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Maybe I should have made my explanations even longer! You are failing to 'get it': The stuff about "Mother Nature" is just an abbreviation for fundamental eff

Maybe I should have made my explanations even longer! You are failing to 'get it': The stuff about "Mother Nature" is just an abbreviation for fundamental effects that are easy to see and seem fundamental but seem to have strong causes difficult to explain. "I work with kids of this age; particularly teaching them computer science stuff (and other engineerign topics)." We're not talking about really the same thing. What I am talking about is more fundamental in this discussion. Here I am drawing directly from Tannen, and she's right: Okay, in my scenario, in middle school at lunch a boy, all excited about some technical topic he just learned, say, the TCP part of TCP/IP, tries to explain the topic to a girl. Likely he will not get a good reception for, say, four reasons: (1) She's a girl, knows that she's a young women, and is reluctant to interact with males her age or older without a good reason. She has been warned by older women that such interactions have a tough tine being just casual because the male can easily start pursuing more. So, she is selective. Maybe if the boy is 1-2 years younger she will feel less threat and be more ready to be just friends. (2) He's all fired up about the technical topic. Sorry, but boys have strong desires to master any technical topics around them that appear important. In part there is a lot of innate curiosity. Why? Exercise. Sorry: It's rare for girls to do that. For how an automobile differential works, there is something wrong when a boy is not wildly curious or when a girl cares at all unless, say, being able to give a description will get the her something else she wants, say, an A, and thus praise and approval from others, on a test in middle school general science. (3) Females make connections with others, and more generally get acceptance in groups, by gossip where they express their feelings. Boys are taught to keep their feelings suppressed as in "How you feel about it is just irrelevant.". So, what the boy is trying to give the girl is not really girl gossip and, thus, is not liked by the girl. (4) Males make connections by sharing information, especially, neat, cool, technical information. So, that is what the boy is trying to do. The girl doesn't give a weak little hollow hoot about technical information (for it's own sake). Here (1) was your observation; for (2) I'll let you justify that yourself; (3) and (4) are directly from Tannen. Lesson for girls who want to be more like boys in computer science: You have heard about virtual memory. Now, any boy with any hope at all of liking Hacker News, will be eager beyond belief, and thrilled enough to jump out of his skin, for any even small bit of information about why virtual memory and how it works. When they get into page-segment tables, look-aside associative memory translation buffers, least recently used techniques, how I/O makes the virtual to real translations, and the shockingly low average execution time overhead, etc., then they will grow two feet taller instantly and have a "Eureka!" experience. Similarly for closure in programming languages, binary search, the Gleason bound, the TCP part of TCP/IP, multi-protocol label switching (MPLS, used in the core and backbone of the Internet), and much more. They'd rather understand such stuff than eat, sleep, play sports, watch a movie, or sit in class. They really, really, really want to learn this stuff, all of it they can, whenever they can. The first time they get to see a tower case with the sides off will be one of the most exciting moments in their life. Girls: If you want to do computing, go for it. It's clean, indoor work with no heavy lifting. Don't need gloves, masks, or special clothes. A computer for less than $1000, a good Internet connection, and a lot of time alone with the computer are a lot of what you need from the beginning into quite high competency. To get to the "pay window" (JLM at AVC.com), right now you go to the head of the line, well ahead of all the boys with similar qualifications: (1) The hottest thing in computing now is social media, and there in conceptualizing the opportunities the girls should be knocking the socks off the boys. Uh, much of Facebook, with over 500 million users and worth over $50 billion, is about gossip where boys can at best try to use a telescope from Mars to look at Venus. Larry Page just said that 99% of social search has yet to be done; so, what's in this 99% that would be good to do now? (2) Learn how to bring up a corresponding Web site. The site will need some graphic design where girls are much better than the boys (25% of whom are partially red-green color blind and likely still draw both trees and people as stick figures). The site will need a good user interface and user experience (UI/UX), and here girls should totally knock the socks off the boys. The site will need some text, and, again, girls are much better at not just typing and spelling but at writing for emotional effect -- knock the socks off the boys. Still more important, girls are much better than the boys at writing and correctly estimating the reactions of others. E.g., I'm a man, here am just writing ideas, and clearly don't have even a clue about how others will react! Maybe I don't even care, but girls both care and know, and that's a big advantage. (3) Once the site goes live, you will need to get some publicity: "I don't know if you know who runs that business, but I assure you it's not the Boy Scouts." (Dangerfield in Back to School). Neither is it the mafia, but it is women. (4) Older men with big bucks tend very much to want to help women. No joke. Not just into bed or to be a Daddy Warbucks or Svengali. So, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, and Mark Suster have all been loud and clear on their blogs about how happy they are to fund women. May find much the same at KPCB and Sequoia. You are at the head of the line; the door is being held open for you. HP was thrilled to have Carly Fiorina and Patricia Dunn. Yahoo was thrilled to get Carol Bartz. Go for it!

