Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!agate!clambert%hector@Sun.COM
From: clambert%hector@Sun.COM (Caroline Lambert [summer intern])
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Countering discrimination your children will face
Message-ID: <12903@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 2 Aug 88 19:53:07 GMT
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There were so many comments on this I don't know who to quote.
Anyhow, I think we're losing the point of the original argument,
that girls should be encouraged (not forced, not persuaded, but
simply encouraged) to take an interest in technical stuff in order to
counter the discrimination that creeps up in sneaky, ill-defined
ways in our society. If the discrimination weren't there, then
why are there so few women in technical fields? What else can be
done to change this trend, besides parental support and encouragement?

I think part of the problem with this discussion is that we've been
discussing career choices of girls who have already been subjected
to this subtle discrimination - this discrimination has to be
'countered' earlier on in life. Probably a child's teachers aren't
going to be of any help, so it must be left to the parents, if they
feel so inclined. And obviously, this encouragement can be carried
too far.

As for science being better than some other field - well, I have to
admit I'm biased, since I love what I'm doing. Yes, it would be 
better to be a happy linguist than an unhappy scientist, but we
have to try to understand why a woman would be unhappy as a scientist.
I would expect that the women who think they would not like being in
technical fields, think so because of some early unhappy
experience with math, science or whatever, brought about because of
some form of discrimination.
Caroline Lambert
caroline@polya.stanford.edu		clambert@sun.com