Hmm, it saddens me to see people actually expressing opinions like this in a way that appears authoritative. I don't claim to be expert in many things; but observing people is definitely a skill I have pride in and, empirically, you are wrong.
Well, not so much wrong as massively over simplifying a complex psychology. It seems to boil down to "girls are mad", which is not necessarily something I would disagree with at 2pm on a Sunday when we just have to see another dress shop... but when talking I do think it is just a mistake.
I see a lot of this; I think it is often born out of the fact that some of the more high profile CS women tend to be kooky or off the wall which introduces an accidental observation bias.
one of the strongest emotions of women.. ..is to have a career that "helps people", and biomedical careers seem to qualify
Nah, this is just a stereotype. It is born out of the stereotype that the female oriented jobs all tend to be inclined in that way; female oriented jobs are historically non-academic, practical and not usually physically taxing. This is due to historical prejudice against female ability.
There is no evidence of a greater "sharing caring" mentality in the female psych compared to men.
With 'feminism', some enormously talented and determined girls as high school seniors believed "Women don't have to just be cared for. Women and do things, too.", made terrific grades in college and let that reinforce their belief, charged into 'male' careers, and paid a very high price in lack of children, busted marriages, and sometimes even their lives, literally. "It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature."
That's just what they dramatize on TV. Top tip; don't learn psychology/sociology from TV, they thrive on mild prejudices :)
The problem with such a theory is that you are looking at a portion of women entering traditionally male arenas; and you are actually looking at the failures. As with most things, you never really see the successes.
At present the Western European gene pool is likely in the most rapid change in the last 40,000 years because genes of women who are not just DETERMINED to be mommies are being pruned out. So, in another few generations, we will be left with women who are determined to be MOMMIES.
Studies please, that is an extraordinary claim. It puts breeding/nuturing ability against ability to have a "non-female" career, to the best of my knowledge that has never been studied. And I feel that identifying such a broad but simplistic link would be extremely hard...
Uh, sorry, but that the fraction is small need not be evidence of anything wrong.
Finally something rational! :) But there is a caveat; which is that it is not automatically evidence of a problem, but it may be the indicator to a problem (i.e. something that is restricting those women that do want to enter CS).
Generally, from a little after birth and for nearly all their lives, human females are MUCH more emotional than human males.
Studies show generally that this is untrue. Women tend to be more openly emotional and have lower thresholds for both being hurt and "getting over it". Whereas men have a higher threshold, and are emotional more in private, but when it hurts it damn well hurts for a long time. Simple statements like the one you make are classic observation bias.
One of a human female's strongest emotions is to get security from membership in, and praise, acceptance, and approval from, groups, especially groups of females about their own age.
True for people of any age, gender, race etc.
That is, they are 'herd animals'.
Snap.
I am not saying that your observations do not have a basis in fact; but they are polarised so far towards observation bias and general prejudices as to be incorrect.
Waffle about "Mother Nature", without even being able to define what that means, is just that; waffle. What you are really referring to is a complex mix of personal psychology, group psychology, social prejudices and social pressure. All of these things can and have changed; suggesting that it is biologically (or otherwise) impossible for women to be pre-disposed to CS is... misinformed :)
and with great excitement tries to explain it to a girl his age at, say, lunch
I work with kids of this age; particularly teaching them computer science stuff (and other engineerign topics). It'd be hilarious to see them talk about any (extra-curricular) subject with people not within that sphere of interest. This is not limited to computer science, people know not to bore others with their pet interest from a fairly early age. There is no special case for CS :)
and the girl regards the boy, and soon, all boys less then 2-6 years older than she, as at least 'socially' immature and, really, just immature
Hmm, not particularly true. This is the classic "older man" and protector bias, I believe it is disproved but don't actually have the studies to hand.
From my observation middle school girls on average "go" for boys in the same year or the year below. Those that aim higher in middle school are usually socially frowned at ("she's a slut" etc.), that is just my observation, but I bet it holds out generally.
Nonsense about Mother Nature, emotions and herd psychology just shows a miscomprehension of the subject. Make chauvinist? ;)
> Hmm, it saddens me to see people actually expressing opinions like this in a way that appears authoritative.
