RANT: Why do you think women leave computer science?!

It's been 3 days since Microsoft publicly released the article on the 9 female interns from Brown (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2010/aug10/08-13browninterns.mspx), and yet disaster has ensued on tech sites, blogs and fora. Most notable is the following circle-jerk:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1036055770

It could be summarized as a discussion of what obstacles women face in the field. But some things are better if seen for yourself:

"The first thing that came to my mind was if they are hot or not. Looking at the picture all I can say is yipes."

"I certainly hope they all earned it to be there, I hate to think how many more otherwise qualified people missed out on an oppertunity because someone just wanted to bring in more women. While I agree its sad there are not more women in the profession I am not one for special treatment you earn your place there like everyone else and if a guy or a girl is more qualified then should go to them."
(Are you really sad that there are not more women in this profession? If you were, perhaps you wouldn't begin by questioning whether we earned our positions. Also, you might want to run spell-check before you insult someone else.)

-The one in the back row and second from the right isnt bad. Imagine how many times women in Comp. Sci. feel like they are being objectified during their college career.
-Wait I got a better idea. How 'bout no?
-Wait... do you mean our right or their right.
-Our right. The one in black. Anyways, my earlier point still stands. This thread being an example. (I'm guilty of it as well. )

"It's good to see the mentally challenged get a chance to show what they can do."

"Sadly, MS was in need of 9 dishwashers."

"*Queue "Sexual Harassment in the Workplace" Videos*"

I hope you are all ashamed of yourselves and never find success in computer science.

Additionally, there were a number of articles "summarizing" the original. Here's a pretty serious misrepresentation of me:
"Avitabile also became a computer passionate after taking a class in freshman year at Brown, during which she fell in love with computers and she felt that this was what she was made for."

And there's more...
"Ever notice how some fields of activity are completely dominated by men and you can’t see a single woman? This is most likely because for many years women didn’t have access to any form of education. In fact, women were generally banned from learning how to read and encouraged to stick to more womanly activities such as cooking, sowing and looking pretty."

WHY, INTERNET, WHY?! Why do you allow people to misquote me and twist my words? Why do you give these imbeciles free rein to judge my looks? Are you going to hurt my future career, O Internet?

So maybe that will help someone see why a woman might leave the field. For everyone who has asked for proof that sexism in CS exists, look at the people who immediately question whether I received my job for my talent or my gender. And also look at the people who don't care how I landed the internship and would prefer to ogle my body.

Love and kisses,
the one in the back row and second from the right

Blueberry Screen of Death

TM is back and blue! Bringing you the great and terrible Blueberry Screen of Death, so named for it's overwhelming flavor of freshly picked blueberries that forces you to step away from your work (but without destroying it). Hopefully, this will be the first of many melt-in-your-mouth flavors to be created in the beautiful state of Washington. I wonder what I could do with Rainier cherries...

Fall Flavors

Sadly, I don't have nearly as much time to churn during the semester, but I do have a few memorable creations:

XOReo: Peppermint ice cream made exclusively with real Oreos and heavy cream. Featured at the CS51 TA staff Doctor Who night.

Man Go: What happens when you type go into a terminal? Let's find out! A mango sorbet with a hint of lime.

P: The long-awaited dramatic foil of No-Pumpkin Complete. I included the pumpkin this time, not only to make this a delicious fall-themed ice cream, but also because you need to be efficient during the semester! (Well, polynomial, at any rate.)

Cream-eleh: As rich and complex as the CS17 project, but worlds tastier. I can't help but use a diminutives when expressing affection for this creme brulee ice cream.

Flavor of the Day: fu(ji)bar

This is a twist on my regular dough-while: a chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with pecan pralines. (If you don't know what those are, imagine cooking pecans in butter and sugar until they are as fubar as the name of this ice cream.) This is a special 21st birthday creation for a girl who does not drink, but has an affinity for cookie dough and candied pecans.

Public Key Encryption, Biotch

While teaching CS to middle school girls this summer, I came to the fabulous realization that girls at this age will learn anything as long as you turn it into a competitive game. This allows them to take the full power of their fabulous teen-girl attitudes and apply it to learning computer science. It sounds unlikely, but it is miraculously so.

When we were teaching the different areas of cryptography, we played a game where each team would send a representative up to the buzzer, the teachers would read a scenario, and the representatives would ring the buzzer and state whether this scenario was an example of symmetric key encryption, public key encryption, digital signatures, or multi-party computation and give the reason why. In a beautiful moment of attitude, our most z-snapping girl faked a slap at a teammate after a wrong answer, shouting, "Oh my god, that was so public key encryption!"

I hope that in four years this generation of girls will be entering the field of CS at top schools all over the country, kicking ass and taking names in cryptography while wearing oversized hoop earrings.

America, the Nerdical

This was another forgotten ice cream adventure, and yet how could I have forgotten? This was not a flavor, but a cake, constructed by me and Jeremy for the 4th of July. And what I cake it was! It was probably the best thing I've eaten in my life. On the bottom was a large chocolate chip cookie. This was followed by homemade Vanilla Basic ice cream. On top of this was a layer of crush oreos, followed by C ice cream, then fresh whipped cream. Finally we made the traditional American flag out of strawberries and blueberries. Oh, the fireworks!

A Celebration of Nerdy Boys

A beautiful moment at Artemis this summer:

(Note: Artemis is the free computer science summer program at Brown for middle school girls, for which I was a coordinator this summer)

At the end of the program our students gave presentations to the faculty, staff and students of the CS department. I invited a number of my friends who were doing research here over the summer. My students knew that I had some pretty nerdy friends. One student with an especially powerful attitude asked if the people she saw standing around were my friends. I said that they were, and she uttered four very powerful words: "Nerds can be hot."