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Soap Opera for Luring Women to Tech is a Flop
Billosaur writes "The Register has an article by Mark Ballard on attempts to lure more women into the area of technology by a '...TV soap that depicts them making a success of careers traditionally pursued by men.' The Public Awareness of Science and Engineering (PAWS) Drama Fund has been attempting to develop a soap opera called 'Happy Valley' to encourage girls to pursue careers in science and technology by giving them successful role models to follow. The idea is tanking, however, as no one is willing to pick up the show. To quote the show's writer, Tony McHale: 'People say, why don't you do a science soap. My reply is that no-one will commission it, because it's boring.'"
They have a ton of them. They are called the "Hour Long Drama", and they are all over TV, but in prime-time instead of mid-morning.
E.R., CSI, Numb3rs, I'm sure there are more. They have women, they have science. What more do you want?
Women in tech? Aren't they suppoused to be in the kitchen, in front of the stove? Cleaning perhaps? Maybe making dinner? :-)
Why do we want women in tech? I'm not saying I'm against women in tech, I just wonder why, if they don't want to do it, we should want them to want it? Someone enlighten me? I don't hear a lot of clamoring over men in educational fields or nursing or anything else that's largely female dominated. Are we pushing for "equality" without regard for whether or not they WANT to do this?
They just needed a catchier title
Seriously. Fire the idjit who thought that one up.
Know why you don't advertise a Lexus during Maury? Apparently neither do the minds behind the "Public Awareness of Science and Engineering Drama Fund".
On the contrary, has anyone noticed that there seems to be more men going into nursing school lately? Aside from the opportunity for a good, stable, decent-paying (well, not as good as a physician, but not bad anyway) job, it's also a great way to meet girls!
Have the tech woman living a life like Barbie. Add in a deal with Matel for an "Engineer Barbie" that comes with her own laptop and you'll have a hit.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We need women, don't we? If you're working in the tech industry, wouldn't it be nice to be able to date somebody who shared similar interests?
I think we'd all give our left... uhhh... big toe to find a nice Hot Geek Girl.
Rob
This is a classic example of backward thinking. If you watch tv and see that people are portrayed a certain way and then look at reality and see that people do, at least on occasion, act the way they were represented on tv, you might draw the conclusion that people are acting this way because they saw it on tv. But this would probably be wrong. TV, more likely, is imitating life. Although people like to blame all manner of social ills on TV and entertainment, TV's worst crime is that it wastes your precious time, not that it coerces you into behaving like the fictional characters on the show. This is good because I watch a lot of The Simpsons and I don't think I could get my hair to style like Marge. If you think more women should be scientist maybe you should start by looking at the earliest values we instill in girls while at home and school.
I'm sorry, but where do you get "PAWS" from Public Awareness of Science and Engineering? Shouldn't that be "PASE"? There should be more stringeant rules for making acronyms!
Where is the sitcom to encourage men to be nurses or teachers?
Who taught women to use a remote control?
I'm a tad suprised that didn't bring more women into tech or at least hunting.
To direct good women towards our form of goodness is a challenge far greater than all of science.
Good women prefer apes.
Okay, now I don't know much about young girls, but I have to say that during the period that they'd be most influenced by TV characters I don't think thatthey'd be watching Soaps. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong but the target audience of day time television isn't the person that is likely to get off their ass an enter into science or engineering.
So what if there aren't many women in tech jobs....maybe thats because they don't wanna be there. How many men are in nursing as compared to women? You don't see too many male hookers either ;) It's a non-issue that bores me quite frankly.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Geeze!
If I where to stand up and look around my cube ("Aiee... bright light! bright light!") I'd be able to count about a dozen women. Unfortunately, none of them clamouring for my attention (although my wife would probably disagree with the unfortunate part). I work in a highly technical company and the male-female split is, I would estimate, about 60-40.
There are plenty of knowledgeable women out there in technology out there. At least, in my field.
I'm sure a show about women delivering beer on the golf course or 'The Bud Girls' wouldbe a hit......
...would happen to the demo if someone logged in and changed the password... hmmm... Seriously, nice work though... ;)
Had some brainy women, too.
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
In my daughter's peer group the female science-oriented teens view the character of Samantha Carter as a role model.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Science soap? Well, for the analysis bits we are almost there. If we could now also be involved in the planning of such (criminal) experiments which involves the prior evaluation of one's action with respect on our model of the police force and the behaviour of the victim ... hm.
High school student soaps should be more boring than university student soaps. I'd have tons of ideas. Just pass me time and money.
Am I the only one a little confused by the misuse of "Happy Valley"?
... they want smart women, yet they go about trying to gather 'em by insulting their intelligence.
I got into technology because it was interesting and challenging. My gender had very little to do with my career aspirations. Maybe I'm a fluke, but I sure as hell never felt like certain fields were "off limits" to me just because I'm a setter rather than a pointer. I think the only time I ever heard "girls can't do that..." is when I tried to pee standing up, so maybe I'm just lucky.
I'll also say that I don't want more women in tech. I don't want more men in tech. I don't want more fluffy orange velociraptors in tech. What I want are more *good* people in tech - people who are smart, can think well, can do the work, and are good to work with. Specifically targeting "underrepresented" groups for a specific career based solely on demographic reasons is absurd. Ability is what should metter, not what one has under the hood.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
isn't part of the writer's job to make the show non-boring?
