Even among software professionals, there is divergence in the types of roles women take vs. men. Search LinkedIn (3rd & everyone else) for SQA, and you get about 25% women. Search "Full Stack" and you get about 10% women.
A similar review of Human Resources professionals, also courtesy LinkedIn, shows about 70% are women.
In another report, in 2013, 41% of college seniors that elected majors in Physical Science were women. Yet, only 18% of those who chose computer science or engineering were women. It seems they'd be equally capable in chemistry and physics as in computer science and engineer. But their major choices indicate it is not about ability and something else is going on:
I believe that the whole dust up is a matter of gender-based difference in interests. Nothing more, and not a real problem. Which is why YC is scratching their heads about how to solve it.
> I believe that the whole dust up is a matter of gender-based difference in interests. Nothing more, and not a real problem. Which is why YC is scratching their heads about how to solve it.
This argument doesn't entirely follow and in my opinion unfairly misrepresents pg's position. Pg hasn't said that there is no "real problem", what he said was that he didn't know what he could do to solve it.
Personally I have witnessed a lot of sexism and even discrimination, so I don't believe there is no real problem. Maybe women are less interested in computer science than men, but maybe a few of them drop out due to the pervasiveness of sexism in the field? Or maybe interest would be higher if it didn't have this reputation?
I am certain that a few have dropped out due to sexism and discrimination. And certain that a few others have tried and found that the social aspects of working in a team of programmers, even polite, respectful ones, is just not rewarding.
Can we hear from those who felt kept or pushed out, please? If it is a real problem, where are the marches and movements and leaders at the podium? I suppose they don't hang out on HN, but they should be high profile, given that the media seems to be really interested in this story.
It's also shifted downwards among females majoring in the humanities, but no one cares—there's no "Girls Read" initiatives, for example.
That's why trends are just not that useful in convincing people, especially people whose job it is to be logical week in, week out, and to generalize aggressively.
So these people look at you say "the trend is down" and then see you make that a primary reason for action, and then they immediately go and look at all the trends, and then notice the participation trend is down even more in the humanities among women (also having peaked in the early 80s, which makes me wonder what changed then), but regardless, they also see that the downward participation trend in the humanities is not a reason for action there, and wonder WTF? It seems like special pleading, because it is.
There are good reasons for promoting CS to females today (as ever), but "the numbers show a downward trend in CS" is not one of them.
The owner of this site appears to be a woman. Again, 20 males: http://www.bestcomputersciencedegrees.com/author/2admin/
And there is a preponderance of white males in the annals of computer history: http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm
Even among software professionals, there is divergence in the types of roles women take vs. men. Search LinkedIn (3rd & everyone else) for SQA, and you get about 25% women. Search "Full Stack" and you get about 10% women.
Is this really YC's problem to solve?