(Re: [Techtalk] Theory vs. practice) AKA men vs women

Mary Gardiner linuxchix at puzzling.org
Wed Jan 16 11:08:59 EST 2002


Again, follow-up to grrltalk.

On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 08:10:35AM +0000, Jodie Mann wrote:
> Its tough being a women in a very male orientated environment... but 
> hell, if a women is smart she will use that to her advantage. I work as 
> a hardware consultant for Shell, one the most male chauvinist companies 
> I've ever come across... but I haven't really had a single problem. If 
> someone gives me hassle and its blatantly because I'm a girl, I ask 
> them straight, "sir do you think I am any less capable because I am 
> female... do you even know what a network cable is???":-)

It's not so much the women who are there that I'm talking about, but the
women who never got there in the first place, because someone told them
they sucked at maths so they'd never get very far with computing, or
never suggested computing to them but told their brother he'd make a
fabulous programmer.

Those women have nothing to gain from being a women-in-a-man's-world
because they never got there in the first place. I don't think as many
women as men are really made aware of the possibilities of a computing
or technical career.

It's hard to argue about because many of those women are probably
perfectly happy as doctors/lawyers/mothers/biologists, but some of them
do come to computing later in life and say "gee I wish someone had told
me about this when I was younger", and find themselves a bit behind the
eight-ball, much as women in physics in the early 1900s didn't get their
PhD in physics until 35 because they had to wait for a old professor to
leave before they were allowed to take courses. (Interesting read for
people interested in women in physics: a book called Pythagoras's
Trousers).

-Mary.

-- 
Mary Gardiner
<mary at puzzling.org>



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