Why are women too dumb to program a computer???
Victor Smootbank
to stupid to program a computer. If a woman can program a
computer, "she" is a male to female crossdresser or a shemale.
That's true. Real women are only useful to work at the atomic
ovens, that's a job for women!!!
maa...@gmail.com
MR VICTOR...its shamful to you that u dont know that ,,the first
programmer was a lady ...go through this link as u will come to
know ..ok
http://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/2.html
motosauro
Don't feed the trolls :D
IMHO the only thing women are not proficient at is peeing while
standing. That is a REAL MALE matter :)
Apart from that it's my firm convicement that stupidity is evenly
distributed across age, race, gender
Bent C Dalager
motosauro <moto...@gmail.com> wrote:
>IMHO the only thing women are not proficient at is peeing while
>standing. That is a REAL MALE matter :)
(Removed troll scoring group)
Never underestimate the power of female ingenuity
http://www.shenis.com/
Also, never underestimate the applicability of crackpot theories
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_envy
:-)
Cheers,
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - b...@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs
Sabine Dinis Blochberger
argh. just don't send any more replies to that weird newsgroup
abg.mampf. They don't need to know aobut cljp
Since this troll goes on my killfile, I won't see any more replies,
thanks.
--
Sabine Dinis Blochberger
Op3racional
www.op3racional.eu
Andrew Thompson
> In article <1192705441.760370.23...@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
>
> motosauro <motosa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >IMHO the only thing women are not proficient at is peeing while
> >standing. That is a REAL MALE matter :)
>
> (Removed troll scoring group)
Thank you. Let us not 'feed the trolls'.
> Never underestimate the power of female ingenuity http://www.shenis.com/
>
> Also, never underestimate the applicability of crackpot theories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_envy
> :-)
Also, the OP should be sterilised for the benefit
of future women, men, ..and children (in the sense
that none should spring from the OPs loins*).
* In case the OP themselves were not already doing
enough to ensure that - meet, 'Mr Hand' OP!
Andrew T.
Tobi
> IMHO the only thing women are not proficient at is peeing while
> standing. That is a REAL MALE matter :)
We can do a variation of it, we simply choose not to!
:-)
Tobi
Daniel Pitts
You sir, are an idiot. Far dumber than *ANY* woman I've ever met, and
I've met some pretty dumb women (and men).
RedGrittyBrick
Hello Tobi,
If you insist on feeding the Troll feeders, please consider dropping
newsgroup abg.mampf from your reply so as not to encourage the Trolls
quite so much :-(
Thanks,
--
RGB
Lew
> Hello Tobi,
>
> If you insist on feeding the Troll feeders, please consider dropping
> newsgroup abg.mampf from your reply so as not to encourage the Trolls
> quite so much :-(
Thank you. Now drop clj.programmer from the replies as well.
--
Lew
Roedy Green
<mean_p...@yahoo.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
who said :
>Java, C++, BASIC V2 on a Commodore 64, women are simply
>to stupid to program a computer. If a woman can program a
>computer, "she" is a male to female crossdresser or a shemale.
The most respected denizen of comp.lang.java.* is Patricia Shanahan.
You are aware that Grace Hopper invented COBOL.
Carly Fiorina was CEO of HP.
I do find it peculiar that the industry is so male-dominated.
It does not require any great physical strength. I it an ideal
telecommute job for someone also looking after kids.
Perhaps it is just it has a geeky mystique that puts young females
off.
I recall the extreme difficultly young women had in the all-male
engineering classes at UBC. The males ragged them outrageously, much
the way you would expect of 10 year old boys with an "no gurlz
allowed" fort.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
The Java Glossary
http://mindprod.com
blm...@myrealbox.com
As you may know, this is a perennial topic of discussion among
women in the field, and CS educators. (I am both.) The thing
that's so disheartening to many of us is that the gender
imbalance seems to have gotten worse over the years, rather
than better. When I first started doing things with computers,
over thirty years ago [1], I was told that it was a good field
for math/science/techie women because, unlike some of the other
fields we might be interested in, it didn't come with centuries'
worth of entrenched prejudice against women. Somehow in a few
short decades, though, that has changed for the worse.
I blame video games [2], but I freely admit that this is an
opinion based on almost zero knowledge! It's probably closer
to the truth to say that, at the critical age range (middle
school maybe??), most kids perceive computing to be associated
with social isolation, poor hygiene, and other traits that for
whatever reason are apt to be more off-putting to girls than boys.
[1] Cue chorus of "how time flies".
[2] My thinking here, such as it is, is that a lot of young men
seem to have become interested in computers by way of games,
which as best I can tell are more targeted at boys (shoot one's
enemies, rescue the princess) than girls.
My in-jest response to the OP, though, would be to paraphrase
something I heard in an anthropology class many many years ago:
We were told that some culture (African tribe?) believes that
alcohol is bad for women because they have "small, smooth brains".
It's a memorable phrase .... Perhaps our small, smooth brains
also make it difficult for us to program?
--
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
Patricia Shanahan
blm...@myrealbox.com wrote:
...
> As you may know, this is a perennial topic of discussion among
> women in the field, and CS educators. (I am both.) The thing
> that's so disheartening to many of us is that the gender
> imbalance seems to have gotten worse over the years, rather
> than better. When I first started doing things with computers,
> over thirty years ago [1], I was told that it was a good field
> for math/science/techie women because, unlike some of the other
> fields we might be interested in, it didn't come with centuries'
> worth of entrenched prejudice against women. Somehow in a few
> short decades, though, that has changed for the worse.
>
> I blame video games [2], but I freely admit that this is an
> opinion based on almost zero knowledge! It's probably closer
> to the truth to say that, at the critical age range (middle
> school maybe??), most kids perceive computing to be associated
> with social isolation, poor hygiene, and other traits that for
> whatever reason are apt to be more off-putting to girls than boys.
...
My own theory is rather more cynical. Somehow, it always works out that
important jobs belong to men. When I got into programming few people
realized how important it was going to be, so it was OK for women to be
programmers. As its importance became more obvious, it became a more
male-orientated career.
[I made my basic career choice when I was looking for my first job, in
1970, but had been interested in programming for a few years before that.]
Patricia
Arne Vajhøj
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:23:40 -0700, Victor Smootbank
> <mean_p...@yahoo.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
> who said :
>> Java, C++, BASIC V2 on a Commodore 64, women are simply
>> to stupid to program a computer. If a woman can program a
>> computer, "she" is a male to female crossdresser or a shemale.
>
> The most respected denizen of comp.lang.java.* is Patricia Shanahan.
> You are aware that Grace Hopper invented COBOL.
There are plenty of other examples of female contribution
to software.
> Carly Fiorina was CEO of HP.
Hm. I would not expect too much of her programming skills !
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carly_Fiorina show no indication
of such)
Arne
blm...@myrealbox.com
Patricia Shanahan <pa...@acm.org> wrote:
> [newsgroup abg.mampf removed]
(Thanks. You mean I didn't ..... "Oops.")
> blm...@myrealbox.com wrote:
> ...
> > As you may know, this is a perennial topic of discussion among
> > women in the field, and CS educators. (I am both.) The thing
> > that's so disheartening to many of us is that the gender
> > imbalance seems to have gotten worse over the years, rather
> > than better. When I first started doing things with computers,
> > over thirty years ago [1], I was told that it was a good field
> > for math/science/techie women because, unlike some of the other
> > fields we might be interested in, it didn't come with centuries'
> > worth of entrenched prejudice against women. Somehow in a few
> > short decades, though, that has changed for the worse.
> >
> > I blame video games [2], but I freely admit that this is an
> > opinion based on almost zero knowledge! It's probably closer
> > to the truth to say that, at the critical age range (middle
> > school maybe??), most kids perceive computing to be associated
> > with social isolation, poor hygiene, and other traits that for
> > whatever reason are apt to be more off-putting to girls than boys.
> ...
>
> My own theory is rather more cynical. Somehow, it always works out that
> important jobs belong to men. When I got into programming few people
> realized how important it was going to be, so it was OK for women to be
> programmers. As its importance became more obvious, it became a more
> male-orientated career.
Oh, I *like* it -- a little paranoid, more than a little cynical --
but I like it.
It reminds me of something a long-ago co-worker said to me
(somewhat contradicting our point here, but equally cynical):
Male upper-management types are relatively comfortable with women
doing programming-related jobs because what they actually *see*
is a woman at a keyboard, and that's familiar and okay.
> [I made my basic career choice when I was looking for my first job, in
> 1970, but had been interested in programming for a few years before that.]
Cool. So you probably have experience with user interfaces
even more primitive than punched cards? (which is what I used
in my first classes/jobs -- I still have several boxes of them,
and they make a nice show-and-tell exhibit for my students!)
And what got you interested ....
Oops, sorry, this isn't alt.folklore.computers, is it? Sort of
a :-).
Daniel Pitts
Whether a job requires any great physical strength or that it makes it
easy to take care of the kids, should not make a difference in gender.
--
Daniel Pitts' Tech Blog: <http://virtualinfinity.net/wordpress/>
Martin Gregorie
> My own theory is rather more cynical. Somehow, it always works out that
> important jobs belong to men. When I got into programming few people
> realized how important it was going to be, so it was OK for women to be
> programmers. As its importance became more obvious, it became a more
> male-orientated career.
>
Grace Hopper subscribed to it.
--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |
Martin Gregorie
> Cool. So you probably have experience with user interfaces
> even more primitive than punched cards?
>
standard programmer interface. Admittedly we programmers used 12 key
hand punches a lot, but that was as primitive as we got.
My first two machines (Elliott 503, ICL 1902) provided a teletype
interface for the operators, but there were still contemporary machines
that only had switches and lights for the operators or relied heavily on
them (KDF6, small IBM S/360 models). These persisted longer than you
might expect: I met a keyboardless IBM System/3 in 1976 that still held
its master files on cards. Primitive or what?