TV's days are numbered. If your show doesn't get picked up by the dinosaur networks, give away the first couple episodes for free and sell the rest online.
Or give them all away for free and get donations/grants. Or sell ads.
That's the beauty of not living in a 1950's distribution model. You can be flexible.
I don't have cable. I don't even own a TV anymore. But I do have all the battlestar galacticas. Including this season so far. Legit. I paid for them.
You don't have to go with iTMS specifically, but the market is there so if the major networks don't want to play with you, well you don't need them to succeed.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
To have more sex with nerds....
That's something everyone can enjoy!
Ok that was facetous.... but why are we trying to push them into areas they aren't interested in, as I've been a CIS major I've seen more and more female students.
"The Guiding Byte"
The women I know in technical fields were most heavily influenced by Sci-Fi which has typically portrayed women in important roles. As far as medical/forensic fields, there are plenty of shows out there and I know a girl I went to school with who was inspired to pursue a degree in forensic anthropology from watching them. I just don't think a soap opera is the right type of show for their goals based on my personal experiences.
-AC
Apparently they don't know the lady engineers I know. Women are starting to dominate civil engineering and materials science even if it isn't obvious from surveys or industry literature. I can't speak for the mechanical engineers and stuff but this has been my experience.
In my degree program, the materials science major was so small that girls either equalled or out-numbered the guys in terms of enrollment. And there is such a shortage of people to replace metallurgists and civil and environmental people that any male bias has been lost to expediency. We hire the ladies or we can't get personnel.
The same is true for the military, the no women in combat rule has been OBE, overtaken by events. I think they've chosen a format that doesn't work for science. A soap opera is a stupid approach. My advice would be to do a show similar to the ER's and 24's. Have a female dominated accident re-construction team that goes in to analyze the results of major accidents, train de-railments, crane collapses, basic failure analysis. Is it a terror attack or not? Build on the premise and use good solid story telling. Science and engineering don't have to be boring. Soap opera's are boring,folks.
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
Crossing Jordan is the best example of a woman-in-science hour long show, I think; the title character being a woman and all. The main characters of Numb3rs are all men. CSI:* all have a fair mix. ER I don't watch.
'Bones' may be a more contemporary example but I'm not sure if it'll survive the season. I kinda like it, though.
Back in the day, Buffy The Vampire Slayer had cast the female character Willow as 'the computer geek'.
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
Because there's reason to believe that women are pushed out of tech.
It may be, as the Harvard president was attacked for suggesting, that women are not as capable as men in scientific and mathematical fields. The brains of women and men ARE different, and that could be one way. I'm willing to believe that on average, a woman is less likely than a man to want to be a programmer, in a biogically predetermined sense.
However, that doesn't mean that all women are worse than all men in technical fields. Unfortunately, many girls are brought up to believe precisely that. They're told in ways subtle and not-so-subtle that they can't make it in science/math/engineering, and if you tell a young person enough times they come to believe it. Some female friends of mine recall being told point-blank, "Girls aren't good at math. Stop it." Stupid, yeah, but it happens.
If nothing else, the lack of present role models for women in scientific fields gives them the message that women can't go into those fields. Yeah, there are some, but they're far outnumbered by men.
So how many potentially brilliant programmers have we lost because Women Can't Do Computers? And how many women grow up with a fear or deep-seated misunderstanding of tech because they were told that they can't possibly be any good at it? Could your girlfriend/wife/female friend really program her own $*@#$& VCR if she hadn't been told at a young age it was impossible?
The best solution is to eliminate the bias that girls receive, and I think the world is getting better at that. Girls are passing boys in the SAT math, for example. But some bias remains, and rather than wring our hands and decry it, we can also try to counteract it by explicitly showing them women who do like tech. If there aren't enough real ones, we can bootstrap the process with fictional ones.
It may be pointless. It may not work; perhaps we already have as many female programmers as women who want to be programmers. And this kind of social engineering is as best unproven, if not actually backfiring.
And in fact, there are pushes to get men into education, for precisely the same reason. There are fewer male nurses, and some who want to are pushed out of the field by the stereotype that they can't. There's a deficit of nurses, and I for one would like to see if we could encourage more men to take up the field. It's a reasonably lucrative profession, if men can get over the shame of being called by a "woman's" title. Perhaps a few extra male nurses on medical TV shows would help.
I don't understand why no one will pick this up. Get hot enough chicks like this one on the show and I guarantee you'll have everyone watching it in droves.
This seriously seems like a slam-dunk to me. Maybe they just needed better writers.
+++ATH0
Girls are still taught/push/hinted that the sciences are hard/dull/etc. and this is changing slowly. And lets face it, if you were a woman and looked at both the geeks and the the guys in marketing/sales, where would you go? I know if I could write, knew how to spell, and could deal with people, I would be in sales/marketing cuz that's where all the good looking women are
So what would happen if one of the geek faves, say, Mythbusters was hosted by a man and a woman (cf. Scrapheap Challenge/Junkyard Wars? Or by two women - say, Scottie and Cathy Rogers hosting, while Jamie and Adam do the dirty work.
I suspect people would find the latter scary, and possibly dangerous. Like what happened when they made a movie about two women shooting their way across the west.
...laura
Don't bring women into our jobs.... we nerds would be way too scared to show up anymore!
