Hacker News Comments on
Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.alas I thought your comment was serious. it's awesome that you have had the opportunity to find it a non-issue and unfortunate that you have decided to.http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Computing-Jane-Mar... is a pretty good academic references, with plenty of examples of parents who actually do do this (teach sons and not daughters), hard research, and practical solutions. luckily it actually isn't that hard to start on the path to fix for those who bother to find it an issue (CMU and MIT among them).
The seminal work on the subject is "Unlocking The Clubhouse" by Jane Margolis: http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Computing-Jane-Mar...
If you are interested in this, you should try this book:http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Computing-Jane-Mar...
They did a survey of CS students to find out their first experiences. They provide specific quotes in the book, but the gist of it was that men usually were given a computer (or everyone felt that the family computer was "theirs") and they began to tinker around immediately, whether that be with programming or taking it apart. The women's first experiences tended to involve watching a male family member work on the computer.
byoung2's comments follows the typical male answer and mine follows the typical female answer. I watched my 2 uncles and uncle-in-law in the computer since they had jobs in tech. Then my grandfather gave my mom and me a computer and showed us how to use it. I mostly just played on it and used programs until high school were I was "formally introduced" to programming.
⬐ araneaeI've often had similar thoughts about how men and women initially got involved in programming... why do you personally think that is? (I will look into the book.)⬐ AmberShah⬐ fjordanFor one, it's our male role models who are using computers while our female role models aren't. Children are affected by such gender differences very early. They notice who drives the car when everyone goes out, who cooks dinner, and who works late.Secondly, there are expectations about it. For example, if a boy takes apart a computer, everyone goes "such a boy", but if a girl does it, people say "hmm, that's odd." (even if it's good surprise, it's still surprise). I know when I was a child I was pushed to do things like ballet and cheerleading and orchestra when what I wanted to do was martial arts and read and become a scientist.
⬐ araneaeHave you considered that it might be the result of innate toy preference? It's pretty well established that the difference is innate (http://www.scribd.com/full/36579212?access_key=key-1ztjrngs9...), and it might have an influence on these early stories.That's very interesting. I will have to take a look.I think the point you brought up about the observance of younger children of their superiors is very true. I can recall fond moments of watching my father work on our early DOS machine. I used to play Doom II and Duke Nukem on Sunday nights as a kid and seemed to learn DOS quickly. However, as I stated earlier, it wasn't until later in high school that my interest seriously grew.
This isn't something you have to have an uninformed opinion about. The issue has been noticed before, people have thought it was important to understand, and actual studies have been done. Here's the authoritative one:http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Computing-Jane-Mar...
It's not an alpha male thing, though that's some of it. It's a socialization thing. Guys had more exposure before college, are more likely to learn the material on their own rather than in a group (how women usually prefer to learn), and so appear to be far more competent earlier. Girls who make it over that initial hump do as well or better, but not many do, because there's not a lot of interest in helping them through it.