Predicting failure of the university

Abstract

of women in science and engineering. (Incidentally, my only daughter has a degree in electrical engineering and is gainfully employed in artificial intelligence and robotics.) I support increased efforts to teach coding to girls (and boys) and eliminate gender bias (such as in grant and paper reviewing). I thus read Jodi L. Tims’s “From the Chair of ACM-W” column “Achieving Gender Equity: ACM-W Can’t Do It Alone” (Feb. 2018) with great interest, especially when she said, “ . . . a nagging question that many of us who work so hard in the space of gender equity in computing have. Why, with so much sustained effort by so many individuals and organizations, is progress toward gender equity so slow?” My concern is that neither the column nor its cited works defined the “equity” mentioned in its headline. Is the only possible definition 50%/50% representation at every level of expertise? Or could it be, say, 56%/44% women/ men—the percentages of all students in U.S. public colleges? Conversely, are the numerous professional disciplines where women outnumber or out-earn men manifestly “iniquitous” according to the column’s assumed definition? We STEM professionals and educators, and the public more generally, would gain clarity, and hence be better able to take enlightened action, if the goal were first made explicit and justified, then accepted by stakeholders. David G. Stork, Portola Valley, CA, USA