Looking Before Leaping to Solve Gender Equality in Computing

Amid the varying opinions about how best to handle gender inequality in science and engineering a common theme repeatedly reveals itself; we don’t yet understand the full nature of the problem or how to solve it. This theme materializes from contradictions such as Senator Wyden’s statement that math is a male-dominated field being contrasted with Paul Palma’s assertion that nearly half of math graduates are women. It also shows itself when both of these independently admit that the reasons women avoid hard sciences, including, but not limited to, gender discrimination, are currently only supported by anecdotal evidence. If a profound change in our current education system to cause a many-fold increase in the number of practicing female scientists and engineers is desired, as some suggest it is, then much research and formal analysis of both the nature of this problem and the effectiveness of proposed solutions needs to be conducted first. If not, we may find our changes profoundly damaging both our educational system and the progress of our country instead of helping them.