Guest Post - Bias and Frustration: @puffskein

I apologize for the long blogging hiatus - I've been busy and distracted, but that's no excuse. While I'm working on polishing a long-form post and a link roundup to post soon, I wanted to share the perspective of a friend of mine.  She is in a technical role in a company not traditionally in the "tech industry" and encounters exactly the same kind of bias and frustration those in the tech industry face.  Below are her own words, detailing the issues she faces and the exhaustion she feels needing to prove herself at every new encounter.  I'm pleased to say that she has worked through many of the issues she describes below, but this experience is all-too-common.

By @puffskein

Recently I have been pleased to see a number of articles talking about the problems women face in the “Tech” industry. I have been honored to be surrounded by a group of very smart women whom I know because I was privileged enough to go to a very good university. Then work reminded me of all the subtle biases all professional women face.

I work in an industry that is for some reason not considered to be “tech” industry - even though I’ve jokingly described the company I work for as “trying to be like google but for advertising.” In the vein of STEM is for everyone, we need to broaden what we think of as the Tech industry - and start critically thinking about how we consciously and unconsciously treat women in all professional environments.

I have many male and female friends who are directly working as managers and leads in very technical fields. A few of them have erroneously pointed out to me that I don’t really work in the tech industry, or if you think that’s bad try working at a tech company, or the best, well, yes you code and do math, but you’re hiding in a border field. Women need to stop themselves whenever they feel they may say something to another women that minimizes their experience (this goes for more than just work related stuff - for instance, if a woman tells you about terrible street harassment DO NOT ask what they were wearing, it is irrelevant and rude).

Yes, I write code - usually for statistical purposes - but also sometimes for fun or just because I wanted to solve a problem. And no, that is not what we should be looking at when we consider whether or not a fields is technical or STEM related. It’s great to encourage people to code - but it is not going to solve the gender biases, both blatant and subtle, that women experience on a daily basis in the workplace. And I assure you that women experience the same things in non-STEM fields - having worked in a commercial kitchen, and a professional theatre (yep, both “male dominated” fields).

For years I thought it was just that I was “young” or looked young. But over the last few months I’ve realized it has nothing to do with that. Throughout my career I have been hit-on in unwelcome ways (by both male and female colleagues - to the point at one company where I felt I had no choice but to leave). I have been questioned by clients along the lines of “wow, did you do this all by yourself little girl?” I have had female executives at my own company say to me, “wow, you really know your stuff,” as if they were somehow surprised that another woman could be incredibly knowledgeable and competent. So please don’t think I’m just picking on men.

Many of these behaviors were not intentional or done with malice, and I make an effort to call people on them because they may not even be aware they’re doing it. I’ve even managed to make some colleagues aware of these situations so that maybe when they see them happening to other people they will stand up for what is right. This is still an uphill battle and the people who are aware of it are often left feeling like the weight of the issue rests on their shoulders and that it is their role and responsibility to change it. This I think is why many women who are successful in these fields duck out after a time. It is exhausting.

Every time a new “incident” occurs, it eats at you and your self-confidence, and through your shield of righteous indignation. No matter how much you know the person didn’t mean to do it. They didn’t mean to assume your male colleague came up with that idea (even when he said that you came up with it), it’s just a socially ingrained tick. It can leave one feeling a deep sense in futility towards doing good work - why bother if you’re not going to be recognized even when someone tries to make sure you are. Why get advanced degrees in your fields, when you will still be forced to prove yourself to every person you interact with just because you happen to be female? It is also exhausting to call out these issues every time they occur - people assume you’re being a combative b-word (which I actually take as a compliment, but some people do not, and I’ve gotten “performance review” comments along the lines of “too assertive” - which would never be written in a negative way on a male colleagues performance review).

As a society we need to address these subtle biases, not merely by convincing more young women to go into technical fields, but by also convincing more young men to follow their hearts to fields that might be atypical, or not be considered “masculine” enough. It needs to stop being about us “women” vs. them “men” - and stop putting the weight of solving this societal issue on women.

