Self-esteem

Throughout their lives, young women are known to suffer from a lot lower self-esteem than their male counterparts, and during college this phenomenon seems to be aggravated. In one particular study, known as the Illinois Valedictorian Project, followed 80 high school Valedictorians into their college years revealed that while the average GPA of the women was slightly higher than of the men, they still felt less competent and adequate in comparison to their peers. In the beginning of the study, 45% of women and men rated themselves "far above average." In their senior year of college 25% of the men and none of the women rated themselves "far above average", even though the women had similiar or higher GPA's than their male counterparts.

It may be partly due to this gradual loss of self-esteem during college that women get so discouraged in computer science. We already know from previous studies that girls are less exposed to computers than boys during elementary and middle school, and so when women get to college, they begin computer science at an actual disadvantage than their male counterparts. Because they have less experience, women struggle in their introductory computer science courses, and even though they make on average the same amount of mistakes than their male peers, they consider themselves far more incapable. A study quoted on the ACM report "Becoming a Woman Computer Scientist" indicated that among male and female Stanford graduates of engineering, science, and medicine, women and men were indistinguishable in terms of grades, overall performance and career aspirations. Women were, however much more likely than men to question their abilities to handle their work, felt less confident speaking up in class, and found criticism difficult to accept. This feeling of inadequacy, coupled with lack of encouragement from professors, sexist remarks and lack of acceptance from their "geek" peers, discourages women from taking upper level computer science courses and considering computer science a career.

There are not many convincing explanations of why women's self-esteem keeps declining through their college years, but it is speculated that they are treated with lower expectations than man. Some women are discouraged by their advisors from taking upper level courses in the sciences and sometimes even in their own fields of study. One female engineer major here at Swarthmore reported that when she sought her (male) advisor to discuss plans for graduate school, he kept changing the subject and suggesting to her that she should get married and start a family instead. Though there is tecnically no harm in asking a woman (or a man) about marriage and child-bearing plans, implying that a woman should get married INSTEAD of going to graduate school may suggest to her that this authority figure does not think that she is qualified for even applying for graduate school, reassuring the insecurites that this woman might already have had.