Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: life-support, petrol, gender, tunes
Absolutely no danger whatsoever at all. Contradicting the BBC story reported last week on Slashdot, NASA officials deny that a 1997 shuttle mission was ever in danger because of communication interruptions. Signal 11 writes: "NASA has a press release out which refuses a previous story from the BBC stating that an unknown 'hacker' was able to disrupt communications between mission control and the shuttle." Aardwolf64 pointed to MSNBC coverage of the NASA denial.
The NASA release reads, in part:
"NASA's Inspector General's office found that during the STS-86 mission in September of 1997, the transmission of routine medical information was slightly delayed due to a computer hacker. However, the transmission was successfully completed.At no time was communication between NASA and the astronauts compromised. The communication interruption occurred between internal ground-based computer systems."
Fly away little birdies! Fly away! Errr, swim away, little birdies! Swim away! Errr ... come back later! An unnamed correspondent writes: "follow up on recent story about penguins caught in oil spill. After being cleaned, the penguins were flown to Port Elizabeth and released to swim the +/- 800 km's back to Cape Town. This will give enviromnetal cleaners a short space of time to clean the oil from the beaches where they live. Two of the penguins are being tracked. This site tracks their progress via satellite. Can't someone novelize this rescue attempt under the title "Penguin's Progress"?
Sir, please stop hitting me with the 'No Discrimination' sign.
fegg writes: "Emmett recently posted a story in which there was a reference to an AP article which discussed gender bias as regards women and computer science. This was put -- I thought cavalierly --i nto the "this-has-nothing-to-do-with-gender-dammit dept." Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that it has everything to do with gender or, at least, how the world is presented to young boys and girls.
This is a rather important topic to me, especially now that I have two daughters (not to mention a wife who is a professional computer scientist). I view this as a must read for anyone who wants to develop a reasonable understanding of why there is such an imbalance of men and women in computing.
The gender bias situation is real, and it has been known for quite a while by many in education and technology circles. I would like to refer the Slashdot community to Ellen Spertus, who, in 1991, wrote "Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?" Particularly compelling, IMHO, is the piece therein on stereotyping.
Spertus's "Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering" provides an excellent set of pointers for people interested in this topic."
Isn't this what killed John Belushi? strredwolf writes "If you haven't heard, XFree86 4.0.1 is out in full force, with binaries and docs online. Slackware users can get the "Slackballs" via the Linux Mafia, along with other goodies." (Here's the direct link to the 4.0.1 files, but linuxmafia.org is worth exploring anyhow. Warning: it is an unabashed Pro-Slack Zone.)
This would be worth more than my car. Dredd13 writes "Empeg, Ltd., a UK company, shipped the first of its Mark 2 MP3 car-stereo to customers this past week. This is the same stereo that runs Linux and has won awards. The Mark2 is expected to be a full production run, (as opposed to the initial Mark1, which only had about 300 units) with enough to satisfy ample demand. As a former MkI owner (and one of the guys who got a Mark2 today from Mr. FedEx), I can say its worth every penny!" Slashdot's been following the Empeg saga for a while now; check out this item Rob posted in 1998. I hope they can bring the price down a bit, to better compete with the various mainstream MP3 players now emerging.
Okay, we know M$ stoop to low levels. I can't see why they would want to steal a load of Sharks though?
...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Unless you mean Microsoft Sharks - I mean, there were never any other kind? Sharks were always made by Microsoft? I thought everything was made by Microsoft? You don't mean there are other Sharks? They're free? The other Sharks are free? Can you connect to Microsoft Oceans with them? My God! If only I'd known... I'm gonna get me one of those BlueCoat Sharx - I mean, it's... You know...?
Anyway...
Mong.
*
*...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Remember: Nothing is Cool.
You lose.
This may explain a few things, actually. I recall that back at my middle school, a couple of the female teachers kept posters of Kevin Costner and various other actors in their offices. I guess that's why there were fewer male teachers there, right? We should sue!
--
Dyolf Knip
>- Are you here to get your Mrs. degree?
:-)
I got that one once... from a co-worker at a co-op job I had. That was the same co-op job where my unofficial 'job title' was 'the kappa chick' because I calibrated the kappa machine three times a week. (course, they were looking really nervous the first time they called me that...)
But mostly I get 'chemical Engineering? That sounds *hard*' and surprised looks when I do well. I can't decide whether to find it funny or frustrating. At this point I just shrug and say, 'yeah, it's hard. I like it.'
But after being told that something is 'really really hard' and then finding out that it wasn't, I've stopped listening to them, except maybe to make sure to pay more attention to what I'm doing.
From before I started school, my neighbour refused to believe that I could read (because her daughters, who were older than me and in school, couldn't yet) to the other neighbour who told me 'you'll fail grade 4 for sure, it's so hard!' to the gr 10 math teacher (the same one who just handed me the course outline and let me run with it, oddly enough) who convinced me to go into the 'regular' chemistry as opposed to 'honours' - I was bored stiff, transferred into honours 3 weeks into the term, spent a week catching up (and wrote a test on the 3rd day) and found out that I loved chemistry - to the university students that told me that physical chemistry was just evil and most people took the class two or even three times before passing, or that the control systems course was incredibly hard and also needed to be taken multiple times (physical chemistry was interesting and challenging, but not evil, and control systems was a bitch but I learned so much (and did reasonably well) that I'm thinking of focusing on them in my last year at university).
So now when someone tells me that something is 'too hard' and I shouldn't try it, I do it anyways (if I want to). The fact that I'm stubborn to the point of boneheadedness sometimes helps here, though...
"When correctly viewed, everything is lewd
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
"When correctly viewed, everything is lewd
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
Or the Wizard of Oz...
When you hire a man for a job, you don't have to worry about him deciding he doesn't want to hold a job for the rest of his life 6 months after you hire him.
How many male programmers stay in the same job for more than six months these day anyway?
HOMO!!!!!!!! Seriously though, it is an interesting paper. Just think how this applies to race.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
"Any scientist would read your story and say "Hmmm, that's interesting... maybe we should study this and see if it hold up for an entire population of boys and girls." In fact, that's what scientists are doing all the time! In fact, that's what this article is about! Your story is only useful as a hypothosis, unless you enjoyed telling it (which you seemed to)."
OK, can you site reputable studies? See Christina Hoff-Summers recent article in the Atlantic Monthly, "The War Against Boys". It documents how the original study by Carol Gilligan (sponsered by the AAUW, the same people who did this recent study) was a fraud, made up, and not re-produceable by other researchers. Hoff-Summers also sites statitistics showing that boys drop out of school more often than girls, commit suicide at a much higher rate, go to and graduate from college at a lower rate than girls, etc. The scientific evidence that we have suggests that is boys, not girls who are being discriminated against in schools.
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
Sorry dude, I just don't buy it.
This is repeated like a broken record on Slashdot...men are responsible for all of women's problems, including them not wanting to go into this industry. Honestly, I think it's bullshit.
Everybody's been told they couldn't do so and so their whole life, some people succeed despite it (and some women have proved themselves and succeeded), and some people let themselves be defeated by it. A lot of people I know, male and female, have had parents dismiss their efforts at something, for one.
Now the on-job descrimination thing, well that could be a different story. A lot of people in this county use that as an excuse, although some are actually victims of it. Still get over yourself and succeed and stop whining 'cause my ears are starting to hurt...
Well I've given my 2 cents to just about every other comment here I'll keep this short. I get along better with women (maybe because I look at most men as competition in areas not related to my job, but that's a guess). I have twice the number of female friends than male ones (which frankly can be annoying be because alot of people assume I'm gay for hanging out with women so much). Though I have alot of respect for women in general and don't think of things like calling women 'linux chicks', 'hot programmers', & whatever else people come up with. I'm a rarity though and most guys aren't liek me giving equal respect to both men & women I work with, basing my opinions on more than someones gender...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Pros:
Cons:
As you can see, my situation is very unfavourable... whether I'm in Rio or not
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
I have read several comments in regards to how outdated the information/statistics are..so..
Here is a link that you might find interesting:
http://www.resnet.wm.edu/~slharr/WomenCsci.html
I also have a question:
How many women work for slashdot and what are their jobs?
I found the following at the VERY LINK that you posted.
3. (Gram.) A classification of nouns, primarily according to sex; and secondarily according to some fancied or imputed quality associated with sex.
Gender is a grammatical distinction and applies to words only. Sex is natural distinction and applies to living objects. R. Morris.
Dictionaries are lists of meanings, not canonical guides to usage.
I doubt that you would find a usage and style guide that would recommend this use of the word gender. Actually, perhaps you could in this perverted "PC" version of English that is so popular these days.
-Peter
PS: While I am at it, a podium is a thing you stand ON and a lectern is a thing you stand BEHIND.
this could be true....my theory is slightly different. Get this - there aren't as many women in IT because - hold on to your hats! - men and women are "different"
In my own personal experience online and such, the vast majority of the women i've spoken to don't really give a shit about IT. Just about everything i've learned about computers, i've learned on my own. I'm working towards my CCNA, i've got a really great job doing linux system administration, etc. This was all self-taught.
I remember when i first installed a copy of RH5.0 on my box - and i was thinking "what's this crazy as linux shit?" - and from there on out, i was hooked. The last time i checked, however, no retailer was looking at a woman trying to buy a copy of RH or what have you and saying "Ma'am - don't you think you'd enjoy this book by Betty Crocker just a leeeetle bit more?"
Personally, i feel that a larger percentage of women than men just aren't interested in IT. It's one thing to say "ooohhh that computer is cool looking - i wonder how it works," but it's all together different to actually WANT to fuck around with that box all goddamned night, and go to work the next day (in whatever field) with your co-workers thinking you're stoned cause your eyes are so bloodshot. I don't care what you think...that's not a man thing, that's not a woman thing, that's just a geek thing.(notice to anyone flaming me for being a sexist: i didn't say ALL women weren't interested, i'm just willing to bet that not as great a percentage of women are as interested as men, for whatever reason. BUT OH DEAR CHRIST!!! WE DON'T HAVE A 50/50 DIVISION - THAT'S NOT FUCKING PC!!!!!!)
If you want to blame men for this ever so frightening trend, don't. That's just foolish to believe that, simply because there's not a 50/50 split in the gender division of any profession, it's somehow upper-class white male's fault. I *will* agree that there is a problem with the division of CEO's and such in this country, indeed - said white male power structure plays a big part there...but to say that women are being forced out of IT is just bullshit, especially because most "IT" companies are currently going to cemetaries digging up corpses to put in seats, AND paying them $80k a year.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
"I doubt that you would find a usage and style guide that would recommend this use of the word gender. Actually, perhaps you could in this perverted "PC" version of English that is so popular these days."
Yup, that's just it. The PC'ers have redefined sex and gender, and the usage is starting to seep into the mainstream.
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
Forget novelization, I'm working on a screenplay. We'll call it, "Free Chilly Willy".
carlos
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
I honestly can't say that, from my experience (not very considerable since I'm only 17 and not even in college yet), women haven't had it too rough. At least not in the college admissions process. It seems to me as if colleges (using Carnegie Mellon, #1 in CS) are actually going after those few female future computer scientists. I would have loved to have gone to Carnegie Mellon for CS, but I was waitlisted, and when I was accepted, they couldn't reevaluate my financial package (I still would've had to pay almost $20,000), so I had to choose Case Western Reserve University. Women at CMU SCS (School of Computer Science) are not so rare anymore. They've increased from under 10% of the incoming class in 1995 to almost 40% of the incoming class of 2000. By the way, the national standard is under 10% of women gain engineering-related degrees, including CS. The article which I got my statistics from says that CMU is "bucking the national trend". Now, high school seniors, the last time I checked, can choose their own school. So CMU is somehow attracting far more women than they used to, and more importantly, far more women than the rest of the schools in America. They do this by some good methods: by the Women@SCS Support Group, set up to nurture women through their four years in the SCS. Men don't have this advantage, but I can see that discrimination might discourage the women...I guess. This is OK. But by offering an exclusive scholarship to women (and another exclusive scholarship to minorities, though that's semi-offtopic), they persuade women in by lowering their exhorbitant $34,000 yearly cost to a reasonable rate...for women. White males are only considered for one third of the available merit scholarships. Contrast this with women, who are considered for more, or all, if they're of minority racial background. This I have a problem with.
I'm reminded of a statement from a student at the Boston Latin School, one of the most competitive secondary schools in America, and somewhat diverse: "It should be merit only that gets us here, and merit only that lets us stay." That was bravely said by a female minority student. Obviously, it's still possible to be female and smart. Let's just realize that...and realize as well that I am against gender bias at a young age. This is the one place I'm not sure about. But if there are teachers out there telling the little girls, "Why don't you try sewing instead," when they pick up a keyboard, well they should be ready with a response, "My daddy told me that girls can do anything boys can do, and I think they can do it better." My point is, parents, if it wasn't common sense, tell your children that they can do anything, regardless of gender! And give them pride...so when somebody thinks they can't do it, and tries to tell them so, they know that they can, and they will "show them." That's how I was brought up. I'm afraid I can't lend an air of true authority to this story, as I'm just a white male. But I know if I was a girl, I wouldn't let anyone tell me what I could or couldn't do.