Patricia Shanahan
I used mainly punch cards and paper tape. The first machines I got to
operate were NCR Century computers. They had teletype-like printer
terminal for the operator. The commonest use of the console dials and
switches was during boot.
Patricia
Thomas G. Marshall
Yep, you stole my thunder. For the record, I'm a stay at home dad. I've
only worked for dinky companies and start-ups my whole life. Done the 80
hour weeks. Done the 40 hour weekends (20 + 20, not that uncommon in my
particular experience unfortunately). And *none* of that compares to how
hard it is to deal with a 1 and 3 year old during the day. I've never
worked so hard in my entire life as I do right now.
That said, I have my own theories regarding gender relations in the
workforce, and in particular regarding Patricia's observations. But they
are not ideally suited for the usenet medium....the nuances of what is what
can too easily be misread unless heard in person.
nebul...@gmail.com
wrote:
> You are aware that Grace Hopper invented COBOL.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of women in technical fields, I'm
afraid...:)
Roedy Green
or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>> You are aware that Grace Hopper invented COBOL.
>
>Not exactly a ringing endorsement of women in technical fields, I'm
>afraid...:)
Until you think that people used assembler often with absolute
numerical addresses prior to that. It a was still a big leap.
It is very hard to design a high level language when nobody has ever
coded in one before. There is no practical experience to guide.
Further programs were much smaller and simpler then. The problems of
maintenance and managing complexity did not show up right away.
Ingo R. Homann
Patricia Shanahan wrote:
> My own theory is rather more cynical. Somehow, it always works out that
> important jobs belong to men. When I got into programming few people
> realized how important it was going to be, so it was OK for women to be
> programmers. As its importance became more obvious, it became a more
> male-orientated career.
Interesting theory. But I think the even more interesting question is:
*Why* are so few women in this 'important' job? Or in other words: If
your theory is true, in how far does the importance of a job has a
negative influence on the percentage of women working in it?
I mean, one could even more cynically suspect that personal managers
(which are often male as well) offer the 'good' (or 'important') jobs
only to men.
But obviously, that at least cannot be the only reason (I suspect that
it is not true at all): When you look at who studies computer sciences,
then the statistic says that about 5% are female and 95% are male (note
that this is a statistic from germany). When I look back at my time at
the university, most of the (male) student would have been glad if there
were 5% female students - because in reality the number was much lower!
It is (or at least was) the same with computer courses at school: In the
80es and 90es (where computer courses where optional and not mandatory),
I sat in a (small) course with perhaps 12 boys (staring at ;-) only 1 girl.
One could (also cynically) argue that the women who *choose* not to work
in a "important" / technical job perhaps fear that they would appear
less "feminine" (there are studies that suggest that 'strong' women
appear less attractive to many people (male as well as female)).
I think that it is not the "importance" of the job. I think that many
(not to say most) women are just not interested in computers at all,
whereas many boys and men (which remains boys often ;-) like to "play"
(with wich I do not only mean computer games) esepcially with technical
gadgets and computers.
In fact, IMHO you can see that already when watching very small boys and
girls: Often, Boys play with matchbox-cars and 'technical' things and
girls with dolls or pets. I know this is a silly stereotype, but after
all I have seen... it is true.
Note that there are some exceptions to that rule, but that does not
disprove the quintessence.
Ciao,
Ingo
Wojtek
COBOl was created as a higher level langauge, but it was also written
to be understood by managers. The idea was that managers could look at
the COBOL code and approve the business logic.
Which is why COBOL is so wordy. With a little care you can have the
entire program read like a book.
--
Wojtek :-)
Ingo Menger
> [newsgroup abg.mampf removed]
>
> blm...@myrealbox.com wrote:
>
> ...
>
>
>
> > As you may know, this is a perennial topic of discussion among
> > women in the field, and CS educators. (I am both.) The thing
> > that's so disheartening to many of us is that the gender
> > imbalance seems to have gotten worse over the years, rather
> > than better. When I first started doing things with computers,
> > over thirty years ago [1], I was told that it was a good field
> > for math/science/techie women because, unlike some of the other
> > fields we might be interested in, it didn't come with centuries'
> > worth of entrenched prejudice against women. Somehow in a few
> > short decades, though, that has changed for the worse.
>
> > I blame video games [2], but I freely admit that this is an
> > opinion based on almost zero knowledge! It's probably closer
> > to the truth to say that, at the critical age range (middle
> > school maybe??), most kids perceive computing to be associated
> > with social isolation, poor hygiene, and other traits that for
> > whatever reason are apt to be more off-putting to girls than boys.
>
> ...
>
> My own theory is rather more cynical. Somehow, it always works out that
> important jobs belong to men.
You must be kidding.
(Hint: Since when are "important jobs" outsourced to India or Poland?)
There is no doubt that women are underrepresented in fields like math,
chess, programming and the like. We just don't know yet, why this is
so. What we know is that "discrimination" may not be the reason. For,
how might one discriminate against a female chess player?
Patricia Shanahan
...
> There is no doubt that women are underrepresented in fields like math,
> chess, programming and the like. We just don't know yet, why this is
> so. What we know is that "discrimination" may not be the reason. For,
> how might one discriminate against a female chess player?
1. Don't teach the girl chess in the first place.
2. Offer her less special tuition than similarly talented boys.
3. Expect her to spend more time in her teenage years doing housework
and caring for younger siblings than would be expected of a boy of the
same age and talent.
4. Tell her that the only thing that matters is being pretty, and boys
won't like her if they think she is too smart.
That's just a few ideas. I'm sure there are others.
Patricia
Ingo Menger
> Ingo Menger wrote:
>
> ...> There is no doubt that women are underrepresented in fields like math,
> > chess, programming and the like. We just don't know yet, why this is
> > so. What we know is that "discrimination" may not be the reason. For,
> > how might one discriminate against a female chess player?
>
> ...
>
> 1. Don't teach the girl chess in the first place.
Sorry, I've never heard that someone holds the opinion that chess must
not be teached to girls. (This is in contrast to employers, where I
know some that openly declare that they won't hire women.) Do the
fathers (or mothers) have a hidden agenda here? Sounds a bit like
conspiracy theory.
> 2. Offer her less special tuition than similarly talented boys.
Sure, this is possible. But then the question arises, why *this* is
so.
>
> 3. Expect her to spend more time in her teenage years doing housework
> and caring for younger siblings than would be expected of a boy of the
> same age and talent.
>
> 4. Tell her that the only thing that matters is being pretty, and boys
> won't like her if they think she is too smart.
... and, of course, girls are supposed to take for granted what one
tells them? Isn't *that* view quite sexist?
> That's just a few ideas. I'm sure there are others.
First, I have to clarify something: I am sure that there are plenty of
women out there, that excel in math, chess etc., so that I wouldn't
even dare to compare my skills with theirs.
We speak her about the general case and I hope all here know that it
is not valid to draw conclusions from the genral case to the
individual case. Yes, there are Italians that don't like spaghetti.
Why can't we just accept, that women usually tend to take occupations
that are more social/human oriented without being forced to? Not to
speak of the many that just want to get married and raise children?
Why is it a bad thing to have excellent female teachers, medical
doctors and other medical personell (to name just a few things)? Is a
good programmer somehow "more worth" (and by what standard) than a
loving mother that devoted their life to raise children? I don't think
so.
And why do we never hear complaints from women about being
underrepresented in "dirty" occupations like waste removal?
Like Ingo R. Homann pointed out, in Germany the ratio of women and men
in IT education on universities is 5:95. So what? I can assure you,
that the education system in germany is gender neutral. If the figures
are thus, it must be because women themselves do decide against
studying IT in the first place. I admit that such a decision may be
influenced by social circumstances, even by social pressure. But, if
they can't resist that social pressure, if they are dependend on what
others might think, if they are not able to state: "I do what I think
is best for me, please mind your own business.", then they shouldn't
blame others.
And, as said before, thousands of women prove everyday that it is
possible, at least in the western world.
Daniel Pitts
legally blind, but a woman. She also taught me all I know about Chess.
Culture likely plays a huge role in the lifestyles chosen by
individuals. Not every "man" is "manly", but the majority of them are.
I quote man and manly for a reason. Society has an interpretation of
what it takes to be a man, and male children learn that they should fill
the role. Now, I'm not saying there isn't any biological predisposition
to fill parts of that role, but any predisposition to NOT fill the role
tends to be fought or devalued by others. The same thing for women.
So, in our culture, women aren't expected to be as technically inclined
as men. Many very brilliant women I know act ditsy in order to fit the
stereotype that culture has grouped them in.
John W. Kennedy
> As you may know, this is a perennial topic of discussion among
> women in the field, and CS educators. (I am both.) The thing
> that's so disheartening to many of us is that the gender
> imbalance seems to have gotten worse over the years, rather
> than better. When I first started doing things with computers,
> over thirty years ago [1], I was told that it was a good field
> for math/science/techie women
40 years ago, any corporate IT department with more than half a dozen
programmers would normally include at least one woman, and those women
were treated as peers. (I wonder how many of those women were wiring
402s and 407s in the 40s and 50s -- that's before my time.)
> Perhaps our small, smooth brains
> also make it difficult for us to program?
Well, of course, there are some demonstrated mental differences between
men and women, but it is just as obvious that a great many women have
the mental wherewithal to be programmers. (In my admittedly
anecdote-based experience, women are better than men at programs that
are simple at the high level [read-write-print-repeat], but horridly
complex in detail [if this is the last Tuesday of the month, except for
December, and the account is in New Jersey....].)
I think you may be right that it's early adolescence. Almost every
single one of those female programmers of the early and middle 60s,
after all, must have been planning to do something else with their lives
when they were 13.
--
John W. Kennedy
"...when you're trying to build a house of cards, the last thing you
should do is blow hard and wave your hands like a madman."