I think the problem here isn't more women in tech - it is a liberal hatred of men and women. They try to make men act more feminine, and try to make women act more masculine rather than just accepting that men and women are different, should be different, and complement each other rather than compete with each other. IMHO, there are too many political interests that absolutely hate that because it leads to a stable family system, and that leads to less dependence on welfare, public freebies, and government programs.
Trying to encourage mostly-grown women to go into technology fields is pointless because they've already got at least two decades of accumulated discouragement built up. You have to start at birth to have any real effect.
Young girls are constantly subjected in our society to advertisements, television shows, movies, video games, peer pressure, and stereotypes that all give them the idea that socializing, procreating, and "having fun" are the only things they should concern themselves with. That's why most females are only interested in things that support those goals (examples: fashion, trying to be popular, partying, dreaming of a perfect white wedding, wanting to have kids, etc). Note that nowhere in any of these goals are "learning" or "self-accomplishment".
If you want to raise a female geek, you have to actively combat all those influences and also actively teach the girl that other goals are actually more important in life. If you plant the seeds so that the main goals a girl cares about in life are learning and self-accomplishment, then everything else will fall into place.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Isn't Star Trek really a science soap opera? I know i'm usually pissed about the lack as ass kicking and the prevalance of "talking things over". Women tend to have "role-model" positions?
Oh and it was cancelled too.
At first look I thought the header was about the SOAP language in the Opera browser.....now THAT would entice me to work in the field for the Opera guys...
Young women tend to talk to other women in a prospective career field. They are not likely to (and shouldn't) base such an important decision off some damn TV show.
With so many in the science & tech fields feeling so little sense of fulfillment from their careers, why should anyone in the US expect young men or women to start flocking to tech jobs?
Whoever concieved of this TV show lives on a different planet. I suspect my wife and I might watch one episode together, throw things at the TV, and go back to our more fulfilling hobbies and books. Unless the youth of this country have suddenly grown stupid (doubtful), then I suspect they'll have a similar reaction.
There's a reason this idea tanked that nobody's commented on as yet: no villans. As the article points out, soap operas thrive on constant conflict and some of the most memorable characters over the years have been vilans. If you ask the average person to name a character from Dallas, the odds are that the first name mentioned is JR.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Here's a hint for the producers - you should probably not tie any media targeted at women with "dogs" of any sort at the metaphorical level.
It is OK to have dogs in the shows themselves as long as they are either very tiny Doglings, or very large Doggoliths.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
n/t
And for some strange reason, that's not working? Go figure!
If I were a smart woman, I'd see right through such a patently manipulative tactic, and be resentful/hostile towards it... And so would most of the female mathematicians and scientists I know...
Jill (face flushing): But I couldn't resist.. It was one of the new quad Opteron machines!
Enrique: So, you're saying you're only staying with me for the servers???
Jill: Please, Enrique. Can you forgive me? (general tears break out)
Tune in next week when Jill finds a new use for the neon tubes in Gary's gaming machine.
Nope.. Somehow, I think that this is just one of those things from which nothing good can come.
Karma: Chameleon - mostly influenced by bad '80s New Wave music
I read the headline as "SOAP Opera for Luring Women" and was trying to figure out what the heck some programmer was doing with XML messaging and an Internet browser to stalk women.
And where is all the interest in increasing male participation in primary education?
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
Frontal nudity. Okay?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
That's always been the nickname for Utah Valley, here in Utah ;)
From what I understand, it was given that term because Utah Valley is one of, if not the, highest per-capita consumption of anti-depressants in the United States. Hence, Happy Valley; Seems like a horrible name for a TV series though...
--
http://wi-fizzle.com Wi-Fizzle Fo' Shizzle Dizzle!
Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
Here's an idea. Instead of targeting women, why not target the public in general? I'm a nerdy chick (info. assurance,) and I've met many men and women alike who still think being into "nerdy" things means you fall into the typical negative nerd stereotype. Try showing ALL people that scientists, mathematicians, and engineers don't all sit in their parents' basements eating doritos and obsessing over their interest to the point of having no social life.
Perhaps the gender ratio would be more balanced if the population in general believed that a person can be a techie and still be "cool".
As a female in the computer science field, I've done a lot of study on this. Women bring alternate opinions to technical fields. The whole reason women don't start in technical fields is because no women before them started in technical fields.
Including a variety of genders often results in a wider variety of points of views on a subject, allowing for a more well-rounded interpretation on projects, and perhaps resulting in a better product with a broader marker appeal. Studies have supported this assumption. One such study, reported in an article entitled "Programmers: Video Games Need a Woman's Touch" by Greg Sandoval, a writer for AP Technology, reflects this potential advantage. In it, Sandoval discusses the success of "The Sims," a decidedly nonviolent role-playing game, as proof that tapping into the women's market is worth the effort. "The Sims" is the best-selling PC game of all time, and about 55% of the buyers were women. It is also noted that there were more women on the development team for "The Sims" than for most of the company's games, allowing a so-called "woman's touch."
Having women is good for technical fields, but the women are so pushed away from pursuing those fields, always told that they are men's fields, that they are scared to pursue them. Trust me--women are needed, they just don't get the encouragement that they in turn need.