Links:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Article
Women@SCS
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
Hey there! I would just like to say that there is a HUGE lack of females in the Computer Science department at my college. I mean, I may have 3-5 women in a class, but they are the same ones I've seen since freshman year and none of them look good.
So, WOMEN!!! Please join the Computer Science department at your school! Just think, if you do....you have a 50% chance of breeding more female computer scientists.....or something like that.
What a steaming pile of wishful thinking.
Individualism is one of the most dangerous ideas of the 20th century, not because people have it, but because they think they have it and they don't. Girls do what girls do, because that's what girls do; the ones who don't are social deviants.
Why don't you try a few of these experiments
Monkey see, monkey do...
There are more experiments that you can dream up and try if you're really in an empirical frame of mind, but my guess is that most people won't try them. Most moderately educated people get their wisdom out of books, and so follow the opinions of some philosopher or sociologist without coming to their own conclusions about how the world works. These authors in turn are generally following some sort of trend or ideal, and maybe applying it to a new situation when they write.
Anyway, individualism isn't nearly as common as people (especially people in the supposedly individualism worshipping US of A) belive or portray in their media. People make the same kind of individualistic choices. Test the hypothesis for yourself.
When was the last time you indulged in a spontaneous act of free will anyway? Something a bit more than the indulgence of a pre-programmed preference?
I work between 70 and 120 hours per week. That's just at and on work. I have to cram my own personal venture in there somewhere, too. Over the last six months, I've probably spent 50% of the nights sleeping under my desk, at work.
I haven't seen a movie in over a year. I haven't watched television in nearly six months. I haven't had groceries in my refrigerator in six months. I don't have time to wash laundry -- I buy more clothes on my way to work. I'm not kidding, I'll just buy some jeans and t-shirts instead of taking the time to wash and dry everything, reasoning that someday I will have some time to just wash my massive pile of worn outfits.
I went from relationship after relationship (and hot sex after hot sex, I might at!.. erm..) to completely single for the last three years (exactly since I started in this field).
This career takes a huge toll. If you don't have the stamina and steadfastness to get into this career, despite what people say or do to hold you back, you're not going to have what it takes to maintain this career. Male or female, it doesn't matter. I've seen them fall, repeatedly, by the wayside when they couldn't prove themselves or keep up.
As far as sexes and their interests -- it doesn't surprise me that most women don't want to be in the tech career. I don't want to be in the child-care, teaching, nursing or domestic-engineer fields, myself. Maybe it's because I'm male. Maybe it's just because I find them utterly without interest to me. Or maybe it's because I was told that boys don't do that sort of thing.
Which extends to another point -- the opposite of this whole conflict is that while people are "fighting for girls to be in this career", men are simply expected to be in it (or careers like it). As a male, if I were to stay at home (and yes, I was actually a stay at home father for awhile) instead of have a career (note, I dont' say "have a job", because being a homemaker sure as hell is one!), I would be ridiculed. "Look at him riding on that poor girls coat-tails..."
Also, while I see guy after guy kicked out into the street by his parents when he's 18, I see countless girls who still live with their parents, rent free, not going to school and without jobs, at the age of 20, 22, 24 or even 26.
This thing goes both ways. And sometimes, to be quite honest, I'm too busy working and trying to keep my head on straight to really give a fuck.
---
seumas.com
Bitching is better if you are a karma whore.
Intelligent Design Theory is not Creationism
We all know about the lack of females in computer science courses and the other sciences (I'm talking about academia here, that is my only experience). What I find interesting is that complete lack of commentary concerning the lack of males in undergraduate arts courses (English, Sociology, Performing Arts, Women's Studies). Isn't the whole point to have equal representation and exposure? Or is there some other more insidious agenda?
Garth Shoemaker
It turns out that sharks don't in fact need to keep moving. They can do active as well as passive breathing, and the are perfectly capable of "sucking" oxygenated water into their mouths to breath.
:)
Some scientists in Australia proved it by sticking some sharks in a big tank and not letting them swim around. They survived fine
I'm pretty sure there are conditions, such as specific species of sharks, and unusually oxygenated water.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Did someone say they actually had access to the information? or did they just slow down the computer that was sending/receiving such that the information was delayed?
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. -- George Orwell
> In colder places (such as AK) wouldn't the
> hard drives freeze in the winter?
The roads arn't that good in Antarctica, and the country code is aq, not ak.
--
mrBlond "Southern exposure"
Cape Town, South Africa
CowboyNeal for president!
"Hit any user to continue."
At the moment it looks like Peter's lead is unbeatable, Percy in third place is rapidly catching up on Pamela. But there's always the unexpected like a chance encounter with a leopard seal that could easily upset the form book. Cape Town is still a long way off!
It was rather sad how many of the responses on the original story were the same knee-jerk "aww c'mon, enough of this PC crap, no-one stopping women doing computers if they want to, therefore they don't want / are unable to perform in tech roles" type nonsense. To all the young males out there feeling irritated (threatened?) by the radical paradigm-breaking idea that maybe women DO suffer from discrimination from men -- and not just from classical "corr darlin'" sexist gits, but from apparently well-educated intelligent middle-class types who /just don't think/ about what they're saying and doing.
Camaron de la Isla 'When I sing with pleasure, my
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Actually, my SO tells me that this happened to her sister in 1990 or so. She lived in semi-rural California and was told that "women shouldn't be taking computer science". To the extent that she never took a class from the person who told her that, it was true. She still got got her EE degree and is working in the industry, but women at that school were strongly discouraged by at least some of the faculty.
The EMPEG is quite cool. It's as close as I've ever seen to the "perfect" MP3 player sitting in my brain. Since no one else can (hopefully) see into my brain, here's a brief description of my idea of the perfect MP3 player (this, btw, is the perfect car stereo MP3 player). When I bought my truck two years ago (Dodge Ram 1500, 1998), I purchased the six-speaker sound system and the best stereo to along with it. It's 1.5 DIN, has a CD player *and* a cassette deck, along with an AM/FM tuner. Before you get on me about buying (and praising) a "factory stereo," keep in mind a few things. First, I didn't have to install *squat*. It just appeared along with the truck when it was driven off the delivery truck :). Second, it still trounces most of these after-market stereos all the gang bangers seem to flock to. You could do three things to improve this deck: replace most of the controls (leaving only the round volume knob, which is digital but seems to "feel" better than a push-button volume control) with a touch-sensitive display (bigger than the display currently in the unit), add the ability to dig through CD-ROMs inserted into it searching for playable MPEG audio (while still playing audio CDs, naturally), and finally, stick some brains in. By brains I mean intelligent playlist handling, automatic AM/FM station searching, AM/FM station "killfiling" (there's some religious stations around and some annoying others that never play anything good that always show up while my deck searches for a tunable station), integration with the vehicle's headlights (dim the display or trigger some other behavior when they are turned on/off, etc.) I know, I know. "Build it yourself!" Okay. How? I know the EMPEG guys busted their butts to build the beast, and it's truly a remarkable device. I'm quite sure I don't have the technical skill to actually *build* the thing. I could certainly take a stab at building the UI though. I happen to dabble in LCD stuff anyways (look at my link above ;) and have always wanted an excuse to play with a touch-sensitive one. Speaking of, does anyone know where to find/buy touch-sensitive LCDs? Hopefully with a reasonable interface? (serial is ideal, or parallel, or even I2O)
Read my stuff.
Yeah, well done, we're all very proud of you. You seem rather tense and unhappy though; why do you think this could be?
Camaron de la Isla 'When I sing with pleasure, my
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Told you so.
Camaron de la Isla 'When I sing with pleasure, my
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Many, many people who have posted on the topic of gender inequality in the last few days have brought up the received wisdom that girls get less attention in school. Read this and then think about it some more.
"Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure." --Robert LeFevre
"IIRC, the original researcher (Gilligan) *refused* to allow this author to see her research materials. This is highly unusual."
To say the least. I guess I shouldn't have said that Gilligan made the study up, just that she has presented no evidence to show that she didn't just make it all up.
There's another good book (a true story) on the sex vs. gender thing called "As Nature Made Him." I don't remember the author. Does anyone know? There was a good interview with him and the subject of the book on NPR's Terri Gross show a few weeks back.
There was also a show done with Hoff-Summers on NPR's Talk of the Nation a few weeks back; might be available on their web site.
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
because it is less likely to make people think about "sex the activity". Too bad, as this conflation dilutes a useful distinction between the cultural and the physical.
One story (probably an urban legend) says that the base 16 number system was originally called sexidecimal. This was until IBM got a hold of it and prudishly renamed it hexidecimal.
Oh, forgot to mention...the 1 girl who applied to Caltech didn't get in, so she's now a CS major at Stanford...Also, in general, the top 3 spots of the graduating class of my HS (50/50 ratio) are generally held by 1 girl and 2 guys, while the next 5 are up for grabs...
Before I forget...I was an officer of Math team while in HS, and as sexist as the remark might sound, guys score slightly higher (or at least there are more guys who has high scores in general). On the other hand, the science team of my school has more girls than guys and do slightly better...This bit goes back to my point being girls, even when they are as talented in math/science fields as guys, are less likely to go to a school like Caltech/MIT but rather prefer to study Bio or whatever at Harvard or Yale wherever, for reasons of diversity or whatever.
Providing a method for individuals to turn off the tenure clock so they can have children without sacrificing their career.
It seems that there is already a mechanism for this -- sabaticals.
You were going along so well, until you said "masculine," "feminine," and "neuter". While those are the common grammatical categories of the languages that most /. readers are likely to be familiar with, there are languages with genders not based abstractly on sex, and languages with many more than 3 genders. An example is the Australian Aborigine language Dyirbal, with 4 genders - Bayi, Balan, Balam, and Bala
Bayi: men, kangaroos, possums, bats, most snakes, most fishes, some birds, most insects, the moon, storms, rainbows, boomerangs, some spears, etc.
Balan: women, anything connected with water or fire, bandicoots, dogs, platypus, echidna, some snakes, some fishes, most birds, fireflies, scorpions, crickets, the stars, shields, some spears, some trees, etc.
Balam: all edible fruit and the plants that bear them, tubers, ferns, honey, cigarettes, wine, cake.
Bala: parts of the body, meat, bees, wind, yamsticks, some spears, most trees, grass, mud, stones, noises, language, etc.
Off-hand, I know there's at least one language that had 8 genders, I don't know what the maximum known is...
What always kinda torques me about these discussions concerning gender bias is the assumption that there is something *wrong* with the fact that there aren't more women involved in such and such profession. And the resulting witch hunt for the various enemies that have caused this malevolent disparity (the sexist teacher, the sexist counselor, etc.) If researchers want to discuss the situation in these terms, would someone please put forth some evidence that there is someone being wronged by the situation first before assuming it?
However, since I'm genuinely interested in this topic, I'm not saying the situation should be ignored. Instead I'll propose an alternate question: Why aren't more women interested in tech careers? or alternatively: Why aren't more men interested in HR careers? My hypothesis would be that women just don't really care about tech careers (ditto for men and HR). I think that if researchers would approach the problem from this perspective rather than trying to further political agendas or sway the balance of largely mythical powers, we might actually end up with something useful.
Conspiracies!
Dirty tricks!
--Ask a silly person, get a silly answer.
Part of the reason "gender" and "sex" have been redefined is that they do not include intersexual people and people who feel they have been biologically misassigned. Your example illustrates the dangers of assuming a child can be molded into another gender-based mindset, but it is also harmful to assume that a child automatically will consider him/herself of mindset that corresponds to her/his equipment.
The culture, both corporate and casual, in IT, is overwhelmingly male dominated. Smart girls who are willing to play the system can most definitely make it, but the odds shouldn't be any harder for them than for their male counterparts.
As for those middle school girls who don't like funny symbols and blinky lights, I hope they find something else they enjoy; I wouldn't want them cluttering up my machine room.
When I hear someone whine about how they are poor at math or science or computers because their teacher didn't call on them enough in school or their teacher didn't instill enough self-confidence in them (pardon me, but isn't self-confidence, by virtue of its name, something that cannot be instilled by an external force?)
:-P ) ).
