Slashdot Mirror
Programmer Father Asks: What Gets Little Girls Interested In Science?
nbauman writes Programmer David Auerbach is dismayed that, at a critical developmental age, his 4-year-old daughter wants to be a princess, not a scientist or engineer, he writes in Slate. The larger society keeps forcing sexist stereotypes on her, in every book and toy store. From the article: "Getting more women into science and technology fields: Where’s the silver bullet? While I might get more hits by revealing the One Simple Trick to increase female participation in the sciences, the truth is there isn’t some key inflection point where young women’s involvement drops off. Instead, there is a series of small- to medium-sized discouraging factors that set in from a young age, ranging from unhelpful social conditioning to a lack of role models to unconscious bias to very conscious bias. Any and all of these can figure into why, for example, women tend to underrate their technical abilities relative to men. I know plenty of successful women in the sciences, but let’s not fool ourselves and say the playing field in the academic sciences or the tech world is even. My wife attributes her pursuit of programming to being a loner and pretty much ignoring wider society while growing up: 'Being left alone with a computer (with NO INTERNET TO TELL ME WHAT I COULDN’T DO) was the deciding factor,' she tells me."
Exactly, and there's no outcry about the homeless being mostly men, or garbage men or miners... Where's the "equality" there?
Men are the disposable sex now. We're good enough to do the heavy lifting and we built the entire modern technological society that ALLOWS this freedom to women!
Our reward? We get to be movers, firemen, security guards and soldiers.
...what she has to say about this entire farce...
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
dad wanted a boy.
Thankfully there are more options than "preppy preschool" and "melt brain on TV". Playing outside, reading, and construction toys are all pretty solid options.
http://www.psychologytoday.com...
http://www.parenting.com/artic...
Also, a documentary that examines and discusses the subject in depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...