-- Rupert Goodwins
John W. Kennedy
> On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:26:44 -0000, nebul...@gmail.com wrote, quoted
> or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>>> You are aware that Grace Hopper invented COBOL.
>> Not exactly a ringing endorsement of women in technical fields, I'm
>> afraid...:)
>
> Until you think that people used assembler often with absolute
> numerical addresses prior to that. It a was still a big leap.
IAL (later ALGOL) and FORTRAN antedated COBOL, as well as a few less
well known.
> It is very hard to design a high level language when nobody has ever
> coded in one before. There is no practical experience to guide.
> Further programs were much smaller and simpler then. The problems of
> maintenance and managing complexity did not show up right away.
It's rather an exaggeration, though. She was important to the effort --
most of all, she invented the FLOW-MATIC language, which was one of
COBOL's two chief parents, the other being IBM Commercial Translator, --
but to say that she "invented COBOL" is silly.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne
of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts"
-- J. Michael Straczynski. "Babylon 5", "Ceremonies of Light and Dark"
Martin Gregorie
>
> I think you may be right that it's early adolescence. Almost every
> single one of those female programmers of the early and middle 60s,
> after all, must have been planning to do something else with their lives
> when they were 13.
>
toddlers or earlier: when boys are given cars and girls are given dolls.
Don't forget, too, that until late in the 19th century boys were
educated and girls weren't - everybody *knew* that education was bad for
girls because it made them willful and disobedient to parents and
husbands. That was the case in Europe, America and for white colonists
elsewhere. Other cultures have kept those attitudes much, much longer.
Martin Gregorie
> Roedy Green wrote:
>> On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:26:44 -0000, nebul...@gmail.com wrote, quoted
>> or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>>
>>>> You are aware that Grace Hopper invented COBOL.
>>> Not exactly a ringing endorsement of women in technical fields, I'm
>>> afraid...:)
>>
>> Until you think that people used assembler often with absolute
>> numerical addresses prior to that. It a was still a big leap.
>
> IAL (later ALGOL) and FORTRAN antedated COBOL, as well as a few less
> well known.
>
>> It is very hard to design a high level language when nobody has ever
>> coded in one before. There is no practical experience to guide.
>> Further programs were much smaller and simpler then. The problems of
>> maintenance and managing complexity did not show up right away.
>
> It's rather an exaggeration, though. She was important to the effort --
> most of all, she invented the FLOW-MATIC language, which was one of
> COBOL's two chief parents, the other being IBM Commercial Translator, --
> but to say that she "invented COBOL" is silly.
>
IIRC she was a member of the first group to demonstrate that a computer
could handle textual data.
She designed and wrote the first compiler and designed FLOWMATIC, the
first English-like programming language and the basis of COBOL.
Arne Vajhøj
> It's rather an exaggeration, though. She was important to the effort --
> most of all, she invented the FLOW-MATIC language, which was one of
> COBOL's two chief parents, the other being IBM Commercial Translator, --
> but to say that she "invented COBOL" is silly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper#COBOL
claims she had a big influence.
Arne
Ingo R. Homann
Martin Gregorie wrote:
>> I think you may be right that it's early adolescence. Almost every
>> single one of those female programmers of the early and middle 60s,
>> after all, must have been planning to do something else with their
>> lives when they were 13.
>>
> I think its much earlier than that. Conditioning starts at least with
> toddlers or earlier: when boys are given cars and girls are given dolls.
You are right that there may be very subtle means of conditioning.
But an interesting point is that if you give cars *and* dolls both to
boys *and* girls, the probability is high that the boy chooses a car and
the girl does not.
Never seen a father trying to play with cars with his daughter? After a
short time, the father is the only one who plays with the car. ;-)
Not to misunderstand me: I do not think that it is *desirable* to
educate or 'conditionate' children to certain gender-specific behaviour.
But I think that on the other hand it is not helpful to deny that there
are 'natural' differences. If you deny them (because "it cannot be true
what should not be true"), you will never be able to overcome
discrimintaion.
I always must smile when I see the many projects that exist in germany
since many, many years, that try to integrate and motivate girls for
technical jobs. A reporter comes and takes a photo of a few girls who
forces themselves to smile into the camera. They do not seem to be
interested at all although they really struggle to be interested because
"they are girls and girls must be as interested in technical things just
as boys".
The fact is: Although girls are always encouraged to chose technical
jobs, they just don't do it. What does this tell us?
Ciao,
Ingo
Patricia Shanahan
>> 4. Tell her that the only thing that matters is being pretty, and boys
>> won't like her if they think she is too smart.
>
> ... and, of course, girls are supposed to take for granted what one
> tells them? Isn't *that* view quite sexist?
No, it is totally ageist. I think teenagers are very susceptible to peer
pressure.
The possible discrimination is in the different messages delivered to
male and female teenagers.
Patricia
Patricia Shanahan
Ingo R. Homann wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Martin Gregorie wrote:
>>> I think you may be right that it's early adolescence. Almost every
>>> single one of those female programmers of the early and middle 60s,
>>> after all, must have been planning to do something else with their
>>> lives when they were 13.
>>>
>> I think its much earlier than that. Conditioning starts at least with
>> toddlers or earlier: when boys are given cars and girls are given dolls.
>
> You are right that there may be very subtle means of conditioning.
>
> But an interesting point is that if you give cars *and* dolls both to
> boys *and* girls, the probability is high that the boy chooses a car and
> the girl does not.
>
> Never seen a father trying to play with cars with his daughter? After a
> short time, the father is the only one who plays with the car. ;-)
You should have seen attempts to get me to play with dolls.
Patricia
Ingo R. Homann
(Note that I changed the subject because I think that it wasn't true.)
Patricia Shanahan wrote:
>>> 4. Tell her that the only thing that matters is being pretty, and boys
>>> won't like her if they think she is too smart.
>>
>> ... and, of course, girls are supposed to take for granted what one
>> tells them? Isn't *that* view quite sexist?
>
> No, it is totally ageist. I think teenagers are very susceptible to peer
> pressure.
>
> The possible discrimination is in the different messages delivered to
> male and female teenagers.
As I mentioned before, I have heard of studies that suggest that the
message "women who are 'too' smart appear less attractive to many men"
seems to be true (although I must say, that concerning me, I prefer
smart women, but obviously, I am not characteristic).
But despite of the question if the message is true or not - *who* do you
think delivers such message to teenagers or even smaller children?
(I mean, although I am aware of such studies, of course I do not
transport it e.g. to my daughter and instead try to encourage her and
help her to learn working with a computer, mathematics and so on. I have
the feeling that the disinterest of girls (compared to boys) concerning
technical things is engrained since very, very young age, long before
they even think of being attractive to boys.)
Ciao,
Ingo
Ingo R. Homann
Patricia Shanahan wrote:
>> Never seen a father trying to play with cars with his daughter? After
>> a short time, the father is the only one who plays with the car. ;-)
>
> You should have seen attempts to get me to play with dolls.
Maybe, we have too different backgrounds. I live in germany, was born in
1975 and educated more or less atheistic. Indeed, I had a doll to play
with (interestingly a male one), but I didn't (so indeed that remained
the only doll). Sport courses at school were mixed (boys and girls in
the same course). I never had the feeling that boys and girls were
educated to gender-specific behaviour - but despite of that they somehow
acted gender-specific. For me, that seems to be a very 'natural' thing.
Ciao,
Ingo
PS: Pouh - English is quite difficult to me if it does not concern
technical issues. Hope that my postings are not too misunderstandable
and funny! (Me playing with male dolls ;-)
Daniel Pitts
and mimic it on the school ground. Other children learn to act like
their peers. It's a cycle that's hard to break, and the message gets
propagated through many different channels.
Martin Gregorie
that appearance is all-important, personality is optional and blokes
don't like brainy women. The same did/does apply in the US: remember
"Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses"? I've always suspected
that "glasses" might be a code word for brains. In NZ, where I come
from, it used to be even worse because a distrust of education applies
to both sexes (and my cousin says it is still the same). There's a
general distrust of the "edjukated joker". I remember when I was an
undergraduate that I was talking to some kid on a model flying field. He
asked what I did and when I said I was a student it was as though I'd
pushed a button. His immediate reaction was "Oh, that rubbish" without
even stopping to find out what I was studying.
Mike Schilling
<nebul...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1193214404....@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
Only if you're unaware of the state of the art pre-COBOL, and insist on
judging it by modern standards of language design. It's still true that
there's far more running code written in COBOL than in any competing [1]
language.
1. I use this somewhat imprecise term to exclude HTML.
Ingo R. Homann
Daniel Pitts wrote:
> Education isn't just what's in the books. Children learn from parents,
> and mimic it on the school ground. Other children learn to act like
> their peers.
Exactly! And that is the problem I have with Patricias theory. Today, no
adult propagates such a message to children. Indeed, often the opposite
is true: especially girls are encouraged to get into technical jobs.
So, they learn it from each other? That's circular argument!
Or do you think that adults porpagate this message indirectly and
unknowingly without realizing it themselves? I do not beleive that
(although, of course, it is the nature of that theory that it cannot be
falsified).
Ciao,
Ingo
Ingo R. Homann
Martin Gregorie wrote:
>> Education isn't just what's in the books. Children learn from
>> parents, and mimic it on the school ground. Other children learn to
>> act like their peers. It's a cycle that's hard to break, and the
>> message gets propagated through many different channels.
>>
> That's certainly true here. In normal UK society ... same did/does
> apply in the US:
> remember "Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses"?
> I've always suspected that "glasses" might be a code word
> for brains. ...
Interesting! I have never made such experiences in Germany (OK, I am a
man, but my wife has the same oppinion to that)!
Not to misunderstand me: Discrimination is a problem in germany as well
- e.g. on the one hand, women (instead of men) are expcted to care for
the children (which naturally makes sense esepcially in the first
months), but on the other hand, it is sometimes hard to care for the
kids *and* do a job, because there are not enough kindergardens
(although the kindergarden is a german invention)! And then, of course
it is hard to get a (good) job if you have stayed at home for 6 years or
more. And the taxes are really catastrophic because they "support" women
to stay at home.
