3-D Sex and the Computer Scientist
Last month, I was approached by a woman considering going back to school in computer science, which I teach at Mills College. We met, and I encouraged her, lending her some Java training materials. I received this email from her today:
On the 15th I will drop off at your office the Java 2 Training Course. I will not be using it after all, but thank you very much, just the same.After receiving the results of an aptitude test last week I realized CS would not be the best field for me to enter. A key aptitude among engineers is being able to visualize 3-D structures. I scored on the low end of average with this aptitude.
After getting over my surprise, I replied:
I can’t visualize 3-D structures either. Please do not make important career decisions based on a single aptitude test that is likely to be faulty. For example, there could be gender bias. Women are reportedly less able to visualize 3-D structures then men are, but some of us flatlanders are excellent computer scientists.
You shouldn’t abandon CS unless you are not interested in it or you fail in learning it. Please do not leave the field because of some possibly sexist superstitions about what abilities are needed.
I am reminded of Michael Bérubé’s satire on former Harvard president Larry Summer’s statements about women in science:
According to [Harvard geneticist Charles] Kinbote, the presidency of Harvard University requires a unique array of talents and dispositions which, statistically, only a small handful of women possess…..Men are … more adept than women at mentally rotating three-dimensional shapes on aptitude tests, Kinbote added. “You’d be surprised how often a university president needs to do this, and at Harvard the pressure is especially intense.” Kinbote estimated that the president of Harvard spends roughly one-quarter of the working day mentally rotating complex, hypothetical three-dimensional shapes.
Much is being made of Harvard’s recent decision to appoint a woman to its presidency. While some people are speculating that she was hired because of her sex, it is more likely that she is the first Harvard president not appointed on the basis of their sex.
On a similar theme, see Women, men, and IQ tests, posted at my Beyond Satire blog.
February 14th, 2007 at 5:58 am
While I certainly use more math in my programming career than I thought I would, pretty much everything I’ve ever done has been in good old 2-D. Be it a green-screen app, client-server, or a web site, it’s 2-D. We even draw stick figures (UML).
3-D is pretty much the domain of hard-core scientists and video game programmers, and they make up a tiny percentage of the jobs out there.
It’s a shame she came away with this impression. I hope she’s reading this and reconsiders.
February 14th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Okay, not that I know a ton about CS or programming, but yeah, I didn’t think wire-frame visualizations of your code were essential to, I don’t know, writing a script for ImageJ.
When I was TAing an organic chemistry class, I had a math/CS major student who was entirely unable to imagine molecular structures. She was a brilliant mathematician (though not a topologist), and she was a fine chemist as long as she had her model kit.
February 14th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
This is as silly as telling people that they need to be able to memorize long chunks of poetry in order to be good writers. Sure, memorizing stuff is cool — but you don’t need that skill to write great books.
February 14th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
And by the way, I’d never met that satire of Berube’s, and I just about fell out of my chair laughing. I’m going to hand copies to whomever advances that argument to me, in the future.
February 15th, 2007 at 7:47 am
I was also laughing out loud at the satire, great stuff. I suppose this is not the time to say it, but I am great at rotating 3D structures in my head. Above average, even if I were a man. And, who the hell cares? I suppose I say this just to remind everyone that there are women who are good at this, even better than most men. And what does this have to do with computer science? Nothing.