Fran Allen talked about this in Coders at Work (I typed this up quickly so forgive typos):<br><br>Allen: Recently I realized what was probably the root cause of this: computer science had emerged between 1960 and 1970. And it mostly came out of the engineering schools; some of it came from mathematics.<br>
<br>And the engineering schools were mostly all men in that period. And the people IBM was hiring had to meet certain requirements: have certain degrees and have taken certain courses in computer science. And so they were almost all men because they were the ones that satisfied the requirements-because it was a discipline now. The other thing that seemed to have happened is that it was a profession-there were a lot of processes in place and chains of management that implemented the processes and kept everything running smoothly. So it was a very different place.<br>
<br>Seibel: I'm pretty sure sexism in society at large was prety rampant in the '50s and '60s. Yet in that period you were working in groups that had lots of women in them. Why was it so open to women then?<br>
<br>Allen: Software was the newest-of-the-new stuff that was going on. And it's also probably still to this day considered a soft part of the science. And that's where women gravitated. Early on they were programmers on ENIAC and at Bletchley Park. Women were the computers-that was their name. But in engineering and physics and the harder, older sciences there weren't as many women. It was just divided that way, early on.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On 27 March 2010 18:56, Jason Dagit <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dagit@codersbase.com">dagit@codersbase.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im">On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 9:05 AM, Daniel Fischer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:daniel.is.fischer@web.de" target="_blank">daniel.is.fischer@web.de</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----<br>
Von: "Günther Schmidt" <<a href="mailto:gue.schmidt@web.de" target="_blank">gue.schmidt@web.de</a>><br>
Gesendet: 27.03.2010 16:14:57<br>
An: <a href="mailto:haskell-cafe@haskell.org" target="_blank">haskell-cafe@haskell.org</a><br>
Betreff: [Haskell-cafe] Are there any female Haskellers?<br>
<div><br>
>Hi all,<br>
><br>
>from the names of people on the list it seems that all users here are males.<br>
><br>
>Just out of curiosity are there any female users here, or are we guys<br>
>only at the moment?<br>
><br>
>Günther<br>
><br>
<br>
</div>I'm pretty sure that Phil(l?)ip(p?)a Cowderoy is female, I've also seen a couple of other female names here and on the beginners list.<br>
(Since Ashley Yakeley seems to be located in the USA, I dare not guess whether Ashley is a man's name or a woman's in this case.)<br></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>Ashley Yakeley is a man.</div><div><br></div>
<div>
I work with several female Haskellers. And I've met several others who are at universities or use Haskell on the side.</div><div><br></div><div>In general, I'd say women in computer science are a minority. I would say mathematics has a higher percentage of women than computer science from my own anecdotal experience. Why are there so few women in computer science? I don't know but it's an interesting question. One professor I was talking to about this subject said he felt that at his university when CS was a part of math there were more women and when it became part of engineering the percentage of women dropped.</div>
<div><br></div><div>It's possible that there are gender differences that cause men to be attracted to this field more frequently than women. I'm hesitant to say that's the underlying reason though. I suspect the following, based on conversations I've had with women in the field. For some reason it started out as a male dominated field. Let's assume for cultural reasons. Once it became a male dominated field, us males unknowingly made the work and learning environments somewhat hostile or unattractive to women. I bet I would feel out of place if I were the only male in a class of 100 women.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Anyway, those are just observations I've made. Don't take any of it too seriously and I certainly don't mean to offend anyone. I know gender differences can be quite controversial at times.</div>
<div><br></div><font color="#888888"><div>Jason</div></font></div>
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