Solving the Women-in-Tech Pipeline Problem

http://annekejong.blogspot.ca/2012/04/solving-women-in-tech-pipeline-problem.html

by FredBrach • 14 years ago

1 1 14 years ago

annekejong.blogspot.ca

csense• 14 years ago

It isn't obvious to me that women being underrepresented in technology fields is a problem, any more than women being overrepresented in early childhood education.

Let me be clear: I don't have a problem with women in programming, computer science, regular science, or any other tech field. I don't have a problem with a lack of women in these fields either, as long as it's not due to discrimination.

Discrimination is crappy -- but it's not clear to me that it's the cause of the disparity. This isn't the Victorian era or the early 20th century when women were expected to stay at home; based on personal observations, sexist workplaces are few and far between, at least in our industry. And the free market should solve most discrimination problems neatly: If all the companies in the world are terrible sexists who never employ women, then someone can start a startup with a saner hiring policy, snap up the un-utilized surplus of girl talent, and eat their competitors' lunch.

From the article:

> Teach computer science to middle school girls

I'd change this to:

> Teach programming to middle or high school students

A lot of schools' computer offerings are limited to "learn to use MS Office" type courses.

True, not everyone is cut out to be a world-class programmer. But understanding what's going on "under the hood" really helps you figure out computer problems; the logical thinking skills you develop from debugging are quite general; and being able to write simple scripts is occasionally useful.

Solving the Women-in-Tech Pipeline Problem

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