Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!pasteur!agate!rcj@moss.ATT.COM
From: rcj@moss.ATT.COM
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: The Technical Core in Computing Firms
Message-ID: <11230@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 21 Jun 88 07:51:44 GMT
References: <11101@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <11165@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
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In article <11165@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> marla@Sun.COM (Marla Parker) writes:
}If "women don't like to be in the tech cores of companies" I think it is
}because women don't like to be where they aren't welcome, and we were
}never welcome in tech cores until recently (recent decades, maybe).  I

I wouldn't put the plural on "decades" -- I have a good friend who joined
Bell Labs 15 years ago and she could not legally be a Member of Technical
Staff (the usual designation for someone with a Master's) because she was
a woman.  Also, my little sister is finishing her MSEE right now at
Mississippi State University, and she can tell you some wonderful modern-
day horror stories about sexual discrimination and harrassment in today's
engineering college environment.  TAs threatening to fail her if she
didn't sleep with them, long-tenured untouchable professors starting the
first day's course lecture by explicitly saying they don't believe women
should be in engineering, the whole nine yards.  And, ironically enough,
the main reason she stayed for the Master's was because, despite *incredible*
success as a co-op with the Navy, her self-confidence has been eroded quite
a bit by her college experience.  She wants to be "more solid" in her
field before going out into the real world.

}Furthermore, if you compare the properly degreed SE's to the other-degree
}SE's,  I expect that the percentage of SE's who are an asset to their
}company (i.e. they're good) would be about the same.  Some of the
}people who switch into software aren't any good, but neither are the many
}fools who major in CS just because they want a good salary, not because 
}they like it or are any good at it.

Women got a bum rap at my school for switching from marketing and
management majors to CS just to get jobs.  The unqualified people who
did this were uniformly despised, but it just so happened that 5 out of
every 6 of them were women at my school around 1980.  Thus it was "these
damned women diluting the field" when actually it was "these damned
unqualified money-grubbing marketing/management-type people diluting
the field".  It was easy for those already predisposed against women
to use this as just another weapon against them.

}for software engineering is rare stuff indeed.  I disagree.  I think it
}is very common.  It is just the art & science of problem solving.  All of 

Amen!

}The practical aspects of how to switch from being an unemployed history
}graduate to an employed software engineer are another matter altogether,
}one that I know nothing about.  Tech writer->tech support->engineering
}seems to work for some people, but maybe someone who has transferred
}into software from a different field could write about how to do this.

I know someone who went from teaching "special education" for many years
to her current employ as a very talented microcoder on my project.  She
took a computer course at a local college (in Oregon) to help keep her
teaching certificate current, found she had a knack and a yen for programming,
and ended up getting her BSCS in night school.  She entered the software
field as a microprogrammer right from the start at age 37.

Curtis Jackson	-- moss!rcj  201-386-6409  (CORNET 232)
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