Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!mcnc!ecsvax!PROOF.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU From: mapike@PROOF.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU (Mary Ann Pike) Newsgroups: comp.society.women Subject: Re: Women on the Net Message-ID: <6558@ecsvax.UUCP> Date: 20 Feb 89 18:06:24 GMT References: <6377@ecsvax.UUCP> <6394@ecsvax.UUCP> Sender: skyler@ecsvax.UUCP Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 73 Approved: skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts) Comments-to: comp-women-request@cs.purdue.edu Submissions-to: comp-women@cs.purdue.edu In article <6394@ecsvax.UUCP> ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) writes: >There's an article on the front page of the Times today that reports >the results of a study into why there is such a gender gap in the >computer industry. It about boils down to the thesis that men get >a big jump on woman because they were computer nerds in high school >and college (hanging around playing with computers at all hours rather >than having any real friends). It sort of partially reinforces my >theory, which is that women lose out because they don't get started >at an early enough age, and that we ought to encourage their growth. >I had neglected in my theory, to hypothesize why women aren't likely >to get involed at an early age. It would be interesting to know if this difference is the result of some inborn male/female differences, or if it is the result of social conditioning. I find the observation in the Times to be true from personal experience...I would consider myself to be just as good or better at programming than many of the men I know, but I've never been one to 'hack' and spend large amounts of my free time playing with the computers (and many of my friends in their 30's still do this with their home computers). Also, although I enjoy video games, most of the men I know are much more into games than the women I know. My husband likens this to men's fascination with sportscars (particulary the work-on-it-yourself types), although I'm not sure what the significance of that is. Is there some reason why men enjoy taking things apart and putting them together for the fun of it, and women don't? Is it some type of power trip to prove that you can control a machine? I am the first one to use a computer when it's to my advantage (I do all of my correspondance on one, I produce my club's monthly meeting notice, and maintain their membership database with one). But sometimes I feel that some men feel it necessary to reinvent the wheel by doing something themselves which has been done many times before, and probably better (gee, I think I'll write a C compiler tonight). I've even found this attitude from the managers at some of the companies I've worked for. I'm all for hobbies, after all, I have a pretty time consuming one myself (horses), but interacting with horses (hopefully) teaches you patience, sensitivity to another living being's feelings, responsibility to another living being, and things that, in general, are useful in your daily life. Sport-type hobbies are good for your health. A lot of people have hobbies that involve volunteering their time to community projects. As you can see, I believe in hobbies that are also beneficial. It seems that a lot of men prefer hobbies that do not involve interaction with another living being, and that border on being obsessions. Perhaps social interactions are not stressed as being important to men when they are growing up, and many of them feel uncomfortable in activities that require them to be with other people socially. Or perhaps men are made to feel that they must be in competition all the time (with the emphasis on boys to participate in sports, compete for dates, etc.), and that to interact socially is to fail in competition. This has been rambling some, but my main point was that men seem to get seriously involved with machines (cars or computers), and even women who have the same education don't seem to develop this tendency. I can honestly say that I don't know one female hacker, and I do know at least a dozen female programmers. Mary Ann Pike (mapike@cs.cmu.edu) Carnegie-Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA P.S. I don't think that the difference is at all related to men 'getting started at an early age'. Our high school had just gotten a very primitive computer when I was a junior, and about 25 percent of our computer club was women. But none of those women were what I would call hackers, and many of them did better academically than the men, so it wasn't a case of the women not being at the same scholastic level as the men.