That's rediculous, and I think the only reason you are saying it is to put in some silly joke. For that reason I will, in fact, pardon you. Self confidence can and must be taught. Furthermore, it is fully possible to teach someone to have no self-confidence, especially if we are talking about the developing years of someone's life. You might be born ignorant and full of confidence but given enough frowns, verbal reprimands, positive attention for passive behaviour, etc... you would be as meek as a mouse, regardless of gender. The idea is to look at a society as objectively as possible (which includes the assumption that you might be wrong (which you are
Perhaps what makes boys excel more often in science is precisely this same attitude and enthusiasm that is exhibited in grade school. Instead of shutting it down and tuning them out, in favor of shy quiet girls, coax the girls out of their shells.
Good idea! Unfortunatly this must be done by the parents and teachers, who are also not aware of the messages they are inadvertantly sending. That is one of the reasons girls do better in an all girl school. Not because they "can't handle the competition" but instead because the teachers will not have their own gender bias affect the children as much. They treat all of the girls (mostly) like they would treat boys in a mixed gender school.
Most of my life in school, I scores in the top percentiles of those SAT tests were sheer luck. Anyone could have pulled it off.
...
I took the time to explain my long -- probably boring -- story, because I'm a nobody who would be lucky to fall into the middle of any category or ranking of anything. But I've done what a lot of people whine that they could never do. And that's bullshit. It's utter fucking bullshit. It's cowardice. It's fear.
Well... I'm entertained by your story, however it is wholly irrelivant to the issue at hand. I hope you do very well in your position. The point is not to uphold anecdotal stories as facts that gender bias doesn't exist but to determine what is going on in our society. Any scientist would read your story and say "Hmmm, that's interesting... maybe we should study this and see if it hold up for an entire population of boys and girls." In fact, that's what scientists are doing all the time! In fact, that's what this article is about! Your story is only useful as a hypothosis, unless you enjoyed telling it (which you seemed to).
You want to know a secret? They are finding stuff that you don't want to think about. Think about it. What if they are absolutly, 100% right? What if they haven't even uncovered the half of it yet? Then how would you feel about your suffering and problems? Do you see a confilct of interest here? The sad fact is that everyone has a conflict of interest. Some people are, however, more aware of theirs.
Sometimes even scientists are biased because they can't stand that a concept that they are attached to and use to define their world-view might be based on an ugly truth.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
The Super-Penguin Bros. Racing... Who will win, pengio, luipi??
Dassauly buys Spatial
You can tell his posts because he has that "." after his user name. Accept no substitutes for the real me.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Well I have a few comments on your posting...
In my school women were incouraged to be smart as opposed to the guys who were ignored by teachers. Heck I got treated like dirt by most of my teachers because I was a guy & I 'shouldn't need help or encouragement'. WTF is that?
I saw myself in a similiar situation of not having anything I did very well, though I didn't happen to have any real problems with learning in school. High school was reptitive & dull for me, except when the women treated me like dirt because I didn't want to be an 'athlete' then it just sucked. But back to my point, I eventually managed to talk my parents into aquiring a computer which I had found to be something I had an inate curiosity about. Once I had one of my own I loved figuring out it's intricacies & by the time I was finally able to take a computer course in HS I was a bit of the teachers pet, because I could talk at his level...
I did go to college though & I promptly ran out of money 2 semesters before finishing. Now I live in a region where I can't find a tech job without a degree. I've tried to find the lowest tech jobs & they require at least a certificate around here, because frankly they don't trust tech people & think of them as lazy slackers. I can't simply move elsewhere & it's real frustrating...
To the original topic though... I only saw at most 5 women during college in comp sci, but the business classes swarmed with them (90%). It was pitiful because frankly they (the women in the business classes) thought of the comp sci guys & girls as loosers with no life... Which just reminds me of the quote abotu how 99% of all people are stupid... 'Nuff said.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Last night on the news there was a NASA interview, mostly about some other things, but they also asked the guy about the breakins.
His response, paraphrased, was "That was completely outside of NASA, the data was being sent from internal machines out to some medical researchers. It was their machine which had the problem, not NASA. The shuttle ground control computers are not hooked to the internet in any way."
Since this wasn't a spokesdroid, I'd give it a shred of credibility. I know NASA has been employing tiger teams to probe their security, and they've been shopping around for security firms to independantly audit their review of internal security. Sounds like their want to make sure they have an airgap around their life critical systems, so they can clearly dispute such panic mongering headlines as these.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
No, I don't think anyone ever claimed the crackers had access to biomed info. But if they're able to break in far enough to affect those systems, then they're probably too close anyway.
--Jim
Or some poor unsuspecting kind soul swims out to find our little friends, only to swim into the ferocious maw of (duuh-duuh) A Man-and-Penguin-Eating Shark! Lo! The humanity!
oh well. Maybe this soul came of the Rainbow Warrior, which just attempted to board a Russian frigate. Serves 'em right. If the Russians didn't get them, then the sharks might as well.
Unless you mean Microsoft Sharks...
No joke, the coast of Washington does have the largest shark population. Coincidence? I think not.
If a woman wants a technical career, she has just as many options -- if not more, than a man. This is the year 2000. It isn't 1950. A woman isn't going to apply for a computer science scholorship and be told by the people who handle her applicant, "Oh, dearie -- don't you think a nice course in domestic engineering would be more suitable to a nice young lady like yourself?"
She may not be told this by the people who handle her application, but she may very well be told that by the other people in her life that may influence the decision - her parents, her friends, maybe her husband/boyfriend?
The point of this is not that the attitude is necessarily prevalent in the *industry* (though, the fact that the industry itself is even looking at this at all means that it's somewhat self perpetuated), but that the social condition exists that precludes women getting into highly technical endeavours - because, traditionally, the tech industry is *viewed* and (more importantly) *portrayed* as being male dominant.
This needs to change, on a social level, not an industrial one, and one of the things that can be done to assist this process by those in tech industries responsible for dictacting how the industry is portrayed (heck, you and I, lowly programmers/non-marketing types, definitely have a modicum of responsibility for this) is to make gender non-relevant in that portrayal.
i.e. don't even *bring it up* that there is a lack of women/men, but portray it in as gender-neutral a manner as possible. If this means balancing between interviewing male and female computer scientists for such banal things as Discovery channel documentaries on the subject of computer intelligence, etc. then so be it, but even that feeds the problem.
Because it's this *portrayal* that allows the social aberration of gender-bias to persist, and it's this aberration that precludes a lot of women from choosing high tech careers.
In other words: quit complaining that there aren't any hot chick programmers around. You're perpetuating the problem.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
The verb to sex means to give a sex to something. Consider the novel "Sexing the Cherry."
But if you insist on sex meaning fucking, I think there are other verbs that need helper verbs (have) to make sense.
-Dave Turner.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Exactly. At 120 hours per week, ANYONE can make a lot of money. As a matter of fact, at 120 hours per week, and $100,000 per year salary, you're only making $16.67/hour. That means that each hour of your work is worth LESS than the guy making $35K per year and only working 40 hours per week. I'd rather have my work valuable.
LetterJ
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
Good post.
I think that a lot of the fuzzy headedness in thinking about these things is a poor grasp of the idea of statistical distribution.
I had this same reaction when The Bell Curve was a big deal. The guys who wrote it were obviously full of s**t, because even if you believed the basic thesis, that blacks are statistically less intelligent than whites, the bell curves overlap so that 40% of the blacks would be smarter than 50% of the whites (as opposed to 50% of the whites being smarter than the other 50% of the whites); furthermore individuals of exceptional intelligence would appear in both races.
In other words, you still have to judge individuals as individuals. There's not simplistic shortcut to understanding a human being or the problems of a group of human beings.
Gender stereotypes are more complicated because they are clusters of interconnected characteristics; however on any one characteristic the same kind of statistical dispersion and overlap exist.
I think the idea that an individual can transcend gender is implicit in this; there is no need to resort to non-negatable hypotheses about subtle social processes. The reason that it's so hard to argue to these po-mo types is that they don't have any criteria by which they would admit that something is not a social construction.
By the way, I think that the idea gender is partly a social construct is indisputable. Men in non-anglo culture weep, or hold hands with each other, which in anglo culture are exclusively femininine behaviors. However, we can inject a female rat with testosterone and have it act more like a more aggressive male (alternatively a male fish in a stream polluted with estrogen analogs may act like a sterile female). However, the more extreme po-mo types will see the hidden hand of social construction even in these instances. I had a good friend who went away to grad school and came back brainwashed this way.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Dirt doesn't need luck.
OTOH, this says nothing about actual relationships between ability and gender... In fact, IIRC, average IQ is the same for each gender, but the standard deviation is higher in males... I wouldn't be surprised if the same holds true for a lot of other tendencies/ablities.
<UNFOUNDED_SPECULATIONS>
After all, males are (evolutionarily) expendable, and thus they are a good place for nature to...'test' the extreme effects of mutations. And before someone points out that "Man is quasi-monogomous. Two parents provide better for offspring, and males aren't interchangable in our society!", I'd reply "That's a recent trend, on the evolutionary scale. Call it legacy code from the pre-hominid era..."
</UNFOUNDED_SPECULATIONS>
Anyways, returning to the original thought, it's just an interesting observation on social dynamics. Another interesting one would be the performance of the 442nd in WWII... The gov. put their parents in internment camps, and they go on to become the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in American military history? Huh?
In conclusion, Humans can be wonderful, wicked, wool-brained, and wizardly, defying all general descriptions but one: Weird. I'll never understand them....
You don't have to "buy into 'everyone does it so it is right'" because it's not something you have to agree with. It's just the way things are. Linguistically, grammars and dictionaries are DEscriptive *not* PROscriptive. When a new edition of a dictionary comes out it is based on studying how the language is being used: in other words, what everyone is doing. They don't make mandates on usage, but merely say, "If you want to make sure that the highest number of English speakers understand you, use these words this way." As far as using "they" as a 3rd person gender neutral, I have several points. First, if that's what people are doing, it WILL become the standard. Second, English already uses pronouns with some ambiguity. "You" is used for both singular and plural. "He" carries a specific meaning to most folks in most situations. Currently is is still used for non-specific individuals, but most people still identify the use of "he" with maleness. Try this experiment. Take 100 or so people and give them statements like this, "A person walked into the store and headed to the clothing department. As he walked he remembered he needed shoes too." Now ask for a description of the "person". If the problem is "imaginary" you should get an equal number of descriptions of women as men. If not, the problem exists. Now try the same statement again with a different group and replace all instances of "he" with "they". See if that doesn't remove the male slant to the descriptions.
LetterJ
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
Sorry, but "gender" refering to the maleness or femaleness of persons (or other things, like electrical connectors)is a well-established usage dating from at least the 1950s. And "they" as a gender-neutral singular pronoun is an emerging standard, IMHO much better than continually using "he or she". (It seems to me not unlike the use of the plural second person as a polite or formal pronoun, like the German Sie or French vous.)
Anyone who can seriously entertain the notion that "he" is gender neutral needs a whack with the feminist clue stick.
Natural languages aren't like programming languges. They evolve. Correct grammar and usage is whatever is used by educated native speakers, not what self-appointed grammar cops decide. Deal with it.
And speaking of standards, when the fuck did question marks replace single quotes? Oh, I get it - you must be using some non-standard HTML.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
It's a topic on your preferences page.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Women from the dawn of the human race have been the shells and bearers of life. Our bodies give life to men and woman yet we are berated by men. We gave birth to men. This is not to state we *deserve to be given* that which we do not possess. However, we deserve the same possibilities as men. We deserve the chance to reach for the opportunities provided to men as well.
For many years we were unable to hold land, make economic decisions, vote for representation, or speak our minds. Our expressions of love were cauterized while men could flagrantly parade from relationship to relationship. Women were taught to obey and be modest. Our minds were to be caged.
For years and till this day, women have fought to rise and reach our own moments of acheivement and the fruits of hard work. Knowledge is hard earned. It is sad that as we march forward, we still have to subscribe to a bludgeoning and antagonizing fight to save ourselves from the medocrity of discrimination and social programming.
And I will state this problem is also continued by the women (not just men) who were created by this gender profiling for they in turn foster in women coming up behind them same chains of indifference.
I love computers and science. I love to learn. I have had my heart and mind stomped on by many men in the tech industry because of my curiosity. I have gotten subtle gestures that I am too lazy to research the answers I am seeking to shouts of RFTM.
I have come into IRC channels to watch and ask questions only to be told that Women have no place using Unix/Linux etc because we are inferior and lazy. Our place is to bring them coffee and parade in lingerie.
Many times I have been stripped of my confidence and good will. It hurts no matter how hard you want something.
I fight to continue what I want to do. Obviously, there are many who don't want to see me succeed, but I am not worried because I believe in myself. I evaluate this every morning I wake up, and I reaffirm my dreams with every inch of success I make.
If men could only see us for more that what others have given them to see.
Something for future parents to dwell on: Why can't fathers give their daugthers a book about Einstein instead of a Barbie? Why can't our mothers give us a computer instead of years and years of dance lessons? Why can't we celebrate females as much as we celebrate men?
