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From: marla@Eng.Sun.COM (Marla Parker)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: computer games & women/girls
Message-ID: <11377@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 12 Apr 91 21:15:20 GMT
References: <13947@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> <8y+gmsm@rpi.edu> <1991Apr09.193235.47262@uvmark.uucp>
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
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In article <1991Apr09.193235.47262@uvmark.uucp> scholl@uvmark.uucp (Kathryn Scholl) writes:
>The differences?  Since we women have talked about it at great length,
>I *can* speak for many...(including some on the net)...
>
>	- Not a blatant fever/desire/love for bits/code/software-talk;
>        - Interests outside of work having *nothing* to do with
>          computers or software (e.g. sci-fi anything, computer games,
>          etc.)
>        - *MUCH* better social skills, e.g. social discussions, relating
>          to the "sales-types", personal conversations, etc.
>        - A better work reputation with others around the company (so
>          we have been told).
>        - Not "gurus" at what we do, but known for getting the job done.
>        - Not caring whether we are gurus or not.
>        - Not any of the ego/logical arrogance that seems to abound in
>          my field.

While it may be true that more female engineers embody this admirable
set of virtues than men, I would like to point out that a growing
number of male engineers are not socially inept maladjusted nerds.
Maybe this has something to do with the field becoming more mature and
less obscure.

Here at Sun, I'd guess that about 1/3 of the software engineers fit
your list of virtues, 1/3 are in the grey area, and only 1/3 are the
stereotypical nerds who fit nothing on the above list.

In my group, once labeled as the "yuppiest" group in our division,
there is only one stereotypical nerd.  Granted, he is the senior
architect, but at about 12:1 he is certainly in the minority.  The
rest of us are someplace in the other 2/3 of the scale.  In all there
are 4 women and 8 men.  No one is into sci-fi, about half like
computer games (including three of the four women).  Various members
of the group spend significant amounts of time on other interests:
seven play league vollyball year round, one flies, two sail, one
competes in auto races, one competes in body-building, and two are
avid gardeners.  These are all interests that people spend a
significant amount of time on each week, not casual once in a while
fun.

The point is, in my experience the nerd-level of software engineers
has nothing to do with gender.  *Being* a software engineer still has
something to do with gender, in that there are not nearly enough
female engineers, but the picture you painted looked to me like a
small set of socially adjusted females working in the midst of a huge
set of maladjusted male tunnel-vision hackers, with an insignificant
number of type cross-overs between the two sets.  That isn't what I
see at all.

--
Marla Parker		(415) 336-2538
marla@eng.sun.com