I was happy to read his opinion, it changes from the usual PC stuff, and the annoying uppercasing can be explained by the boldness of the claim: that Women are actually different than Men, in such a way that one of the result is they are less inclined to mess for hours, days, years with lines of computer language just to prove one theory of theirs.
As a side note, I am very annoyed when I read PC code like the boss "she", or alterning "he" and "she" in tech docs in fields where obviously the concerned people are 80% guys. In 50 years our readers will think we had problems with the reality and language: we seem to have forgotten that the language basically describes reality, it doesn't make it happen, except for those who believe in magic (hope not too many here are in this case).
Why is it wrong that occasionally manuals use a "she" to describe somebody? Is "she" an inherently wrong default position to take as opposed to "he"? Even if 4 out of 5 times it's a guy, why not suggest that perhaps it'll be a girl sometimes?
I personally use "they", because I'm a badass linguistic prescriptivist who's fine with using a neutral plural to indicate singular. But I don't see a problem with stopping the male singular from being the default. Language describes reality, but it also defines it; languages that assume maleness as a default suggest to its users that maleness is the superior form to take. I don't think it's a particularly devastating result of language, but I also don't think it's particularly annoying for women to ask that they not be diminished by the language. If it doesn't mean anything, why not just alternate it and not raise a fuss?
(I draw the line at stuff like "womyn", though, because that's when for me it becomes noticeably silly.)
I know it has been. But I don't agree that just because that's the tradition means we should go on with it. I see nothing wrong with using "she" as the default sometimes, and quite a few reasons why sticking to "he" might not be the best thing.
The only point I can think of, and which I tend to agree with, is that when you do it you make a big fuss about the gender of the person and that distracts from the actual content that you are writing about. So opponents of using "she" as the default sometimes may be simply annoyed that the author is, instead of just using the already established convention, breaking convention in a noticeable way that might distract from the real content of the document.
Language is nothing but but a traditional set of noises we make. You can decide to start calling coffee "fngelriu," but it's disingenuous then to act surprised when people think you're being deliberately obtuse.
>Nah, this is just a stereotype. It is born out of the stereotype that the female oriented jobs all tend to be inclined in that way; female oriented jobs are historically non-academic, practical and not usually physically taxing. This is due to historical prejudice against female ability.
Or arguably a historical prejudice against female expendability. Males are expendable - http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm (this comes up here quite frequently, you've probably seen it already).
Quoting that link:
"A second thing that makes men useful to culture is what I call male expendability. This goes back to what I said at the outset, that cultures tend to use men for the high-risk, high-payoff undertakings, where a significant portion of those will suffer bad outcomes ranging from having their time wasted, all the way to being killed."
Maybe I should have made my explanations even longer! You are failing to 'get it':
The stuff about "Mother Nature" is just an abbreviation for fundamental effects that are easy to see and seem fundamental but seem to have strong causes difficult to explain.
"I work with kids of this age; particularly teaching them computer science stuff (and other engineerign topics)."
We're not talking about really the same thing. What I am talking about is more fundamental in this discussion. Here I am drawing directly from Tannen, and she's right:
Okay, in my scenario, in middle school at lunch a boy, all excited about some technical topic he just learned, say, the TCP part of TCP/IP, tries to explain the topic to a girl. Likely he will not get a good reception for, say, four reasons:
(1) She's a girl, knows that she's a young women, and is reluctant to interact with males her age or older without a good reason. She has been warned by older women that such interactions have a tough tine being just casual because the male can easily start pursuing more. So, she is selective. Maybe if the boy is 1-2 years younger she will feel less threat and be more ready to be just friends.
(2) He's all fired up about the technical topic. Sorry, but boys have strong desires to master any technical topics around them that appear important. In part there is a lot of innate curiosity. Why? Exercise. Sorry: It's rare for girls to do that. For how an automobile differential works, there is something wrong when a boy is not wildly curious or when a girl cares at all unless, say, being able to give a description will get the her something else she wants, say, an A, and thus praise and approval from others, on a test in middle school general science.
(3) Females make connections with others, and more generally get acceptance in groups, by gossip where they express their feelings. Boys are taught to keep their feelings suppressed as in "How you feel about it is just irrelevant.". So, what the boy is trying to give the girl is not really girl gossip and, thus, is not liked by the girl.
