My hypothesis is that women (specifically teenage girls) just aren't interested in the field / profession so they decide not to study it in school or search for jobs in the field.
Perhaps this is because they are discouraged from trying it by their teachers or media, perhaps its because they don't have the confidence to believe they'll succeed, perhaps they think it's not cool, perhaps they don't think it'll be a fun job.
But I guess, I see "women aren't as interested in programming" as a very likely cause for the disparity. And I don't think that's a sexist observation. I believe if we can find ways to get more girls interested we should pursue them, and indeed I root for organizations like Black Girls Code.
We live in too politically correct a world if we think it's bad to suggest that maybe girls _aren't_ interested in the field. I'm not sure that it's the biggest contributing factor, but if it could be part of the story, why are we so afraid to admit that possibility? Because it's not something we'd like to believe?
I don't think anyone is afraid to suggest that girls aren't interested in the field, it's just that it is a very unsatisfying answer and it doesn't really make sense to generalize about more than half the population.
I agree that it is strange that the drop isn't as large as it is for women in STEM in general, but I don't think it disqualifies the hypothesis.
I guess from my perspective if you only have a handful of women even entering a CS department in university in the first place, then the first and most important problem to solve is why they don't seek to study the major, or participate in high school programming classes. I believe if you can answer that question and remove that factor, it will be the biggest first step.
Disclaimer: Was a CS major, dated a CS major woman who coached me through Calculus and who I collaborated with in software classes. I'm biased.
It does in the context of gender. Sure there are outliers but men and women are generally interested in different things. To deny this is to fail to realise a huge aspect of human behaviour.
B) Even if there is a difference for some statistically significant degree, given the population we are talking about the outliers can matter a tremendous amount (for instance if "only" 20% of women are interested in computers but are forced out due to culture, that is on the order of 30 million humans).
C) Even if there aren't massive amounts of outliers, gender interest continues to not explain why the computer sciences participation decreased over time and other technology professions didn't.
I don't know very many men with a strong passion for clothing, fashion, shopping, etc. Maybe 5% of the guys I know are passionate about those things. About 95% of the women I know are.
Sports. I really don't need to explain this one. If you've dated more than a few women, you'd find most of them have a relatively low interest in watching sports on TV. They'd rather be watching True Blood, or Gossip Girl.
Babies. My Facebook feed is non-stop overwhelmed with women posting endless parades of baby related content. Babies, babies, babies, all the time. This is a 27 / 40 something female thing in my observation. None of the guys do this, ever, outside of occasionally posting family photos.
I guess that must just be the people I know, and it just happens to perfectly match up with the cultural stereotypes.
1) I don't think it is statistically dominant enough to be important for conversations about nuanced topics like computer science education. That is, just because on average more woman are interested in Gossip Girl than men, has no bearing on the difference between potential interest in computer science (especially given that an interest in computer science is already such a small minority of all people).
2) What people report they are interested in and what they would be interested in absent cultural stereotypes are 2 entirely different things. On big picture topics we are unlikely to change those stereotypes in a reasonable time frame but for something as constrained as CS education, the stereotype can (and potentially has historically) changed. For instance, to use your example, there are many, many women who are not in the least bit interested in babies, but they cannot admit this without an extreme social stigma being attached. Conversely, what would you think about one of your male Facebook cohorts posting an endless parade of baby related content? Those stigmas filter peoples behaviors.
3) social stereo types are extremely compelling minus data. For instance, I find your claim that 95% of woman are passionate about clothing ridiculous and the converse of 5% of men is also idiotic. It also may be extremely dependent on your neighborhood, background, location etc. Without data we can't know which of us is right, but many many people will assume you are.
4) Your sports example is also particularly pernicious. There is this belief that woman aren't interested in sports, yet at the youth level woman participate in sports at nearly the same rates as men. So if woman are interested in sports growing up, but have lower average televised attendance (and if you look that number up I bet it isn't nearly as disparate as you think) we can either assume that woman aren't interested in TV sports due to some inherent "woman-ness" or we can attribute it to sports on TV being targeted at men. If it is the latter that says nothing about differences in interest, only about differences in accommodation. There is at least circumstantial evidence about Sports being interesting for woman when you look at the viewership surrounding the Olympics. Figure skating & gymnastics post dominant TV numbers with high percentages of woman viewership. I'd also say that your data set of women you've dated might also be biasing your world view on this.
Consider these two statements: 1) The female sex is intrinsically(biologically) uninterested in Computer Science. 2) Girl's are raised in an environment that pushes their interest away from Computer Science.
In each statement, girls are not interested in Computer Science. But the first statement carries a tremendous amount of baggage with it, and comments on significantly more than cultural interest. It is, to put it lightly, a fantastic claim. And fantastic claims require fantastic evidence.
I don't think anyone is afraid of admitting that girls have been less interested in pursuing Computer Science than men. That's not really at issue. What's at issue is the cause and context guiding the group's interest.
``` [the] "women just aren't as interested in programming" trope rings hollow ```
To me the comment implies he is "afraid of admitting that girls have been less interested in pursuing Computer Science than men".
Throwing around unsubstantiated claims about how "society molded them into who they are" seems like a very fantastic claim to me. And I see a lot of that kind of argument going around.
Why is it fantastic? Because last time I've checked, women were also less interested in recreational fishing than men.
The problem is that I have seen no significant evidence to support such a claim. And on the flip side, it seems rather straightforward to argue for culturally guided decision making. Marketing, toys(Barbie vs Tools), socially approved courses(home economics vs woodshop), socially approved professions, 'traditional' family roles, historical religious convictions... These make for a convincing argument. And they're especially so when you begin to dissect the progress women have made in other professions, and the changes in cultural attitudes over time that have helped them make and hold on to such gains.
- from a woman who quite enjoys fishing, tyvm
The two arguments are: it's either how we're wired, that is that we're wired (or even physically built) in such a way that we end up liking or pursuing different things; or it's society / social pressure or influence.
I wish we could scientifically prove once and for all, that men and women are identical, and thus should inherently like identical things; or that we are in fact different in various ways, and thus inherently are going to like different things to different degrees.
Do men and women like programming at a different rate because of how our brains are wired? It seems to me we'd have to start by determining whether our brains are different in such a way as to make that plausible; and if that's not the case, then it practically has to be a social driven issue. Now, how can we determine the brain aspect?
Why do we take such offence when people point out a trend or pattern, and we ourselves are an exception to that pattern (I say "we" as in many people, including myself)? Is it because we think being normal is superior to being unusual, and that we not being part of something that some other person thinks is normal is an implicit threat to our threat as normal people?