HOLY COW! I don’t have time to read all of this, but sfdragonboy asked me to comment:
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I agree with Jane that there are fears of ageism in SF, and it’s not deteriorating neurons–it’s that older people are more likely to have a family and want to go home and not spend 60-80 hours/week in the office (even if they don’t have a family). I even saw a company recently advertise itself as “parent friendly.” That was a super big plus for me. It’s s also awkward for people like my husband when they feel like they’re 10 years older than everyone else–and it depends on the company. Facebook and his current place (will remain anonymous) were definitely on the younger side when he applied. His previous job, more like him–managers and CEO had families. Facebook has aged now, since his original interview, and there are more families there. Even the CEO is now married with kid.
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In my college, anyone could choose their major during their freshman year and even change it later (the college was therefore not adjusting who could/couldn’t be in any particular major unlike some schools which you have to apply into a particular degree program). I believe that the ratio in computer science classes was 1:4 or 1:5 women to men while the school was maybe 49%-51% W:M. When I double majored, the other major-Mech E was about 50/50. It was extremely noticable to me that I would walk into a room with a lot more women than I was used to. So, I agree, I think with wuqijun (post 10ish), that chewing out companies for having bad ratios isn’t the place to start. However, if Google is trying to address what happens when women choose a major and apply to colleges, then it could make a difference.
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I do believe that there are hormonal differences that drive people’s preferences, and we may never achieve a 50/50 ratio in some of these majors, and frankly, I wish people would recognize and acknowledge that. Otherwise, there’s no frank discussion about why women might shy away from CS. Is it that she needs a more social programming environment maybe? Because if all we do is say that women are being discriminated against in grade schools and not addressing the differences in learning styles or how to market CS to women, we can neither articulate the problem nor understand when we’ve fixed what really is a problem. Because I don’t think adding testosterone to the drinking water to get more women in CS is an acceptable solution.
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My current concern is getting back into the job market after being out. So I have a CS degree, BUT in order to get a job, I will likely be interviewed by people like my husband who has said things like “I’d never hire you because you don’t know enough languages.” So essentially to get a woman who took time off to be a mom back into a place like Google, she has to be interviewed by people who might (or hopefully aren’t) judgemental like my husband and can’t see past the time off to her potential. Men are less likely to be SAHDs and don’t face this kind of discrimination. I think this is a very real problem, although, statistically that may show up more as women being paid less than men because they might get hired at a lower level job (therefore a lower pay scale), and are probably happy just to have gotten the job and won’t aggressively negotiate salary.
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Speaking of negotiating salary, it’s really hard for me not to wonder if men and women judge the value of jobs+benefits differently. If i’m a returning SAHM and taking on a job while still (statistically) doing 80% of the housework, I’m going to take a job that has way more flexibility and sick days even if it means lower pay. Even now, when I occasionally browse for jobs, I limit it to 5 miles from the kid’s schools which means settling for a smaller job pool.