(4) Males make connections by sharing information, especially, neat, cool, technical information. So, that is what the boy is trying to do. The girl doesn't give a weak little hollow hoot about technical information (for it's own sake).
Here (1) was your observation; for (2) I'll let you justify that yourself; (3) and (4) are directly from Tannen.
Lesson for girls who want to be more like boys in computer science:
You have heard about virtual memory. Now, any boy with any hope at all of liking Hacker News, will be eager beyond belief, and thrilled enough to jump out of his skin, for any even small bit of information about why virtual memory and how it works. When they get into page-segment tables, look-aside associative memory translation buffers, least recently used techniques, how I/O makes the virtual to real translations, and the shockingly low average execution time overhead, etc., then they will grow two feet taller instantly and have a "Eureka!" experience.
Similarly for closure in programming languages, binary search, the Gleason bound, the TCP part of TCP/IP, multi-protocol label switching (MPLS, used in the core and backbone of the Internet), and much more. They'd rather understand such stuff than eat, sleep, play sports, watch a movie, or sit in class. They really, really, really want to learn this stuff, all of it they can, whenever they can. The first time they get to see a tower case with the sides off will be one of the most exciting moments in their life.
Girls: If you want to do computing, go for it. It's clean, indoor work with no heavy lifting. Don't need gloves, masks, or special clothes. A computer for less than $1000, a good Internet connection, and a lot of time alone with the computer are a lot of what you need from the beginning into quite high competency.
To get to the "pay window" (JLM at AVC.com), right now you go to the head of the line, well ahead of all the boys with similar qualifications:
(1) The hottest thing in computing now is social media, and there in conceptualizing the opportunities the girls should be knocking the socks off the boys. Uh, much of Facebook, with over 500 million users and worth over $50 billion, is about gossip where boys can at best try to use a telescope from Mars to look at Venus. Larry Page just said that 99% of social search has yet to be done; so, what's in this 99% that would be good to do now?
(2) Learn how to bring up a corresponding Web site. The site will need some graphic design where girls are much better than the boys (25% of whom are partially red-green color blind and likely still draw both trees and people as stick figures). The site will need a good user interface and user experience (UI/UX), and here girls should totally knock the socks off the boys. The site will need some text, and, again, girls are much better at not just typing and spelling but at writing for emotional effect -- knock the socks off the boys. Still more important, girls are much better than the boys at writing and correctly estimating the reactions of others. E.g., I'm a man, here am just writing ideas, and clearly don't have even a clue about how others will react! Maybe I don't even care, but girls both care and know, and that's a big advantage.
(3) Once the site goes live, you will need to get some publicity: "I don't know if you know who runs that business, but I assure you it's not the Boy Scouts." (Dangerfield in Back to School). Neither is it the mafia, but it is women.
(4) Older men with big bucks tend very much to want to help women. No joke. Not just into bed or to be a Daddy Warbucks or Svengali. So, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, and Mark Suster have all been loud and clear on their blogs about how happy they are to fund women. May find much the same at KPCB and Sequoia. You are at the head of the line; the door is being held open for you. HP was thrilled to have Carly Fiorina and Patricia Dunn. Yahoo was thrilled to get Carol Bartz.
Sorry, but boys have strong desires to master any technical topics around them that appear important.
You kinda lost me at this point I am afraid; this is just entirely inaccurate. Certainly there is a prevelance in the male population for technical topics, but it is only a generality, most are averagely interested.
The young boy your describe would likely find little interest in most of the other boys, not just the girls :)
Females make connections with others, and more generally get acceptance in groups, by gossip where they express their feelings. Boys are taught to keep their feelings suppressed as in "How you feel about it is just irrelevant.". So, what the boy is trying to give the girl is not really girl gossip and, thus, is not liked by the girl.
Males make connections by sharing information, especially, neat, cool, technical information
Horribly simplistic analysis. Males mostly communicate via gossip too; which is the "neat, cool" part (you probably just don't see it as gossip, but it really is). The "technical information" is undeserving of it's equal share in that sentence - how often do you share technical information with your wider group of male friends. I chat about girls, life, politics, moans and whinges etc. no one would be interested in what I was programming earlier :)
She's a girl, knows that she's a young women, and is reluctant to interact with males her age or older without a good reason
Girls and boys do spend a lot of time apart at that age. But in groups they spend a lot of time together.
a girl cares at all unless, say, being able to give a description will get the her something else she wants, say, an A, and thus praise and approval from others, on a test in middle school general science.
