It is unfortunate that it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between the anecdotes of discrimination told to Ellen Spertus in 1991 and those that the questionnaire respondents reported in 1999. However, with only a few exceptions, the majority of discrimination stories from the questionnaire respondents seem to focus around socialization issues. For example, in the female programmer's story above, it is evident that the male in question has difficulty dealing with women on a social level, even in a classroom environment. His lewd comment suggests an insecurity that most likely exists in all of his social interactions with women, and not just those with his fellow programmer. This trend of discrimination based upon insecurity or unsociability seems to correlate with the very gradual acceptance of women entering the computer science major. For example, in 1991, Spertus' stories of women being overtly sexualized and objectified -- the most obvious form of gender discrimination -- occurred at a time in which women were just starting to make a notable presence in the computer workforce. According to the National Science Foundation, the highest number of females obtaining Bachelors Degrees in computer science (approximately 15,000) occurred during the late 1980s; it would have therefore been during the early 1990s that they were first entering the job force in large numbers. By 1999, it is evident that woman's presence in the computing field is a reality, and recent sexual harassment laws prohibit the sorts of discrimination that many females were subjected to in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Therefore, these women's classmates and co-workers have had to learn to accept their female peers -- a task that has often been difficult for men accustomed to the computer science world as being a "boy's club." This difficulty leads to the insecurity noted above, which can cause women to feel that they are not being taken seriously, or that co-workers or superiors do not hold them in the same regards as their male peers.

An important thing to note in the above anecdotes is that the women in question have realized that they are not inferior to the men in their classes, but yet their insecurities have not abated. Many college-aged women who responded to the questionnaire express this frustration: "I get...convinced that I can't do something, but the biggest problem with it is that I know it is a 'typical female' thing to do, which adds a whole new dimension to my frustration," writes another woman. It is unfortunate that these women can realize that their insecurities are unfounded, but yet are unable to completely shake them. Ultimately, these feelings of uneasiness are more detrimental to women than blatant sexual discrimination; while discrimination stems from an external source, feelings of inferiority are internal and are often indications of other internal pressures or insecurities. Hopefully, however, the ability to recognize one's own feelings of uneasiness will enable these women to eventually overcome their insecurities.