Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    Interesting. When I was in college (when degrees in Computer Sciences
    were almost completely unknown), in the one and only computer course
    I ever took, the teacher (male) came right out and said (and I'm quoting
    very closely, if not exactly): "Women make better programmers than
    men. That's because they're more methodical and more willing to
    stick with boring, repetitive tasks than men are." 
    
    I kid you not!

    Back in 1971, when I entered college with a declared major of Civil
    Engineering, women were encouraged to declare for Computer Science.
    I was considered more ladylike.
    
    I was in an intro-course [along with 300 of my closest compatriots]
    when the instructor said, 'Those who can will be engineers, those
    who can't will write software.'  Apparently in 1971, real men didn't
    do code.
    
      Ann

    re .2:  I don't know that men make "better" hackers, but they
    certainly make more of them.  Although I hung around with a
    lot of (male) hackers in college, I didn't consider myself
    one, partly because I won't stay up until 3am--at least not
    for computers! These folks freely considered themselves to
    have "the disease" and recognized that it might not be unlike
    being a "work-aholic" in some ways.  They almost uniformly
    considered themselves to have been *former* "social basket
    cases."  ("Former" was their word, not mine.  ;)

    Interestingly enough, my CS classes seemed to be relatively
    evenly split between male/female, but I see far fewer women
    working as programmers in the US.  *Most* of the women in
    my classes were from other countries, especially China, and
    returned there to work after getting Bachelors' and Masters'
    degrees here.

    -- Linda

I lead a team of four software engineers.  Three of them are women.
My boss is a woman.  I used to kid around that I was the
token male until we hired another man recently.  I am very glad to
have found a wonderful team of dedicated and talented women and men!

john

    It was briefly mentioned in the article (and I'm paraphrasing here)
    that "Women are socialized to notice the people and the world around
    them more..."
    
    I feel that this is a very important aspect of the issue of men being
    "addicted" to computers more often than women.  I thinks it's not
    so much that women are *discouraged* from entering this arena, but
    that many more men are attracted to it *because* it provides an
    escape from social interaction.
    
                             ...Lisa V...
    

I may have had a different experience growing up than other women - I did a lot
of things with my father since I was the oldest child.  This included helping
him build lots of electronic equipment (including portable radios and an 
electric organ).  For my 13th birthday I got an analog computer kit which I
promptly built that day and played with.  My father was (still is) a Math
professor and since I was also good at Math, it was a "given" that I would go
to college and major in Math.  Back then there were hardly any schools that had
computer courses.  My father always encouraged me (and my brothers) to keep
going to school.  I think he wanted one of us (at least) to get a Ph.D. - we
all have M.S. degrees and two of us have been in Ph.D. programs, but we both
quit.

I ended up majoring in Math and going to graduate school in computer science
with only three computer courses to my credit:  BASIC, FORTRAN, and IBM 1130
assembler.  There were mostly men at the graduate level and quite a few of the
women weren't as bright as most of the men which really worked against us women.
I admit to hanging around the computer center till after midnight frequently.
Back then there were no interactive terminals (still keypunch days!).  As far as
I was concerned, things seemed pretty equal between the men and women grads
students of similar intelligence.  While working on my Master's thesis, I 
decided to go to a different school for Ph.D. work (really wanted to work with
Jeffrey Ullman when he was at Princeton).  So I asked my thesis advisor for a
recommendation letter.  Well, the next night he tried to seduce me.  I refused.
The day after that he said he couldn't write a recommendation letter and I
ended up with a B in his course (everyone else got an A).  I told one of my
male friends about it and he said that he wasn't surprised, that's what female
grad students were for!  Talk about the urge to kill!!!

At this point my mother decided that I was really wasting my time in school.  
She couldn't understand why I would want a Ph.D. when all I was going to do was
get married and have kids (her words - I never really mentioned either).  My
father was supportive, but neither of them had much to say about it since I had
received teaching or research assistantships and had been putting myself through
grad school.  

The next school I went to had a larger Computer Science department but about
the same proportion of female grad students. I didn't get accepted to
Princeton, sigh! - don't know if a letter from my thesis advisor would have
helped or not.  However I did run into Jeffrey Ullman at a conference and he
did talk to me about where I was going and what I was interested in doing (I
was talking to my thesis advisor at the time and he ignored my advisor to talk
to me.  My advisor knew him and just assumed he was coming to talk to him!  It
was great!).

