songsc

The recent wave of so called "feminism" is more about some people's self interest rather than the issue itself. If there is no problem to solve, create some and then solve. Blindly enforcing 50/50 in STEM will put women in a much more disadvantageous position in the ling run.

We were discouraged from working from computers other than the ones in the lab, as the marker would mark us on lab machines, so there might be some potential compatibility issues. Of course one could ssh or telnet into one of the school computers but that meant working with terminals only, which could be very inconvenient for large projects. Another reason was school computers actually had better hardware than most people's PC. This became pretty important for synthesizing RTL design for FPGAs and deep learning.

As for IDE, the first course we took specifically asked us to us terminal and text editor so that we could learn how to compile and run a program. The second programming course specifically asked us to use IDE and tested on how to use debugger, build projects, etc, on the exam. After that it's our choice to use IDE or text editor. I personally prefer IDE for large projects and text editor for some scripts.

flyquiet

If you think the environment is not a factor in that choice, I'm not sure whether I think it's your age or gender showing.

My daughter said girls expressing interest in math at her high school were slut shamed (don't even ask me to explain that leap of logic). When I expressed concern to (male) teacher in charge of "civility" at the school, he had nothing to say, invited us to a civility committee to discuss concern, and gave us incorrect date and time. She ended up switching schools and losing interest in STEM, although is now taking HS STEM credits on her own time, concurrent with her university course load.

Encouragement is a huge factor in people seeing themselves in a role and giving themselves permission to do it. For myself, I never gave a fig for role models, and I think that accounts for why I've been the "first" in many things, but with age, I have come to appreciate that not everyone makes decisions and sets goals the same way I do. I think the majority of people's goals are shaped by social norms and visible role models. And while boys have no difficulty finding them in STEM, girls do. Once you put the girls there, for the most part, they are very successful. When I attended national and provincial engineering student conferences, the delegates were almost 50% female -- even in the 70s. Seemingly, girls that got over the environmental hurdles had no difficulty making it into leadership positions.

No one is saying people should be forced into engineering against their will. (Believe me, if that worked, my daughter would be in engineering.) But a lot more needs to be done to help them believe that they are welcome to go into engineering - and I don't even think I could honestly say that is actually the case in every engineering setting. I think the Deans of engineering welcome it, but I don't think all the male students or male co-workers do, or nominally would be okay with the girls themselves, but are not willing to behave in a sufficiently civilized way to not make the women uncomfortable. You have to know the discourse on the forum often veers into that sort of not-for-mixed-company off-colouredness, as an example. Depending on your mom, you might make the same jokes in front of your mom, but if you wouldn't make those jokes in front of MY mom, it's quite possible that those kinds of jokes are the very thing that telegraph to the young women that they're really not going to fit in.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but those are my thoughts from what I assume is a divergent perspective.

Jumper Jack

Edit:
Looking back, I realized that I might have inherent bias, and that my knowledge is insufficient to make such comment on this topic.

songsc

The 50/50 thing is more or less politically motivated for some people's self interest, it has nothing to do with the gender imbalance itself. And as I mentioned, pouring females into an environment not yet fit for them and creating unfairness for others will only make the situation worse in the long run.

flyquiet

Another thing to bear in mind is that people who are not in an underrepresented demographic often perceive affirmative action programs for work or academic programs as advantaging people other than them. (Indeed, that was the underlying motivation behind the 6 Dec 1989 Montreal massacre.) In my experience as a deaf person, as a female person, and as a deaf female person, affirmative action is often an illusion, a fiction we tell ourselves to deny what we are actually doing. The diverse candidates may be shortlisted, but in the final selection, it comes down to "the best candidate" using a rating scheme that is often anchored to unconscious criteria that favour the traditional norm. That said, even being shortlisted is not a sure thing, even with the equity statement. I was told once that I was had been cut from a shortlist because the search committee didn't want to have a rejected "equity" candidate sue for discrimination so better to not look at me in the first place. It says something that despite all this rhetoric about wanting more women in STEM (that dates back at least 40 years), that we are still so far away. Those of you who are not females aspiring to STEM have nothing to worry about.

quantumofforce

Congratulations, glad to hear happy stories!

