Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

Lennart Sorensen lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org
Wed Mar 25 13:34:29 UTC 2009


On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 03:02:41AM -0400, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> Talk about cheap shots....
> 
> Were the reasons for the lack of women in CS attributable to excuses so
> simple as fratboy humour, there would also be no female doctors.

Actually doctor's have to deal with people and hence probably have to
have some social skills which just might mean that women won't be quite
as offended being around the male variety.

The CS people mainly have to deal with other CS people and hence might
get away with bad social skills.  This really offends most women, so
they go do something else.

So yes a lot can be attributed to something that simple.  A lot of CS/IT
is also very competitive rather than cooperative.  This also doesn't
help the situation.

> The idea of naming a day after a CS hero is also, arguably, an example
> of the mindset that might keep people of certain temperment away from
> this field. Or maybe it's the observation that vendor-trained sysadmins
> have the gall to call themselves "engineers" with the industry's
> blessing. Or the lack of ethical accountability that is demanded in
> "real" professions. Or the outrageous misuse of patent protection
> masquerading as innovation. Well, those other assertions are no less
> plausible than the fratboy one.

Anything containing "certified engineer" has no value to me in the
IT world.

> These days CS folks (even you used the term "geek", which is rarely a
> term of affection when used by non-geeks) are the brunt of more jokes
> than the source of them. There's even a prime-time US network sitcom
> that focuses on geek culture as a source of ridicule, especially gender
> issues about which the culture is portrayed as more pathetic than
> hostile. Is that worth getting lathered up over as well?

I don't think I watch any of those.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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