Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 11, 2016 15:28 UTC (Fri) by NAR (subscriber, #1313)
In reply to: Outreachy: an intern's perspective by mathstuf
Parent article: Outreachy: an intern's perspective

When I first used computers, it was in an extra-curriculum class at primary school. We were a bunch of 10 years old boys who were happy to put their hands on Commodore-16 computers. I don't remember any girls there even though the math teacher was a woman. We wrote BASIC programs at school and played Treasure Island at home. In high school there were 2 girls in "computer class" out of 20 and (when the teacher didn't see) we played Wolfenstein 3D over a serial cable. So yes, computers definitely become boy's tools in the 80s and early 90s. That's why I think it's way-way too late to try to solve the "gender inbalance" with initiatives aimed at adults. If you want anything near to the proportion in the general public, you have to put computers into the hands of 6-10 years old girls. Maybe even younger. Write a version of Sid Meier's Pirates where the player can control a female character. Create a Last Ninja with a female hero. Stuff like this will lead to substantially more female programmers.

My 2 years old daughter does play games on iPad. Let's see what happens in 20 years time.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 14, 2016 6:37 UTC (Mon) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (8 responses)

It's interesting to imply a link between the imbalance in mainstream gaming's inclusiveness and the programming field's imbalance. Both areas are statistically skewed in a way that seems undesirable, and there's an appeal to the idea.

Is there more to this than our musings?

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 14, 2016 12:40 UTC (Mon) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

I know only anecdotal evidence: at the 25 years reunion it turned out all of my classmates (4 out of 20-something) who were more into computer gaming ended up in the IT industry.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 15, 2016 4:33 UTC (Tue) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] (6 responses)

Yes, see the NPR Planet Money episode from up the thread.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 15, 2016 8:18 UTC (Tue) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (5 responses)

The two NPR pieces linked support the idea that women being successful in programming (particularly in their higher education programs) is strongly linked to how computers were socialized as toys to young people in a highly gender-skewed way.

That's not what I'm asking about above. I asked whether there's a link to how specifically games are "inclusive", which basically means how women are represented inside games, and the options offered to the player as to what their in-game avatar or character should look like, and women's success in programming. It's not hard to imagine that in the current timeframe, games being male-player-pespective skewed reinforces the perception that computing is for boys, which might be a driver for representation in the field. However, games in the early 1980s were not nearly so codified about player avatars. Women heroes were represented in early videogames, and most early videogames had no gender representation at all, (though they might use themes that are gender-associated such as guns, planes, spaceships, race-cars, etc). Meanwhile, the representation of women among video game players has risen from the 1980s until now, while the representation of women in computer science (according to the NPR data) has fallen.

Therefore it seems overall that the NPR information and what I know about videogames isn't enough to suggest a link, though there may be one anyway.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 15, 2016 8:36 UTC (Tue) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (2 responses)

There's a least decade long latency between girls starting to play games and appearing at the job market.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 15, 2016 16:04 UTC (Tue) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, but the two things have basically been trending in opposite directions for 15 years or so.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 17, 2016 9:40 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

Maybe it has nothing to do with games today. 30 years ago only gamers had computers at home, nowadays they are ubiquitous in the developed world. But I still do think it's the 10 years old girls that should be introduced to programming - it's way too late to address adults.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 15, 2016 14:54 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

> I asked whether there's a link to how specifically games are "inclusive", which basically means how women are represented inside games

While there was a dry spell in the '90s and '00s where there were very few games that weren't gender-skewed toward a male audience, today there is a vibrant Indie scene with plenty of quality games that are either told from a woman's perspective or are not particularly gender specific. Maybe in 20 years the demographics will be a lot less skewed and follow a more normal distribution based on interest and ability rather than gender.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 16, 2016 1:15 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

ISTR the NPR piece mentioned the games angle.

Outreachy: an intern's perspective

Posted Mar 17, 2016 1:36 UTC (Thu) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link]

Good comments. I would add a couple elements I find fairly substantial. You didn't talk much about why that gender differentiation was there, but of course others have. Traditional patriarchical sexism and subjugation. Perhaps with some kernel of legitimate brain differences that explain perhaps a small fraction of that gender gap in young advanced mathematical study. But of course that has been abused by sexists, and in turn become almost a taboo topic for the timebeing. Which is fine, it'll probably be easier to talk about in 5 years after we've had the first female POTUS for a few years.

But the one glaring angle I feel obliged to speak out for- I recall the days of watching Cindy Crawford stream in line of pixels at a time (over 56k) as I was a young teenager, without access to the modern internet's trove of inexpensive 'pornography'. And witness to the sale of porno mags in every gas station behind little black bars that covered most of the covers. And witness to the mainstream local religion's massive and systematic persecution of personal sexuality and liberty. And witness to the mainstream professional mental health industry's similarly horrific perversion of the word 'deviance'. And witness to the VCR technology allowing masturbators access to more inexpensive home viewing tech- vs the other option of the mainstream movie theatre downtown showing X rated films. I mean wow. I think that all has something to do with it too. Kids these days are probably like I used to be. You hear some horrors of how society was 30 years ago, and it doesn't sink in how far the world has come in the last 30 years. And you are much older before it sinks in how real those horrors were for your parents, and how it helped create and shape the human terrain we currently live in.