2008/8/28 Sean Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 7:20 AM, Lucy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > computers is mainly because of social upbringing. For example, in > > India (and some other asian countries) there are more equal numbers of > > men and women working in programming). It wasn't so long ago that > > This wasn't my experience during my 2 months at Technopark in > Thiruvananthapuram, training IT developers and interviewing for new > ones. There wasn't one woman involved in the IT area, which numbered > about 20 or 30 personnel, and not one of our interviewees were female. > I was actually surprised at this. In contrast, in the call centre > which was in another wing of the same building, there were hugely more > women than men. > > What worries me about any thread such as this is that there is a > serious danger that we create allegations of discrimination when in > reality it's just the way it is - women are programmed differently to > men (no pun intended) and seem, from my observations at least, to > drift by default into different types of job to their male > counterparts. The nursing profession, for instance, is dominated by > women whereas road builders and railway maintenance engineers appears > to be virtually a male domain. > > I grew up in a very exciting period when it came to computers, just as > the home computer concept was starting. My school in Glastonbury > initially had an RML-380Z which did exciting things like text-based > puzzles and not much more. The BBC Micro then arrived in my second > year of secondary school and we used to play "Digger" and "Space > Invaders" at lunchtime. A fella called Hogan then took over the maths > department and set up a network of Commodore 64s in the Maths Room - > it was always a fight between the BBCs in the science dept. and the > Commodores in Maths. BBC was most definitely the better, though - you > could actually do things without having to use PEEK and POKE all the > time. > > For 'A' Levels I went to the private sports-orientated school > Millfield. They had a really nifty Econet network, which ran on 5.25" > floppy disks. But technology was improving at a pace and by the time > of my upper sixth this had been replaced with a network of BBC Master > Series computers with (shock!) hard drives for storage. Interesting > thing here was that it wasn't trendy at all to be involved with > computers - you sort of got sidelined, called nerds, and so I had to > also do cross-country running to keep my reputation intact and visit > the Computer Room with dark glasses and false beard. As for women on > computers, there was only Mrs Thomas (God bless her!) - no Millfield > girls would have been seen dead near a computer. During my time > there, however, I met the mighty Hugo Fiennes who is now working (I > believe) for one of the major MP3 player manufacturers, having sold > his EMPEG business to them which was a pioneering car MP3 player which > achieved relatively cult status in the mid-90s. But this was much > earlier... together we coded a BBC-micro based BBS system called > Viewdata+ which was based on Prestel and at one stage had 7-10 Sysops > around the UK using it. But I never recall any females phoning my BB. > > Sean > Since posting the original age/gender question, I have been very interested > reading the discussion. Working in the arts there are probably more women > than men, and the use of computer technology seems to go with most of the > jobs. I don't agree that men and women are ' programmed' differently. > Much relates to necessity and opportunity. As most management is male, then there will be fewer opportunities given to women. But I know several women working in IT, and everyone I know uses computers to some extent. I am the only person I know using Ubuntu- does the very concept 'open source' smack of blokishness and nerdimen? Is it all a question of marketing? Rather than anything to do with how men and women respond to computer technology?
Caroline > > -- > ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ > -- --- London School of Puppetry www.londonschoolofpuppetry.com
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