Re: girls and computers, was: Gendered Communication

[Karen Kay <karenk -at- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

Steve Owens said:
>       You can't dispute them.  I made them up. Do you want to dispute
> that I made them up?

No, I know you made them up. On what basis? You just decided these
numbers, and then are trying to use these made-up numbers to
support your thesis that math weenies are more likely to use
computers because that's what your made-up numbers indicate.

> Somebody pointed out that math classes tend to be more male dominated
> and postulated the possiblity that there are common factors leading to
> the situation in the math and computer fields.  You posted taking
> disagreeing to this and this whole subtopic got started...

I disagreed not that there are more male than female math majors,
which is true. God knows I have enough female friends who were
harassed out of math, physics, and engineering. But what I disagreed
with is that math majors are inherently more likely to use computers.
I don't think that's true any more.

>       Egads, what a short-sighted point of view.  Understanding the
> roots helps us to understand the true cause, which helps us to address
> the problem.

Which problem? I know that historically there was a connection
between math and computers. But there isn't any more! The number
of women in the computer industry has skyrocketed in the past few
years, also. So I maintain that the cause of outdated thinking
is not important: the thinking has to adjust to the reality. And
the reality is that there are a lot of women in the computer
industry and it grows daily.

Karen
  karenk -at- netcom -dot- com