Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!agate!@hamlet.bitnet:tan@devvax.Jpl.Nasa.Gov
From: @hamlet.bitnet:tan@devvax.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Greer H. Tan)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Women Wizards?
Message-ID: <12009@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 12 Jul 88 15:11:02 GMT
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Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.
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In article <11734@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> marcia%hpindl8@hplabs.HP.COM (Marcia Bedna
rcyk) writes:
>
>After reading the discussion on the technical core, a question came to mind:
>why are there no women computer wizards, and what is preventing them (if
>anything)?

This is definitely and interesting question.  Does this have something to
do with biology?  Or society?  Coming from M.I.T. ... I was considered a
pretty good expert in UNIX, and I always wondered why I couldn't derive
as much pleasure in finding out the little intricacies of the system like
some of my male counterparts ... I really thought it was just me.  I mean,
I learned what I had to ... but you would never find me spending hours on
writing a shell script to "do something neat" just for the heck of it.  My
boyfriend on the other hand would have loved to do nothing more ... My sister
describes herself as virtual memory.  She doesn't actually know everything,
but she knows how to get to it ... where as most men *are* disc memory ...
they actually *know* the stuff off the top of their heads!

Perhaps if a study were done as to how logical and factual knowledge is
stored and how some other things are remembered by people and then a study
on what women tend to remember and what men tend to remember ... then
perhaps we will understand more about what we don't have as many technical
guru-ettes.  Why is it that most women tend to remember dates, clothes, places
and such better than most men?  Usually when there is a sentimental value to
the time, person or place?


I can't think of any more examples of general imbalance of male and female
tendencies ... but I'm sure there are many.  Of course there are exceptions
to every generalization ... but, for the most part women tend to notice
details and think about the finer points of life and men tend to see the
bigger picture in a much more less complicated sort of way.


Greer