This is just hilarious ;)
Conclusion: You will get boys such as you describe; but they will be in the vast vast minority, and their excitement is as boring to most of the boys as the girls. The reaction to them is not as simple as you make out, and says absolutely zero about the future careers, interests and motivations of females.
I feel you are over simplifying - and that is the main problem with your analysis.
A simple resolution for the question of this thread is easy:
For now, girls tend to pursue what girls do and know that computer science (CS) is for boys and not part of what girls do. So, girls try to avoid CS in college. When they try CS in college, mostly they don't like it.
Why don't they like it? Girls are (1) much more emotional than boys, (2) much more social, (3) eager to get praise, acceptance, and approval from others from work that "helps people" in the sense I explained (essentially volunteer work to help suffering people), e.g., one of the daughters of Bush 43 went to Ethiopia, and (4) better at, and more strongly seek, human to human contact.
So, on these criteria, girls see that CS is so detailed and technical it seems (1) emotionally cold, (2) not very social, (3) not good for work that "helps people", and (4) not good for human to human contact. So, many girls who try CS soon conclude that they don't like it.
For the future, girls who do not want to concentrate on being mommies, unlike for nearly all of history, will be able to so not concentrate and, thus, on average will be removing their genes from the gene pool. What will be left will be genes of women especially determined to be good as mommies and even less interested in CS.
You missed it with my:
"He's all fired up about the technical topic. Sorry, but boys have strong desires to master any technical topics around them that appear important. In part there is a lot of innate curiosity."
Then for my
"I'll let you justify that yourself"
you didn't!
The "technical topics" here are not yet nearly all that would be popular on Hacker News. Instead the topics are whatever are "around them" (the boys as they grow up). So, depending on what they see in their family, adults' careers, neighborhood, community, etc., the topics might be about cars, cattle raising, household electricity, operation of a commercial pizza oven, cardiology, roasting pastrami, trading foreign currencies, computing, etc.
Why? The usual explanation is that the boys know that they are small versions of men, that men take competency in their careers very seriously, that they, the boys, do not have such competency, feel vulnerable and out of control from the lack of competency, and, thus, as part of growing up into such competency are eager to soak up everything that is relevant they can. That's the standard explanation. Although you didn't 'get it' the first time I explained it, didn't work it out for yourself, I believe you can understand this point.
For whatever reasons, you are straining to disagree with what I wrote.
I remember a girl in the fifth grade: Her handwriting was good, and mine, as is common for boys at that age, was poor. So, she looked at my paper and said that she couldn't read it. So, I copied the paper again in block letters, and again she said she couldn't read it. I copied it again in larger, extremely clear block letters, and she gave the same answer. Of course, she was lying and having fun manipulating. You are doing much the same. Enjoy the games of fifth grade girls.
Of course, she was lying and having fun manipulating. You are doing much the same. Enjoy the games of fifth grade girls.
That's... a terrible piece of rhetoric... :(
I don't see how I can explain that what you are saying appears to be founded in stereotype and a lack of understanding. So, I guess the argument is over, except to say:
Don't overthink things, and don't oversimplify. Your point #3, for example, is based on so little fact and on so much on prejudice.
I actually think what you could have done is observed the somewhat socially inept computer geek stereotype; and extrapolated the direct opposite as "how girls are". There is a lot of commonality between male and female phsyc - and many differences.
At a young age both those extremes are amplified.
the topics might be about cars, cattle raising, household electricity, operation of a commercial pizza oven, cardiology, roasting pastrami, trading foreign currencies, computing, etc.
I encourage you to work with teenage boys and try to engage with them on topics like these. Nowadays it is not at all common to find a kid who has such interests; computer games, girls, sports and food (i.e. "gossip") are much more common.
will be able to so not concentrate and, thus, on average will be removing their genes from the gene pool
Essentially you are saying that... girls who do technical careers won't be as able (or be suited) to procreate and so future women will be genetically pre-disposed to motherhood?
