If anyone is interested in learning more about some of the reasons women
are underrepresented in CS, or don't stick with the discipline, I'd suggest
Unlocking the Clubhouse (http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/47054696).  I found
it to be pretty resonant regarding myself and my undergrad CS experience
(although I luckily had a good enough one that I graduated, went into
software development, and actually stayed in the field for 5 years before
leaving to get my MLIS).

~Arianna (a lurker up until now, I do believe)



On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 2:56 PM, Erik Hetzner <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> At Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:35:54 -0500,
> Laura B. Palumbo wrote:
> >
> > As a soon to be librarian and a female engineer, I can tell you that your
> > numbers generally reflect the status of women in the STEM areas as a
> > whole. According to the Economics and Statistics Administration, women
> > hold less than 25% of tech jobs (2009). I think that you are right on
> > target in wondering how to attract more women into the techy end of
> > libraries; in addition to promoting STEM areas to young women, I feel
> that
> > a good place to start is to advocate for more integration of coding
> > (beyond basic web design) into required library courses.
>
> Hi all,
>
> CS (computing, programming, library tech, etc.) is especially
> distressing because women are a) underrepresented when compared to
> most other STEM fields (save perhaps engineering or physics), and b)
> the underrepresentation of women has been getting *worse* in CS over
> the past 20 years.
>
> See, e.g., [1] and [2]
>
> best, Erik
>
> 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/business/16digi.html
> 2.
> http://crookedtimber.org/2011/02/04/gender-divides-in-philosophy-and-other-disciplines/
>
> Sent from my free software system <http://fsf.org/>.
>
>