I don't believe the gender gap is overblown, but I don't think it's necessarily a problem. I believe that part of the reason women are underrepresented is not necessarily because they aren't being hired but because they aren't applying or interested in the field. In particular, it's obvious that even looking at our own CS class, there are far more males than females, and this is not out of the norm for the national average. In particular, the following graph really caught my attention: I remember how hard my high school pushed the STEM fields onto us. I went to an all-girls school, and they really stressed women empowerment and stretching the boundaries of what a woman "could" and "could not" do. I think that this graph really sort of reflects what about the STEM fields they push, however. I had never even thought about coding until I came to college and used MATLAB for EG 101010101001 or whatever. It wasn't something that was really offered at our school. There was an option to take AP Computer Science online, but taking a class online and in person are two very different things. At our actual school, we had AP Calc, Chemistry, Physics, even Financial Algebra, but no Computer Science. It just wasn't really something that they pushed.
I can also honestly say that I don't think I would have ended up being CS if Notre Dame didn't have CS in the College of Engineering. It wasn't something that crossed my mind, and it wouldn't have been introduced to me through that first EG class if it wasn't included. I'm not sure exactly how our percentage of women in CS compares to the average, but I wouldn't be that surprised if we were slightly higher than the norm because of this. That all being said, this gender gap in tech definitely stems (no pun intended) from a lack of interest or introduction to CS. Of course, there are other factors too. I didn't know about it, but sexism is strong in the industry, which is pretty disappointing. I do, however, remember watching CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap my freshman year and being surprised to hear women's testimonies about their experiences being a woman in tech. (Don't ask me to elaborate on that more, though, because I don't remember much beyond that feeling). I think there is a recent focus on diversity because of the politics surrounding today. Race and gender is something is at the forefront of a lot of people's minds, especially because of the man we elected as president. He inspired outrage, with countless Women's Marches across the country, and he made and is continuing to make minorities (particularly African Americans and Hispanics) feel unsafe in the country they call home. Because of this, I think there has been a hyperawareness to many issues regarding race and gender inequality, so the one that exists in the tech industry is being called out for being poorly diversified. It's interesting being an Asian woman in the tech industry. There appears to be far more Asians in the tech industry compared to other minorities, but I'll bet that the gender diversity within that subset of people is pretty poor too.
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AuthorJulianna Yee. Archives
March 2018
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