Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-vax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!hocda!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittvax!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!mit-vax!joy From: joy@mit-vax.UUCP Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Stereotypes Again? Message-ID: <2074@mit-vax.UUCP> Date: Wed, 6-Jun-84 21:10:50 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-vax.2074 Posted: Wed Jun 6 21:10:50 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 10-Jun-84 00:24:19 EDT Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA Lines: 40 To Quote Chris Minson: "You can only date so many secretaries, you know." I hate to be annoyed, but I am. As a secretary, I often run up against people like Chris who treat me as an intellectual inferior just because I do not program as well as they do or create hardware with as much ease and facility. Hey-- I don't treat everyone who doesn't speak fluent French or doesn't understand the intricate details of Econometrics as if they were uneducated! He implies with his article that secretaries are unintelligent, and are only good for diversion. This insults me as it insults any woman who has ever had to take a clerical job for lack of jobs in her own chosen field of endeavor. I know too many women who are overqualified in their jobs. I certainly can't say the same for the men I have encountered. Here at MIT there are women with Masters' degrees working as secretaries because they can't find jobs in Boston and can't currently relocate! The "stupid secretary" is one of the worst stereotypes around and it's about time someone changed it. As for women in engineering, I suggest that all of you who are interested in WHY there aren't more of them read a Technical Report published recently by MIT's Lab for Computer Science. It's called, "Barriers to Equality in Academia: Women in Computer Science at MIT," and was written with the collective efforts of most of the women graduate students and researchers (circa 1983). It is available by writing to the Publications Office of LCS, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139. I recommend this report to all of you. It's an eye opener for most. As for you, Chris Minson, even if you didn't mean anything by that statement or didn't mean to be offensive, may I politely remind you that Computer Science and Engineering is not the only profession and is certainly not the only one which is to be respected. If the world contained only hackers it would be a truly dull place! :-) Joy Net Addresses: {allegra,decvax,mit-eddie}!mit-vax!joy joy@mit-vax