Specialist Science Teachers Send the Wrong Message

Science isn't just people
in white lab coats

There is apparently a push in Australia to put specialist science teachers in every primary school.  On first blush, this sounds like a good way to ensure that students have access to high-quality science education in early grades.  However, Charlotte Pezaro, educator, scientist, and PhD candidate says that this strategy is misguided.  She has a couple of concerns, most notably that this will "perpetuate the myth that science isn’t for everyone; that it’s for 'special', 'smarter', or 'nerdy' people, instead of the diverse group that primary school teachers are."  As she says, the science you learn in primary school is something that every adult should be able to understand, and having generalist primary teachers teach the subject helps demonstrate that fact.

Especially at a young age, the message should be that everyone should learn science, regardless of whether they think they want to be an elementary school teacher or an astrophysicist.  This is, by the way, the same concern I have for many "girls in STEM" programs - that they send the message to girls that it's abnormal to be into STEM subjects.

But wait, you say - we have specialists teaching music, art, and physical education, and those aren't just for "nerds."   True, but it is clear that those subjects are not part of the core curriculum.  And I think even as a child I subconsciously understood that those weren't really things I had to learn, unlike what we did in the normal classroom.  The fact that my teacher may or may not have been good at music, art, or sports probably did send the message that it was OK for me also not to be good at those things; given my lack of artistic abilities, that was probably good for my self esteem.  On the other hand, I don't think we should be giving such an easy-out for science.

But I do think there is a place for science specialists to enhance the regular curriculum.  I remember in 3rd or 4th grade, we had a scientist who was the parent of a kid in another class come in once every two weeks for a special science lesson.  These were highly interactive, visual, and fun. We built electro-magnets, saw chemical reactions, and had other demonstrations of the type you'd see on Mr. Wizard's World (pictured left).   If the purpose of the science specialist is to make science more fun, rather than to teach the core science curriculum, then I think it's a great idea.

#YesAllProfessions

Recently, I've seen an uptick in articles about how people in various non-engineering/science professions should learn to code. From MBA students learning to code to know their business better to law students learning to think like a lawyer by first learning to think like a system designer, the cognitive benefits of learning to code are obvious. Fields such as finance are so heavily tied to data-driven processes that one venture fund actually put an algorithm on its board.  

While simply knowing how to program has myriad benefits even if you never write another line of code in your life, once you know how to code you are more likely to identify ways in which writing code can help you do your (non-tech) job.

You won't find writing software anywhere in my job description, but if I were to list all of the times I've written a computer program to help me better perform my job, I'd be writing all day. Writing code allows me to sift through large amounts of data to help myself and my colleagues make better decisions.   I make maps, graphs, lists, and summaries by writing short programs that we would otherwise either enlist interns to devote time making or would otherwise be unable to do entirely.

These programming tasks are often very small - sometimes taking just minutes to complete, and rarely more than a few hours.  Just to explain the problem to a non-lawyer developer would often take as much time as it takes me to write the program because I have the benefit of having both a complete understanding of the problem and the skills necessary to solve it.

This is, I'm sure, part of why V. David Zvenyach is writing a free online Coding for Lawyers book. While computer science is a complex and challenging field, learning to write simple programs it not hard.  I encourage everyone to take advantage of various free online resources to learn to code, such as the Code Academy or the Hour of Code exercises on code.org.

The Clogged Pipeline

Following up on the last post about why women leave tech, I decided to take a look at my network and see if the leaky pipeline theory holds.  That is - are women who are studying engineering and taking jobs in the field dropping out at a significantly higher rate than men?  I looked at women and men with degrees in either Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) or Computer Science (CS) from my alma mater.  The results?

1. 30% of the women left the tech world, while 8% of the men did.
2. Among those still in the tech world, the men who work at the staff are 50% more likely to have a "senior" title (66%) than the women (42%).
3. The men are also 50% more likely to make it to management roles - of the women still in the tech world, only 25% are in management at any level, while 36% of the men are.
4. While four of the men founded startups, none of the women did.
5. The only place I see parity is that women who stay in tech have essentially the same likelihood of landing a senior management role at a company they didn't found (12.5%) as the men (12%).  But those women took larger steps outside of their field than the men did to get them.

More details and an info-graphic after the jump:

Why Do Women Leave Tech?

