The "aren't interested" hypothesis would also need to explain why the physical sciences haven't had the same decline in involvement as computer science nor why there is a specific decline in participation in computer science but not in the other categories.
I don't think anyone is afraid to suggest that girls aren't interested in the field, it's just that it is a very unsatisfying answer and it doesn't really make sense to generalize about more than half the population.
|it doesn't really make sense to generalize about more than half the population.
It does in the context of gender. Sure there are outliers but men and women are generally interested in different things. To deny this is to fail to realise a huge aspect of human behaviour.
A) I'd love to see a citation about the differences in interest between sexes (or genders for that matter).
B) Even if there is a difference for some statistically significant degree, given the population we are talking about the outliers can matter a tremendous amount (for instance if "only" 20% of women are interested in computers but are forced out due to culture, that is on the order of 30 million humans).
C) Even if there aren't massive amounts of outliers, gender interest continues to not explain why the computer sciences participation decreased over time and other technology professions didn't.
You can't be serious about thinking there's little difference between what men and women are interested in.
I don't know very many men with a strong passion for clothing, fashion, shopping, etc. Maybe 5% of the guys I know are passionate about those things. About 95% of the women I know are.
Sports. I really don't need to explain this one. If you've dated more than a few women, you'd find most of them have a relatively low interest in watching sports on TV. They'd rather be watching True Blood, or Gossip Girl.
Babies. My Facebook feed is non-stop overwhelmed with women posting endless parades of baby related content. Babies, babies, babies, all the time. This is a 27 / 40 something female thing in my observation. None of the guys do this, ever, outside of occasionally posting family photos.
I guess that must just be the people I know, and it just happens to perfectly match up with the cultural stereotypes.
Let me just say that I of course think there is a difference on average between what men and women report they are interested in but:
1) I don't think it is statistically dominant enough to be important for conversations about nuanced topics like computer science education. That is, just because on average more woman are interested in Gossip Girl than men, has no bearing on the difference between potential interest in computer science (especially given that an interest in computer science is already such a small minority of all people).
2) What people report they are interested in and what they would be interested in absent cultural stereotypes are 2 entirely different things. On big picture topics we are unlikely to change those stereotypes in a reasonable time frame but for something as constrained as CS education, the stereotype can (and potentially has historically) changed. For instance, to use your example, there are many, many women who are not in the least bit interested in babies, but they cannot admit this without an extreme social stigma being attached. Conversely, what would you think about one of your male Facebook cohorts posting an endless parade of baby related content? Those stigmas filter peoples behaviors.
3) social stereo types are extremely compelling minus data. For instance, I find your claim that 95% of woman are passionate about clothing ridiculous and the converse of 5% of men is also idiotic. It also may be extremely dependent on your neighborhood, background, location etc. Without data we can't know which of us is right, but many many people will assume you are.
4) Your sports example is also particularly pernicious. There is this belief that woman aren't interested in sports, yet at the youth level woman participate in sports at nearly the same rates as men. So if woman are interested in sports growing up, but have lower average televised attendance (and if you look that number up I bet it isn't nearly as disparate as you think) we can either assume that woman aren't interested in TV sports due to some inherent "woman-ness" or we can attribute it to sports on TV being targeted at men. If it is the latter that says nothing about differences in interest, only about differences in accommodation. There is at least circumstantial evidence about Sports being interesting for woman when you look at the viewership surrounding the Olympics. Figure skating & gymnastics post dominant TV numbers with high percentages of woman viewership. I'd also say that your data set of women you've dated might also be biasing your world view on this.
I can't add much more than just curious guesses into this discussion but someone else mentioned the idea of video games attracting people towards programming. I'm pretty sure there is a strong male sexual preference towards video games as children and teens. I wonder if the rise of popularity of video games could coincide with this change? It doesn't have to be that women became less interested, it is possible that a new demographic of people (which happened to skew heavily male) became interested in programming. But anyway, I have nothing to back that up, just spitballin. :p
I agree that it is strange that the drop isn't as large as it is for women in STEM in general, but I don't think it disqualifies the hypothesis.
I guess from my perspective if you only have a handful of women even entering a CS department in university in the first place, then the first and most important problem to solve is why they don't seek to study the major, or participate in high school programming classes. I believe if you can answer that question and remove that factor, it will be the biggest first step.
Disclaimer: Was a CS major, dated a CS major woman who coached me through Calculus and who I collaborated with in software classes. I'm biased.
I don't think anyone is afraid to suggest that girls aren't interested in the field, it's just that it is a very unsatisfying answer and it doesn't really make sense to generalize about more than half the population.