Men cringe when they think of the Lifetime channel or the newer Oxygen. Women, my sweethearts, are on a long path to healing themselves and reclaiming their rights as humans. We need a beginning. We need to forge our own boundaries of expression. Spirit is important.
-- this is a tough subject to but into a concise form because there is so much involved..but I wanted to touch on as many subjects with out rambling far of context... thanks to /. for a place to speak our minds.
Truth like surgery, may hurt, but it cures. - Han Suyin, Chinese Physician and Writer
I am using IE4 (Yeah so sue me). And the Slurry sucks thing along with *something* checking source now has TOTALLY thrown the formatting for this article out of wack.. Anyways. Im complaning, afterall I do not have to read /.
Jeremy
That map where it shows the penguins being tracked back home is pretty cool. I can imagine a new sport like pigeon racing where wild penguins are caught and then raced like homing pigeons.
I think the smart money in this two-penguin race is on Peter Penguin. Obviously, Pamela Penguin lost valuable race time when she strayed off-course.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Every dictionary I can access at the moment has as one of the definitions sexual difference, AS PRIMARILY APPLIED TO CULTURAL DEFINITION. Sex refers to biological function. It's a useful term, especially in discussing roles of men and women because of the cultural component of the word.
Except that it was an entirely American ran subdivision--I didn't run into a single Japanese person at this particular office.
When you have a medical form that says: "Sex: Male Female", that is wrong plain and simple... The correct answers are of the type of: "Not Now, Yes, Not My Type, Often, After Work" and you should pencil them in. My doctor fixed his forms once I did it.
Now what should be there is "Gender: Biological: Male Female, Personality: Male Female".
Best question every asked in a survey at a water park: "Gender of person answering question (By inspection): Male Female" We all pulled our swim trunks out together to check what parts were actually locaated there.
While on this kick: Birth records should have at least 5 boxes to describe the parents: Host, Egg Donor, Sperm Donor, Mother, and Father. Note: Father and Mother are who is going to act in the role so a biological male or female can be placed either boxes.
No; I do mind. And will come after you with a large baseball bat...actually, she also has a black belt and could probably take care of herself. But whatever's left is mine.
solely because I'm a 5'11 240lb fit confident male, instead of a 6' 135lb slender and attractive female.
Hypothesis: Your appearence(sp?)/attitude/demeanor has more to do with the discrimination than your sex.
My wife told me recently that she has changed how she acts when she goes to night clubs with her friends. According to her, in the past if a male approached her she would respond and make conversation politely while meeting his gaze. Men got the idea that she was on the hunt and would pursue her endlessly, regardless of how many times she said, "I'm MARRIED!!"
Now, she says, she slumps her shoulders when she enters the room and tries to appear ungainly in high heels. She doesn't look at men when they approach her, choosing to look away instead. She says that it has worked.
Teleport to the world of business. Anyone that doesn't sit-up straight and look me in the eye during a meeting is considered weak. Who's at fault if my wife forgets she's at a business meeting instead of a night club?
my mother has (a) been descriminated by a legal arbitrator who told my mother flat out before arbitration that she was going to lose because she's just a "stupid cunt and has no business being in charge of a building site"
As in many cases of 'discrimination' that I've seen, the arbitrators problem lay in something else and the fact that your mother was female was just an easy difference to capitalize on. He could just have easily used the fact that she was
a) 'a skinny weakling'
b) 'too white'
c) 'too dark'
d) 'too pretty' (implying low intelligence)
e) 'too ugly' (implying low intelligence)
f) etc...
My point being that the construction industry has more than its fair share of socially maladjusted grunts that exhibit animalistic tendencies to dominate through ritualistic posturing, but the rest of the world has quite a few too. People communicate more than they know through barely noticable actions. I always enjoy watching documentaries on animal rituals and comparing what I see to what you find in a local bar or board room meeting. The similarities are incredible.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
You will never change individual behavior. These studies and assertions are wholly useless, unless someone wants to pass a law making it illegal for any parent, teacher or co-worker to ever say anything to a woman that may be construed as detrimental to her ego, self-confidence or worth and value as a female.
No matter how much the rest of us want everyone, including every woman, to have an unfettered chance to do what they desire without being restrained or hampered by crude and unfair comments, it will always be undermind by those few who actually are in positions to say those things at the times which they are most agregious.
---
seumas.com
It seems to me that the reason why there are no women in technical fields is that they are conditioned from an early age not only not to find geeky stuff interesting, but to look down on people who do. Face it: the kick-ass programmer with $20 million in stock options and the brand new Aston-Martin convertible was the pimple-faced, scrawny geek throughout grade school. This is not an image most women aspire to.
The problem is that the very attitude required to excel in a technical field has to be acquired at an early age. At 24, I've been training for my current job for 19 years, though for most of that time it was just a hobby. At 5 years old, most girls are playing with Barbie dolls and their heat-lamp ovens, and aren't terribly interested in putzing around with a television or programming a computer. At 16 years old, while I was busily improving the BBS software I wrote at 14, most teenage girls were shopping, doing their hair, trying on push-up bras, and generally trying to impress oversexed teenage boys.
Notice: by that age, I already had 11 years of experience programming and generally tinkering with engineering. Considering how intuitive youngsters are compared to adults, this is an insurmountable chasm to cross.
So, now when we ask, "Why aren't there are more female programmers?", one conclusion at which we must invariably arrive is, "Because they don't have the experience to compete with the males." Sure, there are other reasons, but I believe this one dominates above all others.
The only remedy I can see is to change society so young girls are given Legos instead of Barbies, TV kits instead of heat-lamp ovens, and computers instead of wardrobes. Encourage young girls to pursue substance over style, intelligence over beauty, and individuality over conformity, and the problem will just go away naturally.
Until this occurs, all other perceived culprits are merely straw men.
[ home ]
This is the year 2000. It isn't 1950.
While I agree that there is surely discrimination and bias -- both conscious and unconscious -- in IT and (probably to an even greater extent) throughout our society -- this is the thing that really tanked the article for me. I didn't see a single reference from later than 1991, and most were from the mid-80s. (Extrapolating 1985 attitudes toward computers to today!?!? Please!) And a disturbing number were from the 70s and even the 60s.
You could point out that current PhD candidates grew up in these times, but the fact is that's water under the bridge. If you want to call our society and the IT industry sexist and discriminatory, you should use evidence that's somewhat current. As it is, nothing in this article comes close to erasing my very real experience of seeing companies scrambling to find anybody -- male, female, or other -- to fill their IT positions.
People seem to be unable to understand that words are used within context. I'd be the first to complain if someone used "hack(er)" to mean "crack(er)" in an article posted to Slashdot. I'd tend to place less credence in an article which misused the term "gender" in a sociology journal. I'd toss in the trash a physics book which referred to an automobile engine as a "motor." But I don't worry about Newsweek articles referring to the recent hacker attack which brought the Internet to its knees, Slashdot posters who use gender to refer to the sex of a person or the fact that the local auto parts store stocks an entire aisle of motor oil.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Mabey somethign to track missing socks. Remote controls mabey? This way, next time I'm missing my remote, everyone on the web can tell me "It's under the couch cushin stupid!"
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
I agree that it's a social problem, not an industry one. But I don't agree with most of what else you said (I do agree I need to hear alot less of the 'complaining that there aren't any hot chick programmers around' for instance). Frankly I don't see a way around the problem though without a change of how the public sees the industry.
Interviewing more women doesn't help, we have to show them that they can be useful in this sort of field & that it's not all a boys club, but interviewing them is just liek makign a big deal of the fact that the military let women fly jets... I don't have answers, but I would love to be in a balanced industry for a change where smart women & men work to solve problems like elsewhere in other fields... Women in fact do have some excellent ideas & I've tried to compel a few women I know that are tech capable to go to colelge for it, but they don't want to for various reasons...
Well that's my 2 cents...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
My girlfriend (almost) has a Ph. D. in astrophysics. In high school she was turned down for an award in a science class because it would be wasted on her, girls don't go into science.
The teachers who made that decision still teach at that high school.
So, yes, people still get told "Oh, dearie -- don't you think a nice course in domestice engineering would be more suitable to a nice lady like yourself?"
I agree with what you have to say here. I think what's interesting about that article is that it was written in 1991, with all of the referenced data being collected in the 80's and even the 70's. While I do believe that stereotyping still exists, I think it would be more relevent to look at what's going on in industry today, rather than what went on a decade ago. Maybe things have stayed the same, but I doubt it.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
By a couple days (5? I forget, closed the page).
Still, its going to be pretty damned cool to watch those guys float up the coast. Never ceases to amaze me how they navigate those sorts of distances...
What is it that penguins use, anyway, astronavigation or something like waterflow/current recognition? Smell? Geographical landmarks?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=youllneverfind this
Donate online by Friday, and give'em your email so long.
The Salt River Cleaning Station Cam is go.
The GPSA press release blames the inept bodies in charge.
There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew. - Marshall McLuhan
CowboyNeal for president!
"Hit any user to continue."
Are you stalking him or something? It's fairly obvious that it's not you. Do you need something to do with you time?
Bitching is better if you are a karma whore.
Yep. That was a karma whore post. It's how I keep my +2 for when I REALLY want to troll.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Damn, should have read the intro more carefully.
My question, then, is why such a stale article was referenced. I mean, nine years is really quite a long time. In IT, it's even longer.
Well, actually, I agree. We need more hot chick programmers, because I would like to get one into bed. Why I should stop complaining about something I find undesirable (IE, the lack of hot chick programmers) is beyond me. Of course, whining about it probably won't do any good, but let's face it -- If women never rose up against sexism, they still wouldn't be allowed to vote. If they're not willing to go to bat for themselves, then I don't think they see a problem like we do. I've known a number of woman who would see that as a reason to get into the field and then either never give a geek a glance, or to flirt with them shamelessly and then marry a carpenter.
Hey, how would you feel if geek chicks said "We need more hot stud programmers, these pasty faced wimps suck!"?? I mean really, unless you mean hot as in a codin' fool, able to crank out code with the best, you're just letting your gonads talk.
Other than that, I do agree that it's better to have mates with similar interests. I could never stand to be attached to someone whose idea of entertainment was watching sports on TV and who didn't read as voraciously as I do.
Fortunately, my SO is a geek too, but more along the mad scientist lines. I'm the breadwinner who can play the workaday game well enough to (pretty much) stay employed. Even the brightest don't keep their jobs when they get violent with coworkers. But he cooks, having been a cook in the Coast Gaurd, and does dishes, which I hate.
use Sig::Witty;
I would argue that half-clad or unclad men would also be willing to rescue these half-clad women...
How about half-clad men being rescued by fully clothed women?
Seriously, I don't watch much television anymore becase I can't stand "dumb blond bunny/screamer" syndrome. Zzzzzzz.
use Sig::Witty;
Gender/Sex, Hacker/Cracker, whine whine whine.
I'm pretty sure it was here that a story about an article on the CBC's website regarding the definitions of hacker and cracker was posted. Let's face it. Everyday people use the word "gender" when referring to something that, in the strictest intended definition, should call for the word "sex". Deal with it. "Sex" is often thought of as an intimate act between two people. Thus, in everyday conversation and writing, the less potentially offensive word "gender" is used. It's just like the word "hacker" implying a violent/destructive act and therefore being associated with things like the DoS attacks back in February. I don't get the same idea in my head when I hear the word "cracker".
Go ahead and use whatever words you choose, but keep in mind you're not the lord of dictionary.
A couple of things:
1. I really don't think that Dr. Spertus needs Slashdot karma. I should think that someone with a PhD from MIT would be secure enough that Slashdot karma would not be a signifigant boost to their self-esteem. Somehow I don't think she is going to list her karma in her list of Honors (a very impressive list, by the way)
2. She didn't "give them one url", Slashdot user "fegg" did.
I don't like to respond to trolls like yourself, but I'd hate for anyone to happen apon your post and think it to be true.
I'm sorry, the only thing responsible for this is parenting. Children, both girls and boys, should be tought that they can do whatever they want, but at the same time be tought a rational set of "morals" to judge life with. I'm not Christian, I don't buy the god-fearing crap, so I'm not speaking of morals in that sense, but more in the sense of, "Do not kill one unless one threatens your own life.", and quite honestly, if someone threatened my life, I would do anything in my power to disable and or destroy the advasary. I may be a "linux uber geek", however, I'm also physically and intelectually talented in the arts of Karate and Zen (although, I'm not of those religious backgrounds either) from materials/lessons I've learned from other people and by reading.
:P
:)
The moral of this story, is that if I ever have a girl, I'm going to teach her Karate, Linux, and C, so in the events that follow:
Someone tells her she does something like a girl:
She can kick their ass.
Someone tells her how "krad ereet" they are at Windows:
She can whip out a linux CD and stomp on em.
