“She was consistently told by teachers in adolescence, then later
by colleagues, that the things she was interested in were things
women didn’t do, and that there were no good female mathematicians,”
Dr. Pippenger said.
It's reasoning like this, and the one that you quoted below about
stereotypes, kept me from pursuing a degree in computer science. I
remember looking into the school when I was a young undergrad and I
felt so intimidated, and then was told that I'd have to take certain
math classes. Which frustrated me, as I could do basic language
coding and write html off the top of my head. I flunked the math
classes I had to take, and 10 years later found out I had a math
disability. (And it wasn't my parents who were telling me not to do
it, it was professors, etc. Regardless of my poor math skills,
almost every single person I know who codes jokes that "you don't need
to know math." Someday I'll take some classes in something (just
for fun, I suppose)..or perhaps there will be a "N00bs super simple
MediaWiki fun day that even your grandma could learn to code at!"
event.
I'm not disappointed with how my path curved and turned thus far,
but, after reading Unlocking the Clubhouse[1] and every time
I read an article like this, it just reminds me more and more of the
experiences I had as a young person that kept me out of the lab. The
odd thing, is that I ended up entering into a field that is upwards
of 80% dominated by women. I wonder of computer science can take any
cues from museum studies.
On that note, I'm sure I'm not the only person on this mailing list
that took a different path than the one they wanted due to popular
and personal pressure.
“Most of the female students were unwilling to go on in
computer science because of the stereotypes they had grown up
with,” said Zachary Dodds, a computer scientist at Mudd. “We
realized we were helping perpetuate that by teaching such a
standard course.”
To reduce the intimidation factor, the course was divided into
two sections — “gold,” for those with no prior experience, and
“black” for everyone else. Java, a notoriously opaque
programming language, was replaced by a more accessible
language called Python. And the focus of the course changed to
computational approaches to solving problems across science.
“We realized that we needed to show students computer science
is not all about programming,” said Ran Libeskind-Hadas,
chairman of the department. “It has intellectual depth and
connections to other disciplines.”
</snip>
Most of the article is about Dr Maria Klawe, who seems to be a
very inspiring person.