Spooking or Chasing Away Women (From Computer Science)
"Sunday is International Women's Day" like we said last night and a female judge recently explained that my wife had indeed been abused online for no reason (gross misogyny). So what are we going to do about it?
Well, at the very least we need to recognise there is a stigma issue and cultural issue. "Sunday is International Women's Day. It might be an opportunity to cover various crossover topics between tech and women's rights," an associate has said.
Sunday is 18 hours away (here in England), so we can begin talking about this right now. At the EPO, as I explained yesterday, the only way for women to get ahead is sex or mischief. This problem isn't limited to the EPO and it imperils societal progress because we put the majority of the population (females) at a position of considerable disadvantage. When I say "we" I also refer to women; because there are women who help nasty men attack other women. Social climbers would betray anyone.
In the context of technology specifically, I saw research showing how contributions made by women were blindly assumed to be worse and prejudged as such even when closely assessed (typically by men). Some say the only way to overcome this prejudice is to force quotas, wherein more of the assessors would be female. But that's easier to talk about in theory than in practice.
The status quo discourages women from even trying to study Computer Science and related disciplines.
Thankfully the British political system has a considerable number of women. This means the prospect of fairness towards women is higher. █
Image source: An Athenian Women