Where are all the babes? The dearth of women in our industry is examined from the perspectives of the female reproductive imperative and the systematizing male brain hypothesis.
I chose to major in computer science for two reasons: money, and I was good at it. As a teenager in the early 1980s, everyone kept telling me “computers—now that’s where the future is headed!” and “computers is where the good jobs will be!” I felt a bit like Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate, only computers had displaced plastics as the one word to remember. While I didn’t end up seduced by a cougarific Mrs. Robinson, I did notice that the advertised salaries for computer programmers in the weekly careers section of the Vancouver Sun would invariably make my girlfriend very horny. The promise of lots of money was getting me lots of honey.
But to be honest, I really wanted to be a physicist with expertise in acoustics so that I could grow up to design concert halls. However, in my first semester at university I got a D in physics and an A in computer science, and my path was chosen. Since people like to do what they are good at, and since I am people, I stuck with computer science. It was a good fit for me because I enjoyed it, and it seemed incredibly easy. If there was ever an academic pursuit that was uniquely designed for the way my brain worked, it was computer science.
I once asked my class at Camosun College why they had chosen to major in computer science. This was the year 2001, and I had become slightly exasperated with trying to teach data structures and algorithms to a group of adults who did not seem to share my love for the topic. Indeed, many of my students were only there because the job prospects had seemed so promising just two years earlier. The best response I received to the question was from a young man sitting in the back row, who sarcastically exclaimed “I’m here for the babes!”
Why are there so few women in computer science? For many universities, this seems to have replaced does P = NP as the single greatest research challenge facing computer science departments throughout North America. I respectfully submit this essay as my take on the situation. Cautiously, and without judgement, I think there are two leading causes:
1. the lack of attractive male mating partners in our industry is at odds with women’s biological imperative for reproduction: women are just not attracted to repressed, unkempt, socially awkward, high functioning nerds with Asperger’s; and,
2. computer science is particularly suited to those endowed with a systematizing brain, which women tend not to have, but is usually found in men—especially the repressed, unkempt, socially awkward, high functioning nerds with Asperger’s.
Taken together, these two reasons conspire to ensure that women choose not to pursue careers as software engineers.
This excerpt is from the book Lord of the Files, published by Thought Pilots.
Want more? Buy it today at CreateSpace.
Join the discussion on Facebook.
2 comments:
I did not have the time to read this article but if I did read it I think i may have found it interesting. The parts that I did read were good.
Wow so I broke down and read this article. Does not really explain why we had supper hot women in my Com Sci. There was either really ugly man type women or a couple of 8.5 - 9.5 women. I could not figure this out. Why were these supper hot women studying Comp Sci? I do not know. Anyways thanks you have helped me to figure out why I turn the light switch off 50 times.
Post a Comment