Thanks Dad
By Nicole Kobie in Editorial
Posted in Uncategorized on
For some reason, women don’t think IT is a good job for them. There’re all sorts of reasons chucked around for why this might be — it’s seen as man’s work, it’s too hard for math-challenged girls, and computer science majors are smelly geeks.
While I’m far from an IT professional or a geeky type, I did somehow end up writing about such things and such people, so I’m clearly not afraid of the subject. (I am, for the record, scared of spiders, so don’t think it’s because I’m terribly brave or something.) I have a theory about why this might be.
When I was a wee little girl, my dad used to bring home his office laptop to his three daughters, so we could mess about on it and learn how to use it. I remember writing stories about unicorns in the green font, and playing games where you had to make a little dude jump up and down. And, I remember sitting at the kitchen table, dialling up to the internet — back when it still went over phone lines in North America — and holding my hands over my ears as the shrill beeps and squeaks connected things.
It never occurred to my dad or my mom that girls wouldn’t like computers. For context, my nickname was “princess”, I had a pink room with ballerina wallpaper, and I was obsessed - still am, shamefully - with ponies.
Despite such girlishness, my dad still figured we’d find techie stuff cool. He and my mom bought us the original Nintendo console when it first came out; they let my super cool grandmother sign us up for space camp in summer. Why wouldn’t girls like such stuff? (And OMG space camp was cool.)
So while I didn’t end up taking computer science as a major (I really was bad at math and can still barely add and subtract without effort), I’ve always been comfortable with tech and never really felt intimidated by it or the geeks around me.
To me, this is the key to getting women into IT for careers, and indeed, into removing gender bias in any area. Just treat anyone like they have a right to be there, as thought there’s no reason they shouldn’t be there, and they’ll be more willing to try and more likely to feel comfortable. Pretty straightforward, I think.
As the better children among you have surely noticed (and marked with cards and amusing, manly gifts), yesterday was Father’s Day. I might be a day late, but hey, thanks dad.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...Make a comment
Tag cloud
Archives
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- February 2008
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
Most commented posts
- Internet Eyes' CCTV game lets us all be Big Brothers
97 comments
- What feedback does the government really want on ID cards?
- How's this for over-hyped: Apple tablet details leaked on Twitter
- Getting burned by Computer Tan
- Dell gets a sex change to Della
- CERN is not going to kill us all...
- 10 worst iPhone apps
- Facebook doesn't cause syphilis
- Blogger protected Belle de Jour with Googlewhack
- Roundup: April Fools 2010 in the tech world
Highest Rated Blog Posts
- Working in the great outdoors... (100%)
- The space cheese has been recovered (100%)
- Google Buzz leaves me anti-social about networking (100%)
- Trade shows worth the trouble? (100%)
- CERN is not going to kill us all... (100%)
- World's first systems analyst has died (100%)
- Cern's big day is September 10 (100%)
- April Fools' 2009 across the tech world (100%)
- Pirate Bay's DDo$ attack (100%)
- Is Facebook racist? (100%)
