Computer Science’s Image Problem
NYT: Computer Science Takes Steps to Bring Women to the Fold
I find this article baffling and the comments on it aggravating.
“The nerd factor is huge,” Dr. Cuny said. … This image discourages members of both sexes, but the problem seems to be more prevalent among women. ‘They think of it as programming,’ Dr. Cuny said. ‘They don’t think of it as revolutionizing the way we are going to do medicine or create synthetic molecules or study our impact on the climate of the earth.’
Well, of course it’s programming. Trying to sell CS as somehow not being about programming is false advertising — it’s like telling kids that chemistry isn’t about molecules or mathematics isn’t about numbers. Sure, there are scientists using computers to design medicines or study the climate. But they’re not computer scientists, they’re biologists or geologists. Computer science is about software.
How is it that people can be so excited by the Internet and digital media, but totally turned off by the prospect of designing the stuff that makes those things work? They seem to confuse computer science with data-entry, or boring MIS drudgery like writing payroll systems. Or do they just totally not care about where things like web search and MP3 codecs and 3D graphics and peer-to-peer protocols come from … are they just some magic that falls out of the sky and no one should give a second thought to?
Another issue here is the distinction between Computer Science as a field of academic study, versus actual software engineering / programming / hacking. This is a young field (just as chemistry and aeronautics used to be) and not very codified yet. That’s part of the fun — it’s all being made up as we go along, and there aren’t so many tomes of knowledge that have to be digested first. I had a great time in college … but I have to admit that it didn’t directly teach me that much about programming. I learned a great deal of useful science and mathematics, I had access to a lot of computers and time to do a lot of hacking, and I hung around with brilliant people whom I got some good ideas from. But I’ve worked with people who are great software engineers despite not having a college degree … or having a degree in a different field like physics or psychology. So the number of people (and their M/F ratio) getting degrees in CS may not be that relevant.
On the downside, I’ve looked at the source code to enough open source projects to realize that there are a lot of people out there writing code whose basic programming skills are very, very poor; they probably could have used a solid undergraduate CS introduction. (Not to start any flames, but PHP seems especially prone to this … I think it’s kind of the BASIC of the modern era. The barrier to entry is so low, and the language so ad hoc, that people can just flail around in it.)
And I’m not even addressing the main point, the low and diminishing proportion of women in the field. In fact, my experience is that the ratio is a lot worse than the figures like 25% that they quote in the article: I’ve almost never worked in an environment where more than about 10% of the technical people were female. Which is really sad, in many ways.
August 19th, 2007 at 6:45 AM
I’m an artsy woman debating getting a degree in computer science.
My interest is sparked from spending time on the internet, growing up with computers and modifying programs on my computer.
Computer science degrees lead to jobs providing lucrative employment, intellectual prowess and flexible hours.
I’m going to list the specific reasons why computer science doesn’t
appeal to me. Hopefully this helps to illuminate the issue.
Programming is very cold. It doesn’t the heart biology, nursing or psychology do. The hours of coding without the human element seem deary.
The nerd factor. Nerdy can be cool, but not ultra cool. Computer science degrees aren’t cool like arts, music or liberal arts degrees.
Coding seems repetitive, predictable and tedious. Most code I’ve written for websites comes from the same foundation.
There is math involved. Some women love math, but not me.
Those are my reasons.They are from a fear of being bored or being boring. This boredom comes from a lack of emotional activity and repetitive actions. So basically, my feelings are keeping me from doing a logical job.
Since I’ve spoken for myself here is what I can pontificate on:
Women are generally social and emotional. Computer science is a logical and reclusive activity. This conflict of interest mixed with the individual’s confidence issues, ego needs (CS is faceless) and fears might explain why women (and some men) don’t like computer science.
August 19th, 2007 at 9:44 AM
Correen — Thanks for the insight into your thoughts & decisions.
With no intention of contradicting you, here’s how it feels different to me:
Programming is largely solitary, though I wouldn’t say “cold”. I get a lot of aesthetic satisfaction (and frustration) from it, much like the details of making art, which can also be very solitary. And when a project is ready to show people, I get a lot of satisfaction from their reactions. There are also jobs in CS that are a lot more social, like project management.
If coding is repetitive or predictable, you need to find something more interesting to work on =) Admittedly the low-level details often involve creating standard little structures like accessor functions. But in general you should be trying to build something new. Whenever I get bored writing something over and over, I take that as a sign that I need to figure out a way to abstract that into a function or macro or template. Many advances in programming stem from laziness.
I’ve always found the math to be pretty minimal. Mostly it’s arithmetic, plus converting between decimal and hex/binary. My wife seems to do about the same degree of math when she designs her knitting projects!
On your pontification: I think “generally social and emotional” is putting it a bit too strongly. Those traits are somewhat more strongly present in women, but only on average and not by that much. (There’s been large-scale testing of this, using Myers-Briggs and other scales.) Women also have strong social pressure to be social/emotional, but I think that’s lessening. I don’t think it’s enough to explain the big disparity in gender in CS … especially when it’s not the same as in equally non-social non-emotional fields like mathematics and electrical engineering!