ErrantX 16y ago
Sorry, but boys have strong desires to master any technical topics around them that appear important. You kinda lost me at this point I am afraid; this is just entirely inaccurate. Certainly there is a prevelance in the male population for technical topics, but it is only a generality, most are averagely interested. The young boy your describe would likely find little interest in most of the other boys, not just the girls :) Females make connections with others, and more generally get acceptance in groups, by gossip where they express their feelings. Boys are taught to keep their feelings suppressed as in "How you feel about it is just irrelevant.". So, what the boy is trying to give the girl is not really girl gossip and, thus, is not liked by the girl. Males make connections by sharing information, especially, neat, cool, technical information Horribly simplistic analysis. Males mostly communicate via gossip too; which is the "neat, cool" part (you probably just don't see it as gossip, but it really is). The "technical information" is undeserving of it's equal share in that sentence - how often do you share technical information with your wider group of male friends. I chat about girls, life, politics, moans and whinges etc. no one would be interested in what I was programming earlier :) She's a girl, knows that she's a young women, and is reluctant to interact with males her age or older without a good reason Girls and boys do spend a lot of time apart at that age. But in groups they spend a lot of time together. a girl cares at all unless, say, being able to give a description will get the her something else she wants, say, an A, and thus praise and approval from others, on a test in middle school general science. This is just hilarious ;) Conclusion: You will get boys such as you describe; but they will be in the vast vast minority, and their excitement is as boring to most of the boys as the girls. The reaction to them is not as simple as you make out, and says absolutely zero about the future careers, interests and motivations of females. I feel you are over simplifying - and that is the main problem with your analysis.
- HilbertSpace 16y ago
  A simple resolution for the question of this thread is easy: For now, girls tend to pursue what girls do and know that computer science (CS) is for boys and not part of what girls do. So, girls try to avoid CS in college. When they try CS in college, mostly they don't like it. Why don't they like it? Girls are (1) much more emotional than boys, (2) much more social, (3) eager to get praise, acceptance, and approval from others from work that "helps people" in the sense I explained (essentially volunteer work to help suffering people), e.g., one of the daughters of Bush 43 went to Ethiopia, and (4) better at, and more strongly seek, human to human contact. So, on these criteria, girls see that CS is so detailed and technical it seems (1) emotionally cold, (2) not very social, (3) not good for work that "helps people", and (4) not good for human to human contact. So, many girls who try CS soon conclude that they don't like it. For the future, girls who do not want to concentrate on being mommies, unlike for nearly all of history, will be able to so not concentrate and, thus, on average will be removing their genes from the gene pool. What will be left will be genes of women especially determined to be good as mommies and even less interested in CS. You missed it with my: "He's all fired up about the technical topic. Sorry, but boys have strong desires to master any technical topics around them that appear important. In part there is a lot of innate curiosity." Then for my "I'll let you justify that yourself" you didn't! The "technical topics" here are not yet nearly all that would be popular on Hacker News. Instead the topics are whatever are "around them" (the boys as they grow up). So, depending on what they see in their family, adults' careers, neighborhood, community, etc., the topics might be about cars, cattle raising, household electricity, operation of a commercial pizza oven, cardiology, roasting pastrami, trading foreign currencies, computing, etc. Why? The usual explanation is that the boys know that they are small versions of men, that men take competency in their careers very seriously, that they, the boys, do not have such competency, feel vulnerable and out of control from the lack of competency, and, thus, as part of growing up into such competency are eager to soak up everything that is relevant they can. That's the standard explanation. Although you didn't 'get it' the first time I explained it, didn't work it out for yourself, I believe you can understand this point. For whatever reasons, you are straining to disagree with what I wrote. I remember a girl in the fifth grade: Her handwriting was good, and mine, as is common for boys at that age, was poor. So, she looked at my paper and said that she couldn't read it. So, I copied the paper again in block letters, and again she said she couldn't read it. I copied it again in larger, extremely clear block letters, and she gave the same answer. Of course, she was lying and having fun manipulating. You are doing much the same. Enjoy the games of fifth grade girls.

