The Computer Room Scene..
Hey, where are the girls in the computer room above?
In a comment from Lachlan towards my last post, he stated that some measures had to be consciously taken to make girls feel comfortable enough to use the computer rooms in schools.
The question here is why do girls feel uncomfortable in computer rooms? Are they intimadated by the boys the presence? Are boys going out of their way to make girls feel unwelcome? Is the nature of the industry so geared towards boys to make girls feel unwanted?
What about my days at Uni some 20 years ago, back when a programs existed as a decks of punch cards(good heavens!), was the computer culture male dominated even then? I remember many of my girl friends dropping out of the IT faculty after the first semester. Not their thing? Or was it because they felt unwelcomed? Perhaps the culture has slowly progressed to become more and more male through the decades?
Barb replied:
OK, let’s talk about the positive aspects of girly IT. I certainly don’t know how it is now, but once I achieved a certain level of cred, there was never a problem for me. Maybe some blokes had their own issues, but when you are management/have mangement’s ear and exhibit competence, that kind of fluff is seen for what it is.
Is that so different from any other aspect of gaining competence in a chosen field?
February 6, 2007 at 4:58 pm. Permalink.
giwells123 replied:
True, I’m at a comfortable place now with my “girly IT – ness”, and somedays actually enjoy being a rare comodity!
February 7, 2007 at 10:06 am. Permalink.
Lachlan Hardy replied:
In our case it was about the fact that the boys were loud, raucous and mucking around. They would often play games and have 4 or 5 boys crowding around one machine yelling and pointing. Naturally, such behaviour is frowned upon by those supervising, but supervisors aren’t omnipresent
In crunch time for Year 11 and 12 studies, we’d also block off a lab for senior students only, for similar reasons
It wasn’t that the boys were deliberately intimidating. That would have been stamped out instantly. It is that the boys interact with a roomful of computers very differently to girls. The female room was mostly quiet and usually two girls to a machine (Extreme Emailing?). They would talk and laugh etc but it would never be anything like the uproar in the other labs
The senior lab, on the other hand, was always tense and quiet – with the occasional scream or sob
February 8, 2007 at 12:40 pm. Permalink.
Mick Liubinskas replied:
I think it’s a combination of factors. Females are still a minority in many roles and computers is an extension of engineering which is very male dominated. It’s changing but that change comes slowly.
I think it’s also differences in style, as Lachlan points out. Guys aren’t doing a turf war, but they interact differently which might be off putting.
I think it’s more about motivation of girls then about the environment. There’s just less girls who see sitting in front of a computer all day doing mundane repetitive things as an exciting career.
February 9, 2007 at 1:20 am. Permalink.
walski69 replied:
Gosh… you really haven’t posted much in a while, have you? Well, don’t know what your time-constraints are, but here’s a chance for you to get back into the blogging swing of things…
You have been TAGGED!
Think of it as some friendly ‘payback’…
April 10, 2007 at 8:02 am. Permalink.