Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!ncsuvx!mcnc!ecsvax!uunet.UU.NET
From: munnari!acp.oz.au!julian@uunet.UU.NET (Julian Elischer)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Women on the Net
Message-ID: <6656@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: 2 Mar 89 12:51:18 GMT
References: <6377@ecsvax.UUCP> <6394@ecsvax.UUCP> <6558@ecsvax.UUCP>
Sender: skyler@ecsvax.UUCP
Organization: Australian Computer Products, Perth, Australia
Lines: 93
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 <6558@ecsvax.UUCP>, mapike@PROOF.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU (Mary Ann Pike) writes:
> 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
[text deleted]

[text likening hacking to playing with cars]
> 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.  
> 
An interresting point, though I find that my desire to fix my car myself
is for 2 reasons..

1/ Men are supposed to be able to fix cars, so I need to do so
for my own self esteem.. yeh I know I sound silly.. so?
2/ I learned how to do it as a kid and like to know I can still do it.

I think women often don't play with cars because they are told not to as kids,
and that in the adalescent (sp?) years when they MIGHT just do it anyhow,
the same forces come into play that stop them from being hackers.. (see below)

[text deleted]
> 
> 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.  
> 
I think you are very close in this. I find it hard to put my finger on it
but I think it has a lot to do with 'dates' though the competition bit
I'm not so sure about. Women are drawn into the social activities in
their teen years by their peers and by the males as well. To be passive as
a female will very often still result in social activity. For a male,
passivity will not, because a male must actively FORCE himself into
the social scene. I remember that as a "high school computer nerd" I was 
absolutly besotted by a girl at a nearby girls school, (for 3 years), yet
I never got up the courage to talk to her.. I wanted desperatly to go
to films and parties etc. but I knew she would never talk to ME. and I put my
energies into experimenting with the marvelous new toys. Those of us that 
weren't really sports types, really exiled ourselves to activities such as
computers because we believed we were failures as men (well boys) and that
our salvation lay in other directions. I still believe to this day
that if a bunch of girls had had the gumption to look past the 
rules of 'coolness' and had showed any interest in us guys, the school
would have run out of 'hackers' in about twenty seconds flat.

Basically, most hackers are interested for sure in computers, but nearly
all of those that I have met, (lots) only have that fanaticism when
they are using it to stave off their fear of failure, and lonelyness.

> 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.

I know I've rambled a bit too, but it's hard sometimes puting a nebulous idea
into words..

> 
> 
> 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.

As I said, these women would I would think all have their social worlds
as well as that in the club.. They would have other focuses (focii?)
in their lives, often helped along by what society expected from them.

Life can be tough being a guy too you know!

julian@acp.oz.au  <- if your network takes full domain names this is the one.
UUCP: uunet!munnari!acp.oz!julian