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and what about nerdy girls who had neither athletics, romance or sex, and would have loved a computer? as npr[1] notes, when the home computer came out it was m

by zem 9y ago

and what about nerdy girls who had neither athletics, romance or sex, and would have loved a computer? as npr[1] notes, when the home computer came out it was marketed heavily to boys; a generation of girls largely missed out on that step up. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...

antod 9y ago
I find that npr article on marketing being the reason for the drop in girls doing College CS overstates it and is a bit unconvincing. I took up computing during the 80s as a kid in a small country that had no real computer marketing (or even market) at all - that didn't stop it being a practically male only thing. Even amongst the wider population of boys, it was only a tiny percentage who got into computers. And while the Apple example in the article they used did have a boy as the focus, prominently sitting next to him in the class was a girl doing the same stuff and a 50/50 mix of other kids in the background. There wasn't a "computers are for boys" message in that ad. And image searches for 80s home computer ads don't really show it was all exclusively male targeted ads anyway* - there were a lot of those cliched ones marketed at the whole stereotypical family though. If anything they were overly optimistic in their depictions of gender ratios compared to actual interest in the market. * Except for the Italian ones - yikes
gedy 9y ago
Yes where were they? :-) I honestly can't remember much computer marketing at all - any computer I could get a hold of was exciting. The Apple II in our class was mostly ignored except for about 2-3 boys, and even by the girls who were better students than the other kids.
hello_marmalade 9y ago
I hate this stupid argument. Nobody ever marketed me to be into computers - my parents just had one, and I liked it, and wanted to use it. Whenever I saw a computer I wanted to play with it. Nobody needed to "market" it to me. Also, it's a shitty argument, because there are a million and one different things that could convince you to not be a part of something. Part of being an adult is learning to sometimes ignore what society expects of you, and also adjust your understanding of what society actually expects of you. If the thing that stopped you from working in tech is because "there were too many boys" then you probably weren't all that interested in the first place.

by zem 9y ago

antod 9y ago

I find that npr article on marketing being the reason for the drop in girls doing College CS overstates it and is a bit unconvincing. I took up computing during the 80s as a kid in a small country that had no real computer marketing (or even market) at all - that didn't stop it being a practically male only thing. Even amongst the wider population of boys, it was only a tiny percentage who got into computers. And while the Apple example in the article they used did have a boy as the focus, prominently sitting next to him in the class was a girl doing the same stuff and a 50/50 mix of other kids in the background. There wasn't a "computers are for boys" message in that ad. And image searches for 80s home computer ads don't really show it was all exclusively male targeted ads anyway* - there were a lot of those cliched ones marketed at the whole stereotypical family though. If anything they were overly optimistic in their depictions of gender ratios compared to actual interest in the market. * Except for the Italian ones - yikes

gedy 9y ago

Yes where were they? :-) I honestly can't remember much computer marketing at all - any computer I could get a hold of was exciting. The Apple II in our class was mostly ignored except for about 2-3 boys, and even by the girls who were better students than the other kids.

hello_marmalade 9y ago

I hate this stupid argument. Nobody ever marketed me to be into computers - my parents just had one, and I liked it, and wanted to use it. Whenever I saw a computer I wanted to play with it. Nobody needed to "market" it to me. Also, it's a shitty argument, because there are a million and one different things that could convince you to not be a part of something. Part of being an adult is learning to sometimes ignore what society expects of you, and also adjust your understanding of what society actually expects of you. If the thing that stopped you from working in tech is because "there were too many boys" then you probably weren't all that interested in the first place.