Fortunately, in the last years, the situation has improved very much!
But, that are in many aspects different problems than the ones mentioned
above...
Ciao,
Ingo
blm...@myrealbox.com
John W. Kennedy <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> blm...@myrealbox.com wrote:
> > As you may know, this is a perennial topic of discussion among
> > women in the field, and CS educators. (I am both.) The thing
> > that's so disheartening to many of us is that the gender
> > imbalance seems to have gotten worse over the years, rather
> > than better. When I first started doing things with computers,
> > over thirty years ago [1], I was told that it was a good field
> > for math/science/techie women
>
> 40 years ago, any corporate IT department with more than half a dozen
> programmers would normally include at least one woman, and those women
> were treated as peers. (I wonder how many of those women were wiring
> 402s and 407s in the 40s and 50s -- that's before my time.)
Similar to my experiences in non-academic jobs, about 20 years ago.
So maybe the decline is relatively recent?
> > Perhaps our small, smooth brains
> > also make it difficult for us to program?
>
> Well, of course, there are some demonstrated mental differences between
> men and women, but it is just as obvious that a great many women have
> the mental wherewithal to be programmers.
In case it wasn't obvious -- my remark was an attempt at humor, an
occasion to throw in a phrase I found entertaining.
> (In my admittedly
> anecdote-based experience, women are better than men at programs that
> are simple at the high level [read-write-print-repeat], but horridly
> complex in detail [if this is the last Tuesday of the month, except for
> December, and the account is in New Jersey....].)
Hm! Plausible.
> I think you may be right that it's early adolescence. Almost every
> single one of those female programmers of the early and middle 60s,
> after all, must have been planning to do something else with their lives
> when they were 13.
I'm not sure what point you're making here, and it may not matter.
Maybe a way to say it is that while 40 years ago CS was a new
field with no entrenched prejudice against women, in this respect
as in others the field has come a long way in a short time?
though in this regard, the "progress" has been in a direction I
think is unfortunate [*].
[*] Why I think that: Partly it's that it puts unnecessary
obstacles in the path of women who might like and be good
at CS. But partly it's also that, to paraphrase (and I hope
not misparaphrase) someone well-known whose name escapes me just
now, computer technology might be different, and perhaps better,
if it were less "by adolescent males, for adolescent males".
--
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
blm...@myrealbox.com
Ingo R. Homann <ihoman...@web.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Martin Gregorie wrote:
> >> I think you may be right that it's early adolescence. Almost every
> >> single one of those female programmers of the early and middle 60s,
> >> after all, must have been planning to do something else with their
> >> lives when they were 13.
> >>
> > I think its much earlier than that. Conditioning starts at least with
> > toddlers or earlier: when boys are given cars and girls are given dolls.
>
> You are right that there may be very subtle means of conditioning.
>
> But an interesting point is that if you give cars *and* dolls both to
> boys *and* girls, the probability is high that the boy chooses a car and
> the girl does not.
I wouldn't presume to disagree with the experiences of parents,
not being one. But it seems to me that boys and girls are
treated differently from the moment of birth, by pretty much
everyone they encounter, so I don't think one can rule out subtle
social conditioning. I'm not even sure that parents who *think*
they're being gender-neutral are succeeding -- it may be more
difficult than one might think. Pure speculation on my part!
One of the few things I remember from a long-ago course taught
by an anthropology professor: It's hard to know what's nature
and what's nurture, because "you can't really do the experiments."
(I'm not sure he was 100% right about that, but it does seem
difficult to design experiments that would provide convincing
evidence one way or another.)
> Never seen a father trying to play with cars with his daughter? After a
> short time, the father is the only one who plays with the car. ;-)
>
> Not to misunderstand me: I do not think that it is *desirable* to
> educate or 'conditionate' children to certain gender-specific behaviour.
> But I think that on the other hand it is not helpful to deny that there
> are 'natural' differences. If you deny them (because "it cannot be true
> what should not be true"), you will never be able to overcome
> discrimintaion.
Agreed that it's not a good idea to reach the conclusion first and
then collect evidence / design experiments ....
> I always must smile when I see the many projects that exist in germany
> since many, many years, that try to integrate and motivate girls for
> technical jobs. A reporter comes and takes a photo of a few girls who
> forces themselves to smile into the camera. They do not seem to be
> interested at all although they really struggle to be interested because
> "they are girls and girls must be as interested in technical things just
> as boys".
>
> The fact is: Although girls are always encouraged to chose technical
> jobs, they just don't do it. What does this tell us?
Not much, in my opinion! maybe it really *is* something about our
"small, smooth brains", maybe it's subtle social conditioning, maybe
it's prejudice (not necessarily conscious) .... <shrug>
Roger Lindsjö
> But an interesting point is that if you give cars *and* dolls both to
> boys *and* girls, the probability is high that the boy chooses a car and
> the girl does not.
Both my girls (17 months now) would choose the car. They can play with
cars for quite some time (mimicking the sound with a brrrmmm), certainly
longer than the dolls. Perhaps that changes as they grow older.
//Roger Lindsjö
Ingo R. Homann
blm...@myrealbox.com wrote:
>>But an interesting point is that if you give cars *and* dolls both to
>>boys *and* girls, the probability is high that the boy chooses a car and
>>the girl does not.
>
> I wouldn't presume to disagree with the experiences of parents,
> not being one. But it seems to me that boys and girls are
> treated differently from the moment of birth, by pretty much
> everyone they encounter, so I don't think one can rule out subtle
> social conditioning. I'm not even sure that parents who *think*
> they're being gender-neutral are succeeding -- it may be more
> difficult than one might think. Pure speculation on my part!
You are right in so far that it might be very subtle and unknowingly,
and that my experiences are of course individual and not automatically
generalizable. So, my opinion is speculative as well.
I fear, because of the vagueness, no one of us will be able to prove
his/her point...
(But I found the discussion quite interesting!)
Ciao,
Ingo
Patricia Shanahan
> In article <47204c6a$0$4363$9b4e...@newsspool4.arcor-online.net>,
> Ingo R. Homann <ihoman...@web.de> wrote:
>> The fact is: Although girls are always encouraged to chose technical
>> jobs, they just don't do it. What does this tell us?
>
> Not much, in my opinion! maybe it really *is* something about our
> "small, smooth brains", maybe it's subtle social conditioning, maybe
> it's prejudice (not necessarily conscious) .... <shrug>
>
However, I do think we need to go on looking for any special barriers to
girls getting into technical jobs, and go on asking the questions.
If, at any point in the last hundred years, women had accepted things as
they were, there would be less women in various jobs than there are now.
Which jobs would be affected depends on when the status quo was accepted
as being inevitable, due to nature.
For example, when I was preparing my initial college applications, in
1966, there were very, very few women in engineering programs.
Patricia
Lew
> Exactly! And that is the problem I have with Patricias theory. Today, no
> adult propagates such a message to children. Indeed, often the opposite
> is true: especially girls are encouraged to get into technical jobs.
Outrageous claims require strong proof. There is evidence that adults do
propagate gender stereotypes to this day, and it would only take one to
disprove your statement.
--
Lew
Ingo R. Homann
OK, please add a "generally" or two to my posting.
Ciao,
Ingo
Lew
Even there, I'm afraid that gender stereotypes continue to be widely
promulgated by adults. Every time I turn on the television set, I see happy,
smiling moms not worried about their kids' latest peccadillos, not happy,
smiling dads. Those ads are run in prime time, when it is known that many
children are watching. Then the toy ads - the Xmas toy rush is just beginning
to rumble. To whom are they pitching the My Little Pony Playset? Who's
buying the Easy-Bake Oven?
Even with the "generally", it's a weak thesis.
--
Lew
Mike Schilling
>
> If, at any point in the last hundred years, women had accepted things
> as they were, there would be less women in various jobs than there
> are now. Which jobs would be affected depends on when the status quo
> was accepted as being inevitable, due to nature.
>
> For example, when I was preparing my initial college applications, in
> 1966, there were very, very few women in engineering programs.
Just last night, I was reading about Sandra Day O'Connor. She made Stanford
Law Review, and on her graduation was offered jobs only as a legal
secretary.
Lew
Mind you, based on your presumed background I'm limiting my remarks to the
minority of the world's population in Western cultures that pay lip service to
gender equality. If you make a global observation it's even worse - genital
mutilation of women continues, girl babies are aborted or murdered more often
than boy babies (to the point in some countries [the most populous on Earth,
BTW] that there aren't enough [submissive] brides available for the
matrimonially-inclined men), "honor" killings, and who gets sold into slavery
more often?
A weak thesis indeed.
--
Lew
John W. Kennedy
> Maybe a way to say it is that while 40 years ago CS was a new
> field with no entrenched prejudice against women,
Well, my real point was that just about everyone in the business back
then had stumbled into it by accident. No child born in the 30s, male or
female, grew up saying, "I'm gonna be a 'puter programmer when I grow
up," although I suppose some of the later-born ones may have been
fascinated by the occasional use of CBS's Univac on the news -- or on
Art Linkletter's "People are Funny" -- or by the SSEC (the one-off
electromechanical machine that occupied IBM's Manhattan show window from
1948 to 1952 and defined the "look" of computers in the public mind for
decades), but even they would have been a minority. I was born in 1948,
and was of the first generation that had any sort of toy computers (the
GENIAC/BRAINIAC family and the Digi-Calc). We are only now seeing the
movement into the profession of the first generation of kids who can't
remember not having a family PC. Soon we'll be seeing the kids who had
PCs of their very own from childhood.