Someone writes some lame java applet and brags:
She can write a multimedia, flash like language, and impliment it to write it better.
Just my opinion.
--- 'dex
I love it when you +2
Intelligent Design Theory is not Creationism
She should have kicked his ass. What he did was nothing short of churlish.
BTW, would you please be so kind as to name this cretin, and the university he works for?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That's why I said "colloquially" (it's marked "coll." in the definition). My point was the idea that gender could refer to people, even in a colloquial manner, and dates back to 1913. Gender is a social science term now, basically. And contrary to popular belief, it does not automatically connotate "PC"; people who use it tend to have no problem using the word "sex", but do so in a biological sense.
I gotta say: Where did you people go to high school? In High school where I am they tell women to be smart, because they need it to make it in life while they try telling the guys to be dumb jocks so they can get the quick cash & get out.
I don't know why that's the case here & what makes things so different where your girlfriend went to school, but frankly I wish I'd lived their so I wouldn't ahve been treated by teachers liek dirt because I didn't want to be some dumb jock & wanted a real job myself...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
I just don't see the problems they are describing with respect to males and females in the technology industry. In school, while there are more men, there are still a lot of women (in Computer Science).
At work, it is even more equal. I work in the IT department for a large insurance company and almost half are women. The head of the IT division is a woman. (Actually all of my bosses from team leader to manager to VP are all women).
Also my girl friend is in Computer Science, and has never had a problem finding technical jobs. The way I see it, if a woman does not work in technology, it is because she doesn't want to, not because she can't.
FunkyDemon
First, I am a feminist, so fuck you. I don't think that women are so weak that they are hurt by the use of words that are both masculine and neuter.
;-P )
Second, I don't buy into "everyone does it so it is right." Using a plural pronoun is a poor solution to an imaginary problem.
Finally, I am at work, and I am using MS Word to spell check my posts then paste it into the comment box. Word "fixes" my quotes in the process. When I preview (in IE) it looks fine. So I suck for using MS. So I quit. Friday is my last day. Hopefully I will never have to use word again.
Actually I appreciate you pointing this out. (because I can take criticism without freaking out
So every dictionary that lists "sex" as one of gender's definitions is wrong?
Language changes. Gender has always been used colloquially as a synonym for sex (check the 1913 Webster's Dictionary); now it is used (mostly academically) to refer to the social assignation of sexual roles. Language change. Deal with it.
Lets see how sexy you are.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Um, you guys don't ask this much of -men-, why are you laying this crap on us girls?
Actually, this much has always been asked of men. There's no free lunch, and freedom from demeaning gender stereotypes and traditional roles for women means that you have to work for society in the same way that men always have. And it's not really any easier than housework or raising kids (well, maybe a little easier than raising kids.)
Actually you would be suprised how often we do get exactly that type of language. When I was an engineering student, I got, from a few different professors famous lines like:
- Are you here to get your Mrs. degree?
- Women are never any good at circuits.
- Are you sure you are supposed to be in this class?
an my all time favorite, on the first day of class:
- Ah, I remember the good old days, when we didnt' admit women to this school. We flew the flag at half mast when women were first admitted. I don't think they should have been.
So, yes, women do put up with more BS than men in the field. Which is not to say that women can't make it. It just means that average women can't.
By the way, you notice that the "researchers" didn't interview boys? I expect you can find plenty of boys that will have similar points of view.
So he's had a head start.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Okay, I was raised in that generation where we were 'struggling' for equality. Or was that carping about the fact that the men wanted to us to serve coffee and look at our tits....
So, we are told now that our children need us, that the workforce needs us, and that we have to make up for the lack of scientists and engineers that are being pushed out by the HB1A visas.
Um, you guys don't ask this much of -men-, why are you laying this crap on us girls? The GNP doesn't benefit from me being at home, but the kids do. And if the schools of the world would teach something other than political correctness on campus, people might have more time to study hard sciences.
Get the social engineering out of the picture and the world comes up downright better. I'm grabbing my rolling pin and going back to the kitchen now. Tata until after dinner!
In space, no one can hear you moo.
>Although it may have something to do with sex. Remember, "words have gender, people have sex".
Exactly. More and more people are getting this wrong.
Way to stick it to 'em!
I know some people who have used PCs for radio repeater controllers. These are usually installed in unheated shacks exposed to the weather. The big problem is the hard drive. One solution is to put the hard drive in an insulated box to keep it warm and protect it from rapid temperature changes.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I am not for promoting a specific group of people simply to achieve some sort of equality in statistics, so that Universities, rights groups and government politicians can pat themselves on the back and feel they accomlpished something.
What I am wholly for, is the increase in educational oppertunities across the board. When I hear someone whine about how they are poor at math or science or computers because their teacher didn't call on them enough in school or their teacher didn't instill enough self-confidence in them (pardon me, but isn't self-confidence, by virtue of its name, something that cannot be instilled by an external force?) or because the "boys were too obnoxious and eager", it makes me want to wretch.
So, should we punish boys because they're sometimes eager to learn? Rediculous. Perhaps the problem isn't that boys often are louder and demand more attention when it comes to time in class-room, but that females do not demand the same and excersize their same unrestricted ability to raise their hand and shout "ooh! ooh! I know the answer!". You know what this suggests? Maybe there is something different between boys and girls after all. (Oh my gosh! No! That can't be!)
Perhaps what makes boys excel more often in science is precisely this same attitude and enthusiasm that is exhibited in grade school. Instead of shutting it down and tuning them out, in favor of shy quiet girls, coax the girls out of their shells.
Even if you don't have a teacher who does this -- for example, if you have a teacher who absolutely refuses to call on a single girl for an entire year and almost completely ignores them (perhaps he's some sort of demented sadist -- ooh! there I am again, assuming the male as the evil on -- oh gosh, I'm so sexist!), you can still achieve amazing things.
Most of my life in school, I was not one of the loud boisterous ones raising my hand every second to beat everyone else out in answering a question. Hell, after the first couple grades, my scores dropped horribly. A lot of it was due to insane family problems, but a lot of it was boredom. Absolutely, earth-stopping boredom.
In fact, I didn't exactly even graduate 10th grade. I don't even know that I had enough credits to graduate 9th grade. But I was able to quickly leave school, take my GED and SAT's (scoring in the absolute top percentiles of both) and walk more or less directly into a very high-paying career in the Valley (yes, the silicon one).
My parents disliked computers and videogames, thinking they were a waste of time and I should be doing yardwork or something. My school didn't know what good their obsolete computers were for other than teaching children how to type. And the only computer we had around the house until I was twelve years old, was a used VIC-20 (it didn't last long).
My parents eventually graduated to a 386 in 1989 or 1990, but I was almost never allowed to use it. It was a holy grail, used only to play solitaire religiously by my parents (and the occasional MindSweeper).
No, it wasn't until much much later when I sold most of my worthwhile posessesions as a teenager, that I was able to afford a computer. It was a 286 with a 20mb hard drive and an green monochrome monitor. Couple megabytes of RAM and no sound card.
I put an advertisement in the paper and within a week had sold this for almost double what I paid for it (I made a few minor improvements to the machine.. *cough*...)
I took that money and bought a 386 with a CGA monitor, 80mb hard drive and 4MB RAM. I ran my first (and very successful) BBS on this. I learned to write in BASIC on this. I learned to cause innocent trouble with minor security flaws in BBS software packages (such as Remote Access BBS and WWIV).
I was destined, due to my performence in school and my standing with my parents, to pump gas or work as a stock boy in a grocery store for the rest of my life. I was certain of it. There was no way I'd make anything out of myself.
I was, in a word, fucked.
Having a mind-numbing job in the physical labor market scared the hell out of me. I'm not exaggerating when I say that, in my teenage years, I thought of suicide as a possibility if I was going to be stuck in one of those jobs. No offense intended to people who work in those fields, but it isn't for me. I couldn't tolerate the six weeks at a fast food joint when I was sixteen, because it required zero mental ability and provided zero mental stimulation. I wanted to stick my head in the fry-grease and let my brain sizzle.
Some time ago, I was crossing the street late one night and was struck by a brand new shiny white Subaru. It hit me and kept going for about fifty feet before the driver even considered hitting the breaks. Then it threw me through the air another fifty feet. Thankfully, I landed in the street, on the nice safe asphalt. The car was obliterated and I could have walked away, if the bystanders hadn't insisted I wait for an ambulance. An hour later, I walked out of the hospital. Aside from soreness and pain in my joints for a month (a few visits to the chiropractor and I was back to normal) and picking asphalt and windshield out of my skull, I was fine.
It shook me somehow, though. Everyone in my family noticed it. I said "fuck it" and knew that I had the skills and dedication to do whatever the hell I wanted, regardless of my history in school. I would make sure that employers saw my ability and my dedication and gave me a shot, without concern of my poor performance in the past.
I grabbed a job providing tech support at a tech farm (one that does tech support for numerous companies at once). A year and a half later, and I was marketable. I left home and jumped to one of the absolute top technical companies in Silicon Valley (hint: They make a version of Unix).
Now I'm making more money than nearly anyone in my family, including college graduates with Masters degrees and a Doctor. I work in exactly the field I had wanted, making more money than I expected, learning more than I ever could dream -- and all without the formal education and attention and coddling that people tend to use the lack of as an excuse for their failing -- or their failing to try.
I'm slow. I have to spend a long time contemplating intellectual arguements and have difficulty parrying with people who are quicker, wittier, more worldly and better educated than me. My scores in the top percentiles of those SAT tests were sheer luck. Anyone could have pulled it off. I took the time to explain my long -- probably boring -- story, because I'm a nobody who would be lucky to fall into the middle of any category or ranking of anything. But I've done what a lot of people whine that they could never do. And that's bullshit. It's utter fucking bullshit. It's cowardice. It's fear.
Yes, you hav limits -- I couldn't become a neurosurgeon, just because I say I want to be one. But we're not talking about brain surgery -- we're talking about reading some books, playing around on a cheap computer, getting a foot in the door of the tech world via a low-level geek job, and then exploiting that until your whole body is in the door. In that respect, women are no different from men. In fact, as fierce and unwavering as I've known many women to be, there should be less of an excuse.
The only piece of advice I could give to parents -- especially mothers, is to instill in your daughters the understanding that they need to be outgoing enough to make it known when they are upset or have something to say, share or ask. It won't just help them in school, but in relationships and careers. It isn't the schools job, necessarily, to pamper your little girl and make sure absolutely every little whim and need is catered to, but it is certainly their role to address her questions and curiosities -- so give her the understanding and confidence to make those things known. I knew girls when I was in school -- even grade school, that would but the most fierce boys to shame. Do you know how the boys felt? A bit embarassed, but at the same time, there was this slightly not-understood feeling among all of us. There was something about a really smart and outgoing girl that made is grin and treat her with a little more respect than (as kids) we probably would have.
So that's all I have to say on this, I think. At least, you hope, right? *grin*.
---
seumas.com
[A professor] in the introductory part of a guest lecture on robotics to the graduate core AI class: (approximate quote) `Pretty soon we'll have robots that are sophisticated enough to wander around in shopping malls and pick up girls.' I didn't listen to the rest of the lecture, so I don't know what else he had to say.
I read some of the article, and came to the part on sexism. Above is one of the examples of the fierce sexism in CS (the others are pretty nasty, but I've never seen anything close to them). I have read the above example numerous times but fail to find anything demeaning towards women in it. If anything, it is a joke about simplistic male minds.
"Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)
Here are some my thoughts on part of the problem.
Academia is really unfriendly to people who want to have families.
First, if a woman wants to have children, the biological best time to do that is when she is in her 20's, right when an academic is suppose to be putting in long hours and writing lots of papers, not spending lots of time being pregnant and raising a child.
Secondly, the lifestyle of young academics, long hours, low pay, and frequent moves across continents, is not conducive to having anything resembling a normaly lifestyle, much less raising a family.
All of my female academic friends are under enourmous amounts of pressure, especially from family, to lead so-called normal lives (ie. get a real job or a husband with a real job and settle down and produce grandkids).
For whatever reason, almost none of my male friends in academia are subjected to these pressures. For whatever reason, it is acceptable to their family and friends that they are spending years of their lives studying arcane fields for little pay with no guarentee of a well-paying job down the line.
go figure....
When I was in school my experience was that math classes had a pretty even gender makeup, but computer science was was totally dominated by males. I think that it is still far more societally acceptable for a girl to grow up to be a math teacher than to grow up to be a computer programmer or an academic...
My three cents (you get an extra cent at 25 Karma):
While we've all read statistics about the "glass ceiling" until we could barely stand it (women fill less technical, executive, skilled jobs than men), few people have ever heard of the "glass floor".
But as it turns out, 9 of the 10 ranked "worst jobs" (and, no, I'm not sure who ranks them, but they include garbage collector, etc.) are held almost exclusively by men.
