Over at the Communications of the ACM, a new article — Computing’s Narrow Focus May Hinder Women’s Participation — suggests that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs should shoulder some of the blame for the dearth of women at Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter and other tech companies. From the article:
[blah blah blah prividge]
Realtalk ©: It’s hard to say which women despise more, computer science or computer scientists.
Funny story, I took a computer organization class back in my hardy youth. First day, somebody comments that there aren’t any girls in a class of 25. Inspired, I asked whether anyone in the class had a girlfriend. Exactly one dude raised his hand. Now, I’m no sorta fancy edumacated fag or nothin, but that ain’t right. Isn’t college that place where people do drugs and sex?
Anyway, riddle me this: I’m imagining a computer science academy just for girls. Would the proportion of female students be any higher? My calculator is saying ERROR. Weird, that’s not a number. Who programs these things, anyway?
Maybe the thing to do is put the computer science nerds in all the classes except the STEM ones. And make the STEM ones pink or something. But I rather expect that after a brief uptick in sexual harassment claims, demographics would return to normal and all the social justice warriors can happily return to their incessant bitching.
Women would prefer the nerds to dwell in subterranean accommodations so they can work harder out of sight.
Do they want a Metropolis type situation or more of a Penultimate Truth deal?
The plot of Metropolis is crap but its visual genius remains unmatched to this day. It reminds me of what I see in my dreams.
I’d be okay with that. Sounds like the closest thing to freedom I’ve ever known. Make the numbers go up? Sure thing, easy as pie, though it might taste a little different than last time. That’s the Pie Science you’re tasting.
And since it was so easy to make the numbers go up, I’ll just be around this bend taking a nap and totally not digging my own private tunnels.