At 07:27 PM 10/14/98 -0400, you wrote:
>So I rushed home to watch Dan Rathers and his interview with the
>founder of Grlls (sp?) as suggested by Tamra. Seems there are
It's "grrls" as in www.webgrrls.com. Aliza took the spelling from
RiotGrrls, a group of protestors. I believe the history info is up on the
web site.
>positions available for women, but not many women to fill the
>positions. Girls in school aren't as interested in computers or
>the Net. They don't seem to have an interest in Web design or
>programming. Pity.
I remember one of the early "career" type courses I took in Junior high
where we were supposed to pick out three careers and research them and
write a paper. I chose Journalist, Special Ed Teacher, and Astronaut. I
caught a lot of hell from the teacher for choosing Astronaut (he said they
were supposed to be *realistic* choices and that wasn't realistic for me)
and an equal amount of hell from my mom for choosing something so ordinary
as a Teacher, even if Special Ed was something respectable (she dreamed of
me doing big things). And folks who do surveys wonder why Girls in school
don't voice an interest in computers, web design, or programming -- because
teachers, parents, or especially peers tell them "oh, you shouldn't be
interested in *that* stuff". I went to school during the 70s, and had
friends constantly tell me that showing how smart I was was guaranteed to
make me unpopular -- weren't those sort of ideas supposed to go away in the
60s? Yeah, right.
But more importantly, nobody ever spoke of computers as *interesting* when
I was in school -- not even in college. They were tools, and only the kids
who joined science club and debate team and wore high-water pants (all
male) were encouraged to learn more. Art and fashion design were
"glamorous", being a secretary a good way to make money, being a business
executive (major in accounting or get an MBA) a better way, being a lawyer
meant good money but was only encouraged for the real villainous. Being a
computer programmer? Not a good career choice, even if there's good money
in it, because nobody in HS really wants to admit that they are a nerd and
yet nerds are *obviously* the only folks who go into this business (all the
TV shows say so at least). Web design has some glamour these days, but
probably not enough to overcome the effects of the movies like War Games
(remember the programmers Matt Broderick got his info from?) and the
comic-book like portrayals of us all as spending our days eating twinkies.
Faced with those stereotypes, a typical kid with a desire to be popular
during school would have to have a very strong existing interest in
programming and web design to get involved in said areas during the school
years.
>Now I came back to work.
Some of us never left -- I didn't get done until midnight, and so missed
the whole interview, darn it all.
--Tamra
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