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op-ed piece.
Wow, see what happens when you don't check the forums for a few months? Missed this whole thread. I'd like to address a couple of the discussio points raised below:
First - point of departure. The ideas expressed come mainly from my work experience: I work at an all girl college prep school. 100 % of our graduates go on to 4 year institutions. Those include Harvard, Yale, MIT, UCBerkley, Stanford,.....
Views noted are my own and not necessarily my institutions. They are also generalizations for the most part.
1. Women are generally co-operative vs men who are competitive. It's trained into them from day one. A lot of people say it's genetics - BAH! It's training. We give girls baby dolls, dress up clothes, my magic kitchen, and generally cute toys. We give boys legos, building blocks, toy cars, bats, balls, lincoln logs, things they can take apart, things they can get dirty with. From this basic branching of treatment the rest follows. Boys do better at math (in general) in part due to the spacial relationships they have in their head from building things with 3d objects.
addendum: check out KAREN STABINER "All Girls: Single-Sex Education and Why It Matters", Myra Sadker "FAILING AT FAIRNESS: HOW AMERICA'S SCHOOLS CHEAT GIRLS", JoAnn Deak & Teresa Barker "Girls Will Be Girls : Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters"
If a girl hits someone, wrestles around with them, chases them they are berated for being over active, unruly, not nice. Boys exhibit the same behavior and you see parents saying "well, boys will be boys, what can you do?". This also plays into why most abusers are men - it's ok for boys to hit to get their way, girls are taught to be passive. Most parents train their boys to be different from their girls. Until the parenting changes, the roles won't change.
2. WITI is probably one of the best out there, but that doesn't preclude anyone form establishing a old-girls network. I guess one of the problems that exists though is that since the girls who have been taught to be co-operative rarely reach the Boss level, the only ones who are there are the very competitive ones, and they tend to be as bad as their male counterparts.
3. Hmmm, not boring, geeky. Computers in general are viewed that way. And this goes back to training. Computer workers are viewed as geeky, and while it's often cool in many circles to be a male geek, that has not yet transferred to the female side. Women who are into geeky things are often looked at like someone from another planet by all but the geekiest males, and worse yte completely shunned by the other women for fear of being considered geeky just by being with a geek. We offer computer classes here. The artistic classes have a high turnout, but C++ and AP Computer Science are avoided like a plague. Girls who take the courses are referred to derisively by other students as geeky. For a male taking that course it would be "Gee, you must be really bright" and "Wow, you can do that with computers?". Not so for females.
4. Yes, you will be subject to stereotypes, just because most people like everything to fit in nice little boxes. To the males (excepting the gay contingent, but including the bi contingent) you are a target or lesbian. Men rarely veiw anything outside of a sexual context. Yes, they will view you as a computer geek, but also as a possible sexual partner. Women, even other geek women, will often view you as a rival. It's not right, but it can only be changed by changing the parenting skills we use - and possibly some castration.
5. No they avoid infosec because it is the panultimate in geekiness. Being into computers is geeky to start, but Infosec, with packet analysis, crypto, etc, is considered geekiness in the extreme, and going back to earlier, most women view geekiness as social suicide.
Wow, see what happens when you don't check the forums for a few months? Missed this whole thread. I'd like to address a couple of the discussio points raised below:
Originally posted by pezz
Views noted are my own and not necessarily my institutions. They are also generalizations for the most part.
1. Women are generally co-operative vs men who are competitive. It's trained into them from day one. A lot of people say it's genetics - BAH! It's training. We give girls baby dolls, dress up clothes, my magic kitchen, and generally cute toys. We give boys legos, building blocks, toy cars, bats, balls, lincoln logs, things they can take apart, things they can get dirty with. From this basic branching of treatment the rest follows. Boys do better at math (in general) in part due to the spacial relationships they have in their head from building things with 3d objects.
addendum: check out KAREN STABINER "All Girls: Single-Sex Education and Why It Matters", Myra Sadker "FAILING AT FAIRNESS: HOW AMERICA'S SCHOOLS CHEAT GIRLS", JoAnn Deak & Teresa Barker "Girls Will Be Girls : Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters"
If a girl hits someone, wrestles around with them, chases them they are berated for being over active, unruly, not nice. Boys exhibit the same behavior and you see parents saying "well, boys will be boys, what can you do?". This also plays into why most abusers are men - it's ok for boys to hit to get their way, girls are taught to be passive. Most parents train their boys to be different from their girls. Until the parenting changes, the roles won't change.
2. WITI is probably one of the best out there, but that doesn't preclude anyone form establishing a old-girls network. I guess one of the problems that exists though is that since the girls who have been taught to be co-operative rarely reach the Boss level, the only ones who are there are the very competitive ones, and they tend to be as bad as their male counterparts.
3. Hmmm, not boring, geeky. Computers in general are viewed that way. And this goes back to training. Computer workers are viewed as geeky, and while it's often cool in many circles to be a male geek, that has not yet transferred to the female side. Women who are into geeky things are often looked at like someone from another planet by all but the geekiest males, and worse yte completely shunned by the other women for fear of being considered geeky just by being with a geek. We offer computer classes here. The artistic classes have a high turnout, but C++ and AP Computer Science are avoided like a plague. Girls who take the courses are referred to derisively by other students as geeky. For a male taking that course it would be "Gee, you must be really bright" and "Wow, you can do that with computers?". Not so for females.
4. Yes, you will be subject to stereotypes, just because most people like everything to fit in nice little boxes. To the males (excepting the gay contingent, but including the bi contingent) you are a target or lesbian. Men rarely veiw anything outside of a sexual context. Yes, they will view you as a computer geek, but also as a possible sexual partner. Women, even other geek women, will often view you as a rival. It's not right, but it can only be changed by changing the parenting skills we use - and possibly some castration.
5. No they avoid infosec because it is the panultimate in geekiness. Being into computers is geeky to start, but Infosec, with packet analysis, crypto, etc, is considered geekiness in the extreme, and going back to earlier, most women view geekiness as social suicide.
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