And while I read all sorts of articles like "Why aren't more women in high-power programming jobs??", I've never seen an article entitled "Why aren't more women taking out the trash??".
It's my opinion--well, it seems obvious to me--that women go to jobs that they feel suited for, and that the reason is a combination of biology and society. Many women, for one reason or another, feel more comfortable in middle-management than in programming. I don't think this is discriminatory. If a girl who could program Linux walked through our door, we'd pounce on her. Man, we're desperate for those. Some of us are trying to invoke ancient witchcraft to bring Ki to life.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
I've heard anthropologists used the word 'gender' when describing people. I can't think of any reason why Susie can't be both a woman *and* feminine. Of course then the article would be suggesting that along with feminine women, feminine men are underrepresented in tech jobs, which I don't think is the case.
As in, 'Enough already you son of a genderless pig' After following this thread down to this last reply I still have no idea what the argument is over.
Yes. It's obvious to you that he's not me, but not to everyone. I don't like it, I don't think it's right, and CmdrTaco has hacked the membership system so that it won't happen again but he's not wiped out the old abusers. I wish Mr. Brucedot would just give up the silly Bruce mask and post with his own name. I've asked him politely.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
What was I thinking...
The "Southern (of the equator yall) exposure" (based on the title of an Usana [of the USA] TV [television] program "Northern exposure" taking place in Alaska) part was indicating that.
CowboyNeal for president!
"Hit any user to continue."
The Women in CS article reminded me of another of today's articles, MS's freedom to innovate. The article mentioned "boothie chicks" at the show, and a number of replies asked for pictures of the booth chicks.
Now, wouldn't we have thought that those times were passed? Strange.
Interesting, but you are wrong to say that the distinction between sex and gender depends upon environmental determinism. It only depends upon the fact that some people's psychology may correspond to their reverse biological gender. There is very strong empirical evidence for transgender.
I'd rather not; I used to be a lecturer at this university, and I would like to avoid having any lawsuits brought against me. (Even though I can support what I said, I would prefer to avoid the hassle if possible). I will say that it is a university on the west coast of the U.S.A., and that "James" (she changed her name back after she graduated) got her degree from the mechanical engineering department there.
Apparently it was somewhat inconvenient for her to apply for jobs after graduation since some required her transcript. While a woman may easily explain a change in her last name, a change from, say, Robert to Sara would be suspect.
The prevailing attitude on Slashdot seems to be that there's no reason at all why women aren't in technical jobs other than "they just don't want them."
I suspect such an attitude could only fly in a few places, such as slashdot. The fact that so many people don't believe that society molds people along broad lines determined by that society's culture could only be belived by a group of people who haven't spent much time participating in that culture. And where I grew up, that's what a "nerd" was -- an antisocial person.
I just felt that I had to say that. Yes, it's probably a troll. Sorry. But by god, it's true. Nobody "just wants to," ever. Their choices are based very much on the values of the society in which they are raised. It's the same reason why baseball is popular in the US and soccer isn't, and why it's the opposite almost everywhere else. Not every American likes baseball, but it's a part of our culture, and thus more Americans like it. The same thing is possible when it comes to gender roles (e.g. for women in choosing between a "technology" career and, say, a "medical" career). And note also that I'm talking about statistical trends here, not absolutes of the "no woman can make it in this field" type.
The most recent article (here) is on why and how women are steered in a number of ways away from computing careers.
Mentioned in the article was a study by the American Association of University Women of these pressures in how computers are taught, an executive summary is here as a pdf and an overview is here.
The full article must be purchased.
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Sex is a verb? Does that mean I should go sexing? Or that I can sex a girl... doesn't really sound right, but I'm not a grammarian.
I heartily agree with many Slashdot posters, a lot of those kinds of problems are not as common any more since people are more aware of them. But, as a female in computer science, growing up interested in computer science, there are more subtle social forces still at work.
Everyone's familiar with high-school peer-pressure, right? So you're a geeky girl in high school, like computers and science and math, enjoy reading too. You'll quickly discover you're a social pariah: "Popular" boys won't like you, because you don't fit their model of how a "cute" girl should be. Similarly, "popular" girls won't like you either, because your intelligence is threatening to their status.
But most importantly, geeky boys won't like you either. I'm not entirely certain why, but from lurking on Womengamers and noting the comments of many male posters (notes like "all girls SUCK at first person shooters!", etc.), I get the idea it's some sort of turf thing. Geeky girls are threatening to geeky boys? I certainly experienced that!
If you have no social support network, no one to spend your afternoons with playing on the computer or sharing your ideas and mistakes or just talking, your resolve to pursue computer science shrivels. You have to have incredible self-confidence to withstand the taunting from your most natural social allies. Why try, if everyone is going to give you hell for playing with computers?
Mercifully, I eventually wound up at a totally geeky high school (NC School of Science and Math), but most girls aren't so lucky.
trish
You're right, of course -- animals (including humans) are of a certain sex, words have gender.
But, the poster you responded to is probably referring to the lit-crit, "postmodern", "deconstructionist" re-definitions of these words, where sex is biologically determined, but of no import, and gender is socially determined. According to these theories, masculinity and femininity are completely social constructs, with no basis in biology. If a boy were reared as a girl, he would behave as a girl, and vice-versa.
For an excellent account just how dangerous these theories can be, read "As Nature Made Him." It tells the story of a boy who was accidentally castrated after birth in a botched circumcision operation, and raised as a girl. To make a long story short, it failed miserably. The kid had all sorts of problems, and persistently behaved like a boy. He eventually (at age 14) was told the truth, and went back to being a boy.
How does this relate to computer jobs and gender discrimination? Well, nobody knows for certain which traits are biologically vs. socially determined, and to what extents. However, we do know that boys and girls are subjected to different brain altering hormones (testosterone, estrogen, etc.) in the womb, and in puberty. We know that boys and girls are wired differently. So, it's a least possible that part of the cause of the discrepancy between the number of boys and girls who study computer science is biologically determined. Likely, even. An inequality of results does not necessarily indicate social stereotyping. But some people are unwilling to even consider this. This is a most unscientific prejudice.
Now, I know lots of women who are excellent programmers, and who enjoy their jobs. Letting girls know that programming can be fun and rewarding is a good idea, and might increase the number of girls going into computer related fields. We have a serious worker shortage in the industry, and girls can certainly learn how to program well, so why not encourage them to at least consider computers as a career. But I doubt that percentages will ever be 50/50, unless we live in a totalitarian state, which chooses the careers people go into for them.
In addition to "As Nature Made Him" (sorry, forgot the author's name), see recent books and articles for Christina-Hoff Sommers, on the dangers of politically correct and extreme feminist thinking re gender stereotyping, etc.
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
None of the stuff this guy's mentioning could possibly related to there not being enough women innto computers.
Why? Because if a woman in CS had to put up with fetching coffee, then so would the women who are in marketing, in customer care, in admin areas. Areas which are dominated primarily by women. In the computer industry people working in those areas will work side-by-side and interact frequently. A woman that'd doing programming would get at least the same treatment.
If I compare the geeks doing programing and IT work with the fellows in marketing or management it becomes quite clear that women in those areas would not have an easy time as far as social interactions go. In spite of this the percentage of women doing marketing, and management is higher than those doing IT.
So what is this about? Why are you picking on us, programmers and IT workers?
I will give you something about individual behavior
Here is a point to ponder
Take 100,000 Kids and have their parents totally neglect them and never say I love you or every do anything for them other than beat them and treat them worse than their dog
Id fall somewhere in that category
Now take 100,000 Kids and have parents who do them right and say they love them teach them moral responsibility, yadda yadda (skirting around any religious stuff here were just talking basic right and wrong thats not my point) Just parents who love their kids and show it in a way most children percieve and understand.
I am willing to bet the self esteem and ability and confidence as a person is HUGELY different in the group of children with parents.
Im lucky in that my parents fall into the first category but I made it and found someone who showed me love,
Point is up to a point you are correct, but a lot of factors go into developing a person, things have to be learned including behaviors of right and wrong.
Jeremy
At the University of Victoria, there are nearly two girls per guy on campus. They have an excellent engineering department, one of the best co-op programs in the country, and 3 girls in my engineering class.
3! In a class of more than a hundred! Does that strike you as odd in a school where the normal distribution is 60:40, or greater?
That said, they tend to be much better students on average than the guys. No I'm not implying women are smarter than us (I'll say that outright!), but a large percentage of the guys are interested primarily in making a slough of money. The girls who are in engineering (in my class at least (yes, I know, the sample size is statistically invalid)) are there because they really want to be. That's always the segment of the student body that performs best. Therefore, they're among the best of our crew, compete for the best job-ops, and get them as often as their hairier peers.
As for the up and comers-- I've got a little cousin being tutored in a Montessori school, who's quite the independant sort. Only 9 year old I ever met who could cogently explain to me what an engineer was, what they did, and what school she's going to for training to be one. My dad's a PEng, and all I knew at that age was his explanations of simple math problems made my head hurt...
Maybe the women are more inclined to do what they actually like than as money-hungry idiots? Oh, that's right... I like my mind-destroying soul-eating enervating stultifying tendon-inflaming desk job... forgot.
You're a dumbass. If someone is leaving early, then they should be payed accordingly. It's really the fault of your employer, or idiots like you who want to shovel the same responsibilities on people who take less hours. What's the matter, does soccer mom humble your skills?
Half the women at my company are mothers, and most all of the mothers have ~30 hour weeks. Documentation, QA, and one programer. And all of them are superb at what they do and all of them put in the hours they're supposed to.
And what is this shit about quitting after having a baby? If they want to quit, that's their perogative. At least you have several months to find a replacement. When people quit for higher paying jobs, do you whine about that too?
You sound like some bitter prick whose never gotten laid, full of spite for anyone with a wife and a family.
That reminds me, I've got some anecdotes for this thread. While I was in college I had a female friend who worked in the computer labs (as did I). People would question the help she gave, when they would never question mine, though she was almost as knowledgable. Once, even, another user assistent mocked her when she asked to use the UA machine. His exact words were "why, need to email your boy-friend?" with emphasis on the last word, like he some hick saying "a-rab or eye-talian".
I also TA-ed the introductory programming class one quarter, which was taught by a female instructor. Some students would question her teaching ability, while others had no problem, even praised her. The first group was exclusivly male, and arrogant. One student would even refer to her as "that bitch", as if she were to blame for his difficulty, or as if it would encourage some sort of male solidarity. What a dumbass.
And guess what, the two most competent students in my section were female, though neither were CS. They had the aptitute; I can't help but wonder if cultural stereotyping had anything to do with their choice of major.
I suspect that a great many of the dissenters on this thread and the previous article are threatened by skilled women. It is convienent that there has been a history of whiny feminists with ulterior motives, it makes it all to easy to discount the claims of anyone professing the existence of a gender bias.
But guess what? Math is hard, guys don't like girls who are brainy, and computers are for nerds. At least, that's what popular culture says, and most impressionable young girls eat it up. I witnessed the change in my own little sister. She went from "computers are fun" to "computers are for nerds" back to "computers are fun" when the Internet became cool. She's not stupid, she's just trying to fit in. I did the same when I was her age, quitting the gifted program and listening to music I didn't like. God, I even faked interest in sports for a while.
But computers are stereotypical guy thing, so I fit right in, and gained lots of friend with similar interests. That's a lot harder for girls, who have more pressure to conform, more requirements for conformity, and all the historical baggage that says they need to be good little passive airheads, or they'll, like, never get a good prom date, and end up spinsters fer sure!
And if they have the bazookas to scorn popular culture, they've still got to put up with pathetic fuckwads, who, instead of welcoming them, mock them for their supposed lack of skills and interest in a "guy's" domain.
So, to the poster of the parent message, you are part of the problem. Until you grow up and get some freakin' self esteem, I hope you never get laid.
One of my classmates in physics graduate school received her engineering undergraduate degree from a top-10 engineering university. While attending this university she experienced one of the most egregious instances of gender discrimination I've heard of to date. This was in 1990, mind you, which is far closer to 2000 than 1950:
After taking a midterm examination in her engineering course, she was surprised to find a "Drop Form" attached to her exam when it was turned back to her. Apparently she was not alone: all six of the women in her class of 250 students had drop forms attached to their examinations. When questioned on the matter, her engineering professor stated that he didn't believe women could be good engineers so he was encouraging them to drop his course and find another major.
She promptly changed her first name to "James" to avoid further discrimination of this kind. The professor, while reprimanded by his department and dean, is still teaching at the same university, and I doubt his feelings towards female engineers has changed much. I believe it is safe to say that gender discrimination is alive and well today among some leading engineering universities.