ErrantX 16y ago

Sorry, but boys have strong desires to master any technical topics around them that appear important. You kinda lost me at this point I am afraid; this is just entirely inaccurate. Certainly there is a prevelance in the male population for technical topics, but it is only a generality, most are averagely interested. The young boy your describe would likely find little interest in most of the other boys, not just the girls :) Females make connections with others, and more generally get acceptance in groups, by gossip where they express their feelings. Boys are taught to keep their feelings suppressed as in "How you feel about it is just irrelevant.". So, what the boy is trying to give the girl is not really girl gossip and, thus, is not liked by the girl. Males make connections by sharing information, especially, neat, cool, technical information Horribly simplistic analysis. Males mostly communicate via gossip too; which is the "neat, cool" part (you probably just don't see it as gossip, but it really is). The "technical information" is undeserving of it's equal share in that sentence - how often do you share technical information with your wider group of male friends. I chat about girls, life, politics, moans and whinges etc. no one would be interested in what I was programming earlier :) She's a girl, knows that she's a young women, and is reluctant to interact with males her age or older without a good reason Girls and boys do spend a lot of time apart at that age. But in groups they spend a lot of time together. a girl cares at all unless, say, being able to give a description will get the her something else she wants, say, an A, and thus praise and approval from others, on a test in middle school general science. This is just hilarious ;) Conclusion: You will get boys such as you describe; but they will be in the vast vast minority, and their excitement is as boring to most of the boys as the girls. The reaction to them is not as simple as you make out, and says absolutely zero about the future careers, interests and motivations of females. I feel you are over simplifying - and that is the main problem with your analysis.

HilbertSpace 16y ago
A simple resolution for the question of this thread is easy: For now, girls tend to pursue what girls do and know that computer science (CS) is for boys and not part of what girls do. So, girls try to avoid CS in college. When they try CS in college, mostly they don't like it. Why don't they like it? Girls are (1) much more emotional than boys, (2) much more social, (3) eager to get praise, acceptance, and approval from others from work that "helps people" in the sense I explained (essentially volunteer work to help suffering people), e.g., one of the daughters of Bush 43 went to Ethiopia, and (4) better at, and more strongly seek, human to human contact. So, on these criteria, girls see that CS is so detailed and technical it seems (1) emotionally cold, (2) not very social, (3) not good for work that "helps people", and (4) not good for human to human contact. So, many girls who try CS soon conclude that they don't like it. For the future, girls who do not want to concentrate on being mommies, unlike for nearly all of history, will be able to so not concentrate and, thus, on average will be removing their genes from the gene pool. What will be left will be genes of women especially determined to be good as mommies and even less interested in CS. You missed it with my: "He's all fired up about the technical topic. Sorry, but boys have strong desires to master any technical topics around them that appear important. In part there is a lot of innate curiosity." Then for my "I'll let you justify that yourself" you didn't! The "technical topics" here are not yet nearly all that would be popular on Hacker News. Instead the topics are whatever are "around them" (the boys as they grow up). So, depending on what they see in their family, adults' careers, neighborhood, community, etc., the topics might be about cars, cattle raising, household electricity, operation of a commercial pizza oven, cardiology, roasting pastrami, trading foreign currencies, computing, etc. Why? The usual explanation is that the boys know that they are small versions of men, that men take competency in their careers very seriously, that they, the boys, do not have such competency, feel vulnerable and out of control from the lack of competency, and, thus, as part of growing up into such competency are eager to soak up everything that is relevant they can. That's the standard explanation. Although you didn't 'get it' the first time I explained it, didn't work it out for yourself, I believe you can understand this point. For whatever reasons, you are straining to disagree with what I wrote. I remember a girl in the fifth grade: Her handwriting was good, and mine, as is common for boys at that age, was poor. So, she looked at my paper and said that she couldn't read it. So, I copied the paper again in block letters, and again she said she couldn't read it. I copied it again in larger, extremely clear block letters, and she gave the same answer. Of course, she was lying and having fun manipulating. You are doing much the same. Enjoy the games of fifth grade girls.