(warning... the following is rather rambling... my deepest apologies for that...)
Just thought I might want to put in my 2 cents on this article too... I have to admit that, I have occasionally felt rather out of place in groups where I am either the only or one of the only girls. It's rather awkward, unless I actually know someone else there. A friend of mine who is also a girl in Computer Science has talked with me a lot about how both of us feel rather "behind" when discussing computer issues with guys from our classes... In part, this is because, prior to coming to BYU, neither of us had had any "real" experience with programming or with computer hardware. Because of that, I know that this other girl has often found herself feeling uncomfortable asking questions in public, and has often either come to me or gone to her professor in private when she has had questions, in order to avoid being the "stupid girl"... I honestly don't think that this is necessarily due to anything said or done in the class, but rather is primarily due to section 2.1 (confidence issues) in the HOWTO... One thing I have to give the guys that I know in the CS program here credit for is that when they do accidentally say anything that might be considered offensive (whether it is taken as such or not), they apologize immediately... even though i am very (very) hard to offend, and generally don't think twice about some of the comments, i appreciate the fact that guys here have the respect for girls that causes them to apologize, even if no complaints are presented... I think that for the rest of the things that make girls uncomfortable with this, the main thing that needs to be done is just educating people... This HOWTO is great because it does cover a lot of the problems that I've seen... (don't be surprised when a girl knows something... don't be afraid to have a conversation with a girl...)... in general, I think that this is just something that people just need to see (guys and girls...). i know that this is something that both guys and girls need to work on... I have been trying to work on not being as easily intimidated, because i know that my lack of confidence and such are a large part of the problem... however, it is still something that I (and most of the girls i know) need to work on... So, for the most part, i'd say that BYU isn't doing horribly on this, but that there is still room for improvement... anyway, this was rather long-winded and rambling... feel free to ignore it at will :) ~Erin ===== http://www.userfriendly.org __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