Do you have any idea how genetics works, for a start? I'd love to read your work on isolating the genes related to good motherhood and proficiency in technical topics and your research into how they interrelate within the population... ;)
Why? The usual explanation is that the boys know that they are small versions of men, that men take competency in their careers very seriously, that they, the boys, do not have such competency, feel vulnerable and out of control from the lack of competency, and, thus, as part of growing up into such competency are eager to soak up everything that is relevant they can. That's the standard explanation. Although you didn't 'get it' the first time I explained it, didn't work it out for yourself, I believe you can understand this point.
Standard explanation? Really? Find me a kid that, at age 15, is concerned about his competency in relation to a future career. Now, I could agree they would be concerned about competency in areas their social peers are strong; say football.
In fact; I will make it easier. Find me some peer reviewed material that identifies this as a standard explanation
For whatever reasons, you are straining to disagree with what I wrote.
It's really not hard :) although we seem to have gotten off track from the main topic, which I thought was your theory of little girls being pre-disposed to sharing & caring and not interested in technical topics because of genetics.
You REALLY don't get it and strain to misconstrue and misunderstand.
"That's... a terrible piece of rhetoric... :("
Huh?
You wrote:
"I don't see how I can explain that what you are saying appears to be founded in stereotype and a lack of understanding."
No: The crucial point is that I have and am presenting a lot of "understanding". Neglecting what I'm saying will bring large risks in dealing with human females, especially in the US now.
"Stereotype" argues neither for nor against anything; broadly some stereotypes are accurate and some are not. I argued everything based on simple facts, observations, and references and never mentioned anything about stereotypes; e.g., I never claimed that something was true because many people believe it is true.
"Your point #3, for example, is based on so little fact and on so much on prejudice."
By "#3" apparently you mean my
"{Girls are] (3) eager to get praise, acceptance, and approval from others from work that "helps people" in the sense I explained (essentially volunteer work to help suffering people), e.g., one of the daughters of Bush 43 went to Ethiopia,"
I will omit the many, overwhelmingly strong examples from my own life.
"Well, I would have kids and stay at home and take care of them. As they grew up, I would love to work more with the catholic church, because that means a lot to me."
So, what is Jim Simons doing? Uh, he's a bright guy, quite a good mathematician, e.g., as in the Chern-Simons result in differential geometry and useful in theoretical physics, and the most successful hedge fund manager in all of history and commonly paid himself $2 billion a year. Can get his story in his autobiographical lecture he recently gave at MIT at
The guy who introduced him is I. Singer of Atiyah-Singer index result, one of the best results of 20th century math; Singer was an informal Ph.D. advisor for Simons!
So there in the audience was his pretty wife, maybe half his age, and running their charitable foundation.
Melinda Gates? Is there any doubt in your mind that she is the one getting Bill to devote his time to charity? They have three kids; with the family wealth, they face some special challenges; they could use a lot of attention from both parents; all this emphasis on charity is too much time away from attention on their kids. So, at least Melinda is so interested in "helping people" that she is essentially neglecting her own children. Why? She wants praise, acceptance, and approval from the public even if she neglects her children and even her husband and has him neglect his business (Microsoft needs him to return to the CEO slot). She's determined to save the world super big time. This ain't a small thing.
Laura Bush? Sure: Devoting her time to charity. And, as I mentioned, one of her daughters is in Ethiopia doing the same. Instead, Laura should be devoting her time to her husband, to getting the daughter in Ethiopia a good husband, and being a good grandmother for the children of her married daughter. So, again, save the world super big time and neglect own husband and children. This ain't a small thing.
That women want to pursue volunteer work, i.e., charity work, that "helps people" is a rock solid part of a large fraction of women, especially Christian women of Western European descent in the US, especially if they have the financial means, and too often even if they do not.
Here we can use Hollywood: Part of what they have to do is present believable images. Well, in the girl's movie Samantha: An American Girl Holiday the mother devotes her time to charity and is in a woman's club also crucial for her work in charity. Seeing this, the grandmother asks if she can help.
The husband? He's clueless and uninvolved in charity. He is, however, very interested in the adoption in the story while his wife mostly is not. So, she's more interested in saving the world than being a parent (and the adopted daughters very much need some good mothering), and he is more interested in being a parent than she is. Again, it ain't a small thing.
