Re:Confessions of a Failed Female Coder
by ghaff on Saturday October 07, 2017 @01:58PM
(#15424824)
I'd add that a lot of "lone time" characterizes a lot of STEM generally--but also historians, writers, and others. It may be a particular stereotype around programming but I'm not sure it's any truer, or perhaps even as true, with software development as it is with a lot of other fields.
Caroline works in an area (digital advertising/marketing) that involves lots of collaboration and working with people. I'm not sure there's just about any field in engineering or science in which at least individual contributors do the same degree of working with other people as opposed to working through problems individually.
Although she mentions it, I think Caroline also glosses over the shift that happens in the 80s a bit too quickly. She writes:
>The ’80s did see a masculinization of computer science as a field, but I think it’s simplistic to assert that it happened because pop culture pushed PCs as “for boys.”
I don't actually think that's the argument--or to the degree people do make that argument it's the most pertinent one. What did happen with gamers and the rise of the PC is that people who were interested in coding as a profession were increasingly expected to have started learning things on their own and to enjoy it as a hobby. This isn't really true to nearly the same degree of any other STEM field. Although I can't prove it, this seems to me the most logical explanation for why women entering CS peaked around that time.
Caroline works in an area (digital advertising/marketing) that involves lots of collaboration and working with people. I'm not sure there's just about any field in engineering or science in which at least individual contributors do the same degree of working with other people as opposed to working through problems individually.
Although she mentions it, I think Caroline also glosses over the shift that happens in the 80s a bit too quickly. She writes:
>The ’80s did see a masculinization of computer science as a field, but I think it’s simplistic to assert that it happened because pop culture pushed PCs as “for boys.”
I don't actually think that's the argument--or to the degree people do make that argument it's the most pertinent one. What did happen with gamers and the rise of the PC is that people who were interested in coding as a profession were increasingly expected to have started learning things on their own and to enjoy it as a hobby. This isn't really true to nearly the same degree of any other STEM field. Although I can't prove it, this seems to me the most logical explanation for why women entering CS peaked around that time.