To make a point out of this rambling - I feel if my father hadn't been there
supporting me, I may not have done all that I had.  It was hard to compete
against a lot of men and be considered an equal, but I was determined.  I am
encouraged to see more women getting CS and engineering degrees - at least it
seems to be getting better.

						Jan

PS Both my husband and I quit our Ph.D. programs after 2 years due to potential
Ph.D. thesis advisors not getting tenure.  The politics in the dept. was
incredible.  We weren't the only ones that quit, either.  We have both done
about the same in our careers - we even take turns making more money than the
other person.  And my mother's prediction has not come true as we have no kids.

> Note 456.0 input by WMOIS::B_REINKE 

>    ... The researchers also found that parents were
>    willing to spend significantly more money to send their sons than their
>    daughters to these camps. 

Just wondering ... anyone ever see a study on the amount of money 
spent on toys for girls vs boys?  I haven't ... but judging from my 
family and friends, I'll bet the figure is lopsided.
  
>    "The most pronounced differences are that men tend to be more adventurous
>    and riskier in their programming styles,," said Ms. Springer, a veteran
>    programmer at Sun Microsystems who is now part of the group designing the
>    display of a computer that Sun plans to announce in several months. 

During my six years as a contract tech writer, my first task on a new 
assignment was to hunt down the customs and geography of the 
systems I was working on.  It became my (unconscious) habit to go to 
men for the info.  When the habit became conscious ... I wondered 
about it and it seems ... most of the men I asked gave me solid 
sounding answers (whether they knew or not) whereas the women often 
belittled their knowledge or experience before answering. One 
conclusion: part of being a guru is owning up to your guru-hood. I've 
met quite a number of women who were guru's ... but few of them 
admitted their guru-hood to themselves, much less publicly.

Meigs

ps. Guru-hood is soooooo interesting. I'm convinced that a graphics
company I know went down the drain because they were 'driven' by their
marketing group ... a set of tall, handsome, personable,
sophisticated, upper-middle class white men* ... I overheard a
four-hour meeting where they discussed and decided on a major new
product line -- and not one 'fact' related to customers, market need,
sales figures, or engineering resources was uttered.  It was all "I
think's" uttered with absolute surety of tone. And every member of 
that group thought of himself as a major guru ... 

* It is OK to flame me for this, but please check the statistics
on race, height, and attractiveness as related to income and 
leadership position before kicking on the afterburner.

    
    	As is evident by .7's reply, I think it all has to do with how
    you were brought up. I'd say it's a fair assumption that most women's
    father's did not "have their daughter's help assemble radios and
    other electronic equipment" as as rule, rather this is an exception.
    
    	My father often enough wanted my company when he was doing
    something "mechanical" that it rubbed off on me. As a result, I
    could easily see how things fit together to become a whole; I have
    no fear of anything mechanical with regards to "assembly" type
    operations.
    
    	It was no wonder then, when we were introduced to the Olivetti
    Over_Grown Calculator (the one with the blinking teal blue light)
    in the 8th grade, I could easily "assemble" the commands into a
    program, giving me my first "A" grade ever in a math class. I attribute
    my aptitude for doing so directly to the "learning experiences" given
    to me at home, by my father.
    
    	Should a young girl's father (or mother, for that matter) be
    into tearing down and rebuilding engines, and want her company and
    participation while doing so, I'd expect the young girl to have the 
    same aptitude toward "putting things together" as I - a man - did, 
    as a direct result.
    
    	Joe Jas
                

    
    
    
    Interesting article...
    
    My wife and I were both lucky - neither of our families laid out
    any negative expectations as to skills, and both families were
    supportive as to what we chose to do.  She was the Math major,
    I was the English major.  She went into programming, I went into
    job hunting (typical for English majors) and tech writing.  She
    handles the "assembly required's", I critique the instructions.
    Her technical skills have been of immense help to me in my career -
    how many times have I asked her, "Could you explain x for me?"
    I just hope I've contributed my fair share - mostly support, resumes,
    and cooking.
    
    She's good at seeing the big picture - business implications,
    interpersonal conflicts, management priorities - and acting on it.
    Like a lot of the women I've worked with in the area of computers,
    she balances the technology, the business, and the people
    effectively.
    
    She picked up skills from both of her parents, but the most important
    thing was a sense of "you can do whatever you want to."  Too bad
    more children didn't get this support from their parents.
    
