Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!fester@math.berkeley.edu From: fester@math.berkeley.edu Newsgroups: comp.society.women Subject: Re: Women Wizards? Summary: no fun => no women Message-ID: <11794@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 7 Jul 88 04:18:56 GMT References: <11734@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: Math Dept., UC Berkeley Lines: 49 Approved: skyler@violet.berkeley.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts) Comments-to: comp-women-request@cs.purdue.edu Submissions-to: comp-women@cs.purdue.edu In article <11734@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> marcia%hpindl8@hplabs.HP.COM (Marcia Bednarcyk) 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)? I don't think the answer is nearly so much "what is preventing them" as "what is not encouraging them." It is true in any field that the people who advance the most are those who have been 'mentored' throughout their career. (No, not *every* *single* *individual*, but close.) This is because the most efficient method of acquiring information is being taught, told, or shown it. It is not the best way to learn. It is not the most challenging. It IS the most efficient, in terms of time/knowledge tradeoff. The human factor in computer science is, as far as I can see, larger than in any other field. In computer science it plays a dual role: not just information exchange, but also social context. If you read the book "Hackers", for example, you get a very clear sense of how much computing was a social context, a way of life, far more than an intellectual pursuit. E.g., it was true for me that in college computer science was attractive because when I got there, some of the department members were "really cool". (No flattery intended, Eric :-) So were the women majoring in it, when I started. As they graduated and the "cool" department members disappeared, I lost interest. So that there are two important roles the human factor plays in computer science: providing a social context, an enjoyable environment, a reason to do it; and creating an information flow. My sense of why there are no women wizards is that women don't integrate well in the current hacking scene, and we don't have any of our own. So the human factor is simply not available to women. The existing environment isn't *our* idea of fun, (I do think it is as much 'we don't like them' as 'they don't like us') and the information isn't available because there aren't any women yet who HAVE it in order to pass it on. And yes, men are more reluctant to pass on the "secrets", the little details of computing, to women than to other men (in my experience.) These statements are not meant to be absolutely categorical (i.e. some women doubtless get along really well in the typically 99% male hacking environments and manage to get both the social support AND information one needs to do well) but they *are* often true and are being offered for further discussion on the issue. Lea Fester fester@math.berkeley.edu