In a case, I dearly hope, of a reporter picking the most ear-catching soundbyte to pass along, a NY Times article about attracting women into computer science, quotes U. of Washington professor David Notkin as saying “Most women think, ‘I’m going to be in a cubicle at Microsoft typing next to some guys who smell funny. There’s a perception that it’s not a good field to be in.” As a female CS major told me after reading this: “Yuck!” Her response was cleaner than my entirely unprintable reaction. While some women may certainly be turned off by the stereotype of the male geek, this quote is a horribly inaccurate distillation of the actual problems we face in involving more women in technology careers. It also gravely discredits the ability of women to accurately judge the challenges of a technical career.

If the people who can effect change (and computer science educators fall into that category which is why a quote from a Prof. Notkin worries me so) have misguided views of why women are not entering computer science and enforce those views in interviews with the media, the road ahead is difficult indeed. Women naturally inclined to succeed in computer science are not frightened away by strange geeky men (in fact, many find them intriguing as another interesting puzzle to solve). I would bet that just as many men do not pursue computer science because of the perception of “guys who smell funny.” “Most women” are not avoiding computer science because of smelly guys, but because of a misperception of their own abilities, as a result of our culture, and a misrepresentation of how multifaceted and artistic computer science can be. The real barriers for women are covered well in the book Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing.