4 years my grandfather taught me what it was that I
broke and why I could not fix it.  For my seventh birthday we
celebrated by having the repaired clock, repaired by us, with mostly
made by us pieces -- one cog had to be ordered special.

I took this to catholic girls school.  I was terribly proud of it,
and was at the age when 'show and tell' was a common feature of class.
So I 'showed and telled'.  And was told that what I had done was
prideful, and unchristrian.  It seems that it was selfish to repair
the clock rather than confess my sin to have broken it (somehow, in
the breaking, it had never been a sin with my father or grandfather,
just a very serious mistake and bad error of judgement on my part).

I resolved at this point and time to be prideful in all things.
But secretly.  I think that this is the make legacy,  what all
boys are obligated to do -- but secretly.  correct?

>
>> In Sweden we have laws preventing the sort of advertising that
>> I think MSFT is doing in the USA -- targetting children is
>> illegal.   
>
>Then how do your kids know what their parents need to buy for them ;-)

Exactly.

However, 'my freind xxx has one' is still a good argument.

>
>>But given that you are stuck with it, I would be
>> very interested in seeing if it has an effect in student sex
>> ratios.
>> 
>
>Perhaps that's one good thing that could come out of KPL-type efforts--- 
>getting some girls to see the Art and Joy. Though I'm not holding my brea
>th.
>
>--John
>-- 
>John M. Zelle, Ph.D.             Wartburg College
>Professor of Computer Science    Waverly, IA
>john.zelle at wartburg.edu          (319) 352-8360
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Take care all,

Laura