Are they doing so in female dominated fields for the men?

Citation please!

In places where there has been the maximum energy to make all things balanced between the sexes (ie Scandinavian countries) STEM enrollment is still naturally lower for females. Likewise, men are less likely to be nurses.


forcing balancing is forcing discrimination. I love how the next paragraph you talk about understanding women and not simply achieving 50/50... after pushing 50/50 splits.

DrunkCargo

Why do I see Ben Smith when I see Patrick Chan?

songsc

Of course not. Advocating male rights won't buy as much votes.

I am not pushing for 50/50 splits. I am just suggesting that universities have no choice but getting in enough female students and faculty members in STEM. Funding is linked to gender ratio.

My undergrad supervisor (a research stream professor, department associate chair) complained about the quality of incoming students getting lower and lower, and my friends doing TA suggested the same. When I interview students who took the same courses only a couple years after I took them, I am shocked at how easy those courses have become. Forcing balancing is much more than forcing discrimination.

canadiancow

I guess kinda maybe?

But why do I find it amusing that you have Ben on your mind

quantumofforce

Good to see the voters are sexist in the opposite way they claim society is .

linking funding to gender ratio is discrimination. Linking it to money pretty much guarantees it will be twisted and corrupted over time . How about just allow the best and the brightest in? You know, merit based acceptance.

DrunkCargo

He's always on my mind... You know what they say about big ears...

jc94

RangerNS

Right off, that statement is problematic. How do you accurately measure the "best and the brightest"? Be it a job interview, or a university acceptance board, some candidates momentary skill level isn't the whole story. Canada doesn't generally have standardized tests, so someones report card says as much about their diverse teachers as it does them. If we did have SAT's, then someones SAT's scores could/does/might measure their skill and knowlage today, again as much a reflection on their school as them, but says nothing about what they would be like 6 months in, after some due coaching and mentoring.

Ditto with job interviews. Someone might know the language and platform, but not get agile, and generally be toxic and miserable. Maybe an alternative candidate has 0 real world experience in wiring code, but is willing to do QA, so you hire them on at half the price of the toxic ....... and get them to do QA in your corporate environment that doesn't allow QA types within 5 time zones; in 6 months they can do enough junior coding skills to carry their official weight.

I think - I know - that I've had people take chances on me. So I know there are good gatekeepers out there. I also know that my SEO skills are such that for either of those jobs if I went through the rigorous HR programs, I'd still be holding a stop sign on the side of the road.

So, even momentarily, "best and brightest" doesn't work now. I'll grant, however, that even given the above problems, the gatekeeper can only evaluate who is in front of them. Good gatekeepers already look past the momentary strengths of those in front of them, and a lot of good candidates were filtered out by the robots, be it regular expressions or HR drones.

The the harder question, the real question, is where does the responsibility lay for getting better and brighter people in that place to be evaluated by a gatekeeper?

pewpew

That awkward moment when you realize you're consistently the last one in and the first one out of lab.

But I get my work done early, so I've got that going for me

Stranger

While rle models is not necessarily a universal "solution," often it's a key factor. I strongly suspect most female engineering students have one parent who is an engineer.

I don't think the environment at universities is a major issue at this point. And yes, deans absolutely nurture female engineering students. I continue strongly believing that the real problem is that by the time for admission, a large majority of the females are no longer qualified for admission, by virtue of having given up on math and science.

I don't think it is.

BTW about affirmative action and the like, I like to joke with our friend in charge of diversity that one group that is truly underrepresented nowadays is straight white males. Which is actually true, but eh, who cares. In other words, ethnic "diversity" is a nice euphemism nowadays. Real issue is females, and I suppose first nations.