Even the series of Legally Blond of chick-flicks has her give up her law job, shoot her law career in the knees, leave the town of her new boyfriend, and rush off to a staff job in Congress to help society by saving puppies used for testing cosmetics. She is so focused on helping society that she has her boyfriend, for the second time, bust his law career to join her in DC. So his role is to follow her from city to city as she runs around helping society, largely ignoring him, and being wildly irresponsible financially. Seen that, too often.
The leadership of the American Red Cross -- women who want to "help people".
It's as plain as the difference between boys with short hair and girls with long hair. If you can't see this, then you are obtuse about society and women.
Again, this urge to "help people" is commonly stronger than paid career, and even marriage, parenting, and financial responsibility. It ain't small, and you fail to see any of it.
For this point about women, there is no "prejudice" at all: Any man who fails to get it on this point is just oblivious and at high risk of making big mistakes about women.
You wrote:
"I actually think what you could have done is observed the somewhat socially inept computer geek stereotype; and extrapolated the direct opposite as 'how girls are'."
You are attacking the messenger, not the message. And, the short answer is, you are wildly wrong. That's not even close to what happened.
I wrote:
" ... the topics might be about cars, cattle raising, household electricity, operation of a commercial pizza oven, cardiology, roasting pastrami, trading foreign currencies, computing, etc."
and you responded:
"I encourage you to work with teenage boys and try to engage with them on topics like these. Nowadays it is not at all common to find a kid who has such interests; computer games, girls, sports and food (i.e. 'gossip') are much more common."
Here you are showing that you are getting a D- in basic reading comprehension. You totally misunderstood the statement. Totally.
Again, and I won't take the time to count the times, I repeated that boys get interested in the technical topics that are "around them" and appear to be important and wrote:
"Sorry, but boys have strong desires to master any technical topics around them that appear important."
So, then, sure, my:
" ... the topics might be about cars, cattle raising, household electricity, operation of a commercial pizza oven, cardiology, roasting pastrami, trading foreign currencies, computing, etc."
is rock solidly correct.
So, your:
"I encourage you to work with teenage boys and try to engage with them on topics like these."
What? You didn't read what I wrote. You are confused.
Again, if you will read, of course, nearly no teenage boys will be interested in
"roasting pastrami"
because that topic is not "around them". But if their father runs a deli, then that topic will be "around them" and will be fully obviously important to the family finances, and, thus, the boy will likely be very interested in it. E.g., if the boy is working in his father's deli to get money for his first car so he can take out his girlfriend, then he can be very interested in
"roasting pastrami".
His sister? If his mother works in the deli, maybe his sister will be interested in the part of the deli the mother works in. If the mother doesn't work in the deli, then the sister likely won't care at all about
"roasting pastrami".
So, the boy is interested in career competency as illustrated by his father, and his sister isn't.
My point is general: Again, again, again, again, again, the boys will be very interested in WHATEVER technical topics that are around them and appear to be important from their family, community, etc.
Got it now? Need it explained seven more times?
Your D- in reading comprehension makes this exchange hopeless.
Again, and I won't take the time to count the times, I repeated that boys get interested in the technical topics that are "around them" and appear to be important and wrote:
I read it.
You are totally wrong. (how many times do I have to say that ;))
Hence my suggestion for you to try and observe this apparent phenomena. Bottom line is; you will struggle to.
I grew up with my Dad in the RAF; but have absolutely zero interest in planes. I could cite similar examples ad-infinitum. I honestly challenge you to find teenage boys that have an absorbing interest in the technical aspects of their dad's job - sure, you will fine some, but a minority.
It's as plain as the difference between boys with short hair and girls with long hair. If you can't see this, then you are obtuse about society and women.
Is this also down to genetics (random irony; I have longer hair than most of the girls I know :))? Or do you think it might be to do with social/historical situation?
Even the series of Legally Blond of chick-flicks...
Seriously? You are using a film to demonstrate your point? Seeing as that film series is a classic example of female stereotype it probably says much that you see a general point in it.
Neglecting what I'm saying will bring large risks in dealing with human females, especially in the US now.
I think I am doing ok :) but thanks for the concern.
