The English Major: +1 for the hilarity, subby.

/shame on me for getting it

Thanks. English Major also. ST clearly had far too much influence on my development...

In follow-up tests, a total of 215 students were asked to imagine they were joining either a geekily decorated or a neutrally decorated company after graduation. For every possible scenario, women preferred the non-geeky space.

So let me get this straight: women have better taste than men, therefore Star Trek is to blame for the dearth of female computer scientists. That's some good scholarship, Lou.

The Icelander: Maybe it's because Asperger's is ten times more prevalent in women than in men.

Eh? Citation needed.

Didn't Yeoman Rand end up turning tricks?

There were 4 women and 20 men in my integral calculus class.

Just sayin'...

I blame Star Trek for lots of things, but I don't think it has any effect on women in IT/CS.

Snarfangel: Come on, if there is one thing Star Trek has taught me, it's that there are plenty of jobs for women in computer science, especially in speech synthesis.

/Did any of the computers have male voices, other than androids like Data?

Male computer voices? I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that.

The Icelander: Talon: Eh? Citation needed.

Citation provided: (^) "Recent research establishes the prevalence of Asperger's Syndrome as approximately 1 in 300, affecting boys to girls with a ratio of 10:1 (6)."

That is backwards of what you first said.

FTA: Women who spent time in the geeky room reported less interest in computer science than women who saw the neutral room. For male students, however, the room's décor made no difference.



"Women quite often prefer pretty surroundings."

And the downside is...?

""What this research shows is that the image of computer science - this geeky, masculine image - can make women feel like they don't belong," says lead author Sapna Cheryan of the University of Washington."

Well boo-farking-hoo. If feelings are what's keeping women back, then they have nobody but themselves to blame. "Oh no, the guy in the computer lab has a classic Transformers toy on his desk, I can't possibly work here!"

Besides, these geeky, masculine guys themselves feel like they don't belong.

Leah Brahms?!?!

WTF, subby? Why not Carol Marcus?

Leah Brahms is a simpleton compared to Carol "I created a device that spontaneously creates life itself on an entire farking dead planet" Marcus.

What did Brahms do? Ooh. She made a better warp drive. Pffft!

Rand was at least a lieutenant commander by the end of the TOS movies, incidentally.

Janice Rand (new window)

Seems to me she was a perfect example of someone who made a career for herself, even if she wasn't super ambitious.

What the article says, but nobody is willing to admit.

girls don't go into geeky subject matter because they're snobbish socialites who don't want to debase themselves by rubbing elbows with nerds.

This just in: most girls don't like nerds...

The ones that do, are awesome. Just remember, Geekettes: The odds are good, but the goods are odd.

Kasira: No, the thing that stopped me from finishing my CS degree was the realization that I could get a business degree, and make twice as much for half the work.

Ouch...

/suddenly regrets major
//back to debugging code for overpaid PHBs I guess...

Previous research has found that a person can get a good sense of what another individual is like just from spending a few minutes perusing that person's bedroom. Cheryan wondered if the same was true of classrooms.

When I do that they call it "stalking with breaking and entering" but if it is done for "research" it is perfectly fine.

Snarfangel: Come on, if there is one thing Star Trek has taught me, it's that there are plenty of jobs for women in computer science, especially in speech synthesis.

/Did any of the computers have male voices, other than androids like Data?

Daystrom's M-5 and the Enterprise's computer from "Mirror, Mirror" come to mind.

Sounds more like "stupid, geeky men stop women from becoming computer scientists."

You know, I was going to write out a long rebuttal to this article, but the walls in this place are just the most uninviting color of slightly off white, so I think I'm going to move.

Sounds like a bunch of erroneous conclusions made to justify their grant money. Besides, everyone knows there's less women in IT because they're just not as smart as men. sheesh.

Dances-With-Lobster: Sounds more like "stupid, geeky men stop women from becoming computer scientists."

No, it's "victimization-obsessed women conflate causation and correlation."

Dances-With-Lobster: Sounds more like "stupid, geeky men stop women from becoming computer scientists."

Sound like an excuse to me. No one stopped these woman but themselves.

/Java Monkey
//rolling in money
///gym, 26 minutes

Really? I thought that many women avoided IT/IS/CS because of the long hours and forced overtime which tend to conflict with one's ability to raise a family.

If Star Trek kept you from doing anything, you didn't want to do it very badly.

and all this time I just thought it was because women are shiatty at math.

TFA:
...suggests that the stereotype of computer scientists as unwashed nerds may be partially...

and then:

decorating a computer science classroom with ... Star Trek posters, videogames and comic books...

Where does the "unwashed" part come in?

...and what about Star Trek comes across as "unwashed" (always seemed pretty clean and sterile to me)?

Great study there, preconceived assumptions and all. No wonder so many people think psychology is complete BS.

If I'm reading TFA right, it's not Star Trek itself, but Star Trek fans that stop women from becoming computer scientists.

The sad part is, I'm not sure I can really disagree with this. The stereotypes of computer scientists are not very friendly, and media obsession (as exemplified by Star Trek fandom) plays a large part in that. They create images of people that most others, frankly, just don't want to be around. Who, male or female, would want to go into a career field where they will be surrounded by people that the popular stereotypes tell them aren't the sort of people they'd want to associate with?