Wanted: Technical Women

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Good article, not all the people are good for Engineering fields, doesn't matter if you're man or woman. I've seen a lot of guys who gave up at first try. I really believe it is a matter of education, conviction and perseverance

Felipe 4:04PM January 06, 2012

I think that this article is right; most people view men as being more technologically capable than women. I disagree with that statement, and believe that women bring qualities to the field that men do not; therefore the technological field loses a benefical source in progressing the field. However, i think that it actually benefits women who continue in their engineering field, because they have a greater chance of getting a job in thier field due to their gender and companies' desire to increase diversity.

aczecha of GA 2:51PM January 06, 2012

Good stuff......

googiefresh of SC 2:47PM January 06, 2012

Can you provide a citation for this "Stanford study"?

Eric of IN 7:53PM January 04, 2012

At the graduate and post-doc level in the biological sciences, women equal or outnumber men. The FASEB reports show this:
http://www.faseb.org/Policy-and-Government-Affairs/Data-Compilations/Education-and-Employment-of-Scientists.aspx
On the page, there is a link to a ppt presentation. Pay particular attention to slides 19, 28, 34, and 47.
I am not attempting to cast judgment-- but STEM includes the life sciences, and from the statistics, it is (in my opinion) irresponsible to blindly encourage women to enter a field where the most likely career prospect is perpetual semi-employment as a postdoctoral researcher.
It also seems irresponsible to completely ignore the fact males and females are psychologically different, and that this plays no role in career prospects whatsoever.
Finally, let's stop calling everything a stereotype and pretending that somehow, if we believe this, we can completely bypass the effect of growing up in a society, where social influences are very real and unavoidable. I've seen plenty of articles where stereotypes are touted as some sort of excuse, but the modern-day reality I've observed is that teachers do not hesitate to push students to take advantage of their strengths and interests, irrespective of gender. Naysayers can take a look at the FASEB report(s), unless we are now excluding the life sciences from the STEM umbrella.

Z of IL 1:41PM January 04, 2012

Studies on women in engineering and IT, depending on their hypotheses, yield different findings. I recommend to readers, "Stemming the Time" a national study with more than 3000 women engineers. There are practical findings, particularly for employers and schools of engineering, about why graduates never enter the profession, why women engineers leave their companies and what they do, and why other stay.
Visit www.studyofwork.com for other viepoints

Patricia of WI 1:36PM January 04, 2012

I don't get the part where in times of record unemployment we should be worried about attracting a particular demographic to STEM - both men and women will go where the jobs are. I've been in the field a long time and I don't see Silicon Valley starving for talent - although companies would love an even larger pool so that they can further depress wages. Why aren't we worried about the truly disproportionate representation of men in nursing, early childhood education, or yoga instruction ... if it is really so important that every field has gender parity?

Michael of ID 12:42PM January 04, 2012

I believe that the following line from the article is false, it draws the wrong conclusion.
"This finding shows that students believe being male bestows more computing skill than does studying computer science."
The conclusion that should be drawn is that being male (regardless of studying computing) gives you more confidence of your own computing ability than being female and studying computing.

Anonymous of AL 9:46AM January 04, 2012

Gender Equality in Information Technology
The percentage of female computer science (CS) majors at Harvey Mudd College in Southern California has more than tripled to 42 percent. Nationally, women account for 14 percent of college graduates in the field, according to the Computing Research Assn.
Mudd's President Maria Klawe's transformation of this small liberal arts college 35 miles east of Los Angeles has sent ripples from Seattle to Silicon Valley, where startups and technology giants are desperate to find talented developers. In the U.S., women hold less than 25% of jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, according to the Commerce Dept.
Klawe has "actually moved the numbers," says Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. "In the midst of what is a very serious employment issue in the country, there's a field here that's dying for more very well qualified people." This year enrollment in what Klawe calls the "most hard-core CS class"--Data Structures and Program Development--is at an all-time high of 57 students, 40 percent of them female. Silicon Valley has noticed.

John G. Agno of MI 3:02PM January 03, 2012

Everything got to do with mentality and the mental strength..... Even the naming of stereotypes is a mental thought , and when women think they can't do that too equals to their mentality and not their mental strength...

tan 2:25PM January 03, 2012