Hi Helen, On Fri, Dec 15, 2006 at 09:10:03AM +1100, Helen Faulkner wrote: > > > Hi All, > > I've been meaning to write this one for some time, as the material has been > sitting in my head for a month or more. > > So, a month or two ago, I went to a talk given by a researcher in my department > who looks into, among other things, the issues involved in getting more women > into fields in which they are traditionally rare. IT and FOSS are definitely > such fields! She said two things that particularly caught my interest, and were > backed up by academic references I didn't bother to write down (sorry): > > > 1) Teenage girls, on average, look for role models who are women and people they > know. Teenage boys, however, tend to find role models who are public figures, > not people they know. > > This is interesting because a teenage girl who is interested in computer science > or similar is not very likely to find a role model *among the women she knows* After I read a comment on planet, I went to check out the Wikipedia page[0] of Jeri Ellsworth and then watched her lecture at Stanford[1]. That video has her discussing how she became the person she is today. As you mentioned, she did not have any female role models but what she did have was a father who did not limit her and found other male mentors who also did not limit her. That and her being in a small town that did not have much in the way of 'modern' amusements. She might have other comments to add if asked, as she does not appear to be 'shy' by any stretch of the imagination from her presence on that lecture. Good luck on finding further ways to entice young folks to enter science. The US has never had great luck getting folks in those fields, not withstanding the usual gender bias of parents and teacher, and today it worse. Cheers, Kev [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeri_Ellsworth [1] http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ee380/050518-ee380-100.asx > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-women-request@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org > > -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal | debian.home.pipeline.com | | `. `' Operating System | go to counter.li.org and | | `- http://www.debian.org/ | be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: pgp.mit.edu | my NPO: cfsg.org |
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