Getting girls and women interested in tech is only half the battle.  My friend Krista sent me a link to a TechCrunch article titled "Women in Tech: It's Not Just a Pipeline Problem."  It points out that while we can clearly do more to encourage girls to pursue tech classes and major in STEM fields, that's not the only problem.  Women leave tech jobs at a rate substantially higher than their male counterparts.

Why?

The article suggests it's due (at least in part) to blatant sexism that exists in the industry.  And it does - a significant percentage of women report being sexually harassed.  The story that came out earlier this month about a woman founder being groped during a meeting with an investor was sadly not a surprise. However, for each of these major acute issues, there are hundreds of tiny issues that weigh on women.

It's things like:

No Google, no I didn't. pic.twitter.com/9BtO4IjBTE
— Emily McManus (@emilymcmc) August 7, 2014

It's not getting to have a one-on-one meeting with a male supervisor because they are afraid you (or someone else) will take it the wrong way.

It's every time you meet new people and have to dispel their assumption that you have no idea what you're talking about.

It's getting recognized for good work and then worrying that others will think the only reason is because you're female.

It's not getting recognized for good work because you didn't claim credit for your work, but fearing that if you did claim credit, you wouldn't be liked.

These problems are hard to solve, but as the TechCrunch article says - the first step is admitting there's a problem.

Blind Auditions

Is this how we should conduct interviews?

SFGate's recent article, Gender gap? Tech could take a cue from orchestras, highlights parallels between orchestras in the 1970s and the tech industry.  The similarities are eerie.  In the 1970s, women were widely considered unsuited to performance at the top levels of orchestra.  Women just didn't get music, or didn't want to devote their lives to it, or something....  It was rare to see a woman in an orchestra playing anything but a harp.  In fact, only 5% of the top symphonies' performers were female.  But now the gender gap has shrunk substantially - those orchestras are now 40% female.

How did they do it?  Blind auditions.  Candidates were behind a screen while demonstrating their skills, such that the judging panel had no idea who the candidate was or what they looked like.  Can the tech industry accomplish the same thing with gender-blind interviews?  Sounds simple enough.  Would that work for tech?  Probably not, for two reasons.

1) Interviews tend to be less of a technical exam and more of a real-time interaction between interviewer and interviewee to get a sense of the applicant's problem-solving and communication skills.  To truly mask the candidates gender, you'd have to prohibit the candidate from speaking, which would make communication much more difficult.  At least until we have surrogates or scramble suits that mask our true identity in the workplace while allowing us to communicate and interact naturally, we won't be able to judge a candidates aptitude without learning their gender.

2) It seems that candidates are getting excluded before the interview stage.  Based on my experience and that of many of my friends throughout the industry, we rarely see women interviewing, even adjusting for the gender imbalance in STEM education.  So we probably need to address whatever is blocking the pipeline before radically reforming the hiring process.

So what can we do?  I have a few thoughts:

Mask applicants' gender where we can.  There's no reason to see gender-identifying information at the initial resume screen, nor when looking at writing or code samples.  An organization committed to leveling the playing field should consider masking names and other information that would tend to reveal gender, race, ethnicity, or national origin in the early stages of review.

Convince women to apply. Studies show that women don't apply for jobs at the rate that men do.  Women tend to select out of the application process unless they meet nearly 100% of the job criteria, while men are willing to apply with only 60% of the criteria.  This fact needs to be repeated over and over again until women (myself included) actually come to terms with the fact that we don't need to reject ourselves before we apply.

Bridge the confidence gap in resume writing. Women's resumes tend to be substantially less strong than men's.  That's because we tend to claim less of the credit for our accomplishments and use less-active verbs to describe our roles.  We "help" or "work with" or "assist."  Men "develop" and "lead" and "direct."  This is even true when describing the exact same task.

Ensure interviewers are aware of their own cultural blind spots.  When we do get to the non-gender-blind interview, we need to be aware of the subtle biases we all have. Cultural blind spots inadvertently exclude excellent candidates because they don't have the same hobbies, interests, and backgrounds as the main team.  This excludes not only women, but men who don't fit the exact image of the team - too old, from a different socioeconomic background, of a different race or national origin than the more common in the field.  Companies should take care to train those who play a role in selected candidates to be aware of their own biases.