Does the guy have any clue? I work in scientific research (have done so for 17 years now), and while the topic of what we do in terms of science certainly is boring to Jane & Joe Sixpack, let me tell you that there is literally tons of material in this organisation to create a sucessfull soap series with. Compared to Dallas, the only thing that we don't have readily available is execs as rich as the Ewings. But all the rest we have right here. Corruption, love affairs, hate campains, ruthless managers, incompetent managers, political infighting, hostile takeover attempts, people aged 30 that fall victim to cancer and eventually survice, people that are hit by 3 personal tragedies (both work related and in their private lives) within the space of a mere week,... You name it, I've seen it. Besides, there are plenty of soaps that prove that you don't need to locate the action in the world of the super rich to be succesful. Add a bit of hyperbole here and there (if really needed also on the financial front) to the personal life of the main characters, choose your cast and cliffhangers well, and bingo!
If I were a professional soap writer, I could easily fill something like 24 or more episodes with the stuff that I've seen so far. Adding more material later on, if the thing turns out to be a real success, would be trivial as well.
Linux user since early January 1992.
"Raised Floors, Lowered Expectations"
There was once a sitcom called "All that Glitters" (Norman Lear - 1977) in which ALL the roles of men and women were reversed.
Needless to say, it bombed.
Why not make a show about people eating boiled snowtires - because it would violate our genetically programmed behaviors, as well as our cultural habits.
Some things are just dumb ideas...
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
... or perhaps it's just that I have an overdeveloped "Flair for the Obvious," but it occurs to me that targeting an audience that engages in mindless activity (watching soap operas) is counterproductive if your goal is to encourage people to engage in technical/engineering activities.
And for those who, for whatever reason, don't believe that women are as capable as men when it comes to technology & engineering, I have two words for you: Grace Hopper.
I don't know of any shows about anyone, male or female, in scientific research or technology. Just throwing that out there.
Of course, some of us suffer from a terminal case of integrity and are unable to pull off such behavior.
I LOVE IT! "Yeah, mom, I'm never getting married because I have way too much integrity for today's woman." I'll try that one.
Yes, it's boring. Like the medical field is boring and repetitive. Or law. Or police work. Or lab work. Or politics. Or the military. But they make successful shows about those careers.
The reality is that most real-life jobs are boring and repetitive - that's why it's called work. However, TV and movie producers have always been able to "spice up" any occupation and make it compelling and interesting, usually by adding personal conflict, character development, drama and tragedy.
For some reason they've never successfully applied those same skills to tech without making it ridiculous - beeping, clicking and other sound effects added to distracting 3D graphics. That's a limitation of the skills of the show producers, not an innate attribute of the tech fields.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
As another poster has mentioned, it's pretty lame to think that gals will just see "ooh! pretty role model! Me do too!" (although guys are pretty susceptible to "Arnie does it, so can I!" logic) and that gals so easily influenced would make your prime candidates for nuclear physics.
A more reasonable goal would be to just get people in general used to the idea of seeing females in a wide variety of technical, scientific and medical roles.
Would this show just turn into an hour-long browbeat, like so much other gender-politics crap on the boob tube ("Commander in Chief", "Book of Daniel")? Only, in this case, the intended audience would be a lot narrower, so it'll tank before instead of after its first episode.
Ok gys im 17 and im compeeting with thousands of other people for any proffesion (PREFF enger....) however i happen to be one of these Supper ppl (I cant spell though) i am a sports person but at the same time i am a nerd at hart (sg1. think Daniel..) never the less the ballance in all higher-fileds is about to change because only a few males have any drive to suceed, most esepect to be given a place in uni because they are male, simple as that, however most of the mildly intelligent girls want to suceed, i live in my school ilbary and the population in there is like 30% 70% male-female, the same go for peopple i consider accually smart, out of the 10 (resonablely) smart ppl i know 7 are female.
First They WANTED to vote
Then They WANTED to work
now thwy WANT To LEARN AND DISCOVER
Eventually They Will WANT people who can accually understand them when they talk for relationships
this isent somthing that we can change its somthing they have to want and they do.
SO LEAVE IT ALONE
I'm surprised at the large number of replies moderated highly, which completely miss the point of such an undertaking. I'm not saying a soap opera is the most astute way to go about this, but it IS important to create an environment where the idea of women in science/tech/IT/=your male dominated trade here=/ isn't unusual.
People that say things like "why do we need them there" or "why push them if they don't want to" or "making up a problem that doesn't exist" are simply not really understanding the issue. If you live your entire life (from birth to death) in an environment where it is highly unusual for people like you to do a particular thing, chances are you won't naturally gravitate towards that. This is how you create generations of gendered behaviour. This can translate to all sorts of things as well, not just women in the workplace...pick your poison..racism/prejudices/wanting to blow up Israelis/wanting to blow up Palestinians/etc.
Consequently, if we create an environment where behaviours are almost predetermined along gender lines, we're indirectly making people's choices outside their gender much more dubious, perhaps even impossible. Not to mention all the rest of the problems that arise with acceptance of such gender behaviours...i.e. why is pink and male such a taboo combination..why is crying + male = weakness and crying + female = sensible. It goes on and on...Essentially, gender roles and behaviours are intertwined. Presuming that we live in a world where we're unaffected by this is simply shortsighted...if you doubt that, think about what you've just read next time you laugh about a guy being emotional at a "chick flick" (touche) or find it odd that a woman "mans" the backhoe on your construction site.
