>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)
Urm...personally, I would tend to say that astronaut is not a realistic
career choice for *anyone*. Perhaps your teacher was not referring to this
as being a poor choice because you're female...and simply saying that this
is even less obtainable than becoming an actor or Senator. Yes, some small
number of people do become astronauts, and perhaps your teacher should have
had you research what's involved and tell you to study hard in your science
classes. OTOH I'm always hesitant to attribute things to sexism when there
is an equally likely explanation that doesn't involve it.
>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.
Similarly, when I was in high school in the 70's I heard the same
message. But this message was relayed to boys AND girls. At least this was
true where I grew up.
>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
Computers were not that interesting in the 70's or even in the early
80's. I never even knew anyone who owned a computer until 1983. About the
most fun I had with computers prior to 1984 when the Mac came out was
sitting in the computer lab playing "Adventure" at a text only dumb
terminal. At that time, punch cards were still in common usage.
My parents have sometimes complained to me asking why I didn't major in
CS. (I was a psychology major...a pretty worthless career path if you want
to make any money.) But when I was an undergraduate there was *nothing
compelling* about computers. Looking at amber text on a black screen isn't
terribly exciting. If I had been born 4-6 years later, perhaps I would have
been a CS major.
If there is still a shortage of women entering into CS programs, then I
think it may be time to re-examine why this is...but for myself, I don't
think it had anything to do with sexism or subtle messages suggesting that
girls shouldn't like computers.
Kayla
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