Quickies

Skepchick Quickies 12.17

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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13 Comments

  1. Problem identified, proposed solution not acceptable. Do not make computer science less geeky – make geeky more attractive to women.
    :-)

  2. Let’s see… the room was decorated with Star Trek posters, video games (no mention of which video games), and comic books (no mention of which comic books).

    Clearly, women were turned off by the Star Trek posters, based on a self report of a tiny sample. Yep.

    This kind of thing is just depressing. Isn’t this “Wired Science“, not “Wired Supposition”?

  3. @sethmanapio: Seriously. Especially considering I, along with several women I know, are not put-off by geekiness, and in fact we’re attracted to it. I have Star Trek paraphernalia IN MY OWN APARTMENT! (I collected the Star Trek glasses from Burger King ‘cuz they are awesome, and I display them proudly!)

    But I’m just a chick, what do I know? I mean, I wasn’t playing D’nD on Tuesday or anything, and I certainly haven’t watched First Contact o37837535 times, and I don’t have a crush on Data … no, not at all. Women don’t like like geeky shit! It’s impossible!

  4. So…all that’s needed is a ficus in every CS classroom, and traditional gender roles vanish. Let’s start a fund.

  5. Coming from a Computer Science background, women made up about 1/3 of my graduating class, and just short of half of the faculty. Mind you, we had a pretty small graduating class, it being the first year for that degree program. Women were also fairly well represented campus wide.

    It was pretty surprising, considering it was a fairly new field, born almost exactly at the same time as the equal rights movement, and featuring such prominent names as Ada Byron Lovelace, and Grace Murray Hopper.

    My take on it was that at our school, the business, nursing, and marine biology programs tended to appeal to more women. Not to mention liberal arts fields like English Lit or history, which focused heavily on feminist and gender studies at the time. Also, psychology tended to attract female students.

    I don’t think it was a geekyness thing. My theory at the time was that the fields these women wanted to make headway into, and to forge trails for other women to follow, were the fields that they perceived as being heavily dominated by men. Thus they ignored the “younger” burgeoning fields, and entered into more prominent traditional fields. They wanted to make it in a “man’s world”, so they went into business administration, or law, or political science; into the worlds that they felt needed more female representation at the time. Fields that had more profound effect on the political discourse. But I don’t know how well that theory holds up. Probably no better than the “Star Trek is so nerdy, and girls don’t like nerds” theory.

  6. @marilove: THIS. And I agree Data is so-not-the-best-looking-android-ever. :-P

    And I totally didn’t have a dream the other night that Will Wheaton asked me out. (and if I DID I think it was because I watched The Guild shortly before hand.)

  7. I don’t think you guys are giving the study a fair shot. The conclusion isn’t that all women hate geeky things. They’ve simply found that for a woman who isn’t into Star Trek and video games, entering a classroom that’s full of geeky stuff could make her feel like she’s not part of the club.

  8. @Surly Nymph: I love Whil Wheaton so much.

    Not so much Wesley Crusher, but Whil Wheaton the grown adult. He’s so amazingly awesome.

    But the entire cast of TNG is crush-worthy. Captain Picard?! Data? Q? I love Q.

    I’m going to shut up now. This is way off-topic. But work is boring, and Star Trek is not.

  9. Girls don’t like Star Trek and video games? They find that stuff off-putting? This, coming from Wired ‘Science’?!

    YAAAARGH!

    Also, I would totally do Data. Fap fap fap.

  10. So I’m wondering if they skipped Voyager in the Star Trek decoration theme.

    You know, the Star Trek where there was a woman captain who was a scientist, the former-Borg-now-gorgeous blond in the catsuits who was apparently the smartest person in the galaxy (and could also probably kick your ass into next week), and the aggressive/assertive, half-Klingon chief engineer – who was still . Such a non-female oriented show that one was.

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