August 19th, 2007 at 6:08 PM
Thank you for your realistic input.
I was more basing it on my impression, rather than research.
While I’ve done basic programming, I had this idea professional programming was fundamentally different.
It is interesting how it parallels art in attention to detail and aesthetics.
Thinking about it more it isn’t more cold and logical than writing. There is an emotional aspect to most finished programs. There is also an emotional reaction to these programs.
Streamlining helps immensely with boredom, so maybe I just need to simplify things further. Anything is only as boring as you make it.
I’ve read you have to finish calculus to get a CS degree, even if there isn’t any complex math involved in programming.
I’ve done research on Myers-Briggs. There are so many people who defy this stereotype, myself included. It might have been a little too general, but women are slightly more emotional/social. The pressure may have lessened, but it is still present. As an introvert I get regular pressure to be social, but it seems like guys get this same sort of pressure. Of course this doesn’t explain why there are so few women in computer science, because there are equally technical fields women have a presence in. I can see why this is such a difficult question to answer.
August 19th, 2007 at 9:24 PM
Coreen —
Well, there are all kinds of professional programming jobs. The best of them are very creative and, in a way, artistic. Like painting, I suppose: some people paint houses, some paint those awful beach scenes your grandparents have hanging on their wall, some retouch damaged masterpieces, and some paint feverishly in studios trying to express what they see in their minds.
Anyway, Paul Graham (a well known programmer) wrote an excellent essay on this topic called Hackers And Painters.
August 20th, 2007 at 2:03 AM
Jens Alfke-
You helped me see how art and programming are connected.
Any career is what you make of it.
Thank you for the link.
Paul Graham’s essay made excellent comparisons.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:13 PM
[…] Jens Alfke: Computer Science’s Image Problem […]
February 20th, 2008 at 6:13 AM
Hi Jens,
I can see where the NYTimes article commenter is coming from. For too many people CS and programming are elaborate intellectuals games for their own sake with little relationship to the real world. I see this all the time with the programmers I hire. They have no interest in what the effect the program they are working has on the world - all they think is about architecture, design patterns, writing beautiful code and so forth.
CS gives you a valuable engineering skills for solving real world problems (yes including applications in medicine and climatology), but many CS geeks are so focused on technology/code they never think about the impact that applications of their skills could have on the world.
July 9th, 2008 at 8:14 AM
Julie, that was an excellent post and I find it strange that no one has commented on it, choosing instead to pen vaguely worded, half-baked theories about gender psychology and “wiring.” In my opinion, there is probably a strong cultural component to the phenomenon of relatively few women in CS (unless we’re only talking about white Americans here?). As for societal pressure to pursue stereotypically feminine endeavours, it’s pretty strange for one person to unilaterally decide that it’s “lessened.” The experiences of others have been radically different. I don’t understand why people seem quick to say things like “girls just don’t like X” when it’s obvious certain fields are still dominated by a macho neckbearded male geek culture that can be really offputting to some people. I guess it’s more comforting for folks to just pat themselves on the back for entering a “hard, cold, inhuman, intellectual” profession that some girly girls just can’t stomach? Pfft.
My real concern is that women who could contribute so much to certain traditionally male-dominated fields will be put off by the stench of sexism and stereotyping and leave before they make a difference. I fear people get caught up in defending or explaining the status quo a little too much when there is some serious braindrain going on in some areas and we need to fix it. We’re 50% of the population, not some strange newly discovered cult of hairbrushing, lipglossing technology-averse airheads.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:17 AM
Samia — I agree that culture is a strong component of the problem, and I take a personal interest in that because, though male, I find that macho attitude really annoying.
What’s odd, though, is that other related fields, which (I believe) have a similar culture, have had more women join them. The NYT article said electrical engineering had a higher percentage of women, and in my experience EE is much more hardcore macho than CS, given its roots in futzing with cables and soldering irons. The same could be said for other branches of engineering.
My current best guess as to a reason is: A large number of undergrad CS students are computer geeks / otaku who are obsessed with computers and have been compulsively coding since their early teen years, if not before. These kids come into the CS department with years of skills and experience; what they’re lacking are the more theoretical areas like knowledge of algorithms. Now, anyone who’s not like this is going to be at a disadvantage compared to those students … especially because CS is so un-formalized and undisciplined compared to other areas of engineering. And the profs will be used to the otaku students and will at some level expect everyone to have the same skills and experience.
You’ll note I haven’t mentioned gender so far. I don’t want to over-emphasize innate gender differences; they’re subtle, they’re often overwhelmed by cultural programming, and they apply only statistically, not determining what any one person does. But: I believe that obsessive otaku mindset is more common in boys. It’s an extreme end of a continuous distribution, and the male distribution has a bit more of a bulge there than the female one. It’s a maladaptive condition in many ways — it’s very closely linked to ADHD and Asperger’s, both of which are also more common in males — but in some areas it is very useful. Science and engineering are such areas. And in CS this is compounded by the fact that the field is so immature and we don’t have good ways of teaching it yet. So there’s an advantage to those people who have the innate obsession.
Then, as you point out, the otaku dominance tends to taint the overall culture of the field, which alienates those who don’t share it, making the problem even worse.