Success, Women, and Society

I used to teach computer science. Most male computer science majors will point out that there are very few women computer science majors. Women make about 20% of the majors, and possibly less as time goes on. Depending on the course, that percentage can dip precipitously low. Certain computer science course are perceived as more "male", usually the hard core programming classes like operating systems, networking, or compilers.

If you were to take a closer look at the demographics of women, you might discover that many women are Asian. That is, Indian, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and so forth. There are some white Americans, but not like white American males (the demographics are likely to be significantly different depending on what part of the US you look).

Although this doesn't provide anywhere near a full explanation of why there are so many Asian women, I want to think about why Indian women are in computer science.

Indian society is still pretty conservative. Guys don't date women, at least, the vast majority don't seem to do it (Indians seem bent on telling you how things are changing, but I would simply run the test of naming all the people they know that go dating on their own, and how many don't, and they would see the numbers are comparatively insignificant).

Most Americans find the thought of arranged marriages as ludicrous. They can't imagine trusting their parents to decide who they should spend their lives with. How would their parents know who a person finds attractive, whether this be physical attractiveness, or personality.

But let's ponder what this means. If a society prefers arranged marriages, this means that you need to segregate boys and girls. Parents also need to play a strong role in their children's lives, and children need to have respect for their parents. In the US, it's more common, I'd imagine, to find kids who simply don't get along with their parents. In India, I imagine this is rarer, though I'm simply guessing. You wouldn't imagine kids yelling at their parents telling them how much they hate them and how they are ruining their lives.

The force of marriage is so culturally strong that when Bollywood couples get together, they stay together. You don't hear of Bollywood actresses like Elizabeth Taylor, famous for having seven marriages.

Once women and men are separate, and somewhat dependent on their parents to find their spouses, then one of the rituals of American society is no longer important. That is, guys wanting to meet girls. Well, it's not to say that they don't think about this, but that opportunities to take it very far aren't nearly as common, and so both guys and girls can get on the business of being students.

Ah, students. I'm now focusing on a small subset of Indians, the literate, well-educated subset. Since women face fewer issues of guys trying to proposition them, or the pressure of having to be dumb or beautiful to be attractive, and since parents may seek a well-educated girl to match a well-educated guy, parents may find it's advantageous for their daughters to be well-educated.

And that's an interesting thought. A well-educated guy is likely to want a well-educated woman, but typically, not as well-educated as them. So can parents be compelling enough to overcome social pressure, allowing daughters to strive for academic success, when in the US, many parents opt for the simple goal of "having happy kids", which means they don't compel their kids to succeed academically.

There's a kind of irony here. A conservative society (but progressive enough to see women as needing jobs and being educated) might actually produce far more well-adjusted, academically minded girls, in contrast to a so-called freer, liberal society, where guys and girls try to adjust their behavior during a period of their lives where they are expected to go find someone they like or want to marry.