Between those generations, I'd say, came one other problem. It was in
the 80s or so that you first began to see "girly" women turning up as
programmers -- the ones who, instead of being "one of the boys" (I do
/not/ mean "butch" here, just professional), tended to be just a little
flirtatious, just a little inclined to go all Blanche DuBois on you when
things got difficult -- the women who spoil things for other women. I
suppose that tracks with the newer sort of "Computer Science" programs
showing up in colleges, programs that emphasized COBOL over Runge-Kutta
and databases over compiler-compilers.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The pathetic hope that the White House will turn a Caligula into a
Marcus Aurelius is as naīve as the fear that ultimate power inevitably
corrupts."
-- James D. Barber (1930-2004)
Mark Thornton
> Hi,
>
> Daniel Pitts wrote:
>> Education isn't just what's in the books. Children learn from
>> parents, and mimic it on the school ground. Other children learn to
>> act like their peers.
>
> adult propagates such a message to children.
This is certainly false. Some do. Not long ago a Conservative MP made
rather sexist comments in public on the employment of women. Yes he was
roundly condemned, but nevertheless it is clear that his opinions are
still privately shared by quite few people including some employers.
Mark Thornton
nebul...@gmail.com
wrote:
[implied insults deleted]
Fuck off. Aren't two flaming threads enough for you, asshole?
Mike Schilling
Dexter
> Java, C++, BASIC V2 on a Commodore 64, women are simply
> to stupid to program a computer. If a woman can program a
> computer, "she" is a male to female crossdresser or a shemale.
>
> That's true. Real women are only useful to work at the atomic
> ovens, that's a job for women!!!
You dead wrong Mr Smootbank
If you ever read an introductory programming book, it should have been
clear to you as to who Ada Augusta Byron was. Not a poet, poet it was
her dad. She was the first programmer.
There are a vast number of books on Login and Discrete Strucures
authored by women. Your viewpoint is nothing more than sexist. Get
real man. Its the 21st century not Dark Ages or Middle Ages. Neihter
is this Middle East where women are not allowed to drive a car
Asad S Yousaf
I may have a past, but its the future I look towards
Wildemar Wildenburger
Don't you ever stop!
:)
/W
blm...@myrealbox.com
> > Maybe a way to say it is that while 40 years ago CS was a new
> > field with no entrenched prejudice against women,
>
> Well, my real point was that just about everyone in the business back
> then had stumbled into it by accident. No child born in the 30s, male or
> female, grew up saying, "I'm gonna be a 'puter programmer when I grow
> up,"
I rather thought maybe that was what you meant. Agreed.
[ snip ]
> Between those generations, I'd say, came one other problem. It was in
> the 80s or so that you first began to see "girly" women turning up as
> programmers -- the ones who, instead of being "one of the boys" (I do
> /not/ mean "butch" here, just professional), tended to be just a little
> flirtatious, just a little inclined to go all Blanche DuBois on you when
> things got difficult -- the women who spoil things for other women. I
> suppose that tracks with the newer sort of "Computer Science" programs
> showing up in colleges, programs that emphasized COBOL over Runge-Kutta
> and databases over compiler-compilers.
Cue recommendation to re-read "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" ?
(I'm not sure I've ever met a "girly" programmer. But I don't
doubt that they exist, or that they tend to spoil things for the
non-girly women!)
Roedy Green
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>4. Tell her that the only thing that matters is being pretty, and boys
>won't like her if they think she is too smart.
As a gay male, I just about gag when I encounter a female playing
stupid and over time becoming truly stupid. Just imagine being married
to such a twit!. You would be bored silly. Perhaps the stereotype
appeals to males because they imagine such a female will be easy to
trick into bed. Perhaps it is fragile male ego. They feel intimidated
unless they can dominate their partner intellectually.
Logically, if you are planning kids, you should go for the smartest,
healthiest, more personable partner who finds you appealing.
For some strange reason cow-like docility and stupidity has become
valued. Perhaps it is hold over from the days when only a mildly
retarded person could accept the drudgery of women's work without
going nuts. There is no need for it today. You want a competent
second breadwinner.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
The Java Glossary
http://mindprod.com
Roedy Green
<ihoman...@web.de> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
said :
>As I mentioned before, I have heard of studies that suggest that the
>message "women who are 'too' smart appear less attractive to many men"
>seems to be true (although I must say, that concerning me, I prefer
>smart women, but obviously, I am not characteristic).
Oddly though, a highly respected profession, doctors, in now a
slightly majority of females. That one cracked open while computer
science became less female-friendly.
The odd thing is, when I started out, there was a much higher
percentage of females. Computer science was a new field and nobody
knew what prejudices they were supposed to have.
The caricature of the computer programmer as
intelligent, having mild Asperger syndrome, socially retiring, geeky,
shy, ungroomed, subsisting on a diet of coffee and pizza may be to
blame. A male may identify with this, but a female would not. It is
an adolescent male culture.
Roedy Green
>(Me playing with male dolls ;-)
In the USA they are not called "dolls". They are "action figures". It
helps parents with their homophobia.
Roedy Green
<mar...@see.sig.for.address> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
someone who said :
>'ve always suspected
>that "glasses" might be a code word for brains.
Years ago I talked with a female friend of mine who had taken a course
on how to be more appealing to the opposite sex.
She was horrified. They were taught to respond to any question with
"what do your think", and always to agree.
No wonder there is so much divorce.
If people wanted that they could get a sex toy robot with a tiny
vocabulary triggered by a minimalist speech recognition program.
Roedy Green
or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>wrote:
>[implied insults deleted]
>
>Fuck off. Aren't two flaming threads enough for you, asshole?
I read it three times. I could not see anything remotely resembling a
flame . I could not see any implied insult either unless you consider
being disagreed with an insult.
Lew
>> (Me playing with male dolls ;-)
Roedy Green wrote:
> In the USA they are not called "dolls". They are "action figures". It
> helps parents with their homophobia.
As if playing with dolls were correlated to sexual preference.
That prejudice also involves the stupidity of gender discrimination - little
boys are not supposed to display "effeminate" characteristics.
One trouble with homophobia [1] is that it prevents heterosexual men from
expressing truly male but socially denigrated characteristics, like
sensitivity or knowledge of designer shoes. In fact, the linguistic roots of
"homophobia" translate to "fear of man (the male)" - a truer description than
"fear of homosexuality". A real man does eat quiche, show emotion, and all
that, regardless of who tickles the gonads in the privacy of his bedroom.
That real man would never bar women from any profession based on gender,
because he is not afraid of his maleness, so he need not fear her femaleness
either. That real man would never fear subordination to a female boss, for
the same reason.
Homophobia may be one of the root causes of gender discrimination, and is at
least intimately involved with it.
-
[1] After the evil and violence it engenders, the stupidity of it, its
exploitation by hypocrites for political gain, and other true sins.
--
Lew
Bent C Dalager
Lew <l...@lewscanon.com> wrote:
>
>Homophobia may be one of the root causes of gender discrimination, and is at
>least intimately involved with it.
I have a pet hypothesis along these lines[*]: The thing is, females
are superior to males in pretty much every important way. If left
unchecked, female dominance of society is therefore inevitable and
while males may or may not become oppressed, they may certainly feel
left out of decision-making processes etc. and this is incompatible
with their strong egos. Ancient men knew this - probably from direct
experience - and were lucky (or crafty) enough to maneuver themselves
into a position where they could successfully suppress female
dominance through various social mechanisms, most of which are still
in widespread use today.
The most direct evidence of this can be seen in the amazon myths that
came out of ancient Greece. These myths have a tribe of fierce female
warriors living just beyond the borders of the "known world"
(i.e. Greece) and it is quite clear that these women are more than a
match for the average Greek male - it takes exceptional heroes to even
/hope/ to be able to best an amazon. In investigating these myths,
however, the actual co-existence of amazons with ancient Greece
becomes implausible: regardless of the expansion of Greece and of its
military reach, the amazons seem to always live just beyond its
borders as some far-off menace that is nevertheless near enough to be
a source of fear. Amazons are therefore generally considered
cautionary tales or some other mythical instrument.
Consider, however, that amazons may not actually be /spatially/ near
Greece, but rather that they were /temporally/ near. That is, in the
relatively near past, the amazons were real and - perhaps - they
actually lived /in/ Greece. They were not the super-women of some
distant tribe, but they were the wives, daughters, sisters and
chieftains in proto-Greek society. They used to be the rulers of
proto-Greece and this is what caused the ongoing amazon-inspired
trauma of the male-dominated Greek culture we are familiar with. While
the Greeks largely purged their history of this feared past, the truth
lived on in their nightmares.
Now we are opening this Pandora's box once again - and how apt that
particular name now seems, in light of the above . . .
* - no, the hyptohesis is not meant seriously but I do find it rather
entertaining all the same :-)
It might make for an interesting RPG plot I suppose - quite a break
from zombie, robot or alien invasions. A creeping, insidious female
invasion <g>
Cheers,
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - b...@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs
Daniel Pitts
> On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:27:13 +0200, "Ingo R. Homann"
> <ihoman...@web.de> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
> said :
>
>> (Me playing with male dolls ;-)
>
> In the USA they are not called "dolls". They are "action figures". It
> helps parents with their homophobia.
But seriously, I don't know that dolls make that much of a difference,
it is probably only a "symptom" not a cause, if it is even correlated at
all.
--
Daniel Pitts' Tech Blog: <http://virtualinfinity.net/wordpress/>
Alan Morgan
Ingo Menger <quetz...@consultant.com> wrote:
>There is no doubt that women are underrepresented in fields like math,
>chess, programming and the like. We just don't know yet, why this is
>so. What we know is that "discrimination" may not be the reason. For,
>how might one discriminate against a female chess player?
I'd be surprised if discrimination didn't play some sort of role for
careers for which one gets hired (when orchestras started implementing
blind auditions for positions the number of women hired went up).
As for chess, I dunno. It's probably difficult to discriminate while
playing chess, but if chess clubs or teachers don't make women feel
comfortable or welcome (I have no idea if this is the case and I'm
not accusing anyone) then that would probably be enough.
