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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.'"
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?
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!
To direct good women towards our form of goodness is a challenge far greater than all of science.
Good women prefer apes.
If you're working in the tech industry, wouldn't it be nice to be able to date somebody who shared similar interests?
;-))
Slight tangent here, but why does everyone always assume that the best match for you is a [b/g]f/spouse who has the same interests as you? In my experience, opposites tend to work best. Not only does differing interests give you something to talk about, but your different areas of expertise help you complete each other. I don't know where I'd be if my wife was just as absent minded as I am, and I doubt she knows how she'd attack issues without some of the technical ability I have. She knows animals, people, and finances, and I know computers, cars, and minor home repairs. Between the two of us, we can attack any problem that may come along.
If you always date someone who's just like you, you'll find that you're not getting anything long term out of the relationship. (I'll leave you to figure out the short term benefits.)
Getting back on topic, women should only enter Tech if they want to. Using it as a way to look for men to date is a BAD idea. Especially given the jackasses that exist in this industry who wouldn't know how to be kind to a woman if a manual fell on their heads. (Apologizes to the 12.5% of Slashdot that doesn't fit in this category.
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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.
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> Because there's reason to believe that women are pushed out of tech.
Yes. See the book "Unlocking the Clubhouse", about a longitudinal study of CMU CS undergrads.
Over and over, the women reported that when they were girls the family PC wound up in their brother's room and they never got to tinker with it however much they wanted to.
Undergrads enthusiastic about computers all too often transferred to other majors because they thought they were expected to emulate the MIT hacker culture in order to succeed. They were all high achievers who expected to give up parties and free time in exchange for an education, but they weren't willing to give up showers. Maybe if there were more figures like Emma Peel in popular culture they would have realized that you can both take care of yourself and gain skill.
At the risk of being politically incorrect, the book did mention that women tended to take interest in useful applications of technology rather than burrowing into it for its own sake. Where a man might write a thesis about register allocation in compilers, a woman would more likely want to invent something like Logo.
CSI is so-so on the techical aspects of science, but very, very good on the attitude of scientists, especially in showing them as ordinary people with ordinary problems who also have this common focus on fact and evidence that really does make them different from most other people. Numb3rs is terrible--full of geeky cliches and lame reasoning. If you set out to create a show that said, "Math is mysterious and hard and only super-geniuses who never bathe can deal with it" you could hardly do better.
I think the real problem this show has is that the writer's heart isn't in it. After all, who would want to watch something written by someone who thinks it's boring: "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.'"
Anything can be made interesting by a talented writer. If someone wants to pay me for a half-hour pilot episode I'll happily write one, and it'll be interesting. It'll be based on the real-life goings on at the physics department where I did my Ph.D.--students beating up thesis advisors, spouses jumping in and out of bed with various profs, people scaling the building with makeshift rope ladders, profs having sex with students, former grad students living clandestinely in the basement of the building to save money on rent... The funny thing is that I know half the people with graduate degrees reading this are thinking, "Shit, did this guy go to school with me?"
There's no end of interesting things that the human beings who do science get up to, and its easy to show enough of the science in the background to make the connection that science is done by ordinary people. The trick is to not make the mistake of thinking that the show is about the science, rather than the people who do it.
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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
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I've got a better idea.
How about we stop trying to make fictional characters "poster children" for how kids ought to grow up?
Call me crazy.
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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.
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