From: ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy)
Subject: Re: women in engineering ( help..)
Organization: NMSU Computer Science
	<1992Sep7.154918.11940@panix.com>
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 21:26:01 GMT

<In article <1992Sep7.154918.11940@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
<   There's something I'd like to find out relevant to this
<   thread.

<   When I got into the computer software field, 27 years ago,
<   I was just about off the street.  They called us "programmers"
<   and there was no talk of engineering.  Degrees were not
<   particularly liked, because people without them seemed to be
<   as good as, or better than, people with them, especially
<   people with Math or EE degrees, who had not been taught
<   anything like programming.  

	Hmm. I recall some folks in the 1970's who could
	program quite well. Some had degrees, some
	didn't.

<Basically, the commercial world
<took up a lot of middle-class dropout types, people with
<education in music or classical languages, and so on.  About
<a third of these people were women.  I've been in offices
<where half the programmers were women.

	Ah. That was at the point when knowing how to
	do things was more important than credentials.

<   About fifteen years ago, maybe a little less, Academia
<   finally figured out how to teach people to program -- give
<   them access to computers -- and started reconquering the
<   field.  

	Huh. I don't know about that; some schools were
	doing that 20 years ago. However, there HAS
	been a change over the last 20 years in course
	requirements. In the early 1970's, many schools
	basically required "some math, some C.S. and
	some other stuff".

	Nowadays, so far as I can see, the C.S. degree
	is as regimented as, oh, electrical engineering.

<Now, apparently, it's very hard to get into unless
<you have a bunch of degrees.  

	This isn't unique to the computer world, it's
	everywhere. 

	Let's see now; what major societal change
	has occurred over the last 20-odd years? 
	
	Well, for one thing, hiring has become much
	more formal than it used to be; it's damned
	rare to just talk with someone for a while 
	and either start working that day or "see
	you later". No, we now have very rigid
	hiring methods; one of those methods is
	"screenout anyone without a piece of paper".

	Where did these rigid hiring methods come from?
	Not from C.S. schools, I can say.

<And, since "programmer"
<   didn't carry the kind of weight you can charge a lot of
<   tuition money for, they started calling programmers
<   "engineers."  So programming became engineering.

	Nah, "programming" was always outranked by
	"analysts"...but "software engineering" has
	such a better sound.

<   Lo and behold, 90% of the students in the field are male,
<   just like it spoze to be in Engineering!  

	Huh? The percentage of women in both C.S. and E.E.
	continues to increase, locally.

<The field has
<   been made sexist, where it was once a shining example of 
<   a place where women could get along just like the guys!

	Sigh.

<   Do I have this completely wrong?  

	Not completely, but partially.

<If not, what happened?
 
	Gee, Fitch, what force in society ORDERED all
	employers to hire according to certain criteria?

<  How are we going to get rid of this crap by going
<   backwards?
 
	Which 'crap', please? The "credentialism" which
	has become entrenched in U.S. society (along
	with bureaucracy) over the last 30 years, or what?