I'd be humiliated by someone trying to "lure" me into technology by generalizing me to watch soap operas so it'd be believed to be "efficient" in reaching women. :-p As a man, put yourself in the situation of TV trying to lure you into nursery via Star Trek (it's what a whole lot of guys watch, right? duuhh... :-p).
:-)
:-)) for "childish" reasons, but because in the rare circumstances I've worked in more heterogenous situations, I've felt the group has got a bit better dynamics and more varied viewpoints. Maybe it's imagination, but I overall enjoy more working not only with women, but in more mixed teams.
Why is there even a need to "lure" a gender somewhere?
I think they rather need to make the tech educations more interesting for women (that is: for the general public) in their material used to present the educations with. More information not strictly aimed to those already introduced in the field, but offer some place for them to start, preferrably then in specially organized heterogenous groups of genders so they don't feel like a sole guy in what may otherwise be seen as a "girl job". We had such classes at my university when I studied there, and it was a pretty big hit then, in ~ 1998-2000. Not sure how it went afterwards though, as I stopped keeping track of my former school when I was done with it.
I think part of the problem is that some feel like "outsiders" and may also feel out of place with lots of self-learned guys from earlier getting kickstarted into the education.
And as for the why, I'd definitely like to see more women in the tech field, not (just
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Why do we always seek to dumb everyone's unique qualities down to a single flavor in the name of equality? Equality does *NOT* mean everyone is the same an there is a perfect statistical spread for every factor in life.
The unique qualities we have (ie: sex, culture, religion, predispositions, nationality) are what make us who we are. Is it so hard to accept that our unique attributes may scale to societal trends and thus result in skewed distributions and tendencies for different things in life?
That said, we have to realize that there *ARE* things that we can do ourselves that unnaturally skew these distributions. The real question isn't, "Why isn't it a perfect spread between X and Y?" It should be, "Are we doing (and not doing) everything we can so that X has the freedom to do what they want?"
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
I've been working on a feture length film, "Best Served Cold" about three women getting revenge on the men that have let them down. I have had a horrible time getting funding from any of the traditional sources, just because the lead character is plus sized. I've had to resort to fund-raising by asking around.
:/
The challenge is that the industry views films as padding between advertising, and special audiences just don't sell advertising. They think of women as a special audience.
So, bottom line, if you would like to see my comedy about three gorgeous fat chicks killing guys, you'll have to donate - anything helps.
Changing attitudes in Hollywood and the networks and distribution channels is essential. Projects like this actually getting made and finding markets is the only way to do it.
Please donate. Thank you.
If you were to replace all the content in the media from its current sexist and old fashioned view of gender to something that transmits a more egalitarian message, then you had better believe that America as a whole would start to change pretty quickly. But you're also partially right. One TV show isn't going to do much of anything outside of inspire a few individuals. You would basically need to rework the way basically everyone thinks in this country to make any changes.
The AC has made an excellent point that people should pay attention to.
Someone should write up a grant proposal to the Public Awareness of Science and Engineering (PAWS) Drama Fund for a heartwarming story of a boy and his tractor trying to meet quota on his collective farm for the glorious Five-Year Plan. He can be inspired by the icon of Josef Stalin he keeps pinned to his bunkhouse wall.
If you think about it from an undergraduate perspective, students qualified to be nurses (science intensive) are similar to students qualified to be other technical graduates. One difference is that there are more likely to be female peers in a nursing program than a technology program. Depending on how far a nursing student pursues her studies, there are some very technical fields in nursing. Outside of nursing, there are many fields in medical technology that attract women as well.
Also, nursing has become a field that is very welcoming of women who want to spend time raising their children. Demand for RNs and higher is so strong that most hospitals will hire a nurse to work as many or as few hours as she wishes. Most IT jobs are not that flexible, especially when a part/flex time female employee may be competing for advancement with a full-time male employee. Development is especially crazy with its intense bursts of work to meet deadlines.
During a round of layoffs at my employer, one of our Unix admins decided to leave to become a nurse. At the height of the outsourcing frenzy, she figured that nursing care was pretty hard to offshore. Given the rapidly aging baby boom generation and their care requirements, I'd probably encourage a young woman or young man to look at nursing or medical technology rather than IT for job security.
Women don't like working in an industry that is almost entirely men.
Men don't like working in an industry that is almost entire men.
Thus, getting more women into technology means that more people of both sexes will find this kind of career attractive. And isn't there always someone complaining that we don't graduate enough engineers*? Aren't there daily complaints here that management doesn't understand technology? Maybe they would if more actually studied technology.
*Of course, others would say that if needed more engineers why are so many of the ones we have un/underemployed. But it is curious that most of the female engineers that I know are Chinese. Do the Chinese have a better sex balance in technology fields? Might that something do with them graduating more engineers?
You'd think that more businesses would jump on this bandwagon and promote this. Get a girl in tech and you get someone who is just as smart as a guy, will work longer hours, is less concerned about a title or promotion, and all for 2/3's the salary. Talk about hockey stick profits! [sic]
Saving the World: One Drink at a Time
Er, I think they're saying that there is a lack of top quality engineers and that isn't helped by discouraging half the population from pursuing those careers. I suspect that if there were more females in comp.sci. lectures then it would encourage more males to join.
Here in the UK there is growing evidence that the Liberals *love* both men and women.