Basically; your claims about women being genetically pre-disposed against technical topics (and towards "caring/sharing" careers) is, despite the bluster on other tangential topics and terrible examples, complete crap and not something you could begin to support with reasonable evidence.
To return to the original point: the barriers to women in technology are almost all social and psychological, not genetic.
And all the guff about women being like this and that seems representative of reading some pop psychology without going any further (I recommend reading something good on social interaction, one that looks at the similarities in gender groups)
Well, not so much wrong as massively over simplifying a complex psychology. It seems to boil down to "girls are mad", which is not necessarily something I would disagree with at 2pm on a Sunday when we just have to see another dress shop... but when talking I do think it is just a mistake.
I see a lot of this; I think it is often born out of the fact that some of the more high profile CS women tend to be kooky or off the wall which introduces an accidental observation bias.
one of the strongest emotions of women.. ..is to have a career that "helps people", and biomedical careers seem to qualify
Nah, this is just a stereotype. It is born out of the stereotype that the female oriented jobs all tend to be inclined in that way; female oriented jobs are historically non-academic, practical and not usually physically taxing. This is due to historical prejudice against female ability.
There is no evidence of a greater "sharing caring" mentality in the female psych compared to men.
With 'feminism', some enormously talented and determined girls as high school seniors believed "Women don't have to just be cared for. Women and do things, too.", made terrific grades in college and let that reinforce their belief, charged into 'male' careers, and paid a very high price in lack of children, busted marriages, and sometimes even their lives, literally. "It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature."
That's just what they dramatize on TV. Top tip; don't learn psychology/sociology from TV, they thrive on mild prejudices :)
The problem with such a theory is that you are looking at a portion of women entering traditionally male arenas; and you are actually looking at the failures. As with most things, you never really see the successes.
At present the Western European gene pool is likely in the most rapid change in the last 40,000 years because genes of women who are not just DETERMINED to be mommies are being pruned out. So, in another few generations, we will be left with women who are determined to be MOMMIES.
Studies please, that is an extraordinary claim. It puts breeding/nuturing ability against ability to have a "non-female" career, to the best of my knowledge that has never been studied. And I feel that identifying such a broad but simplistic link would be extremely hard...
Uh, sorry, but that the fraction is small need not be evidence of anything wrong.
Finally something rational! :) But there is a caveat; which is that it is not automatically evidence of a problem, but it may be the indicator to a problem (i.e. something that is restricting those women that do want to enter CS).
Generally, from a little after birth and for nearly all their lives, human females are MUCH more emotional than human males.
Studies show generally that this is untrue. Women tend to be more openly emotional and have lower thresholds for both being hurt and "getting over it". Whereas men have a higher threshold, and are emotional more in private, but when it hurts it damn well hurts for a long time. Simple statements like the one you make are classic observation bias.
One of a human female's strongest emotions is to get security from membership in, and praise, acceptance, and approval from, groups, especially groups of females about their own age.
True for people of any age, gender, race etc.
That is, they are 'herd animals'.
Snap.
I am not saying that your observations do not have a basis in fact; but they are polarised so far towards observation bias and general prejudices as to be incorrect.
Waffle about "Mother Nature", without even being able to define what that means, is just that; waffle. What you are really referring to is a complex mix of personal psychology, group psychology, social prejudices and social pressure. All of these things can and have changed; suggesting that it is biologically (or otherwise) impossible for women to be pre-disposed to CS is... misinformed :)
and with great excitement tries to explain it to a girl his age at, say, lunch
I work with kids of this age; particularly teaching them computer science stuff (and other engineerign topics). It'd be hilarious to see them talk about any (extra-curricular) subject with people not within that sphere of interest. This is not limited to computer science, people know not to bore others with their pet interest from a fairly early age. There is no special case for CS :)
and the girl regards the boy, and soon, all boys less then 2-6 years older than she, as at least 'socially' immature and, really, just immature
Hmm, not particularly true. This is the classic "older man" and protector bias, I believe it is disproved but don't actually have the studies to hand.
From my observation middle school girls on average "go" for boys in the same year or the year below. Those that aim higher in middle school are usually socially frowned at ("she's a slut" etc.), that is just my observation, but I bet it holds out generally.
Nonsense about Mother Nature, emotions and herd psychology just shows a miscomprehension of the subject. Make chauvinist? ;)