CLASSROOM PROBLEMS

Older reports on the state of women realte dozens of stories about women being passed over during class and not being considered to have any serious type of potential. Both male and female teachers regularly ran their classes in way that indicated that they were teaching for the men. The most extreme cases were professors who wanted to "spice up" their classes with sexist images or jokes, but more prevalent was the practice of looking past female students to interact exclusively with the men. In the experience of the members of this project group, educators have, to a large degree, become sensitive to this problem. Extensive articulations of these problems can be found in the articles listed at the end (particularly "The Classroom Climate")

Discussion in seminars and classes has often been identified as valuing masculine tendencies of aggressiveness, challenging viewpoints, playing "devil's advocate", cutting people off-- predictably studies have shown that women are much less likely to interact and excel in these environments.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

The factors that keep women from adavancing further in computer science are not so much the things that happen during class time, but the social factors and culture surrounding the computer science department in a given university. This is related to the problems of Geek-culture******, but there are more specific academic problems that arise. Since we spend a very small fraction of our time per week in actual classes, most of learning happens outside, and much of that happens in social groups or study groups. If women can not take part in this social aspect of the educational environment.

Women in the sciences, and particularly in the extremely lop-sided field of computer science, often find themselves caught in a double-bind. Often they are seen as potential dates or lovers before they are seen as peers. Friendliness is mistaken for romantic overtures, and they find themself in the position of having to fend off unwanted advances. As a consequence, women become weary of their classmates (or professors!) and develop a less friendly facade to avoid uncomfortable circumstances. They end up spending emotional energy trying to keep their social relations straight while their male classmates can work together without wasting time on unnessecary complications.

When a female student can not get to the computer lab late at night because she fears for her saftey on the walk there she is at a great disadvantage. Although most CS majors presumably have computers in their rooms, they can not compete with the powerful, state-of-the-art machines in the labs. In addition to the technological disadvantage, they miss the late night social scene of the lab that bonds students together.

INDIVIDUAL PROBLEMS

Another common theme of the studies is that women have acquired traits that put them at a disadvantage in the field of computer science.

Society has different expectations of women than it does of men. Women are not supposed to be obsessive, they are not supposed to reject socializing for time spent on a computer, they are not even supposed to like computers. The social cost of becoming a geek is much greater for a woman than a man and as a consequence the desire to enter or stay in the culture decreases. One does not have to look far to find a woman "or a man" who will denounce the obsessive life of hackers.

Studies have shown that the speech patterns of people with low status or little power occur much more frequently with women than men, and this may put women at a disadvatage in an academic setting.

A complaint about affirmative action efforts and grants and fellowships earmarked specifically for women is that underqualified people are getting the job. Unfortunately this is not lost on the women who are awarded these honors and they begin to doubt the legitimacy of their position. It may effect their self-confidence and ultimately inhibit their ability to do the job (this is not to imply, of course, that they are not qualified for the job.)