A person who is (insert gender/race/ethnicity here) will go into (insert profession here} because they *want* to, not because they're convinced to.
What kind of people should be in (insert profession here), anyway? Those who need to be talked into it?
Stupid idea.
Having Samoans in meat-cutting (because they are in fact "under-represented") is somehow automatically a great idea?
Here's a radical idea: Stop trying to mold society into the image of your preconcieved science-fiction unisex utopia, and let girls pursue what they want to pursue. How about this: If a girl is interested in weaving baskets, and sewing, and making pretty things, let's not bombard her with the idea that there's something wrong with her because she's not more interested in math and science.
As a father of four (yes, four) girls, I would be ecstatic if one of them were really interested in math... or science... or programming... or military aircraft... or baseball, NOT that they ought to be, but because it would be a great opportunity to share my enthusiasm with them and bond with them. But they're not. Like most girls, they're mostly interested in girl stuff. THAT'S RIGHT, I said GIRL STUFF.
"Girl stuff" is just as valuable as "boy stuff", so stop crapping all over your childrens' development, and let them be whatever they actually are inside.
They're all married, and cheat.
Co-ed bathrooms. Just imagine it, a bunch of fat geeks and hot hot women. Have an ep where a male co-worker hooks up a webcam in the stall. Hell, this thing writes itself!
Do some pointless drama, have someone FREAK OUT about not getting the traditional offer of "pick you up a burger for lunch?" Later have her kill the man who didn't offer that day, then make it happen because he had to go to a meeting with a teacher about his daughter for lunch that day.
Make the show in ridiculously short clips, so to find out what happens next you have to tune in next week too. Make the clips only about 5 minutes, or less!
Just pull from the other big popular women's drama shows and someone'll pick it up.
Don't say the show is about women in professional male-dominated jobs. Say it's about cheating, sometimes murderous, professional women who work in a place with a co-ed bathroom!
Wow, the offers should be rolling in!
Here where I live, we have a park/valley called "Happy Valley"
When I think of that, I think of large open[as in little to no trees] fields surrounded by hills.
You want to be treated like a human being? Um, human beings haven't exactly been treated well by other humans overall for oh, say, all of human existance. I'd like to be treated like a ninja assasin inside a giant robot. No one would wanna mess with me.
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
Perhaps geek girls don't watch soap operas! *shock*
An organization with the name 'Public Awareness of Science and Engineering (PAWS) Drama Fund' didn't produce an entertaining drama? I'm shocked - shocked I tell you!
hmm....
Ah ha!
There. That should produce more effective results.
Good call.
So not only is a tech-soap boring, it's also useless.
Could have fooled me. . .
Nobody wants to hear about corporate/scientific success. Look at "The Office" for example - it is popular because it shows how crap the real world is. If it showed the office workers all getting along well and being productive, nobody would watch it. 'Happy Valley' - screw that.
... and then they built the supercollider.
or a Japanese Anime.
I've met a lot of young women scientists (with PhDs or on their way to getting them) who first decided to become scientists because of an anime program which depicted scientists (many from Japan, China, or S. Korea), a sci-fi film (yes, Godzilla), or a woman scientist on a Mexican soap opera.
Whatever works.
But standard soap operas seem mostly a waste of time. They'd be better off providing free scientific advisors and female scientist mentors to whatever happens to be popular - especially to programming for kids.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Perhaps the reason why there aren't more women in tech is that they're more prone to watching soaps instead of writing code for fun?
;-)
You don't turn some airhead blonde into a tech wizard by persuading her that she'll get to play out her dreams of twisting hunks around her middle finger by learning C++. They've been to school, they know better...
Seriously, the geek girls I know are probably insulted by this very idea.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
...white goo jokes...
This sig rocks the casbah.
...NASA hired the guys who wrote the MAN pages? Those things that make engrish instructions look coherent?
OK, it all makes sense now...carry on....
But wtf does this post have to do with opera and wtf is opera trying to get women to join the tech field, well besides the two nice rounded supple obvious reasons.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Isn't that what Days of our Lives is?
;)
*me ducks*
Daily - Wake up, go to lab. Stare at computer. Do experiments. Repeat for fourteen hours. Go home. Eat. Sleep. Repeat four two weeks.
Every other Sunday - sleep in, shop, laundry, chores. Repeat for twelve months until Christmas.
Annually - drive/fly home to see parents. Work on dissertation during Christmas dinner.
Once per graduate career - a real honest vacation with the pennies you have saved by eating mac&cheese for six years.
And the big reward? A post-doctoral position, where you can continue to earn peanuts while slaving away!
And the sad thing is that I am not joking.
(I see no reason to be nice about this)
Most women I know don't give a rats ass about computers. It's funny how everyone is supposed to like computers and technology and conform to geek culture just because someone else does.
/. instead of watching a movie with my wife and kids downstairs.
Look, most people don't care about computers
and don't care about linux
and don't care about MicroSoft
and don't care about SCO
and don't care about TUX
and don't care about kde vs gnome vs enlightenment vs ion vs fluxbox vs blackbox
and don't care about the GPL version 1, 2 or 3 versus a really free license like BSD.
Most women I know are more mature than most computer oriented males. Their lives don't revolve around computers or some bullshit political nonsense worshipping a greasy haired piece of shit freak like RMS. Why would they want to join this world?
