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Interviews: Ask Adora Svitak About Education and Women In STEM and Politics
samzenpus writes Adora Svitak is a child prodigy, author and activist. She taught her first class on writing at a local elementary school when she was 7, the same year her book, Flying Fingers was published. In 2010, Adora spoke at a TED Conference. Her speech, "What Adults Can Learn from Kids", has been viewed over 3.7 million times and has been translated into over 40 different languages. She is an advocate for literacy, youth empowerment, and for the inclusion of more women and girls in STEM and politics. 17 this year, she served as a Youth Advisor to the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, DC. and is a freshman at UC Berkeley. Adora has agreed to take some time from her books and answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
Were you prepared for the amount of bullshit and misogyny which was unleashed when the trolls around here discovered it was a woman being interviewed?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The first three items on the Slashdot homepage right now:
Interviews: Ask Adora Svitak About Education and Women In STEM and Politics
As Amazon Grows In Seattle, Pay Equity For Women Declines
"Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer" Pulled From Amazon
All right, we get it. Having a penis is bad, mmkay?
Are the two guys that helped her wondering why Barbie never goes for Nice Guys?
Yet another article detailing how much mentally retarded liberals want to complain that our world is not in perfect harmony how they see fit. And that all numbers and statistics are only important if they can be skewed and interpreted in their favor. DiceDot you have become such a lousy pile of your former self
Slashdot, will you please end the fucking obsession with feminist gripes. I'm still at the point where I'll yell as you to focus on things we actually care about. But eventually, I'm sure some of us will simply be done with your Dicey site.
I know! I know! Ask her about her implication on the future best seller "Barbie: I, against all odds, can be a computer engineer for Amazon in Seattle"!
Who cares what this feminist dyke has to say.
If one them imagined in his head the pleasure of entering her dripping wet Barbie pussy, well the damn liberals already hauled him off to the jail for rape!!
Nah, but not having a penis should not be a problem. It continues to be disadvantageous in areas where a penile lack should not be an issue.
In your talk you said that kids deserve high expectations.
What help do you have to reach your high expectations? What should kids do who don't have the same help?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
To what extent do you believe child prodigies are merely products of their environment?
Do you believe in microaggressions? Why or why not? Is a belief in microaggressions helpful or harmful? To whom is it helpful? Who should worry about microaggressions? Who shouldn't? How can someone be certain they are innocent of committing microaggressions? If someone is accused of something like committing microaggressions, are there two sides that must be considered, or only one?
STEM is such a big area. Where are the jobs???
Daughter just complete BS in Math in 3yrs and cannot find a job. Now, is user support line on how to fill out a health insurance website at $10/hr.
So what good is STEM student degree by a female, if their is nothing waiting at the other end??????
Dear Adora Svitak,
At 17 years of age, you do not have enough life experience to say anything of real importance about anything involving the greater issues facing society. It doesn't matter how brilliant you are or think you are. It doesn't matter how much of a rep has been manufactured for you by spinmeisters. You are simply too young to have any real perspective or ability to identify the machinations of those around you.
One of the most dangerous things in the world is for someone to believe their own hype. Don't make that mistake.
Incidentally, What Adults Can Learn From Kids ~ {null}, which is why society would function much more smoothly if the voting age were raised back to 25.
When are you girls going to get off your knees and fight back? You're as masochistic as the average voter. You're being abused because you let them abuse you. Stop it! Just stop it!!
Qwerty, Azerty, Svitak, Dvorak :P
what does some random 17 year old with rich helicopter parents have to tell us?
seriously...
all these "child prodigy" stories are bullshit and nothing more than advertisements for the parents
Thank you Dave Raggett
Hi,
I'm the "typical" white male in CS gradschool. My subjective view is that CS has one of the lowest number of women compared to other STEM disciplines. I'd estimate that typically there are about 5% tops in classes or at conferences. For various reasons I think that this situation is a shame for the community and society as a whole. What do you think can be done to improve this?
Thanks!
Hi Adora! Looking through any debate on gender issues is somewhat demoralizing, as there seems to be little focus on resolving the underlying issues. What do you think could be done to help people cooperate rather than yelling at each other?
Do you support women in stem?
Do you support stem in women?
If it's good for the goose, is it good for the gander?
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After seeing my development job outsourced to India in the early 2000's during an IT slump, I have no compulsion to steer my daughter into STEM. I hope she finds a career that she grows into and does well, STEM or not.
STEM is in demand at this spot in history, but I've learned the hard way it's subject to fads, bubbles, age discrimination, H1B's, and outsourcing.
Please tell me, why push women into such risk?
I suspect it's lobbyists trying to get cheaper IT labor for their plutocrat bosses by flooding the market. Feel welcome to convince me otherwise.
Table-ized A.I.
I have been visiting slashdot for the past 15 years. I have grown so tired of hearing about this non-issue. I'm out now, I'll just go to soylentnews now. You guys can wallow in your PC bullshit.