    Ron  

    Editorial From _Digital_Review_ February 27, 1989
    
    "A Man's World"
    
    Women, you are still second-class computer citizens. That is the
    conclusion of a recent New York Times front-page feature story on
    women in computing. The newspaper reports that while many women
    use and *like* computers in their daily work, men *love* them. Males,
    the article concludes, are passionate about computers in a way that
    females could never understand. The result is that high-ranking
    women in the computer world are few and far between.
    
    To those of us who labor in an industry seen by many as being more
    "progressive" than others, the Times report is disturbing. How can
    this be true? As we approach the 1990s are women as the Times suggests,
    still stuck as computer end users? Experience suggests that the
    answer is yes.
    
    That we live in a man's computing world is clear in our own backyard.
    In DECUS, the official DEC user society, the majority of leaders
    are men. At the average DECUS conference or Dexpo show, men outnumber
    women by high ratios. Of the 40 officers who govern DEC, only two
    are women. The list of companies in the DEC market that are headed
    by women is very short indeed. 
    
    There are, of course, notable exceptions. A woman, Joan Pendleton,
    led the engineering team that developed an advanced microprocessor
    chip at Sun Microsystems last year. The Lotus Development group
    now finishing the next version of 1-2-3 is led by a woman and counts
    36 women among its 86 programmers. Sandra Kurtzig is founder and
    chief executive officer of Ask Computer Systems, and another woman,
    Beverly Clayton, serves as executive director of the Pittsburgh
    Supercomputing Center. But, sadly, even when women do make the grade,
    they see themselves (and are seen) as different.
    
    Certainly the causes of the present condition are many and complex.
    According to numerous studies, neither sex differs much in its ability
    to enjoy math or work with computers. Social scientists say that
    females generally are steered or "socialized" away from these areas.
    The problem is that females not encouraged in these areas as youngsters
    tend to fall behind the computer business later in life.
    
    Part of the problem is women's limited role in business in general.
    In many industries, including ours, women often are relegated to
    "acceptable" roles in marketing, public relations, communications,
    administration and support. In the DEC universe, where "techies"
    abound, the situation is not appreciablyu better.
    
    At its core, the problem is simple sexism (which is rarely simple).
    Enlightened as many men in the computer industry appear (and many
    in fact are), there remains a deep, often unconsciuos prejudice
    against women working in technical environments.
    
    With luck, things will improve when today's elementary school children
    move through high school and college and into business. Perhaps
    by then the association between technical and analytical aptitude
    and gender will have dimininished. Until then, we still have much
    work to do as individuals, as companies and as an industry. We cannot
    change education or business overnight, but we can change how we
    think and behave.
    
    Joseph E. Maglitta
    Features Editor

    Something about the base articles and this discussion bother me.
    Of course I agree that it is wrong that girls are socialized to
    steer clear of math, and that the supposedly modern computer industry
    is guilty of age-old sexism.  
    
    But something still bothers me.  Let's see if I can articulate it.
    The debate seems to be based on a tacit assumption that "techy" jobs 
    and other jobs that men have traditionally held are necessarily 
    _better_ ways to spend one's life.  And that the "male" style of work
    (i.e., competitive) is necessarily the better one.  And I don't
    buy that.
    
    Recognizing that women can are capable of work traditionally considered
    "important" (i.e., worthy of a man) is only half the battle.
    Recognizing that work women traditionally do is important is just
    as important.
    
    -Tracy
    
    
                                                           
    

Tracey,

You articulated well something that I have also been thinking. I have come
to the conclusion that maybe working in the business world is not what
I want to do with my life. I am thinking about making some changes (which I will
be more specific about in another note at a later time). 

I consider myself "successful" in this man's world of high tech. The question
I come back to is how do I define success. Haven't  I accepted a "male"
definition which is related to status and money. What happened to happiness,
satisfaction, and social contribution?

One of the barriers into making changes is the negative image I have of
"women's work" and of course a reduced salary. In reality I think the
importance of the women's movement is to give people (both women and men)
choices of what they want to do, and how they want to contribute. This
has translated into being successful at what was traditionally male jobs.   
    
I think our soceity is suffering because we don't value some of the
traditional women's jobs such as teachers, nurses, social workers, the
service oriented professions. Granted they don't contribute directly to
the GNP (mentioned in another topic), but they do contribute to our
quality of life, health, and our future generations.             
                                     
I think it is time that we respect and pay for those service professions.
If we gave them better pay and more status, I suspect we would see more
men in those professions as well.

Muggsie