[Techtalk] Programming languages for women

[Ms. Piglet]

I suspect there's something you could call "computer anxiety" that's very
closely akin to "math anxiety".  Or perhaps we should call it "geek
anxiety", because it frequently doesn't kick in for folks who only boot the
computer, use Word, Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, and Myst. <g>

It's when you get into that Mysterious Dark Side.....whether that's unix or
The Great Voodoo  Inside of Windows....that it kicks in for a lot of folks.

And I'm not sure there's no gender connection: math anxiety seems to be more
common in women, I'm sure because of frequent explicit or implicit cultural
input that says "girls can't do math....girls aren't good at math....it's
unfeminine to be good at math...don't be smarter than a boy...."; it stands
to reason that the same type of cultural messages are out there about
computers. (And engineering, for all that.)

Took till I was 40 to figure out that not only am I *good* at math, I *like*
it.  (Spent the summer my mother was dying taking trig just because I needed
a lighter side to my life.....my junior college credits had already been
transferred to university, and I've never bothered to go back and have that
A in trig tranferred.  It really was just for fun.)

(The below is a personal saga from the POV of a dinosaur, being a member of
the Almost AARP Generation....feel free to skip.)

When I was first confronted with spouse's computer, I was somewhat
intimidated, because it was a homebuilt got-no-real-case CP/M machine, and
it looked so *fragile*.  (And I was, at the time, a sysop for a university
mainframe system...but that was "mostly text.")  Enter the C64.

Still didn't believe I could grok programming (which spouse knew was
nonsense), but boy, could I type in those basic programs from the magazines.

Then one day, typing in a program, I stopped and stared at what I was
typing, and said something akin to "Well, that's dumb.  Looks like what this
guy is trying to do is X, so why did he write the code this way?  Why didn't
he do Z?  That would be much simpler and more elegant....."

Dead silence.  I look at spouse, he has what can only be described as a
shit-eatin' grin.  I contemplate situation, realize what has just
happened....meanwhile he's saying, "Okay, you're a programmer now....the
rest is just details."

Unfortunately, most folks don't have a mentor (spouse or not) who will nudge
them far enough to hit that discovery......

--pig

On 3/4/02 2:59 AM,  <malin.blomqvist at home.se> shared this thought:


> I want to start by saying that I don't think woman-friendly
> is really the right thing to call it. Rather new-to-
> computer-and-abit-afraid-people-friendly. Or something :)
-- 
Megan "Piglet" Zurawicz
listpig at earthlink.net
piglet170 at attbi.com