They could be doing something a lot more fun than exploring the syntax of perl or doing some mental masturbation about Ruby on Rails or plotting the overthrow of Microsoft with Linux.
Even though I'm a male I'll side up with most women I know who think that most of the geek community, especially the slashdot crowd is overly fixated on this shit. I am too. I'm on my computer on a Friday night typing on
People make their own choices. Women as victims went out the window a long time ago.
Why isn't there some outcry that there aren't women mechanics in Ford commercials? I get tired of mustaches and mullets. Yeah, there are some good woman mechanics. Most just don't have an interest. Who fucking cares?
My kids are both damn smart and they both follow the stereotype. The boy is computer and electronics obsessed. The girl wouldn't waste her time unless she's in the mood to whip his butt in Tekken or have fun playing DDR.
Anyway, in 20 years of this business, I've seen some great female programmers and sys admins. Very few of them want to stay in the biz very long. They weren't put down by the man either. Mostly they just got bored with it.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go downstairs and brainwash my kids that their obsession with physics and biology isn't good enough for them and that they must chose to become computer geeks like dad.
To direct good women towards our form of goodness is a challenge far greater than all of science.
Good women prefer apes.
I read that in a thread about women in science, so I assumed at first you were making some kind of reference to Jane Goodall.
*shrug*
Waiting for slasdot recovery program.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
For example, my girlfriend picks Claudia Black of Farscape above Jenna Jameson.
I'm a guy and I completely feel her on that one. Claudia positively RADIATES sex appeal. Jenna's more or less just a bimbo.
(Disclaimer: I do not actually know Jenna Jameson. She could be a fascinating person, but it sure doesn't show on TV.)
+++ATH0
Did PBS turn them down? I mean, that would be something... if even PBS doesn't want it. I thought PBS's motto was "if we don't do it, who will?"
The Public Awareness of Science and Engineering (PAWS) Drama Fund has been attempting to develop a soap opera called 'Happy Valley' to encourage girls to pursue careers in science and technology by giving them successful role models to follow.
Oh, roles models are created by drama funds, I didn't realize that. I thought role models were real people(tm) who by virtue of their real world efforts demonstrated tangible successes that others wanted to emulate. How quaint of me, I didn't realize that it was really the soap opera world that fashioned the role models for other people.
In other words, I thought role models were non-fiction based, not fiction based. Whoops! Now I think I understand the correlation between today's (and recent gen-X, gen-Y) generation of underachievement, deservedness, instant gratification and it's inevitable resulting disappointments.
Cheers from the Right!
No one wants to see female emotional turmoil and science ANYWHERE near each other. THANK GOD THIS TANKED.
First off, any girl who likes math and science isn't likely to be watching a soap opera. I clearly recall my high school years and none of us was ever a "soap ho". In fact, we made fun of the "soap hos". Once you come to the realization that there's more to life than hairspray, make-up, and "who likes who", soaps just aren't all that interesting. I've heard a lot of people say "Oh, they're just like real life." The doublecrosses, the extravagant lifestyles, the amnesia, the tragic diseases...and that's just from one week. I have to tell you that I'd be so worn out from the plotting and deception that I'd probably welcome death from the tragic disease just to get me out of the grind.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
Why pander so much to women. Dn't they have their owm brains?
Progressive-liberalist-materialist-hedonist idolatry (also known as "modern society") is a ruinous life philosophy; it is truly a devastating mental illness to accept its values.
I'm not even worried about the boys. I just want to know where the benefit is in pushing girls into tech. I mean, why specifically girls, as opposed to, say, left-handed albino Africans?
It's very clear that girls currently don't go into tech as much as guys. We can sit down and demonstrate that the percentage of females in the sciences is lower than the percentage of females in society. Maybe there's a biological reason for this. Maybe it's purely social reasons. Heck, I don't really know. All I know is that I can't see a definite benefit to trying to lock the percentage of any particular group (including women) in tech to the level of their percentage of the total population.
Now, I *do* have a problem with actually preventing someone from entering the tech world. If you do that, you might be missing out on some very good technologists. But I am not aware of any bar that forces women out of tech -- they just choose not to enter. It just seems that it is mostly an unfounded ideology that is driving the "equal proportion" movement.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Tech is long-hours, relearning from scratch every 4 years, limited upward movement, cheap offshore competition, etc. My daughter is hopefully going nowhere near tech when she gets older. If you really like it, that's fine. However, don't pick it just because it is allegedly more money. It might be out of college, but it stays relatively flat after that.
Table-ized A.I.
In the sequel they all get outsourced.
Table-ized A.I.
nuf sed
Table-ized A.I.
Re comment on documentaries, I agree, When I was a young girl (8), seeing on TV the Apollo Race to the moon captivated my interest in engineering . In the UK we now have the excellent BBC "Horizon" and all the Discovery channels.I particularly like "Wings", as it also covers the human interest side as well as the inventions. Now I'm a mother, my 11 year daughter has a balanced range of interests but is rather hooked on Astronomy. (BTW I don't work for the Media, and don't want to, I prefer the quiet life in a research lab behind a computer).
Lyndsay Williams
http://research.microsoft.com/users/lyn/
You will never find another group of people so motivated to slag of science on the planet.