Alan
--
Defendit numerus
Christian
> In article <zoKdnQIyveHELLna...@comcast.com>,
> Lew <l...@lewscanon.com> wrote:
>> Homophobia may be one of the root causes of gender discrimination, and is at
>> least intimately involved with it.
>
> I have a pet hypothesis along these lines[*]: The thing is, females
> are superior to males in pretty much every important way. If left
And I have a likewise funny hypothesis why womens never should rule the
world..
They are to brutal to do this ...
Men have since ancient times allways been hunters and fighters for the
human race...
We have ritualized fighting.
If two men struggle for leadership and fight. They neither will harm the
other to a point where he could no longer defend the tribe nor no longer
produce new children for the tribe.
And I think this ritualized fighting is still in the back of our
brains.. little children that fight in school (before being reprogrammed
by tv) won`t kick into each others testicles.. won't kick when someone
is lying on the ground..
Though women don't have this ritualized kind of fighting.. because if
the women of a tribe had to fight, it allways was about extinction of
the whole tribe. So they never had any reason to hold back.
So if mostly women would rule the world war and politics might become
even more terrible things then they are now.
*g
Ingo R. Homann
Lew wrote:
> ... genital mutilation of women continues, girl babies are aborted
> or murdered more often than boy babies (to the point in some countries
> [the most populous on Earth, BTW] that there aren't enough [submissive]
> brides available for the matrimonially-inclined men), "honor" killings,
> and who gets sold into slavery more often?
>
> A weak thesis indeed.
Indeed I was only talking about Germany. I thought I said that...
Ciao,
Ingo
Ingo R. Homann
Roedy Green wrote:
>>(Me playing with male dolls ;-)
>
> In the USA they are not called "dolls". They are "action figures". It
> helps parents with their homophobia.
(As I said, I am not a native speaker - so sorry for my confusion - but
that was really funny! At least, I suppose you made a joke because I did
*not* mean "action figures" :-)
Furthermore I totally agree to you what you said in your other posts
(concerning your horrified female friend).
Ciao,
Ingo
Wildemar Wildenburger
Also, just because you don't say (or even intentionally think) anything
stereotypical, it doesn't mean you have not internalized some of them.
You don't think about stuff you've internalized, so you're very
susceptible to "subliminal" discrimination.
What gender do you have in mind for each member of the following list:
* road sweeper
* secretary (both meanings)
* minister (both meanings)
* chancellor ;)
* homemaker
* doctor
* skalper
* con artist
* ...
(I consider everyone who answers "none in particular" to *all* of those
a plain liar.)
How often does it hapen to you that someone tells you somethin about
someone you don't know and you ask: "So how does he [whatever]" and the
answer is "Well, SHE does [whatever]". Only once in a blue moon, you
say? Well, once is one time to many.
Virtually everybody carries these stereotypes around. Unknowingly. And
just as unknowingly they perpetrate them. They're not all bad people,
not by a long shot. But they carry the spawn.
My point is: Discrimination isn't as superficial a problem as many
people think.
/W
Wildemar Wildenburger
> And I have a likewise funny hypothesis why womens never should rule the
> world..
>
> They are to brutal to do this ...
>
> Men have since ancient times allways been hunters and fighters for the
> human race...
Or so we believe.
> We have ritualized fighting.
> If two men struggle for leadership and fight. They neither will harm the
> other to a point where he could no longer defend the tribe nor no longer
> produce new children for the tribe.
>
What?! Where did you get that from?
> And I think this ritualized fighting is still in the back of our
> brains.. little children that fight in school (before being reprogrammed
> by tv) won`t kick into each others testicles..
Thats a fantasy. If push comes to shove, testicles will be kicked. The
foot flies in anger, and the testicles reside at the most unfavorable
position that is the narrow part of the \Lambda that the human legs form.
> won't kick when someone
> is lying on the ground..
>
I wonder where you live. You seem so sure of this.
> Though women don't have this ritualized kind of fighting.. because if
> the women of a tribe had to fight, it allways was about extinction of
> the whole tribe. So they never had any reason to hold back.
>
> So if mostly women would rule the world war and politics might become
> even more terrible things then they are now.
>
Do you have any real arguments to back this up? Because just because you
call it a hypothesis doesn't mean you can pull a story out of thin air.
/W
Wildemar Wildenburger
> Roedy Green wrote:
>>> (Me playing with male dolls ;-)
>>
>> In the USA they are not called "dolls". They are "action figures". It
>> helps parents with their homophobia.
>
> (As I said, I am not a native speaker - so sorry for my confusion - but
> that was really funny! At least, I suppose you made a joke because I did
> *not* mean "action figures" :-)
>
See, thats what I meant with "subliminal" discrimination. Ingo said
"dolls" and Roedy assumed it to mean "(male) action figures", because
Ingo is a guy.
Not that I'm trying to paint a picture of policing all language, but you
have to be aware where discrmination *actually* starts.
/W
(I really don't code much Java these days ... ;))
Martin Gregorie
> On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:48:18 +0100, Martin Gregorie
> <mar...@see.sig.for.address> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
> someone who said :
>
>> 've always suspected
>> that "glasses" might be a code word for brains.
>
> Years ago I talked with a female friend of mine who had taken a course
> on how to be more appealing to the opposite sex.
>
> She was horrified. They were taught to respond to any question with
> "what do your think", and always to agree.
>
> No wonder there is so much divorce.
>
> If people wanted that they could get a sex toy robot with a tiny
> vocabulary triggered by a minimalist speech recognition program.
>
and a beer spout I bet a lot of men would think all their Christmases
had come at once.
--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |
Martin Gregorie
>
> That prejudice also involves the stupidity of gender discrimination -
> little boys are not supposed to display "effeminate" characteristics.
>
that "poofs carry handbags", and so refused to use a briefcase.
I've always wondered if he was a latent homosexual.
Christian
> Christian wrote:
>> And I have a likewise funny hypothesis why womens never should rule the
>> world..
>>
>> They are to brutal to do this ...
>>
> Are you being serious?
>
>
>> Men have since ancient times allways been hunters and fighters for the
>> human race...
> Or so we believe.
>
I really think that this is true..
it is only natural for males doing the more dangerous job .. hmm why?
if you have 10 males and 10 females ...
9 die while hunting.. well then I think with 10 females one one man you
will be fastest to rebuild population of the tribe..
Loosing a women is much harder for the population then loosing some man.
>> We have ritualized fighting.
>> If two men struggle for leadership and fight. They neither will harm the
>> other to a point where he could no longer defend the tribe nor no longer
>> produce new children for the tribe.
>>
> What?! Where did you get that from?
>
We were a lot like animals...
look at any documentation about animals that have a herd with a leading
animal ... no and never you will find any fighting there that goes to
death.. who ever looses against the leader will still be able to
survive.. may be on the bottem end of the hirarchie but alive. I can't
imagine humans being more brutal and stupid ... a dead men means a
weaker tribe and would therefore higher the chance for extinction.
>
>> And I think this ritualized fighting is still in the back of our
>> brains.. little children that fight in school (before being reprogrammed
>> by tv) won`t kick into each others testicles..
> Thats a fantasy. If push comes to shove, testicles will be kicked. The
> foot flies in anger, and the testicles reside at the most unfavorable
> position that is the narrow part of the \Lambda that the human legs form.
>
>> won't kick when someone
>> is lying on the ground..
>>
> I wonder where you live. You seem so sure of this.
>
I really am shure of this.. when I was a bit younger.. may be about 6 to
10 years old .. I was not that kind of nice boy.. though I don't think
anyone would have kicked at someone lying at the ground at least I can't
remember something like this ever happen.
>
>> Though women don't have this ritualized kind of fighting.. because if
>> the women of a tribe had to fight, it allways was about extinction of
>> the whole tribe. So they never had any reason to hold back.
>>
>> So if mostly women would rule the world war and politics might become
>> even more terrible things then they are now.
>>
> Do you have any real arguments to back this up? Because just because you
> call it a hypothesis doesn't mean you can pull a story out of thin air.
>
> /W
I just thought of this as rather amusing mind game ... I can't back this
up with actual scientific research papers (and I am too lazy to google)...
Though I don't think it is that far fetched.
You can call this pulled out of thin air.. but why not?
Didn't you think of this pet hypothesis as funny? Or at least worth to
think about it?
Its way more believable as any spaghetti monster (bless hiss noodly
apearance).. though I must admit less funny..
John W. Kennedy
> On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 01:09:11 -0000, nebul...@gmail.com wrote, quoted
> or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>> wrote:
>> [implied insults deleted]
>>
>> Fuck off. Aren't two flaming threads enough for you, asshole?
> I read it three times. I could not see anything remotely resembling a
> flame . I could not see any implied insult either unless you consider
> being disagreed with an insult.
He genuinely does. Where have you been?
Before him, I always supposed that solipsism was only (so to speak) a
thought experiment.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The grand art mastered the thudding hammer of Thor
And the heart of our lord Taliessin determined the war."
-- Charles Williams. "Mount Badon"
Lew
>>> won't kick when someone
>>> is lying on the ground..
Wildemar Wildenburger schrieb:
>> I wonder where you live. You seem so sure of this.
Christian wrote:
> I really am shure of this.. when I was a bit younger.. may be about 6 to
> 10 years old .. I was not that kind of nice boy.. though I don't think
> anyone would have kicked at someone lying at the ground at least I can't
> remember something like this ever happen.
You don't know my city. There are neighborhoods here where people would kick
me where I lay even if they weren't in the fight to begin with. Then they'd
rifle my pockets for variables. Then kick me some more.
--
Lew
nebul...@gmail.com
wrote:
> I could not see any implied insult either unless you consider
> being disagreed with an insult.
Being disagreed with in a manner such as "I disagree"? No. Being
disagreed with in a manner such as "You're wrong!" ... yes. It's the
person asserting vociferously that I have screwed up in some way, when
I've of course done nothing of the sort, that I object to. Disagreeing
with me while acknowledging that he may be the wrong one is fine.