Actually, I'm wondering about this too. I live in western Canada, and it gets down to -40 degrees (C or F,) here at least once every winter. (Usually, it's only about -20C to -30C, but there are nasty days.) I'm not so worried about the disc being damaged by the cold weather most of the time, (many can be stored at -40 at the coldest,) but what are the effects of starting them up at that temperature, and bringing them up to 10-20C (50-68F) within a few minutes? For one thing, you'd probably have to be sure the breathing hole is open, but I'd imagine condensation could make a mess of the drives in pretty short order.
The question isn't so much "Why can't girls who really want to be computer scientists be successful?" but rather "Why don't girls want to be computer scientists?". Many of the efforts address the first question, and yes, it is now a lot easier for a woman to pursue and be successful in a technical area. But they address the first in order to help the deeper second problem.
Nobody's trying to make young girls do things they don't want to do, but I do believe that the popular images and role models still around today often keep girls (and boys) away from things which might interest them. (On stayinghomewiththechildrendot.org, no doubt, they have a thread: Why aren't boys more interested in being homemakers?) And unfortunately, these images and role models are self-perpetuating. Affirmative action programs (and less despised practices) attempt to undo this imbalance, hoping that the next generation will be influenced more fairly.
Certainly, there are plenty of arguments to be had about how best to do this (or whether to do it at all), but I think you're missing the point.
Such a comment or suggestion from a school official, especially one accredited by or recieving funding from the government, would not be looked upon lightly.
---
seumas.com
It's not really anybody's fault that girls tend not to pick technical fields - as my sociology professor put it, popular boys play with toys, and popular girls play with boys. Indirect pressure from media, culture and peers creates a push for girls and boys to play different roles. No one's forcing girls to play with Barbies, or boys to play with GI Joes, but girls and boys do look around to see what their friends are playing with.
Intelligent girls and boys who think for themselves can and will buck the cultural trend, if they so desire. There isn't any kind of real glass ceiling anymore (except the occasional old boys' network here and there), there just isn't a desire in boys and girls in general to break their respective social stereotypes. Heck, the article might as well have been about the repression of boys from joining the forces of happy homemakers cooking for the spouse and caring for the kids.
And as a side note, sex means the physical differences between men and women. Gender signifies the different social roles that men and women undertake. At least according to my psychology textbook.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I agree with you. This thinking that gender is synonymous with sex must stop. Number and agreement is another common error.
Sharks have to constantly keep in motion, even while sleeping, in order to pass enough water over their gills to breathe.
Therefore, a Microsoft Shark would last about three minutes until it had to pause while it rebooted.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Are the penguins being tracked using a Linux box?
First of all, of course the word gender can be applied to people; I don't know where everyone got the mistaken impression that doing so is grammatically incorrect. In it's academic sense it usually refers to a social construction rather than a biological one (some cultures will, in certain circumstances, assign male roles to females or female roles to males), but in this instance that's kind of irrelevant; in the US sex and culturally defined gender are almost always the same.
Secondly, I think a lot of the gender bias outcry began when computer science became recognized as an important field, as computers became more and more a part of daily life. How many articles do you see claiming men are driven away from the humanities? It all comes down to a value judgement, where certain disciplines are considered more important than others. The article "Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?" reiterates this point by mentioning early gender stereotyping involving toys, where girls are encouraged to play with dolls while boys are encouraged to play with toy cars. Both are discouraged from playing with the other's toys; why does this automatically disadvantage girls but not boys? Why are toy cars better than dolls? Why is computer science better than English? A lot of the argument seems to come down to economics, in that computer science is more lucrative, but personally I find that a contemptible way to base an ethical system on.
The fact is women are more likely to go to college than men. They're more likely to get higher grades than men when they get there. Yes, there's a gender bias in the sciences, and yes, corrections should be made, but putting it all in terms of victims vs. victimizers just oversimplifies the problem.
The funny thing about "gender discrimination" is that we have only recently begun to define gender as an appropriate descriptor for sex.
gender (jndr)
n. Abbr. g., gen.
Grammar.
A grammatical category used in the analysis of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms.
One category of such a set.
The classification of a word or grammatical form in such a category.
The distinguishing form or forms used.
Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture
SEX is the proper term to define the architecture of one physical anatomy which determines MALE / FEMALE.
but now adays SEX is not PC - so we have rewritten, see:
Usage Note: Traditionally, gender has been used primarily to refer to the grammatical categories of "masculine," "feminine," and "neuter"; but in recent years the word has become well established in its use to refer to sex-based categories, as in phrases such as gender gap and the politics of gender. This usage is supported by the practice of many anthropologists, who reserve sex for reference to biological categories, while using gender to refer to social or cultural categories. According to this rule, one would say The effectiveness of the medication appears to depend on the sex (not gender) of the patient, but In peasant societies, gender (not sex) roles are likely to be more clearly defined. This distinction is useful in principle, but it is by no means widely observed, and considerable variation in usage occurs at all levels.
From Webster's New World Dictionary (ISBN 0-446-31299-1):
gender (jen' der) n., the classification by which words are grouped as masculine, feminine, or neuter.
You see, the correct word is sex. I realize my dictionary is slightly outdated (circa 1984), and I also realize that new dictionaries have a different definition than the one above. And yes, I realize that it's natural for a language to change and grow over time.
However, it makes me sick to witness this change in this particular case. Why? Because the language was successfully manipulated by the Politically Correct.
Remember: those that control your language control your thoughts.
Yep, it is absolutely offensive to think that I should be coddled in my choosen field, because I'm a female. And yes, a lot of attitudes have changed since the 1950's, but there are many that haven't. So, as long as there are people pushing girls away from technical areas, then others of us should help them find their way back - assuming of course that's where they want to go. You don't give extra encouragement or a nudge, because they are girls. You do it, because they've been discouraged, and as time and attitudes fix the problem, you stop doing it. And if a boy gets discouraged, you do it for him too. We are talking about children here.
You get what you get, and it isn't handed to you. If you're going to make it in a career, it's going to be because you work your ass off to attain it, not because your fifth grade teacher called on you more often than someone else when it came to answering an algebra question.
Sure, once you've thought about starting a career. I doubt most of us picked our careers in the fifth grade. Maybe you're interested in something and someone tells you in enough subtle ways you shouldn't do it, and you don't. Or you go on to something else that's also interesting to you, but there are less obstacles. So, you never find out enough about the first thing to make a career of it.
To paraphrase Bob Weir, "oh yes, the women are, SMARTER!"
Speaking as an academic, I'd have to say that to do this you have to work twice as long and twice as hard to have half as much income and half as much job security as someone in a financial or other professional career. My wife and daughters are not that dumb.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
Although it may have something to do with sex. Remember, "words have gender, people have sex".
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
The mark2 sounds great, but at 1200.00 for the base unit there going to have a hell of a time in the market
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Thanks for the links to my documents/sites on gender and computing. The most comprehensive site is actually The Ada Project.
With all the mainstream mp3 players coming out do you think this will give the government some ammo to try to prohibit copyrighted mp3's on the internet?
I still can't find where my cat hides all afternoon
He's playing with the sock that you lost in the dryer.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
> [Nasa, Medical]
.net". However, the official press release still leaves a *tiny* amount of room for speculation... Scary.
...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
I never really believed it anyway. I thought "There is NO way any kid can gain access to this via the
> [MP3, in car]
This is cool. I worry that having so many tunes at your disposal, all on a cool toy, could lead to (ahem) "mishaps".
Note: Schumacher once blamed a car crash on "I was adjusting the radio". If it can happen to him...
> [Penguins]
Poor little *&%$!!!'s - They get covered in oil, then get told "And now you have to swim 800kms back home". Ain't Mankind just the greatest?
> [Women, Comp Sci]
Sorry guys - In the UK at least. Geeks are still geeks. Albeit with nice salaries, cars, homes... But still. At Uni, my friend had ONE woman on his computer science course.
Anyway, I'm spent now...
Mong.
*
*...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Remember: Nothing is Cool.
> If you think sexual descrimination comes from "[some] fifth grade teacher [calling] on you more often than someone else", you're sadly mistaken.
I might point out that you won't make it into the door if you don't have that deploma.
There is enough research to say that a child discuraged in the primary grades will not even try once they enter collage let alone work there ass off in the workforce.
Basicly if a mentor keeps telling a child "you'll never make it" unless they are thickheaded they'll never try.
I've hung around the techy girls in high school. They would give up after a while. It's sad when obveously smart girls start thinking they are dumb simply becouse they can't make the grade.
I wasn't aware that the few who do make it into the industry still have people treating them as incapable.
That really sucks...
I know some ladys who have made it but I don't know what it took to get where they are. They clean the blood out from under the fingernails just like everyone else.
What I do know is they don't fetch coffie.
My sister has similer issues. She is a profesional car macanic. She has to fight to get hired when guys need only pass a simple math test. [I was offered same job.. all I had to do was pass a test... reason I never got the job? I made the mistake of letting it be known I know nothing about cars.. I can't even drive.. still want to hire me? didn't think so]
Once she has the job she must fight to KEEP it. She now has a locked toolbox becouse people steal her tools. She says she's more pissed that people steal her ciggerets but I don't think so.
She works hard and only gets credit from her co-workers.
She's also a poet. A rather good one. She gets credit for that more than anything else she dose and that stinks becouse she dosn't do poetry very often.
She likes to work with her hands. She likes building things. Cars, Computers, anything technical.
But she often dose NOT get any credit for it.
When it comes time to cut staff she's the first to go.
My grandmother was a nurse... Very little has changed sence her time.
We have progressed. But little politicly correct programs that let stupid lazy people into jobs to fill quota have distroyed that.
When hiring the question becomes did she earn it or was she given it? Just renforces the old myths.
I rember an interview with the female CEO of Sun Microsystems (when they had a female CEO) she said she had to deal with rummors of her sleeping her way to the top. She worked her way up and thats all there was to it.
Some times I wish she still was the CEO of Sun... (I don't like the current CEO).
I don't actually exist.
Could a moderator ban this guy? or something?
Ada as a feminist icon. According to an article in Scientific American a while back the reason Ada Lovelace became a math geek was that her mother did not want her having anything to do with her father Lord Byron the poet. So she raised her as a science person.
Ada is also famous as the person who wrote the first computer program known to have had a bug in it. It had several actually.
More seriously if the article linked to above is one of the best, then there is precious so show the low numbers of women in science are due to discrimination.
The article's approach is to 1) Start each article with a straw man quote from some sexist buffoon. 2) Try and muddy the waters about the research on differences in cognition and preferences between the sexes c) Give lots of anecdotal evidence of people's attitudes.
This is not the way to make a rational case for your position (unless you're a feminist academic where this sort of thing goes down well due to a lack of rigour in this arena).
I used to believe this stuff until I had a daughter. Parents give girls dolls and boys gns because that is what they want.
One thing to bear in mind, that confounds the sexist bigots though is that people are individuals and some women are interested in and good at science and some men are good at and interested in verbal things. So you need to treat everyone as an individual.
You will not get the stats desired by feminists without coercion though (eg the Soviet Union).
That is not a geek. For a geek, work is life. You don't stop work at 5pm, just because it's the end of the working day. If they make you go home, you go home, and as soon as you recover from the inconvenience of having to interrupt your work long enough to make the commute home, you work on your project some more. Not because you're getting paid for it, but because it's what you live for. Maybe you don't actually write code at home, but you think about possibilities, figure out how to do something, maybe read some documentation, discuss a problem online. It's the drive, the passion, that makes a geek.
Geeks are a rare breed, and female geeks are even more rare. I've known a few, and they're impressive - most moreso than many of the male geeks I know, probably in part due to the fact that they've had to work harder to get to where they are (due to social stereotyping and discrimination and such). These are the people we need more of, in both sexes. This is what needs to be encouraged.
<tread on="thin ice">
As someone else said, popular people don't like geeks, and often male geeks don't like female geeks. Why? One of the possible reasons: guys generally place more importance on physical appearance than women do, and geeks are frequently not that physically attractive, partially because the intensity with which they devote themselves to their work leaves little room for fashion and hygiene. There are always exceptions, but most of the female geeks I've known have not been particularly attractive physically. Does physical appearance really matter, when you're just talking about hacking C code? No, but as you'll recall from Pulp Fiction, neither is a foot massage sexual.
</tread>
Flame away.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
"Isn't this what killed John Belushi?
strredwolf writes "If you haven't heard, XFree86 4.0.1"
So THAT's what did it!
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Is that the biomed systems are considered sensitive and confidential. The only ones who are supposed to have access to that information are the flight surgeon and designated family members. In other words, the biomed systems are supposed to be more secure than the "ordinary" telemetry data, which are also supposed to be secure.
I still have trouble believing that someone could hack into NASA's MCC (mission control center) systems. Perhaps these biomed systems are not within the primary protection ring at the MCC. I'm not sure which idea bothers me more -- that someone could hack into the MCC, or that biomed data isn't as protected as it should be.
