Three female computer scientsts at MIT offer to asnwer questions. They are doctoral candidates at MIT’s largest department, the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence laboraoty. They say, “As computer science PhD students, we were interested in fielding questions about programming, academia, MIT CSAIL, and how we got interested in the subject in the first place. As three of the few women in our department and as supporters of women pursuing STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics], we also wanted to let people know that we were interested in answering questions about what it is like to be women in a male-dominated field. We decided to actively highlight the fact that we were three female computer scientists doing an AMA, to serve as role models in a field that’s less than 20 percent female.”
They conitnue: As it turned out, people were extremely interested in our AMA, though some not for the reasons we expected. Within an hour, the thread had rocketed to the Reddit front page, with hundreds of thousands of pageviews and more than 4,700 comments. But to our surprise, the most common questions were about why our gender was relevant at all. Some people wondered why we did not simply present ourselves as “computer scientists.” Others questioned if calling attention to gender perpetuated sexism. Yet others felt that we were taking advantage of the fact that we were women to get more attention for our AMA.
The interactions in the AMA itself showed that gender does still matter. Many of the comments and questions illustrated how women are often treated in male-dominated STEM fields. Commenters interacted with us in a way they would not have interacted with men, asking us about our bra sizes, how often we “copy male classmates’ answers,” and even demanding we show our contributions “or GTFO [Get The **** Out]”. One redditor helpfully called out the double standard, saying, “Don’t worry guys – when the male dog groomer did his AMA (where he specifically identified as male), there were also dozens of comments asking why his sex mattered. Oh no, wait, there weren’t.”
As for the question of whether we brought this treatment upon ourselves by mentioning our two X chromosomes, it is well known people give women on the internet a hard time whether they call attention to their gender or not. And as one redditor says, “Gender neutrality and a push for equal rights is prevalent precisely because men and women have fought for it to become a topic of discussion.”
The dynamics of our AMA reflects gender issues that lead to disparities in who chooses to pursue careers in STEM fields. People treat girls and boys differently from an early age, giving them different feedback and expectations. There is strong evidence that American culture discourages even girls who demonstrate exceptional talent from pursuing STEM disciplines.
We made gender an explicit issue in the AMA to engage our audience in a discussion about both the existing problems and potential solutions.
This is how change happens. Though we were surprised by the sheer amount of sexist and undermining comments. We hope to help women and other minorities feel more supported pursuing careers in STEM. We won’t keep quiet. You can keep asking us anything.
