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by lorenzhs 3429 days ago
What are you on about? I'm a PhD student at one of the top German universities for CompSci. There are around 10% women in our bachelor's and master's programmes. The department is actively trying to get more women interested in studying computer science, because it very much is a boys' club.

The problem isn't about access to courses. It's that existing programmes don't appeal to women, and it's dumb to ignore half of the population when you need more qualified people. That's why we need to make getting into computer science more attractive to women. Acknowledging that the current system just doesn't work for them is a necessary first step towards making it work for everyone.
1 comments
wolfgke 3429 days ago
> What are you on about?

The laws for women quota: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13551798

Otherwise:

Nobody forces women to study a non-STEM subject - they decide it themselves. So doing promotional programs for women has the implicit implication "women are too stupid to get on their own what they should study (while men are smart enough to find this out on their own)" - something I would never ever claim.

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lorenzhs 3429 days ago
No, nobody's claiming that. If that's your takeaway from outreach programmes, maybe you should talk to women about their experiences in computer science.

The reason for outreach programmes is that what's currently offered seems to appeal to men but not nearly as much to women, and that we should fix that. There's nothing patronising about admitting a problem and attempting to alleviate it. Some attempts might be misguided or based on incorrect assumptions, but that shouldn't discredit the entire endeavour.

(Since we're talking about computer science education, I'll disregard the entirely unrelated comment about quotas in businesses.)

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wolfgke 3429 days ago
> (Since we're talking about computer science education, I'll disregard the entirely unrelated comment about quotas in businesses.)

There are also (more implicit) women quota in the university laws (Landeshochschulgesetzen) of Germany's federate states e.g. for casting professors.

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