Survey Results

Mea Culpa! I was taken to task in several personal messages regarding my use of the term "grey-beard:"

1. The term is sexist, implying that only men need apply.
   
2. I used the British spelling. I should have used "graybeards."
   
3. The term should only be used in reference to wizards.
   

As a self-described English major, what is your opinion?

National Public Radio (NPR), in their Planet Money series, even wrote an article about it: When Women Stopped Coding[^].

In addition to the pressures mentioned in the article, there is the question of terminology. As long as it was called "computer science," it was at least somewhat attractive to women. When they started calling it by the more masculine term "software engineering" or "computer engineering," it became a total turn-off.

Also, inside companies there was (and often, still is) pressure to "move up the ranks" or move out. Many of us did not and still do not want to be a manager — we want to program! This resulted in a Hobson's Choice – either one of us had to become manager or they brought in some idiot from the outside who did not understand what we did. Either way, the result was often a poor manager who drove many of us into new jobs or other lines of work. While this thinned the ranks of both men and women, because there were fewer women, they virtually disappeared.

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