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NPR: '80s Ads Are Responsible For the Lack of Women Coders
gollum123 writes: Back in the day, computer science was as legitimate a career path for women as medicine, law, or science. But in 1984, the number of women majoring in computing-related subjects began to fall, and the percentage of women is now significantly lower in CS than in those other fields. NPR's Planet Money sought to answer a simple question: Why? According to the show's experts, computers were advertised as a "boy's toy." This, combined with early '80s geek culture staples like the book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, as well as movies like War Games and Weird Science, conspired to instill the perception that computers were primarily for men.
As I recall, it was more that, in movies and TV, women found romance working in business, and rarely in computing.
Computing meant anti-social. Business meant meeting attractive men in business suits with lots of money and power.
Geeks only had time travel in bad looking vans.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The only thing responsible for a "lack of women coders" is that fewer women than men are interested in software development as a career path. So what? I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to why this is a problem, why this is something to be concerned about, or why millions of dollars are being thrown around in an attempt to change the situation.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Men started to outpace women at an accelerated rate when the highly personal learning style of "having a pc to play on" became an option. Given that we see more and more of an imbalance in favor of women in group learning environments (college and even moreso in graduate programs), maybe this is just something very obvious, and a good thing for men, as men can excel in solitary study which they can tailor to their own interests and pace. As my wife, a school psychologist said, girls tend to learn better in groups, and don't typically like to work in competitive/solo situations given the choice, whereas boys often do. I'll take the advantage on this one, gladly.
When computers were viewed as toys, it was acceptable for girls to have them. Once they became tools, however, they were only for boys.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
FFS, enough with the concern trolling. We get it, there isn't a 50/50 ratio of men and women in tech.
I fail to see why we have to try and forcibly "fix" that and can't just accept that women, for whatever reason, don't want to go into tech.
You don't see anyone complaining about the lack of men in nursing or as elementary school teachers or the lack of women garbage collectors. Stop whining about the same thing in tech.
the thing is that computer science was transformed to during the 80's and not the same thing it was before
previous discussion about this
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
If 80's pop culture had that much lasting influence, every college student would still be majoring in kicking commie ass and breakdancing.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Madonna wore a Boy Toy tee shirt. Does this explain the lack of female pop singers today?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
the computer establishment was shown as Big Brother and all the tech workers were depicted as mindless slaves. All shown in dull black and white footage.
Then comes running a feisty young woman in colorful athletic clothes. She hurls a hammer and destroys the system. Lesson: girls hate computers and break them!
It's the SJW ninnies that are trying to pretend that nerds are the perpetrators here when they are generally powerless and denigrated.
I find the idea that nerds would ever chase off women particularly amusing. Hell, most of us would KILL to have women around. If women are electing to not pursue the field, it's certainly not because they're unwelcome. On every team that I've ever been on with women, the guys went out of their way to be nice to them.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It might be that they are intimidated by my stylish wardrobe furnished by TJ Max.
That might be the same article that mentioned that Cosmo used to push the idea of women programmers. Do they still do that or did they stop doing that in the 80's.
It's the SJW ninnies that are trying to pretend that nerds are the perpetrators here when they are generally powerless and denigrated.
Nerds are the tail end of the problem. You're expecting them to wag the dog when it's the greeks and the jocks that control all of the really relevant media outlets.
I wonder what this portends for the future of programming.
Because if young women are turned away, indeed discouraged by anything not completely positive, it means that Programming and all of the other Tch type careers will have to be completely revamped.
Case in point, I went for a tech career. I wanted it, and I gave not a flying fig what anyone thought about whether it was cool, socially uplifting, or fashionable. I was not in any way shape or form discouraged by my meekness, nor the portrayals of tech people on Television
All of the females I worked felt exactly the same way.
All of the males I worked with felt exactly the same way.
And we worked hard, put in a lot of hours because that is what we wanted to do. And we did it.
Now it appears, that we must change. We must adapt our requirements toward people who are easily swayed out of this carreer path. We must, in the name of equal representation, educate and employ people who are highly susceptable to social approval by others.
Hey - we'll need good luck with that. I've always said that the only way to get gender balance will be to force young women into Tech jobs.
Or perhaps Tech isn't a job for everyone?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Well, that's unfortunate. Because, try as I might, I've yet to find a way to make my team more attractive. I guess I could hire some male models, but they generally make pretty shitty coders.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It's the SJW ninnies that are trying to pretend that nerds are the perpetrators here when they are generally powerless and denigrated.
I find the idea that nerds would ever chase off women particularly amusing. Hell, most of us would KILL to have women around. If women are electing to not pursue the field, it's certainly not because they're unwelcome. On every team that I've ever been on with women, the guys went out of their way to be nice to them.
If you listen to the NPR segment, they have a couple of women who were former compsci majors give accounts of how the men in their classes denigrated them and mocked them for missing some knowledge. I'm not certain it's motivated by a "no girls allowed" attitude. I think there's a broader culture of elitism in compsci that motivates people to try to bolster their own egos by jumping on perceived weaknesses in others.
It's important to note that to focus of the segment was on university compsci courses in the 80s, not women who get employed on professional teams. Generally people are a bit more mature in the workforce (generally). These are 18-22 year old males. They likely were a bit ostracized as nerdy in high school. I think they just get overzealous once they find themselves in a world where athletic prowess is no longer the ultimate display of dominance. they make bad decisions.
They might even be simply showing off. I think i've tried to impress nerd girls the wrong way. Where i thought i was communicating, "hey look at how good i am at this!", i really was saying, "OMG YOU ARE A STUPID GIRL". I certainly wasn't very good at communicating with women in my late teens and early 20s. i'm only marginally better at it 20 years later.
No, perhaps you should learn to read, or perhaps learn to ont read things which aren't there. But ayway your "argument", that is more or less:
feminism is anti feminism because it implies women are weak and therefore we shouldn't actually be doing anything
is crap. Women are human. Humans are herding creatures and on the whole hate being the odd one out. Therefore a big gender imbalance is offputting.
Does that mean humans are weak? Possibly. Does that matter? No, not really.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I'm sorry, but wtf is your point? Are you saying that we should be hostile to women instead of nice, or nice instead of hostile, or that we should completely ignore them?
You say that men who are mean to women chase them off. Then you say men who are nice to women chase them off. And I'm pretty sure you would say that men ignoring women would chase them off. SO WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU SUGGEST?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.