Social problems in Computer Science
This is a guest post by Jessica Hamrick. Jessica Hamrick is a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science with a bent towards artificial intelligence. She is is the current Chair of MIT’s computer club (SIPB), and when she is not busy managing that, enjoys hacking/coding, photography, knitting, and blogging at Artificial Awareness
This entry is cross-posted with some edits.
This morning, I read a blog post about women in computer science which was quite compelling. It reminded me, of course, of another article about women in CS, and I began thinking about about what my own opinion is on the subject. Sexism in CS and similarly technical fields is certainly a problem. But why? And how have I encountered it?
It struck me that I am incredibly lucky to be a student at MIT, where I have never actually encountered blatant sexism. No one has ever groped me, or told me I was incompetent because I was a woman (nor have I ever felt that was the case). I was elected SIPB Chair, but it was not that people thought I was sexy or that I slept with anyone, but that I was the right person for the job. When I ask more experienced hackers technical questions, they don’t try to gloss over the details or tell me that I won’t understand — they explain it the same way they would to anyone else. Really, I couldn’t ask for a better environment.
However, it still didn’t feel quite like sexism (or something like it) it was entirely absent. After thinking a while longer, I realized what the problem was:
The tech environment walks a fine line between being elitist and being a meritocracy, and often manages to slip back into elitism.
It’s not so much a problem of sexism as it is a problem of general attitude. Becoming good at dealing with computers takes a lot of hands-on experience. There aren’t any classes that will teach you how to debug NetworkManager or how to reconfigure your X configuration so that gdm doesn’t fail. So those of us who like figuring out the answers to such problems have only a handful of options: 1) learn everything using Google, 2) learn everything by asking an expert, 3) both 1 and 2, or 4) give up. Sometimes, if the problem is specialized enough, 2 and 4 are really the only options. Unfortunately, it is often the case when asking an experienced hacker that they will give a harsh, unhelpful, and/or elitist response. Here’s an example.
Person A: I need to reinstall this computer with Debian, but I don’t have a CD or DVD burner or any flash media. I’m not sure if I have any other options. Could you help me?
Person B: I don’t have time. Just use PXE.
A (thinking): PXE, what’s that? I guess I’ll Google it. Hmm, well, Wikipedia says it’s a way of booting your computer over the network. I guess sort of like a livecd, except over the network? That’s kind of cool. How do I do it? This site seems to give some links. Looks like the Debian link is broken, so I’ll use the Red Hat link and see if I can just change the relevant things.
[an hour passes]
A (frustrated): This isn’t working. How am I supposed to install my computer over the internet if I have to install stuff to the computer to begin with? I don’t understand how this works!
B: … what the hell are you doing? You just choose the “netboot” option in your BIOS, like you would choose to boot from CD-ROM or hard drive, etc.
Do you see what Person B did wrong, here? Person A was asking for help, and clearly does not know about netbooting (or they wouldn’t have asked). Person B assumes they know what PXE is and that they know how to use it, or at least that they can figure it out for themselves. Unfortunately, the documentation on PXE is unhelpful and misleading and never mentions needing to change a setting in your BIOS. Person A tried to figure it out themselves using the vague information given to them by Person B, but only managed to waste an hour and become even more confused! Furthermore, when Person A comes back for more help, Person B acts like they are incapable of learning for being ignorant and confused, and treats them with disdain. It would have been so much nicer, faster, and easier for Person B to simply say in the first place “try using the netboot option in your BIOS to boot into the installer over the internet”.
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