[J3] [EXTERNAL] (SC22WG5.6222) Fwd: [SC22] ISO Gender Action Plan Survey

[Bill Long]

Brian is right that the issue of few women in the computer field has been studied exhaustively.   While the WG5 effort is good-intentioned, I fear it is focused at the wrong end of the career pipeline. I think the dominate view is that the goal is best met by encouraging women to study computing in college and enter the profession from there.  HPE (my current employer) has a big push in its diversity program to encourage women (and other underrepresented group members) to enter the field.  (Unfortunately, confounded by a general hiring freeze for the moment, which is common industry-wide.) 

Keith mentioned several women as past members.  They, for the most part, eventually left due to retirement (though Jeanne Martin did stay with the committee past retirement, on her own dime).  The two current members, Karla and Lorri, are welcomed and, I think, treated with respect. (Of course, I don’t think anyone would accuse either of being timid.  It does take a certain personality to be effective on the committee, independent of gender.) 

Cheers,
BIll


> On Jun 2, 2020, at 4:45 PM, Brian Friesen via J3 <j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jun 2, 2020, at 2:03 PM, Damian Rouson via J3 <j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:
>> 
>> “Not turning away” is not sufficient.  If it were, then any number of deeply troubling imbalances that exist today would have been resolved by now.  They haven’t been and any attempt to even get the smallest amount of data relevant to the problem gets publicly ridiculed as “absurdly irrelevant.”  Again... stunning. 
> 
> I am happy to work with others in J3 and/or WG5 who are interested in understanding the gender imbalance problem in more detail, at least how it applies to these committees, but hopefully with a broader scope than just that. Although I am by no means a learned scholar in this field.
> 
> Gender imbalance in computer science and other STEM fields has been studied in enormous depth, resulting in a huge amount of literature, which both describes where the gender imbalance problems actually are, as well as provides concrete steps to fix them. The committee need not speculate deeply about this topic - the problem is anything but a mystery, and there is a wealth of information which can help us to understand it in more detail. E.g.,:
> 
>  - https://womeninhpc.org
>  - https://womeninhpc.org/community/resources#!/women-resources
>  - https://2ijii62k2ltx2pmwu447aemj-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Handout-recruiting-for-diversity-FINAL.pdf
>  - https://2ijii62k2ltx2pmwu447aemj-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Handout-key-steps-for-improving-diversity-and-inclusion.pdf
>  - https://2ijii62k2ltx2pmwu447aemj-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Microaggressionflier.pdf

Bill Long                                                                       longb at cray.com
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