Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!mcnc!ecsvax!logicon.arpa
From: lance@logicon.arpa (Lance Browne)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Women on the net
Message-ID: <6560@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: 23 Feb 89 00:02:28 GMT
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	I have to disagree with the Time article reasoning as to why
women don't go into computer science.  I didn't read the original Time
article, but it seems agreed among the group that the reasoning
presented, was that women don't hack as much, ie, women have other
social activities as they grow up instead of playing with the
computer.
	First off, does this theory even make sense.  The personal
computer didn't even come into existence until the mid-seventies.
With the initial prices making it prohibitive for most *children* to
play with.  If the children of that time could afford the computer or
get to use one somehow, how old would the oldest of this group of
hackers be?  Somewhere less than thirty, for the oldest group. The BULK
of the hackers would be younger than that, barely entering the job
market.
	Then why is the field dominated by males? If it is,
some much more down-to-earth practical reasons follow:
	One reason is that this new field is not as free from old
social dogma as originally thought. After all, who are the managers
within this field?  They didn't originate with the field - most came
from engineering or math backgrounds.  How do people get a job in the
computing industry, IF they have not had a computing job yet?  All
computing job descriptions I've seen require a degree.
	To get a computer science degree requires a lot of courses
from engineering or math, a perceived male-ruled area.  The
engineering department of my college was very male-oriented. A case in
point, one instructor gave a women a B, who had a higher score than a
man, who got an A.  He didn't believe that women should be taking his
course.	
	Generally, society views Computing as a field that requires
engineering and math skills, which it does to get a computer science
degree.


 --- Lance --->
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