Those are my thoughts - but I'd love to read yours in the comments.

Science is Natural for Everyone

Someone's been reading this blog.

Well maybe not, but Girls Love Science. We Tell Them Not To. from The Daily Beast echoes the points I've been trying to make - that so many of the attempts to get girls interested in STEM start from a premise that science is unnatural.  The article quotes astrophysicist Katie Mack who says "Gender-based socialization, and messages [ ] that tell girls that science is an unnatural thing for them to do, are incredibly pervasive in our culture."

The article is a spectacular take-down of the idea that science has to be made "girly" to be appealing to girls.  It tells us to toss aside the notion that "[g]irls will love science, [as] the EU has suggested, because Bunsen burners look like lipstick and fiber-optic cables are sort of like powder brushes."

Finally, the article quotes another female astrophysicist, Meg Urry, who notes "Discrimination isn’t a thunderbolt, it isn’t an abrupt slap in the face. It’s the slow drumbeat of being underappreciated, feeling uncomfortable and encountering roadblocks along the path to success."

A+++++ would read again!

Boosting CS Enrollment With Separate Pitches for Boys and Girls

An article I read on Slashdot a little while back points out that Georgia Tech is sending targeted letters to parents of high school students who score well on the PSAT to encourage those students to take Advanced Placement Computer Science.  These letters, as well as other materials are available on Georgia Tech's Institute for Computer Education website.

Great, right?  Kids often need extra encouragement to get the confidence to try something new.  These letters send a strong positive message.  But, there's a twist... they send out two very different letters - one for parents of girls and one for parents of boys.

I love that they're doing this outreach, but I'm always skeptical when people use gender-based stereotypes to attempt to improve the gender balance in STEM.  These efforts can end up fueling the problem they are attempting to extinguish.  Below I step through all of the differences and offer suggestions to improve the letters.

This is how you profile a woman in tech

A different security princess...

Meet Google's Security Princess, profiling Parisa Tabriz, is probably the most amazing article about a woman in tech that I've ever read.  I'm astonished that this piece of journalistic perfection came from Elle, a fashion magazine.  By the end of the first page of this five-page article, you almost forget that there's something weird about the fact that Google's top security person is a woman.  You get a real three-dimensional look at someone in the tech field, what motivates her, what she does in her spare time, lessons she has for developers to put them into the security mindset.  It's refreshing.

Attribution - Are the Wrong People Getting Credit?

I'm embarrassed to say, it happened to me again this week, and I froze.  A project I was the primary developer on about 5 years ago was being praised by my counterpart in another part of my organization for its innovativeness and usefulness.  The only problem is that this counterpart was praising someone else for the work - a male engineer.  I didn't correct the error.  Now, the person being praised indeed deserves a share of the credit - he contributed to the project in very important ways - but it was neither his idea nor primarily his product.  Later, I was promoted, and I'm now that male engineer's supervisor, so on one level I was quite happy to allow the praise to be assigned to my employee, but on another level, I regret that I allowed a male to gain credit for work done by a female.

Links - 4/21/2014

Think that D in high school math means you can't go into STEM?  Think again.  A Salon article on getting girls to choose, and stick with, STEM careers tries to break down the confidence barrier by highlighting that the MIT alum who now develops the curriculum for Girls Who Code did not do so well in high school math.

On a similar note, challenging yourself is worthwhile, even if your grades aren't perfect.  Google would rather you be a B student in CS than an A+ student in English (NYTimes)

Provide equality of opportunity first before looking for answers in our genes.  Neil deGrasse Tyson answers whether it's possible that there is a genetic reason women (or others) are not as likely to pursue STEM fields.  The video is several years old, but for some reason it has been making the rounds recently. NPR has a good summary for those who can't or don't want to watch the video.

Ban potentially dangerous science fair projects?  Science teacher reportedly suspended for allowing "imitation weapon" science projects.  I seem to recall things a bit more dangerous than that going on when I was in high school.

Skepticism is part of science, but skepticism about science is not a good thing.  Maybe that article from last week's links about avoiding the term "theory" was onto something.

