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Many women not being interested in the field is not a _cause_ of the male-oriented tech culture; it's a symptom (although it is self-perpetuating) The idea tha
by dcalacci 13y ago
Many women not being interested in the field is not a _cause_ of the male-oriented tech culture; it's a symptom (although it is self-perpetuating)
The idea that 'most women just aren't interested in the field' because they're women, and not because the male-dominated culture _makes_ most women uninterested in the field, is harmful. Making that statement on a male-dominated community site perpetuates and constructs that culture that makes women uncomfortable in the field.
Comments like that are _the reason why_ many women 'just aren't interested in the field'.
The only way that this culture can change is if individual people work to stop perpetuating it. The first step is to stop making comments like that. (Would a woman feel comfortable on this site if they read that statement?)
- dragonwriter 13y ago> The idea that 'most women just aren't interested in the field' because they're women, and not because the male-dominated culture _makes_ most women uninterested in the field, is harmful. I suspect that most women aren't interested in the field the same reason most men aren't. Despite how interesting it is to those of us -- women and men -- who have chosen the field, the fact is that most people just don't see (or share) the attraction, for reasons which have nothing to do with either their own sex or their perception of the culture of the field. The minority of women interested in the field may be a smaller minority than the minority of men, and that may be because of either perception (accurate or not) of the welcomingness of the culture of the field by women (and, for that matter, men) or actual sex differences, or both, but that is a whole different set of things than the reason most women aren't interested in the field.
- dcalacci 13y agoThe language I used was not clear. most women are not interested in the field because most people aren't interested in the field. I was speaking more towards the fact that less women go into STEM than basically any other major field. Suggesting that it could be because of actual sex differences is ignorant and totally preposterous. The hypotheses that a) the culture is male-dominated[1] and b)that the gap is due to that culture is well supported by sociological research. [1]http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?hl=en&q=http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0432.00079/full&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm3-ntWS5Ml1XRG6_SfNN8ayt8jbfg&oi=scholarr http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?hl=en&q=http://onl...
- jeltz 13y agoI do not think what the field do about the internal culture matters since women are discouraged long before they have any encounters with the IT industry. The internal culture rarely matters for the outward appearance. What we instead should do is focus on schools and activities for young women interesting din technology.
- dcalacci 13y agoI think that both are issues, and that dismissing the internal culture because external discouragement exists is counter-productive.
- jeltz 13y agoI do not think what the field do about the internal culture matters since women are discouraged long before they have any encounters with the IT industry. The internal culture rarely matters for the outward appearance. What we instead should do is focus on schools and activities for young women interesting din technology.