Gender disparity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics is no secret. Stanford University's introductory computer science class has four males for every female. Tech Crunch magazine reported that some male students dismissed a female section leader simply because she had glitter in her hair, claiming that there was no possibility a sorority girl could be a computer science major. Such stories of a male-dominated culture and a fraternity-like work environment have been thrown around for so long that it has simply become common knowledge. While there is no doubt that women struggle every day with discrimination, the extent to which gender disparity exists and the solutions taken to rectify it must be reexamined.
The National Science Foundation reported that, in 2004, women earned more bachelor's degrees in science and engineering fields than men, although women earned 44 percent of STEM masters and doctorates. Overall, women have reached or exceeded parity in nearly all fields except for STEM fields. It seems that the United States may be more of an anomaly in this respect. Countries like India, Armenia and many of the former Soviet Union already have exceeded parity with regards to women in computer science, despite more entrenched patriarchy.
In India, women earned 55 percent of computer science bachelors degrees in 2003. Many of these were women are from impoverished families and had no previous exposure to computers. In Armenia, the situation has long been far beyond parity. At Yerevan State University, throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, women were over 75 percent of the computer science student body. Today, they are over 60 percent. Such a pattern exists throughout the former Soviet Union.
Why is America, land of the free, losing to the former Soviet Union? One argument is that American women lack role models. Based on extensive interviews, professors at California Polytechnic State University found that "there are no such role models in Armenia either. Even more, the interviewees didn't see it as a factor at all, and didn't give any importance to having a role model when choosing a career." In fact, international women feel much of the same apprehension as Americans, an anxiety due to a perceived inexperience. Interviews of international students at Carnegie Mellon University confirm this, but international women seem to persist with computer science while American women either do not take the class or drop out, despite similar performance levels to their international counterparts.
Clearly, simply telling women to "suck it up" is not the solution. While many people in third world countries like India are forced to become computer science majors, America prides itself on freedoms, and it has the economic power to guarantee a reasonable lifestyle regardless of academic pursuits, so we should hold ourselves to a higher standard. Advocates like Jocelyn Goldfein who argue that other majors are inferior and that there is no shame in encouraging women to pursue computer science mistake the means for the ends. Focusing purely on numbers, or arguing that women should embrace computer science as part of the new feminist cause, is entirely misleading.
The ideal goal for a society is not one of absolute parity but rather an environment where every student can pursue a field without discrimination. Any percentage of women and men in a field is fine, as long as they are happy doing so. Pursuing parity in gender ratios was just one proxy for countering discrimination in the hopes that female students would feel more comfortable, but it is not the end. Embracing a more holistic approach requires accounting for female students' overall happiness. Ensuring students that inexperience is not an issue, that those experienced in coding are the exception in introductory courses and that computer science is not just for math nerds is just as important, if not more so, than paying attention to the gender ratios. Women constitute 70 percent of sociology students; I have yet to see a conference up in arms about the poor gender ratio here. Obviously, the point is that while men are free to pursue sociology and do not face discrimination, most choose not to and that is perfectly acceptable. This kind of environment, rather than a purist approach of gender parity, should be the goal.