Have more links to share?  Put them in the comments or send them to me directly.

Don't Mess Up (Or Keep Trying Until You Succeed)

There are many awesome things about being a woman in a field dominated by men, but one of the less awesome things is the fear of having your failures held against not just yourself but all women.  Piled Higher and Deeper has a great take on this from the perspective of the woman and xkcd takes it on from the perspective of (some) men:

So obviously, the solution if you are a woman is never to make a mistake.  But let's be honest, you will.  Making mistakes is an important part of learning.  When you make that inevitable mistake or two or ten, it's tempting to give up and walk away.  Don't do it.  If you do, you don't have the opportunity to show everyone that you can get it right.  They'll only be able to remember you for the failure and not the triumph.

Links - 4/14/2014

To tide everyone over while I work on my next few posts, here are some science-related links I found interesting last week.

It is because it has been. Why are there so few women in tech?  This parable has the answer.

Be the egg.  Ever wanted to go through a Rube Goldberg machine?  According to this new GoldieBlox video, that's what happens if you study STEM. Although followers know that I prefer inclusive marketing of tech toys over toys aimed exclusively at girls, this is pretty good.

Wired has a new model for scientific lingo. Wired says the terms "hypothesis," "theory," and "scientific law" should not be used - instead we should talk about "models."  Do you agree?

"People didn't invent this stuff because they were bored." This is quite harsh (and uses some R-rated language), but it makes the point that being bad at math is not a badge of honor.

Oh, YouTube comments. Brain Scoop's Emily Graslie tackles sexism related to her YouTube channel.

Have some good STEM-related links?  Post them in the comment section or send me a message.

The Intern Hiring Conundrum

When I say "STEM is for Everyone," I mean it.  STEM is not just for people who do STEM - problems that come up in our daily lives can be solved with the techniques we learn by studying STEM.  When you hear "economics," don't think "price of wheat in a drought," think "hiring interns."

Here's why.  A friend came to me with a problem her organization is having hiring interns. There are 7 divisions in her organization, and it used to be that each division handled intern hiring independently.  Too often multiple divisions would end up giving offers to the same candidates, which confused the candidates and made it harder for the divisions to predict yield (that is, the percentage of candidates that will accept offers).

So a couple of years ago they switched to a coordinated hiring process, where each of the divisions would select their preferred candidates and representatives from each of the 7 divisions would sit in a room to resolve any conflicts.  But these meetings could get very heated and led to inter-divisional conflicts.  So they want to take emotions out of the process and develop a fair system allocate candidates between the divisions.

Economists will recognize this as a matching problem.  Matching is a very complex problem - indeed, a matching algorithm was one of the accomplishments that led to the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economic Science for Lloyd Shapley and Alvin Roth.  For various reasons, the organization is not going to use candidate preferences in making division assignments, which helps simplify the system to a more traditional resource allocation problem.  Drafts, lotteries, and auctions are all mechanisms for allocating scarce resources.  Picking the right system will help you get the right interns to the right groups.  To figure out which is the right system, you need to understand your objectives and constraints, and how each system handles your situation.  After the jump, I go through some of the possible intern assignment systems and their pros and cons.

I should point out that I have not studied either economics or game theory extensively - I find these issues fascinating, but true experts would have a lot more to say about this.

Tech or Something Else? Why Not Both?

Talking to high school students, one of the most common things I hear is in the form "I really like [STEM field] but I have a passion for [arts/humanities field]."  As in, "I really love science, but I'm really into music" or "I love math, but I really want to study French."  College catalogs and job descriptions conspire to give people the impression that you have to pick just one field, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Technology touches nearly every aspect of society. Everything from advertising to zoo-keeping has benefited from technology.  The innovations that enable game-changing improvements often come from people who have a passion and experience in two or more fields. Combining substantive knowledge in one area with technical know-how creates a very powerful combination.

