Re: Opening doors for women in computing
On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 09:11:14PM +0000, Helen Faulkner wrote:
> I wonder how many other people here experienced a similar thing to what
> the woman interviewed relates: namely that the apparent level of
> programming expertise of the men in her course, before the course even
> started, was so high that she felt incompetant by comparison and was
> discouraged from pursuing it further.
My experience -- not only at university, but also in work life, and also
as someone who has taught courses -- is that the majority of men has been
socialized to show off. So it does not necessarily mean that they _know_
how to program (or what motherboard 123-XYZ is), but they will not tell
that they in fact have little experience and just throw this motherboard
number into the discussion to _look_ like someone who knows. Its about
impressing people, and it takes a women a lot of time to simply see
through this behaviour and even more effort to flatly ignore it.
Unfortunately most teachers don't do anything against it although it
would be their duty to make clear that they see through this behaviour
and discourage it. Although this would not only help women, but also
less alpha men.
In addition most women have a tendency to care for the result. In a team
situation where a man makes the impression he -- say -- can do the
programming -- she will usually have him do it since she feels confident
that the best result will be achieved if she does the stuff she can best
(say documentation) and he the part he can best. Even if he was simply
showing off for her, this way he will learn how to program and gain
experience and she won't. Again: it should be the duty of the teacher to
prevent such team formations. But at university I never experienced
teachers being aware of this.
Have a nice weekend
Patricia
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