Accusing me of nasty things, on the other hand, is not.
I am surprised that the difference isn't more obvious to other people.
nebul...@gmail.com
Lew
> Then they'd rifle my pockets for variables. Then kick me some more.
And those are the programmers! Regular thugs would rifle my pockets for
valuables.
Oh, well, sometimes my fingers type one thing while my mind intends another.
--
Lew
Daniel Pitts
one will understand what you're talking about.
Ingo R. Homann
Wildemar Wildenburger wrote:
>> Indeed I was only talking about Germany. I thought I said that...
>>
> You didn't (explicitly).
Not in the post, Lew replied to. But a few other times in this thread.
> Also, just because you don't say (or even intentionally think) anything
> stereotypical, it doesn't mean you have not internalized some of them.
Yes, whe had that point in this thread. (But we said that this theory is
not falsifyable so it's a bit difficult to argue about it.) I agreed
that this point may be true. But on the other hand... to your
conclusions...:
> You don't think about stuff you've internalized, so you're very
> susceptible to "subliminal" discrimination.
>
> What gender do you have in mind for each member of the following list:
> * road sweeper
> * secretary (both meanings)
> * minister (both meanings)
> * chancellor ;)
> * homemaker
> * doctor
> * skalper
> * con artist
> * ...
> (I consider everyone who answers "none in particular" to *all* of those
> a plain liar.)
> ...
> Virtually everybody carries these stereotypes around. Unknowingly. And
> just as unknowingly they perpetrate them. They're not all bad people,
> not by a long shot. But they carry the spawn.
>
> My point is: Discrimination isn't as superficial a problem as many
> people think.
...my point is: When I say that 95% of all programmers are male and 5%
are female, that is not a stereotype or discrimintaion, it is a fact. (*)
Discrimintaion would be if I said "Women are too dumb to program a
computer".
And I do not believe that many people really think so - consciously or
subliminal.
Ciao,
Ingo
Ingo R. Homann
Wildemar Wildenburger wrote:
>>> In the USA they are not called "dolls". They are "action figures". It
>>> helps parents with their homophobia.
>>
>> (As I said, I am not a native speaker - so sorry for my confusion -
>> but that was really funny! At least, I suppose you made a joke because
>> I did *not* mean "action figures" :-)
>
> See, thats what I meant with "subliminal" discrimination. Ingo said
> "dolls" and Roedy assumed it to mean "(male) action figures", because
> Ingo is a guy.
I think you just did not get Roedy's joke. (I really hope it was one! ;-)
But even if not...:
> Not that I'm trying to paint a picture of policing all language, but you
> have to be aware where discrmination *actually* starts.
...I explained in another posting why I think that has nothing to do
with disrcimination. In this case, it is only as it is in every spoken
language: You do not say everything explicitely as you would have to do
in a programming language. Because otherwise you would have to write
sentences which are too long to understand. Everybody who listens (or
reads) has to 'think' about, what the author might mean. (Sometimes, of
course, there are misunderstandings due to that.)
> (I really don't code much Java these days ... ;))
;-)
Ciao,
Ingo
Wildemar Wildenburger
> On Oct 28, 11:31 am, Roedy Green <see_webs...@mindprod.com.invalid>
> wrote:
>> I could not see any implied insult either unless you consider
>> being disagreed with an insult.
>
> Being disagreed with in a manner such as "I disagree"? No. Being
> disagreed with in a manner such as "You're wrong!" ... yes. It's the
> person asserting vociferously that I have screwed up in some way, when
> I've of course done nothing of the sort, that I object to.
OK, I'll remind you of that. Watch for the word "DOING". I'll post it
whenever you accuse someone of being wrong from now on. From what I seem
to remember you do it a lot, but I may be wrong.
Time will tell.
/W
Ingo Menger
> That's certainly true here. In normal UK society girls quickly learn
> that appearance is all-important, personality is optional and blokes
> don't like brainy women. The same did/does apply in the US: remember
> "Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses"? I've always suspected
> that "glasses" might be a code word for brains.
This is of course all very sad.
But, nonetheless, everybody has to decide for himself, no matter if
male or female. To be sure, the question young women must answer is
thus: Do I want to be attractive for the gigolos in the muscle shirts?
Do I depend on the opinions of others? Or is it me who chooses
partners and friends to my liking? Is it me who decides what is in or
out? Is itme who has opinions in the first place?
Such is the burden of liberty.
Wildemar Wildenburger
> Wildemar Wildenburger wrote:
>>> Indeed I was only talking about Germany. I thought I said that...
>>>
>> You didn't (explicitly).
>
> Not in the post, Lew replied to. But a few other times in this thread.
>
>> Also, just because you don't say (or even intentionally think)
>> anything stereotypical, it doesn't mean you have not internalized some
>> of them.
>
> Yes, whe had that point in this thread. (But we said that this theory is
> not falsifyable so it's a bit difficult to argue about it.) I agreed
> that this point may be true.
Ah well, you know haw it goes. Sorry.
> ...my point is: When I say that 95% of all programmers are male and 5%
> are female, that is not a stereotype or discrimintaion, it is a fact. (*)
>
> Discrimintaion would be if I said "Women are too dumb to program a
> computer".
>
> And I do not believe that many people really think so - consciously or
> subliminal.
>
Point well taken. :)
I'd still be a little more wary of the "subliminal" part. I know that
I'd look at a female programmer a little differently. I'm (sort of)
sorry about it, but it's in me. In some small way I'd think "Can she
really pull it off?". Not because I really think a woman can not do that
sort of thing, but because I'm not used to seeing them do it. I'd just
pay a little more attention to her than I would to a male programmer.
And I'd be more impressed if she's good than I would be if she were male.
I'm pretty sure that this is just a result of seeing something unusual,
because that's how the human mind works. But it is a seed for
discrimination which, in my opinion, one should be aware of.
Anyway, I didn't want to heat yesterday's soup. Nevermind. :)
/W
Christian
Ah well may be I just grew up in a part of the world where children were
less brutal..
And I am not speaking about usual grown ups... I pretty much think that
we are able to overcome our primitive times programming in the head..
Though as children I would guess we still resort more to them, then do
actual planning like: When I kick him he, his children and children's
children can sue me. If I kick him harder, he may neither be able to
remember me nor may ever have children.
Thats some knowledge about the world where you need TV that shows you
some people getting kicked while lying on the ground. Otherwise I can't
imagine anyone to come up with this, with his own mind.
Wildemar Wildenburger
> Wildemar Wildenburger wrote:
>>>> In the USA they are not called "dolls". They are "action figures". It
>>>> helps parents with their homophobia.
>>>
>>> (As I said, I am not a native speaker - so sorry for my confusion -
>>> but that was really funny! At least, I suppose you made a joke
>>> because I did *not* mean "action figures" :-)
>>
>> See, thats what I meant with "subliminal" discrimination. Ingo said
>> "dolls" and Roedy assumed it to mean "(male) action figures", because
>> Ingo is a guy.
>
> I think you just did not get Roedy's joke. (I really hope it was one! ;-)
>
it? Don't think so.
Roedy, do you read this? Help us out here. Two Germans having problems
getting a joke, surprise, surprise.
>> Not that I'm trying to paint a picture of policing all language, but
>> you have to be aware where discrmination *actually* starts.
>
> ...I explained in another posting why I think that has nothing to do
> with disrcimination.
I've talked to people taking quite a different view on that. I can not
give any meaningful links here because I'm a layman when it comes to
language, psycholgy and philosophy. But one major point is "language
governs thoughs" (NOT the other way round). That (AFAIK) is a
hypothesis, not a well researched fact. But I tend to agree with that.
My favorite anecdote is that of the old greeks, that they started with
philosophy and the whole "what does it mean to be"-thing. As I've heard
(can anybody backme up on this) it was because as one of the first
people they had a word for the act of existing. Had they not had the
word, they could not have talked or even thought about it.
Extend that to thinking gender-perception in language and you have my point.
You're free to disagree, of course. None of this is, from what little I
know, scientifically justified.
> In this case, it is only as it is in every spoken
> language: You do not say everything explicitely as you would have to do
> in a programming language. Because otherwise you would have to write
> sentences which are too long to understand. Everybody who listens (or
> reads) has to 'think' about, what the author might mean. (Sometimes, of
> course, there are misunderstandings due to that.)
>
Right, right! And if everybody implicitly thinks "male" when no gender
is specified (or even needed) ... well, you know.
/W
Wildemar Wildenburger
> But, nonetheless, everybody has to decide for himself, no matter if
> male or female. To be sure, the question young women must answer is
> thus: Do I want to be attractive for the gigolos in the muscle shirts?
> Do I depend on the opinions of others? Or is it me who chooses
> partners and friends to my liking? Is it me who decides what is in or
> out? Is itme who has opinions in the first place?
>
> Such is the burden of liberty.
>
you're right and I agree.
BUT!
To actually be bothered by the burden of liberty you first have to know
that it exists. And I mean not just having been told, no, you have to
have eperienced and understood the liberty. Just saying "Girl, you can
be as dumb or as nerdy or as slutty as you like", doesn't have that much
an effect. Much more influential is how people actually live, what
examples they set. If you're a kid and (virtually) all you see is
succesful jerks and happy skinny sluts, all the preaching in the world
will help little to nothing.
/W
Wildemar Wildenburger
> Thats some knowledge about the world where you need TV that shows you
> some people getting kicked while lying on the ground. Otherwise I can't
> imagine anyone to come up with this, with his own mind.
A hypthetical argument:
Consider a "blank" human (newborn). Assume that it is not exposed to
role models at all (which is impossible, but for the sake of the
argument). That human does have (at least) physical needs, which we may
assume he can learn to fulfill all by himself. If someone (the
"opponent") were to deny him this fulfillment, hightened activity to the
point of aggression against the opponent is the result. What value does
the "blank" human have of the life of the other. All the blank human
sees is an obstacle that needs to be overcome. So what would keep him
from killing the opponent? My theory: Nothing.
