A female computer science student often find herself in a classes where she is one of the only women. Additionally, she is likely to have few, if any, female professors. Even in the absence of being treated differently, this is likely to affect a student's self-image and perceptions of women. In reality, females in coed classrooms are usually treated differently from the males:
[T]eachers praise boys more than girls, give boys more academic help and are more likely to accept boys' comments during classroom discussions... While girls sit patiently with their hands raised, boys literally grab teacher attention. They are eight times more likely than girls to call out answers ([Sadker et al 1985] in [Van Nostrand 1990, page 187,]).(See also Section
.) By taking classes at women's
colleges or in women's studies, which almost always have a
large majority of women, female students feel free to more actively
participate in the classroom and are taken more seriously by teachers
and other students. While advising technical females to consider
single-sex high schools and colleges may appear counter-intuitive,
particularly because these schools often have less adequate laboratory
facilities, studies have shown that females at single-sex schools
study more science and mathematics than those in coeducational schools
[Kelly 1982, page 499,], are more likely to continue in science
[Ferry et al 1982, page 27,], and are disproportionately successful
compared to other women [Gilbert et al 1983].
Another advantage of women's studies programs is their emphasis on women's achievements. One female computer science student had the following experience:
When I entered my first women's studies class, on literature written by women, I expected to encounter second-rate works that were only being taught when the ground rules eliminated male competition. Instead, the books were first-rate, and I wondered why I had never read them before. The class taught me that women's achievements had often been overlooked. (I had been pretty misogynic before that.)Because of men's numerical and figurative dominance in engineering classes, a student in a women's studies course can find herself listening to vocal female students for almost the first time since entering college.
Another benefit of women's studies programs is that they document the barriers women have faced. It is important for women to realize that the paucity of women in the field does not imply that women are inherently unable and that negative behavior they encounter may be due to their sex and not to any actual shortcomings on their parts.