Have Confidence to Learn by Teaching

JennyxYoung

Lack of confidence is one of the biggest roadblocks to success, especially in STEM fields.  By now, it is well known that Impostor Syndrome, which disproportionately impacts professional women (but affects many men as well), causes the affected to doubt themselves and ultimately under-perform their potential.  Related confidence deficiencies cause women to downplay their successes in performance reviews, not apply for positions unless they are certain they meet 100% of the qualifications, and dwell on any minor shortcoming.  You don't have to get to the workforce for these confidence issues to crop up - they happen in school as well.

In Math is Hard, But So Is Everything Else, I wrote about how it's natural to feel stuck at times.  But how can we get unstuck?  One way is to try to teach someone else the concepts you barely understand.   Doing this requires healthy dose of confidence, but it doesn't require you to actually be an expert. 

Cultural Blind Spots

This excellent article puts into perspective how 'geek culture' can exclude otherwise very capable individuals who do not fit neatly in its bounds. This is one of the forms of subtle bias I commonly refer to - it's not that someone makes a conscious decision to hire only young white men for their tech startup, but it tends to happen anyway.  It's difficult in an interview to identify the kind of spark that makes someone a good engineer - you want to find people with the right mix of technical know-how, creativity, problem-solving skills, and dedication to make great things.  You can test for technical know-how, and references can help determine dedication, but creativity and problem-solving skills are a lot harder to identify.  So it's no surprise that companies come up with questions about superpowers and surviving a zombie apocalypse because they are fun scenarios that can demonstrate creativity and problem-solving skills.  However, these scenarios play off of fiction genres that tend to appeal much more to men than women.  These scenarios aren't relevant to the work in the company (unless the product is related to zombies or superpowers in some way), so tying hiring decisions to these kinds of questions unnecessarily biases hiring against women.

Many women who succeed in heavily male dominated tech fields have adopted the culture - whether out of genuine interest, feigned interest in an attempt to fit in, or cultivating an actual interest upon making an attempt to fit in.  But for many others who have the aptitude and interest in the science and technology of it all, but are unable or unwilling to adapt to the culture, the existence of this culture serves as a barrier to entry.

This is the kind of thing that all of us need to be conscious of - on the hiring side to reflect whether we are inadvertently missing great candidates and on the job-seeking side to make sure we don't get caught in someone else's cultural blind spot.

2^11

Sometimes the best way to learn is to not realize you're learning.  The game 2048 is like that.  The goal is very simple - you combine merge blocks of the same number into one with the combined value.  For example, if you combine two '4' blocks (2^2), you make one '8' block (2^3).  Two '8' blocks make a 16 block (2^4) and so on.  The goal is to create a 2048 block (2^11).  After each move, a block appears randomly somewhere on the board - usually a 2, but sometimes a 4.

This is a very fun and natural way to get comfortable with powers of 2, which is an important concept in computing.  I'm sure the creator of this game did not intend it to be an educational game, but it's just one of the little ways that you can pick up important concepts in unconventional ways.

No, I'm not writing a blog post solely to justify the hours I've wasted playing this game.  Why do you ask?

Targeted Programs and Backlash

The Don't Look Down post explores the message that targeted programs can send to the targets.  In this post, I take on the message that targeted programs send to the non-targeted.  As a reaction to these programs, men can develop resentment and prejudice against women.  Below I discuss this phenomenon, why that belief is a problem for all of us, and what programs I prefer because they don't foster this reaction.

Meeting Our Future Engineers

Last week I had the honor of meeting about a dozen students from my alma mater at a networking event.  They were visiting Washington, DC to get a sense of what engineering is like in the "real world" (if you can call DC the "real world") by spending a day shadowing hosts (including myself) at various government agencies, research labs, and companies.

At the networking reception, I had the opportunity to speak with engineering students in several different programs.  Most of these students are sophomores and are just starting to figure out what they want to do with their lives.  I spoke with one young woman studying mechanical engineering who is interested in designing roller coasters.  One young man studying chemical engineering is trying to decide between going into manufacturing of pharmaceuticals or entering the growing field of natural gas extraction in his home state of Pennsylvania.  One young engineer is on her way to a career defending networks from cyber-attacks, another is looking to use his background to help shape policy.

Talking to these students, I'd have no idea there was a shortage of women engineers.  The group was evenly split between men and women, and all of the students impressed me.  The statistics show we have a lot of work to do still, but it was nice to be in a room of engineers and not be heavily outnumbered.

