ACM Blames the PC For Driving Women Away From Computer Science 329
theodp (442580) writes "Over at the Communications of the ACM, a new article — Computing's Narrow Focus May Hinder Women's Participation — suggests that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs should shoulder some of the blame for the dearth of women at Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter and other tech companies. From the article: "Valerie Barr, chair of ACM's Council on Women in Computing (ACM-W), believes the retreat [of women from CS programs] was caused partly by the growth of personal computers. 'The students who graduated in 1984 were the last group to start college before there was personal computing. So if you were interested in bioinformatics, or computational economics, or quantitative anthropology, you really needed to be part of the computer science world. After personal computers, that wasn't true any more.'" So, does TIME's 1982 Machine of the Year deserve the bad rap? By the way, the ACM's Annual Report discusses its participation in an alliance which has helped convince Congress that there ought to be a federal law making CS a "core subject" for girls and boys: "Under the guidance of the Education Policy Committee, ACM continued its efforts to reshape the U.S. education system to see real computer science exist and count as a core graduation credit in U.S. high schools. Working with the CSTA, the National Center for Women and Information Technology, NSF, Microsoft, and Google, ACM helped launch a new public/private partnership under the leadership of Code.org to strengthen high school level computing courses, improve teacher training, engage states in bringing computer science into their core curriculum guidelines, and encourage more explicit federal recognition of computer science as a key discipline in STEM discussions.""
In 1984... (Score:4, Informative)
"So if you were interested in bioinformatics, or computational economics, or quantitative anthropology, you really needed to be part of the computer science world."
These weren't even things in 1984.
Computers were not so pervasive that you were missing out on much if you didn't know anything about them.
G.
Re:why can the world (Score:1, Informative)
This gets really old... "Oh, I hate this job where I work with people that like the same things as me and I do the same thing I would do at home - except I get paid for it." I know people that work the kind of hours you are talking about and not one of them does it because they think they would get fired if they didn't.
They all do it because they like the work they do and it is interesting to them. I work those hours sometimes but not because there is someone behind me with a whip. It's interesting work. I've done the same kind of stuff since I was 10 or 11. The only difference now is that I get paid.
So again, shut up.
Re:why can the world (Score:2, Informative)
Re:why can the world (Score:2, Informative)
That's kind of a crock of shit. My mom is a primary school teacher. At a middle class school in the suburbs, she brought home a very generous salary, followed by a sizeable lifetime pension after retirement. This myth that all these poor teachers are living in poverty needs to end.
Re:What about nursing?? (Score:4, Informative)
Because women who want go into medicine end up nurses instead of doctors. This is the result of stereotypes, peer pressure and a largely male establishment.
In 2011-2012, women represented 47.0% of entering students entering medical school, and it's been hovering at just below half (around 47-49%) for the past decade. This value has also been approximately proportional to the gender mix of applicants, which was 47.3% female in 2011-2012.
Source: https://www.aamc.org/download/... [aamc.org]