girl power
Tags gender
My story for getting into cs is much like everybody's: I had a video game I wanted to hack. Unlike most people, my video games were the Barbie hair, makeup, and clothes games. I played them 'cause I wanted to be a fashion designer, and got frustrated at the lack of options, especially with respect to texture and opacity. When I told this story to another girl in cs, she looked at me like I was totally nuts and she looked horrified at the mention Barbies. Her attitude highlighted how sometimes females already in the sciences can scare off other girls from joining.
Most of the girls that I know in the sciences are the tomboy type, even the ones who wear stilettos or have degrees in dance. The most traditionally feminine girl I know is only in the major for a scholarship and wants out, but she also tries the patience of all the other girls. There is a bit of a sexual harassment factor, (one friend said she could see a difference in guys behavior once she started wearing her engagement ring to school), but there are also some other factors at play. I'm also a psychology major, and there's a difference between the girls in psych and the ones in engineering; in how they dress and carry themselves and what they talk about. It's interesting, but also weird 'cause there shouldn't be anything inherent in the major that causes such differences.
Engineering's one of those fields where the other girls expect toughness, a "I had to stick it out, so will you" attitude. There's no coddling, except from guys doing it out of a misguided sense of chivalry. Granted, engineers generally have low tolerance thresholds for incompetency, but girls seem to be even stricter about it with respect to other girls. Maybe it's a "don't ruin it for the rest of us?" response? Even when my school did a discussion on this, the general consensus on the worst things for girls was profs who are easier on girls, 'cause then the guys think that's where the grade came from.
I'm not quite sure where I'm going with any of this, I just wanted to sort it out and this seemed like a good place to start.
Most of the girls that I know in the sciences are the tomboy type, even the ones who wear stilettos or have degrees in dance. The most traditionally feminine girl I know is only in the major for a scholarship and wants out, but she also tries the patience of all the other girls. There is a bit of a sexual harassment factor, (one friend said she could see a difference in guys behavior once she started wearing her engagement ring to school), but there are also some other factors at play. I'm also a psychology major, and there's a difference between the girls in psych and the ones in engineering; in how they dress and carry themselves and what they talk about. It's interesting, but also weird 'cause there shouldn't be anything inherent in the major that causes such differences.
Engineering's one of those fields where the other girls expect toughness, a "I had to stick it out, so will you" attitude. There's no coddling, except from guys doing it out of a misguided sense of chivalry. Granted, engineers generally have low tolerance thresholds for incompetency, but girls seem to be even stricter about it with respect to other girls. Maybe it's a "don't ruin it for the rest of us?" response? Even when my school did a discussion on this, the general consensus on the worst things for girls was profs who are easier on girls, 'cause then the guys think that's where the grade came from.
I'm not quite sure where I'm going with any of this, I just wanted to sort it out and this seemed like a good place to start.
Total Comments 4
Comments
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Well, you know, I'd have to agree with all of this. Anytime a girl walks into the aero E's linux labs, everyone (myself included sometimes) does a sort of double take, like "whoa, a girl. Is this really happening?"
wherever you were going with this, its interesting and would like to hear more, actually.Posted Jan6-10 at 07:42 PM by Abraham 
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@Abraham i know [its funny cause i am 11] but i mean seriously [1/4] [not really] of girls are smart even if there blonde... so just let it be [this message is also for story645]
Posted Jan7-10 at 04:06 PM by jazxx3
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Dude, I definitely know that, and I'm totally not wanting to discourage girls from entering the field, 'cause it's nice to not be the only girl in the room.Quote:Quote by jazxx3
if girls are smart even if there blonde... so just let it bePosted Jan7-10 at 05:58 PM by story645
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Very interesting observation about the subculture of women in CS. I will have to ask some of my female co-workers if similar things occurred in physics.
Posted Jan12-10 at 02:03 PM by Norman