How much credence to you give to the theory recently put forward in a recent NPR Planet Money piece, ascribing the absence of women specifically in the computing industry to 1980s media representation of geeks and computer worker lifestyles?
"When I was a teen, I thought I knew everything too".
ISBN Number" 0071111eleventy
It actually took me until fairly recently to be right about everything ;)
/. is dying off fast. how sad.
Do you think that they should have similar programs to get males into areas where they are typically underrepresented (nursing, etc.)?
Two 'women in tech' articles in a row?
No thanks. I know when an agenda is being pushed. I'll stick to Extreme Tech.
At 17 years of age, you do not have enough life experience to say anything of real importance about anything involving the greater issues facing society.
How perfectly appropriate that these choice lines should be posted by to Slashdot by an Anonymous Coward.
The timing couldn't be bettered as well.
We should certainly laud Mattel for deciding that 2014 is the year Barbie strikes out on her own as a career woman after 55 years and 150-plus jobs (including hating math and babysitting, with a welcome stint as a computer engineer in 2010).
But Entrepreneur Barbie reminds us that --- like every other ostensibly inspiring incarnation of the doll --- her main role is to look pretty and wear lots of pink.
In the end, both [Supermodel Barbie and Entrepreneur Barbie] are part of the same old problem. As 16-year-old feminist and former TED speaker Adora Svitak told Forbes' Denise Restauri this week:
''She encourages an unrealistic expectation of beauty grounded in narrow ideals --- whiteness, thinness, a lack of hair and an abundance of breast tissue --- instead of kindness, smarts, self-confidence, or athleticism.''
Mattel's Latest Affront To Little Girls: Entrepreneur Barbie [Feb 2014]
I have nothing against padded bras in general. But my immediate thought in the store was, Why the hell does a teenage girl need one?
The issue of the over-sexualizing of girls from an early age has come to the forefront with a recent news story about model Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau posing suggestively for the cover of Vogue magazine. Over a series of photos, the ten-year-old is shown sprawled on leopard-print cushions, wearing a skimpy gold dress, stiletto heels, and posing heavily made-up, with rouge and lipstick. She's ten years old, yet she looks scarily adult in the photos.
By creating so many illusory images of physical perfection, whether on store aisles or storefront ads, magazine covers or TV shows, we speak more to the profit margins of companies than the self-esteem of today's girls. The unsaid message of that endless rack of juniors' pushup bras? No matter what size you are, it still isn't good enough.
Would You Buy This for Your Daughter? [Aug 2011]
1. Were you aware that the Barbie line includes dolls of different skin colors? How would you plausibly represent the diversity of skin color in a single example?
2. Where would you add hair to a Barbie doll?
3. How would you project kindness, smarts, and self-confidence from a doll?
4. You believe that Barbie has too much "breast tissue". Does this indicate you have a bias against women with large breasts?
5. You believe that Barbie is too thin. Do you believe this contradicts your assertion that Barbie project athleticism, which usually precludes obesity?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
How do you feel about contradictory laws that, while they customarily allow suffrage and personal accountability at the age of 18, restrict the consumption of alcohol or possession of firearms or other items considered "dangerous" to those age 21 or older? What about the contradiction of prosecuting those under 18 "as adults"? Do you feel that the increasing US state regulations placed on child labor, which greatly restrict or totally exclude teenagers from the workplace, are denying young people valuable life experience?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
There have been a lot of talk and even initiatives to improve the number of women in the STEM field. While I myself participated in assessments for young women to encourage them to choose STEM topics, I am less and less convinced that these initiatives are working. The main problem is that we do not really know why women choose other topics. True they have been asked what they want and why they have chosen this instead of STEM. However, this does not give us the root cause which pushed them in that particular direction.
The lack of female "nerds" cannot be the root cause, as they tend to study pharmacy or accounting. Therefore, it must be something else and we should start resarching to uncover the truth. However, I doubt that this will ever been done, because getting to the bottom of things is much more pain then fooling around and starting ineffective programs.
That particular logical fallacy is "Argument from Age".
The merit of her arguments is independent of her age, and she should neither be ignored not afforded extra consideration based on how old she is.
In less than a year, you will be 18, and in the eyes of our society, you will no longer be a child. Are you looking forward to people no longer referring to you as a "child prodigy?"
He has a point. Every story about women in STEM is plagued with posts trying to disrupt any effort to improve things. Typical arguments include: - There is no problem - Girls just don't like computers ...
Is it possible that either of these are true, even in a general sense? There are gender disparities in several fields. The median salary for nurses is $65,470, whereas the median salary for IT Technicians is $42,992
OMFG, who the hell would want to work in IT for less than $42K a year? Because if $42K/year is the median that would suggest half of all IT technicians are getting paid peanuts. Unless you live in a low-cost, rural small city or town, less than $42K/year is very goddamned low nowadays.