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From: kmw@iheds.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Is Computing Gender Specific?
Message-ID: <265@iheds.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Sep-83 14:51:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: iheds.265
Posted: Wed Sep  7 14:51:59 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Sep-83 05:57:28 EDT
References: <423@trw-unix.UUCP>
Organization: BTL Naperville, Il.
Lines: 32

On the issue of computing being gender specific:
Two personal experiences may shed light on why there aren't more
women in computing.
 
When I was in high school, girls who were interested in the advanced
science and math courses were considered WEIRD.  The choice was simple:
become disinterested, or have absolutely no social life.  I wonder how
many high school boys would maintain an interest given that choice?
I would like to think that things are different a decade later, but
socialization and peer pressure are hard to mold, and slow to change.
 
In college, the normal data entry mode was card decks submitted in
batch, with minimum one-hour turn-around for small jobs.  Those who
worked at the comp center had access to terminals (behind locked doors
and passwords).  You cannot be a hacker using card decks and without
having interactive access to the system.  Only a handful of students
worked at the comp center, and they were male.  (To forstall the
obvious question: they were financial aid jobs and I didn't qualify
on that account.)  These students let their (also male) friends in
on the existence of (and door code for) the terminals, and a select
group of exclusively male hackers formed.  I discovered the existance
of this cadre only from a passing comment of a friend who worked at
the computer center.  I had been in classes with him, had been
dating him for several months, and it had never occurred to him that
a woman might be interested in the "inner sanctum".  You can't join 'em
if you don't know they exist....
 
These experiences are by no means universal, but I do believe that
the difference in numbers of female and male hackers is more likely
to be caused by the greater social barriers women have to overcome
than by any innate difference in ability.
	-K. Wilber