Pi is for Everyone

Source: Wikipedia

The formulas, jargon, and code in this post may not be the best way to prove that STEM is for everyone, but it's Pi Day, and I think it's good to keep in mind that things we take for granted now were once considered extremely difficult.  According to CNN, it's cool to like pi.

So today, in honor of Pi Day, I decided to refresh my memory and sharpen my programming skills by implementing Viète's Forumla. Viète's formula, developed in 1593, expands on the Archimedes method of approximating pi developed around 250 B.C.  This method relies on computing the circumference of regular polygons with many sides. As you increase the sides of the polygon, it gets closer and closer to being a circle, and thus, the ratio of the perimeter to the "diameter" gets closer to the value of pi.

Math Is Hard - But So Is Everything Else

The first time I swung a golf club, I missed the little white ball entirely (and the second time I made pretty solid contact with the big green ball - ouch!).  Once I started hitting the golf ball reliably, it didn't go very far. Once I started to hit it a bit farther, it didn't go where I wanted.  And once it started going more or less where I wanted, I couldn't figure out how to shape my shots.  And so on.  At each step, I was tempted to give up - unsure if I would ever be good enough to play with friends and colleagues (and frankly, I still am).  But the truth is that I always could get better with some more practice.

Like golf, math takes practice.  "I'm not good at math" is just code for "I don't want to practice anymore." And just like you can get muscle fatigue and reach a point where practicing is counterproductive, you can get brain fatigue as well.  But if you give yourself a chance to recover and come back to it later, maybe try a different approach or work on a different skill, you will be able to get past it.  

I think this video sends a pretty compelling "stick with it" message and I'd encourage anyone who thinks they don't have a brain for math to watch it:

Do Women Hold an Irrational Fear of Lower Grades?

Yesterday, a friend pointed out this new piece at the Washington Post, which exposes an issue that women tend to shy away from subjects where they are likely to struggle - instead sticking to areas where they expect to receive higher grades.  According to studies cited in that article, "women might also value high grades more than men do and sort themselves into fields where grading curves are more lenient."  Female students apparently do in fact receive higher average grades than male students, but female students also drop out of STEM majors at a higher rate than male students.  


This article immediately reminded me of studies that show that praising young children for effort rather than intelligence encourages them to work through problems when they encounter them.  In contrast, praising intelligence or achievement conditions children to do things they know they will succeed at.  For some reason, parents and teachers both tend to praise effort more in boys and achievement more in girls.  The result is that girls are feel encouraged to do things they know they will be good at, while boys are more apt to try something new and risk failure.  I suspect that this conditioning may in part explain the phenomenon discussed in the WaPo piece.


To some extent, students who seek easier classes may be doing the right thing.  In life we are judged on our output and not our effort.  So applying one's skills where they are more suited is not completely unreasonable.  But I see it as a problem if women are self-selecting out of tech fields at a higher rate just for fear of messing up a perfect GPA. GPA's don't matter as much as you think they do.

Making STEM Interesting: Programming Edition

As careers go, being an engineer is pretty great. Engineers tend to work fewer hours than other comparably paid professions, and engineers report a higher job satisfaction than most other professions as well.  But the problem is that while being an engineer isn't that hard, becoming an engineer can be.  Engineering is considered one of the hardest majors at college, and it's even harder without a strong foundation before that.  It's not easy to convince a teenager that it's worth all the extra work now for a payoff in the distant future.

So the payoff needs to be immediate.  And it can be.  In this post, I'll focus on programming.  What really motivates me to write computer programs is the ability to do something useful and/or fun.  In particular, I like to be able to see immediate visual results as proof that I am doing something.

Some examples of relatively easy projects with high visual impact after the jump:

Fictional Role Models

Many of us see more scientists and engineers in TV and movies than we do in real life.  These images shape our perception of what scientists and engineers look like and how they are supposed to act - even when the plot is wholly unrealistic.

