P
Piet van Oostrum
CL> This thread has surprised me: it gives more of an impression
CL> than I expected that a significant portion of practitioners
CL> sincerely believe that "women don't do computers". Abundant
CL> resources are available to those who choose to pursue the facts;
CL> <URL: http://www.indwes.edu/Faculty/bcupp/lookback/hist-10.htm >
CL> and <URL: http://cs-www.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/past-women-cs.html >
CL> are accessible starting points.
CL> Incidentally, I feel particularly ignorant myself about contri-
CL> butions from Eastern Europe during 1950-1970, say; if I just
CL> wanted to accumulate debating points, I'd look there.
I don't know how it's in other countries, but here in the Netherlands
the percentage of girls studying computer science is veeeeery low. I
have been teaching a class of Computer Networks, and in 2008 there were
zero girls attending the course. I think that was also the number of
girls that started CS in our university that year. This year there were
10 out of a population of 100. Still much to low on a university were
55% of the students is female.
Before starting to work at the university I worked at DEC (Digital
Equipment) and in 1978 I had to attend a course at DEC's headquarters in
MA, and there 50% of the attendants was female.