--Jim
Perhaps you don't realize how much you can affect the world around you. You say you are making more money than the rest of your family.... You say you are working for a successful corporation... Great!
You are in a position to say those things at the times which they are most agregious. (I sound a little like eliza don't I?) Are you going to say them? Will you even know it if you do?
No seriously, I think that you would be surprised how much more effective leading by example is than preaching to the masses (or even slashdot!). Live a good life, learn about your learned biases, encourage others to live a good life (don't force them)... and then educate all those around you in a passive manner. Sure you wont see it happen all at once but you can make huge changes in people with small pushes.
lead.
-pos
P.S. I think it was nice that Ellen Spertus included the advantages that she saw that women have.
I respect that because it shows to me that she is secure in knowing that she has made a good argument and can point out the other side. She expects to be speaking with an open-minded, intelligent crowd. Nice touch.
The truth is more important than the facts.
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
The typical language used is such to suggest victimization, inequality, unfairness -- a need to be encouraged, given a nudge, coddled.
Look, I'm sorry that there isn't one women for every man in the technical work force. That's just too bad. But when, in stories such as that previously exampled, illustrates reasons such as "who wants a stuffy 9 to 5 job?" and "you have to be, like, so precise and stuff with computers" and "let Bill Gates do it all -- why should I have to?", a great deal of empathy and sympathy is lost.
If a woman wants a technical career, she has just as many options -- if not more, than a man. This is the year 2000. It isn't 1950. A woman isn't going to apply for a computer science scholorship and be told by the people who handle her applicant, "Oh, dearie -- don't you think a nice course in domestic engineering would be more suitable to a nice young lady like yourself?"
There are hundreds of thousands of extremely successful women out there who made the system work for them, just like men have to. To suggest that a woman can't make it becuase of the big bad sexist teachers, men and society is ludicrous. I know it seems mean-hearted and politically off-the-deep-end to say things like this, but people need to grow up. You get what you get, and it isn't handed to you. If you're going to make it in a career, it's going to be because you work your ass off to attain it, not because your fifth grade teacher called on you more often than someone else when it came to answering an algebra question.
---
seumas.com
Lemme get this straight. Talking about sex and playing basketball are key activities conducted by us insidious men that help keep women out of the CS field?
Did no one actually *read* "Why are There so Few Female Computer Scientists?" She specifically refutes the possibility of any kind of conspiracy by men/society in general against girls. She cites several examples in which men whose behavior was pointed out to them immediately changed their attitudes and apologized.
And this is the problem. Blatant conspiracy, like racism, is something that can be fought. Subconscious attitudes are not. I'm always surprised at how many men on Slashdot are offended by this topic of conversation, as if they were being accused of "keeping women out" of computer science. As I, and probably most of the women here, can attest, this kind of sexism almost never comes from geeks. Every single male geek I know think it's wonderful that I know something about computers - anything at all.
I also don't see any real barriers to my attaining an IT career, if I wanted one (I'm only a hobby geek). Not now - now that I'm an adult and make decisions about my lifed based on careful planning and consideration of what I really want.
But back when I was in high school, I ran like hell from the geeks. Not the people themselves - they were great - but from being identified with them. I regularly set the curve in my AP Calc II class, and I hated myself for it. I stopped playing D&D. I stopped using computers. I made friends with the orchestra and drama geeks, because I felt accepted there. I told people I wanted to be a *housewife* when I grew up. It took years of college to overcome my own fears that if people thought I was too smart, no one would like me.
So that's why comments like this one always set my teeth on edge. Mention that our society has a lot of unhealthy stereotypes - held by women just as often as by men - and the conspiracy theorists come out of the woodwork. "Women whine that they can't get IT jobs because a fifth-grade teacher didn't call on them!" they complain.
All anyone is saying is that attitudes should change. Is that too much to ask?
Slash has nothing to do with Slashdot.
*augh* That's a joke based on the fact that "sex" can be a verb or an adjective.
As other people have pointed out, words change their meaning over time as social needs change. We are a *long* way from the time when "sex-as-a-verb" meant a man porking his wife (always man-on-top, vaginal only, etc.) For several generations the most pressing social question involving "sex" wasn't "are you an innie or an outie", it was "do you sleep with your girlfriend?" (premarital sex, cohabitation), "do you sleep with your buddies?" (homosexuality), and the like.
If you're in a grammar class and really, really need to follow the archaic rules people have sex. If you're in a psychology (or sociology?) class people have sex and act out their gender. Anywhere else "sex" is what people do with the parts of their anatomy that give them "gender."
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Apparently, the mambo-X is shipping and will release an in-dash player soon.
http://www.mambox.com/news.htm, 5th paragraph down:
"Mambo-X does not stop at P300. The in-dash version of Mambo-X (C300) will be in production soon."
BTW, does anybody have a mambo-X and want to post a review of it?
I'm sick of the whining, too. You know what I love best about engineering? It's put up or shut up. Everyone busts their ass through applied dynamics and third year calculus. There's no grey area - the number is right, or it isn't. You deserve your iron ring, or you don't get one. I fucking love it.
When I read articles like the one this week, it seems like (insert-minority-of-the-month) wants a free ride - what? Free +1.0 on the GPA? No exams? +20k on salary? What? Just study the damn degree, and if you're worth hiring, you'll make the money.
I had it rough going through school. I didn't get a "dearie" reason not to like computers, I used to get jumped and my ass kicked for it. Don't cry to me. Do the time; Give up the social life; You don't become an ubergeek with C++ by having a social life!
There aren't many female deviants in society, either, but nobody talks about that, either - most of the real freaks are male, and I think it takes someone who's slightly defective to put in the kind of hours that are required to get good with those "picky" computers.
BITTERNESS
Okay, yes a woman (or man) can be femmine. I am not arguing this.
I think that the article was talking about sex, not self declared gender. I don't think that they were including men in dresses as female.
-Peter
Check under the couch, or if your cats a good one like mine look next to your feet shel'l be watching you use the computer.
Gender has to do with language. People do not have a gender, words do.
;-)
The word "she" is feminine. (gender)
The person Susie is a woman. (sex)
So, the article and nothing to do with gender, it had to do with sex. (The characteristic, not the activity.)
A proper response to "Did you see the person who walked through here?" is "I did not see him." Even it the person is a woman. Both "person" and "he" (in this instance) are gender neutral.
Note that "they" and "them" are always plural. ALWAYS! If you are only talking about one person say "he" or "him" if you don't know the persons sex.
Before you go "aww, who cares? pete-classic sux." ask yourself, would you take the same caviler attitude towards the rules of C or perl? (Okay, maybe perl people would. There is more than one way to speak English (incorrectly)
Slightly confused as to the point you are trying to make?
...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
I meen, if this is your way of "coming out", announcing it to the world, I can think of better ways to do it.
I mean - Do your close family and friends read Slashdot? Do you think they'd realise you go by the name of "FraggleMI - The Anonymous Coward", when you turn your tricks on a Saturday night?
No. I'd suggest the old fashioned "Dad, I got something to tell you... argh! No, put the gun down, put the gun down you homophobiiiiargh!".
Ahem,
Mong.
*
*...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Remember: Nothing is Cool.
to find out why there arent as many women in the coputer industry as we would expect we first have to look at how people got interested in it . when you first approch a computer society has placed a preconception on them that they are to complex for
normal people to use some people just dont care or even catch that preconception or they have a damaged ego and try to hold/prove themselves above others by doing impresive things with computers. but women may be imprinted by behavior around them
where they can express this insecurity by being supported by their peers (maybe women have more outlets for this among themselves?). with males (at least where i live) it is not this way . it is almost like society wants us to compete constantly and never show any insecurity. ooops lost my train of thought thats just ramling above here anyways ill leave it though .
women are imprinted to depend on social interaction more so than men .
women are allowed to act positivly towrds eachother more so in this society.
this offsets their insecurity.
men who are insecure must find another way to gain security or some to the realisation that its all bullshit anyways
im tired/drunk/stoned = excuse for not putting my ideas together coherintly
maybe im just lazy
i hope i brought up a few good points
try not to worry about social constructs and dont flame me so you can regain your internal security
goodnight
blah
"unnnh!!!"---james brown
In colder places (such as AK) wouldn't the hard drives freeze in the winter? I've debated building a car MP3 player but the winter temperatures around here made me decide otherwise.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
>None of the stuff this guy's mentioning could possibly related to there not being enough women innto computers.
You assume to much...
The areas you mentioned are not looked on as technical.
Programming requires technical skill marketting dose not.
SysAdm requires technical skill administration dose not.
Also wemen do have it hard in managment.
Some people ignore female managers based on gender alone. Some think female managers have addatude problems . Some people ignore all managment so men get this almost as much as wemen. But when get more of it.
Some people will pass around rummors that a given female manager is sleeping her way to the top. People not usually given to gender bies will quite often believe such rummors.
> So what is this about? Why are you picking on us, programmers and IT workers?
As you might notice the people doing the picking ARE programmers an IT workers.
And it's just a general addatude that has been around for a VERY long time.
By the way rarely dose the job discription of secretary include fetching coffie. Rarely dose the job reality exclude it.
I don't actually exist.
Honestly tho, if the US government didn't want people investigating projects like that, why on earth do they insist on giving them mysteriously slick, susicious names like Echelon. ;)
Hell, its even making me wonder what exatcly is causing that extra TTL decrease in all of my outgoing packets.
and I'm pretty sure I can hear the fetid breath of a tired FBI agent listening in on my phone calls to my mom.
oh yer, and, to try and stay on the topic of this reply, bummer about those penguins eh?
==============================
http://www.geek-ware.co.uk
==============================
PROUD to be GEEK
Take a look at the satellite track. Pamela (the yellow track) has aparently gotten lost.
Are they going to send out search planes?
Whose idea was it to drop off htess penguins 800 kms from home anyway?
Why wasn't there an appeal for those really cute baby penguin sweaters, like they had for the Australian penguins caught in an oil spill?
Work for Change & GET PAID!
How is it we're able to track two penquins in the ocean on a webpage via satellite, but I still can't find where my cat hides all afternoon?
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I would add that recent studies seem to suggest taht it is boys, not girls, who are discriminated against in school. See the recent article by Christina Hoff-Summers in the Atlantic Monthly, and her new book, "The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men." The Atlantic article documents how boys are doing worse in school, dropping out more often, committing suicide more often, not going to college as often, etc. It also says that the original study by Carol Gilligan that supposedly documented how schools failed girls, that girls weren't called on as often as boys, etc., was basically just made up, and not re-produceable by any other researchers.
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
I would argue that half-clad or unclad men would also be willing to rescue these half-clad women...
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Lets see its in the trunk of a car, that's pretty hot in many places.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
There seems to be a steadily growing number of those. At the last course I took (a summer two-monther on linear algebra), at least half of the 80-student class was female.
OTOH, in my department, out of around 50 PhDs, only two are women.
What's the factor that makes women less attracted to the academic career than males? I wonder.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
...pardon me, but isn't self-confidence, by virtue of its name, something that cannot be instilled by an external force?
Actually, self confidence is something that is both postiviely and negatively reinforced due to external stimuli.
If I tell you "Now Seumas, stop being a sexist pig," and others around you tell you the same thing, then eventually started shutting you out of the discussion, then your girlfriend left you because she thought you were a sexist pig, don't tell me this series of events wouldn't at least tarnish your self-confidence. Most people, after being pecked to death by ducks, will eventually at least stop sharing their ideas--that is, their confidence will stop being very strong.
Therein lies the problem that some women have faced. This constantly being shut down, told to stop asking questions, "go behave like a good girl and go play with your dolls"--this doesn't exactly help self-confidence in the technical arena. So by the fifth grade, the girls may not speak up because they've been constantly reminded in subtle and not so sublte ways to sit down and shut up.
So, should we punish boys because they're sometimes eager to learn?
Obviously not, but that's not the question. The question is why are girls less likely to pipe up, and if it is cultural (as I suspect it is, at least partially), then can we counteract those cultural stereotypes enough to allow women to be at least thought of as worthwile scientists, technicians and hackers while they are still in their formative years?
In that respect, women are no different from men. In fact, as fierce and unwavering as I've known many women to be, there should be less of an excuse.
While I have tremendous respect for your personal story, the problem is that most people aren't as mindful to their circumstances or as willing to change them as they should. And to that I think it's a crime that everyone doesn't fight the good fight as you have.
However, what I'm replying to is the assertion that the only thing that counts is the good fight. Suppose instead of landing a job in Silicon Valley, the person you interviewed with decided that you weren't worth hiring you because you're black. Or because you're latino. Would you have fought harder to succeed?
Should you have to fight harder to succeed?
I think it's unfair to place additional burdens on people due to their gender or skin color, simply because we're too lazy as a society to get over these prejudices. People already have enough burdens to shoulder due to their family situation, environment, or other circumstances.