This is severely simplified, a lot of necessary arguments left out.
Still my main point is this: If you have no estimate of the value of
another person's life or well-being, you can not be expected set
yourself limits as to how you treat people. And I'm not convinced that a
such "scale of value" is intrinsic to a human. I think it is mostly
aquired by society. Or reasoning, which I feel does not work equally
well for everybody.
/W
Sabine Dinis Blochberger
> >> And I have a likewise funny hypothesis why womens never should rule the
> >> world..
> >>
> >> They are to brutal to do this ...
> >>
> >> human race...
>
> it is only natural for males doing the more dangerous job .. hmm why?
Why did they go after Mammuths instead of easier prey? Becasue they had
male egos, they want to "show off" their feat of killing a *big* animal.
Women have always been more level headed, in that they took advantage of
all the possible food sources (collecting and farming instead of hunting
and risking their lives).
>
> if you have 10 males and 10 females ...
> 9 die while hunting.. well then I think with 10 females one one man you
> will be fastest to rebuild population of the tribe..
> Loosing a women is much harder for the population then loosing some man.
>
> >> We have ritualized fighting.
> >> If two men struggle for leadership and fight. They neither will harm the
> >> other to a point where he could no longer defend the tribe nor no longer
> >> produce new children for the tribe.
> >>
LOL! Men don't hurt each other much!? Especially when it comes to
reproduction, just look at lions - they kill the offspring of the former
male, never mind the survival of the species, all that counts is to
propagate *their own* genes.
>
> We were a lot like animals...
> look at any documentation about animals that have a herd with a leading
> animal ... no and never you will find any fighting there that goes to
> death.. who ever looses against the leader will still be able to
> survive.. may be on the bottem end of the hirarchie but alive. I can't
> imagine humans being more brutal and stupid ... a dead men means a
> weaker tribe and would therefore higher the chance for extinction.
>
Sorry, that's wrong. Wolves will expell a disobedient animal from the
pack, dooming it to starve or be killed.
> >
> >> And I think this ritualized fighting is still in the back of our
> >> brains.. little children that fight in school (before being reprogrammed
> >> by tv) won`t kick into each others testicles..
Here's an insight I heard in a documentary: "humans are naturally
competitive, not violent".
That is a very important distinction. Society could be much better if we
heeded that, competing without violence.
> I really am shure of this.. when I was a bit younger.. may be about 6 to
> 10 years old .. I was not that kind of nice boy.. though I don't think
> anyone would have kicked at someone lying at the ground at least I can't
> remember something like this ever happen.
>
Well, you were more lucky than others. It's common for a person to
extrapolate their point of view (or of life) onto others, but everyones
experience of life is different. And we can never know how someone else
sees life.
> >
> >> Though women don't have this ritualized kind of fighting.. because if
> >> the women of a tribe had to fight, it allways was about extinction of
> >> the whole tribe. So they never had any reason to hold back.
> >>
> >> So if mostly women would rule the world war and politics might become
> >> even more terrible things then they are now.
> >>
Sorry if all women you met are like that. It's also important to
separate professional and personal "life". I think women might be better
at this, i.e. not let feelings (and egos) get in the way of "work".
> I just thought of this as rather amusing mind game ... I can't back this
> up with actual scientific research papers (and I am too lazy to google)...
> Though I don't think it is that far fetched.
You may want to look into a certain tribe in Africa, in which women are
dominant and hunters, and men are "domestic". Idon't know what they are
called, but they exist! Check it out to see if your theories hold up.
--
Sabine Dinis Blochberger
Op3racional
www.op3racional.eu
Ingo Menger
<lasses_w...@klapptsowieso.net> wrote:
> Ingo Menger wrote:
> > But, nonetheless, everybody has to decide for himself, no matter if
> > male or female. To be sure, the question young women must answer is
> > thus: Do I want to be attractive for the gigolos in the muscle shirts?
> > Do I depend on the opinions of others? Or is it me who chooses
> > partners and friends to my liking? Is it me who decides what is in or
> > out? Is itme who has opinions in the first place?
>
> > Such is the burden of liberty.
>
> Sorry, I think you're being too naive here. Of course, "factually"
> you're right and I agree.
>
> BUT!
>
> To actually be bothered by the burden of liberty you first have to know
> that it exists. And I mean not just having been told, no, you have to
> have eperienced and understood the liberty.
I can't follow you here.
For, if this were so, liberty (in the sense that a person is
responsible for their own decisions) simply would not exist in the
first place.
As you might know, individual liberty is a relatively recent
"invention" and still alien to huge parts of the world, where
collectivism of all kind (tribalism, rule of family, ...) reigns.
Sabine Dinis Blochberger
Yes, I totally agree, thank you!
>
> ....my point is: When I say that 95% of all programmers are male and 5%
> are female, that is not a stereotype or discrimintaion, it is a fact. (*)
>
> Discrimintaion would be if I said "Women are too dumb to program a
> computer".
>
> And I do not believe that many people really think so - consciously or
> subliminal.
>
Well, I can give you my experience as an example. I'm female (german too
btw), but I moved to this pseudo-third-world country (Portugal). Anyway,
this multi-national company was happy to have me as their most
profficient COBOL programmer (no, I'm not exaggerating), but they
continually refused to pay more, or to promote me (when by their own
rules it was common practise).
So, would you say this was because I was "bad" at my job, or because I
look gullible (not something I can change) and am female? Hint, it
couldn't be the first option, because the client tried to hire me :p
Also, consider the numbers. Most company and political leaders are male.
And don't credit this to women not wanting the jobs - they don't want
the job if it means to "be one of the boys".
Ingo Menger
<lasses_w...@klapptsowieso.net> wrote:
> Christian wrote:
> > Thats some knowledge about the world where you need TV that shows you
> > some people getting kicked while lying on the ground. Otherwise I can't
> > imagine anyone to come up with this, with his own mind.
>
> A hypthetical argument:
> Consider a "blank" human (newborn). Assume that it is not exposed to
> role models at all (which is impossible, but for the sake of the
> argument). That human does have (at least) physical needs, which we may
> assume he can learn to fulfill all by himself. If someone (the
> "opponent") were to deny him this fulfillment, hightened activity to the
> point of aggression against the opponent is the result. What value does
> the "blank" human have of the life of the other. All the blank human
> sees is an obstacle that needs to be overcome. So what would keep him
> from killing the opponent? My theory: Nothing.
You called me "naive" in response to another post. Please allow me to
give this compliment back :)
What would keep the "blank" single person from killing another?
Perhaps the fact that he would be too sick and weak to kill anything
due to malnutrition and cold?
> This is severely simplified, a lot of necessary arguments left out.
> Still my main point is this: If you have no estimate of the value of
> another person's life or well-being, you can not be expected set
> yourself limits as to how you treat people.
Maybe, but this is pointless because this premise will seldom be
fulfilled given that humans are social animals. You can't, for
example, generalize data found about "wild children" (i.e. being
raised by wolves). Sure, such a former wild child may have no problem
killing people. (But does he kill wolves?)
> And I'm not convinced that a
> such "scale of value" is intrinsic to a human. I think it is mostly
> aquired by society.
But "society" is just - other humans and their relations. And having
relations already presupposes human beings that do *NOT* usually kill
each other. Thus you get into circular reasoning when you deny the
"intrinsic scale of value", as you call it. (I'd rather call it
"biological givens".)
Sabine Dinis Blochberger
> On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:13:48 +0200, "Ingo R. Homann"
> <ihoman...@web.de> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
> said :
>
> >As I mentioned before, I have heard of studies that suggest that the
> >message "women who are 'too' smart appear less attractive to many men"
> >seems to be true (although I must say, that concerning me, I prefer
> >smart women, but obviously, I am not characteristic).
>
>
> Oddly though, a highly respected profession, doctors, in now a
> slightly majority of females. That one cracked open while computer
> science became less female-friendly.
>
> The odd thing is, when I started out, there was a much higher
> percentage of females. Computer science was a new field and nobody
> knew what prejudices they were supposed to have.
>
> The caricature of the computer programmer as
> intelligent, having mild Asperger syndrome, socially retiring, geeky,
> shy, ungroomed, subsisting on a diet of coffee and pizza may be to
> blame. A male may identify with this, but a female would not. It is
> an adolescent male culture.
>
Well, that could be of a higher "living in a pig stye[sic]" tolerance
than females. Which, in turn, could be from being taught to clean up as
a girl, and boys are supposed to be dirty (literally). "Boys will be
boys" expresses this well - they are allowed much more than girls in any
subject.
Do boys ever get told "that's not pretty to do"? I think not. I remember
being told that. It's a powerful thing when your parents (the mightiest
beings you know until you grow up) say things like that.
Actually, in university (computer science), I was among three other
women, and I didn't notice any prejudice there. Only now, in Portugal, I
get hit with the discrimination hammer.
Ingo Menger
wrote:
> Also, consider the numbers. Most company and political leaders are male.
May I remind you that this is no valid reasoning?
To see why, compare the percentage of people with jewish origin a) in
the american population and b) in notable positions in the high
finance sector. You may find that jews are far overrepresented in the
latter sector.
I am quite sure you will not conclude that this is, for example,
because jews like to hold the world in "Zinsknechtschaft"? Or do you?
It seems to me like you have 2 assertions:
- There's no difference in abilities between men and women.
- Given equal abilities and chances, the outcome of the social process
will reflect this.
Thus, if the outcome is different (for example, significantly more
males are politicians while significantly more females are housewifes
(should I say "housepersons"?)), some social conspiracy must be at
work. (Which we must fight with "gender mainstreaming" policy.)
But it may equally well be the case that one or even both assertions
are simply false. (If you ask me, both are.) In which case the
conspiracy theory gets cutted by Ockham's razor.