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From: mel@houxm.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.social,net.women,net.singles
Subject: Is Computing Gender Specific?
Message-ID: <527@houxm.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Aug-83 20:01:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: houxm.527
Posted: Mon Aug 29 20:01:26 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Aug-83 14:45:09 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 37

The latest InfoWorld has an article (a review of a longer paper) that claims
that computing is for boys only, and that girls are being excluded from the
field.  That most workers in the field are men.  That most teachers of
computing, particularly in grade and high schools are men.  That most ads
for computers show men working and girls as pin-ups.  That most students
in computing fields are boys.  That most (they say all) purchasers of home
computers are fathers & sons.  That video and computer games are very sex
specific.  That we are becoming a divided society: computer literate men
with good jobs, and computer hating women relegated to menial non-computer
intensive jobs.  Is this really so ??

In my own experience, it seems to be (with lots of exceptions, not
statistically significant).  My wife is positively afraid of the computer,
and wouldn't touch it on a bet - and is totally uninterested in video games.
My 3 daughters range from disinterested (age 13) to an avid game player,
but not interested in programming (age 10).  My oldest son (age 13) can
keep both the Rainbow and VIC-20 busy (a game on one while waiting for a
compilation on the other) and memorizes COMPUTE and BYTE.  My other son
(age 11) likes the games, but prefers more social contact.  Most of the
girl programmers I have worked with are "strictly business" and show little
interest in games or how things work, or how they could work better (with
a few very noteable exceptions).  Why is this so ??

Is there something gender specific in computing itself ??  or is computing
just a more sensitive indicator of the gender specific flaws in our
society ??  Is the split between boys being able to handle the computing
future, and girls not, going to widen ??  what does that do to our society
if it continues ??  What can we do to help girls become interested and
literate in computing ??  What should I do to help my daughters ??

Those of you in school now; what is the situation  ??  are the computer
classes mostly male ?  are the majority of Computer Science majors male ?
(Eons ago, when I was an undergraduate in Aero. Engineering at MIT, we had
1 girl in the class, and I don't remember any girl engineers at Lockheed.
Is the computing field any different now?  Aero. Engineering isn't too
important or wide spread, but computing is.)  What's the real situation ??
    Mel Haas  ,  houxm!mel