Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!agate!ix665%sdcc6@ucsd.edu
From: ix665%sdcc6@ucsd.edu (Sue Raul)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Women Wizards?
Message-ID: <12003@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 12 Jul 88 18:13:52 GMT
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In article <11844@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> booter%deimos@ads.com (Elaine Richards) writes:

>>Little girls and their dolls, little boys and their machine toys.
>>Erector sets. Computers.

>In article <11790@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> sri-unix!maslak@decwrl.dec.com (Valerie Maslak) writes:

>Gee, I had both :-)

It seems that the real point isn't whether it's dolls vs erector sets
and computers, because there are so many other ways a child's "universe"
can be biased. Think of the father who buys his son a glove and a bat,
a football and boxing lessons instead of the computer. The boy has no
better chance to master high-tech than the girl with the doll. And
neither of them stand much of a chance of learning to paint or grow 
flowers.

If you want to give a child all possible opportunities to
choose its preferences and discover its aptitudes the list would have
to include all kinds of items:

add:
   musical instruments 
   drawing and painting materials
   books - fiction, non-fiction, poetry, empty
   pets, a fish tank, trips to the zoo (future biologist, zoologist, animal
                                     trainer)
   a garden (a future in agriculture, or botany)
   material, needle and thread, or sewing machine (the future designer)
   kitchen utensils and basic ingredients (the future master chef)
   part-time work, paper route, lemonade stand (future employed)

   etc.

All this just opens up avenues that the doll, erector set, baseball glove and
computer doesn't. In other words, lets not limit our children's futures
by thinking about only those stereotypical items in our immediate
surroundings. For computer people, one would think that if they
as a child were denied technical/mechanical/mathematical challenges then
that's "what their child will get." But what about being denied piano
lessons or ice skates because mommy and daddy were too poor or were
never exposed to these when they were kids?

With computers being a part of life of many professions these days, we
can only look forward to a time when using a computer will be as 
commonplace as knowing how to drive a car is today. Farmers use
computers, biologists use computers, musicians use computers, etc.

So, discrimination doesn't start or end with whether there's a
computer in the little girl's life or not - it may not be in a little
boy's either, as is true for hundreds of other items. The least a parent
may want to think about is, within their budget, allow exposure to
all sides of "being human" - the intellectual (computers, fun math book
problems), visceral (sports, dance), mechanical (erector sets), creative (music,
art, designing), nature/organic (microscopes, gardens and pets, or books on
animals and zoo visits, geological artifacts and books), spiritual (as
suitable to your religious beliefs and values).

just a few thoughts,

Sue