Of course you can get it past them by pretending it is something else - CSI, etc. Only because they are ignorant of the concept, and dont even know science when it hits them between the eyes.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
It seems that man can't get away from biology: men become scientists, women don't, blacks become athletes, geeks become professors etc. Of course not in absolute numbers, but it seems like the effect of natural selection more than anything else.
On a tangent, the biggest problem with those aspiring to move up the management chain is there desire to be noticed by upper management. To do this there are no holds barred on screwing with what works or could be made to work better to sell a bullet for more radical changes just to be freakin noticed.
Um, Stargate: SG-1, Samantha Carter, who does a better job of sciencetalk than Scotty ever did.
Dr. Weir, of Stargate: Atlantis, though not a scientist per se, is equally good... and *she's* the one in charge. And they're at a time that teens can and will see it (Fri. eve).
mark
What a fabulous idea! My five year old daughter would love a "Major General Barbie" especially if it was also an electrical engineer like her mother.
Role models work. Hollywood doesn't. Why isn't anybody commenting on the fact that soap operas are boring to begin with. On the other hand, this "Major General Barbie AKA EE" show has some real promise.
I agree. We need a better word than "cool". My personal favorite is "neato". It's still accurate but doesn't carry all the negative conotations of airheaded fashion-obsessed surfer dudes.
Wow, what has come over Slashdot? A discussion about women in science and engineering where many people are actually making good arguments standing up for women? It is impossible for a regular reader of Slashdot to claim that there is absolutely no gender prejudice in the field, unless you also subscribe to the insulting idea that all Slashdot contributors are 14-year-olds who don't count as "in the field".
This may be an example of where we shouldn't let the facts get in the way of a good argument, but I would like to add a few pertinent ones. My credentials are that I have been a PAWS sceptic longer than most of the rest of you -- I am an enthusiastic member of the Women's Engineering Society, the UK's sister organisation to the US Society of Women Engineers, and I have watched PAWS grow. Women are not PAWS' only focus, and the proposed "soap" was not planned to have mostly female leads. More mainstream science programmes is one thing PAWS wants, and this story is reporting on aspects of one effort where some money was available under the "women" label. (And another commentator here is right -- UK "soaps" are not daytime shows, but early evening ones with a wider viewing audience including young people and the parents who influence their career choices.)
I attended my first PAWS event at the end of November. Describing 'Happy Valley' as "worthy" implies that the reporter Mark Ballard wasn't at the event to see an excerpt presented -- it had sex, drugs, blackmail and murder all in about 20 minutes! (Just another day at the lab for the scientists in the audience.) McHale was, unsurprisingly, rather politer about his funders than the article shows. Yes, they have already altered their plans based on his arguments (even if they haven't been listening to mine, but I am now happier about their direction).
Who cares about getting more women into SET (science, engineering, technology, usually taken to explicitly exclude the medical sciences}? The major sponsor of McHale's work was the UK's Resource Centre for Women in SET. This centre was set up by the Department of Trade and Industry. The DTI are famously unmoved by anything except economic arguments -- they want more women in SET because they see a serious need for more good people in SET. Other PAWS sponsors include the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) who hosted the event, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the UK government funding agency for research. Yes, they have a social conscience, no, that isn't the only reason they got involved. More good people have to come from somewhere, and there is plenty of evidence that girls and women with a liking for maths, science and engineering and valuable abilities are being discouraged from following SET careers.
What is the barrier? If there was one single one, the Women's Engineering Society would, in its 86-year-old history, have identified it and let you know about it. The problem is, as many other people have commented here, a cumulative effect of many different influences. You could make a difference to two obvious ones in the next couple of days by giving a small girl a Lego set and lobbying your employer for flexible working practices. Men will directly benefit from a more capable younger generation and better working conditions -- we are not asking special favours that will accrue only to a few women. While you are at it, please buy a small boy a doll and a foreign language picture book -- we suffer through the stereotypes for boys too.
I work with many activists in the field, and very few ever talk of a 50:50 gender ratio in SET as a target. Organisations like WES and SWE say "We enjoy our jobs, we are sure more girls would too if they knew more about engineering". (And to answer the usual annoying question, yes, we do like men, otherwise why would we be working in a field with so many of them?) We would like to see a level playing field, and there is plenty of evidence that we don't have one at present. Pay and promotion for women lag badly -- eve
So you threw away a promising future by going to work for Microsoft? What useful products have you had a hand in making? Let me guess: Clippy.
You are pathetic, and are certainly no model for women in technical fields.
I'd probably encourage a young woman or young man to look at nursing or medical technology rather than IT for job security.
I agree. They should look at many other jobs as well. There's probably a good reason very few women enter technology careers: because they suck! Look back to your comments about IT jobs not being flexible, development requiring crazy hours, etc. Add to that the fact that technology jobs just don't pay that well, and have no job security. What kind of person with a family (male or female) would want a career like that?
I think a lot of men go into it because they were intensely interested in computers when they were younger, and now they're stuck in the field. I know that if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't go into engineering. I'd do electronics and computers as a hobby, and look for something else as a career.
44%/56%?
In some places, according to sources I can't specifically remember to cite, the ratio is more like 2-1 in a lot of programs.
Ping! Bozo Bit.
I should thank you. I've wanted to have a way to track when/why I foe'd people integrated into slash, and it just occurred that THIS will work as a reminder, in case I ever need a reminder.