Until the sea shall free them.

Dec. 31, 2014 at 9:02am with 53 notes

Man, I am pissed off right now. If I have to read another article that says how difficult life is for women in computer science, I am going to… well, I’ll probably just write more grumpy posts about it, but anyway:

I made the mistake of googling the whole Scott Aaronson thing to see what people were saying, and I ran into this article. It’s the following quote that pissed me off:

[N]erd boys will eventually find themselves in a more comfortable seat in the social power structure where their talents are appreciated, while the nerd girls will have to spend the whole of their lives confronting sexual discrimination.

(I mean, the whole article pissed me off. If someone says “I spent ten years of my life suicidally anxious”, you don’t say “well, other people have it much worse”. It doesn’t matter whether that’s true; it’s just basic human decency. If you want to air your own, similar complaints, you can at least express some empathy first.)

But more importantly, I want to talk about this idea that girls will face eternal sexism if they go into science. People who have this idea usually want more women to go into the sciences. But if you want more women to go into science, this seems like the least encouraging message you could send. “You are going to face a lifetime of persecution if you choose this career option. So come on, choose this career option, it’ll be great!”

I think the idea is that, if enough women enter the sciences, then the persecution and hardship will end. But when people write quotes like the above, they never include this qualification. They never include a glimmer of hope. They don’t say “women will face a lifetime of discrimination… unless we band together, and show the world that we can do science as well as any man!" They just say "women will face a lifetime of discrimination”.

I think my issue is, if you adopt the feminist worldview, there are two options for how the world could work. Option (1): there will always be structural inequality against women, and things will never get better, in which case there’s little that women can do besides embrace their victimhood. Option (2): things can get better, and that’s exactly what feminism is for – making things better for women. But if you take option (2), then you have to acknowledge that someday, things may very well improve, and there will come a time when women are not discriminated against. For all we know, it may even be in our lifetimes. So if you believe option (2), then you can’t make statements like the one I quoted above.

(Ok, I guess there’s an option (3) that lets you keep both your optimism and your victimhood: things can improve, but only up to some asymptote, and even at that asymptote, things will be worse for women than they are for men. But I think my comments from earlier apply here too. If women in science will never be respected as much as men, no matter how much feminism tries, then why encourage more women to go into science?)

Anyway, I’m just tired of hearing all of this discouraging shit about what women will face if they go into science. A thousand sociology studies have shown that if girls are told “girls can’t do math”, then they’ll do worse on math exams. Why is it any different when feminists continually tell girls that they will face a lifetime of difficulties if they try to go into the sciences? (Yes, I understand that “girls can’t do math” is talking about some property of the girls themselves, while “girls will face a lifetime of discrimination” is talking about a property of the system. But I want to see the studies done, because it’s easy for me to imagine both messages invoking the same feeling of “no, this is going to be impossibly difficult; why should I even try?”.)

Let me end this rant on a more positive note. I’m a woman in computer science, and I have not faced any discrimination for it. My parents are feminists; when I was a kid, they taught me I could do whatever I put my mind to. Also, my dad worked in software engineering, and he always took me to work on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. I remember a bunch of his female colleagues, and I’m sure he made a point of introducing me to women in computer science. But he never said “look, a woman in computer science”, as if this were an unusual thing. He just said “This is my boss Terry." "This is my coworker May.”

Anyway, now I’m a grad student in computer science. Grad school is hard, but it’s hard for everyone, guys and girls alike. And I never get the sense that I’m discriminated against for being a woman. After talking to other girls in my grad program, I realize I’m unusually lucky. Many of them have indeed faced discrimination (though not in this grad program, I don’t think). But I still want to spread the word that this isn’t true of everyone. Some women face discrimination in computer science, but others don’t. It is really, truly possible for women to study computer science, and not be discriminated against. There are at least a few of us for whom this is true.