My favorite portrayals of female scientists and engineers in the movies are where it is so natural that you don't realize there is anything weird.  When it seems authentic and believable that the woman you see would be in her position.  Where the woman is a full-fledged member of the team and not there primarily to be someone's love interest or merely to be a token female.  Where the woman is competent and qualified (though not necessarily perfect). Where as the show develops she may encounter some of the sexism that is far too common in technical fields, but where highlighting those kinds of problems is not the reason she is in the show.

Some of my favorite examples of this after the jump.  Post your favorites in the comments.

It’s the little things

My father is an engineer, and he never missed an opportunity to bring science and engineering into daily life.  Whether it was setting up our first computer (a Commodore 64) or balancing the chemicals in the fish tank, he made sure we all knew what he was doing, why he was doing it, and how to figure things out. 

One of my most vivid memories as a very young child was during a road trip to the beach one summer.  Getting sick of being crammed in the backseat with me, I’m sure, my older sisters (ages 10 and 11) asked how much longer until we arrived.  Rather than tell them how long it would be, my father said that we were about 100 miles away and traveling at 55 miles per hour, and reminded them that rate times time equals distance.  I was 5 and certainly did not understand multiplication, but even at that age I absorbed the important lesson that an answer could be obtained through a process – it was not simply a fact to be stated.  

I think there are a few lessons to be learned here:

1. Kids are never too young for math or science.  Just because the kids doesn't yet have the full foundation to understand what is happening, there is value in introducing them to scientific thinking.
2. There are all kinds of daily experiences that can be explained with math and science.  Any time you fix something or assemble something or learn something new, you are going through a process.  Share that process with the children around you.
3. This is an example of privilege.  I was privileged to have an engineer for a parent.  I was privileged that that parent wanted to share his thinking with me.  Not everyone has this experience at home, so it needs to be provided at school and in other daily interactions.  And we need to understand that just because a child doesn't immediately respond to the interaction doesn't mean they aren't getting it.

Don't Look Down!

I often muse that one of the reasons I was able to develop a love for science and technology as a child was that nobody ever told me girls weren’t supposed to do that stuff.  The first law of cartoon physics  is that you don’t fall until you notice the lack of ground below.   Nobody ever pointed out to 8-year-old me that she was the only girl on her Odyssey of the Mind team.  People were far more likely to remark about my age than my gender when 12-year-old me attended meetings of local BBS SysOps.  What you don’t think about can’t bother you. 

There are many well-intentioned programs to encourage girls to try coding and science and building toys aimed at girls.  But is the very notion that we need these programs and toys giving girls a reason to doubt themselves? The message "you can do it, even though you're a girl"implies that being a girl is an impediment to doing it.  The message "here is a building toy for girls" says that other building toys are not for girls.  Before girls hear these messages, did they already know the negative implication?  I don't think I did at that age.

Shouldn't we be working to make it normal for girls to like to play with legos and to be good at math rather than emphasizing how abnormal it is?  It's not a stretch - every year 13,000 women graduate with degrees in engineering (and many more in math, computer science, and other science fields) and most of us were there as children, building things, programming things, making things.  I think we should be trying harder to ensure that kids don't ever hear the message that it's abnormal, rather than focusing on trying to correct that message after it's been received.

Are we doing it wrong?

A lot of effort is being expended these days on getting girls into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), as it should be.  According to NSF statistics, women make up about 20% of the college graduates in engineering generally and only 12% of the college graduates in computer science and electrical engineering.   And yet, despite these efforts, the percentages declined throughout the 2001-2010 timeframe (more recent comprehensive data was not readily available).

So something clearly isn't working.  I have some hypotheses that I will explore through this blog.  Some of the first things I will explore are:

• Whether overtly targeting young girls (elementary and middle-school level) for STEM programs may be counterproductive
• Whether certain types of programs set young women up for failure and how to restructure those programs to be more effective
• How college-age women (and to some extent, men) need to be made aware of factors like impostor syndrome that foster self-doubt and undermine one's ability to succeed
• How we can foster an interest in math and scientific thinking at a very young age

My ideas are formed from a combination of personal experiences, discussions with other women in my field, and from articles and statistics I have come across.  I invite everyone - women and men, those who have succeeded in STEM fields and those who have not, to share their experiences through comments, but please be civil.