Women vs. Computers.

[unxpurg8d]

Good grief. Someone want to loan me their crayons?




If there's so much data to back up your point of view feel free to post or link to it and I'll be more than happy to concede that you're not generalizing. I have no problem with the discussion, just the use of your limited experience as your foundation for broad statements.

Your use of the word "naughty" is interesting. Until ltk007 entered the thread I don't think it was applicable to anything posted here.



Zenmervolt, I had an X1/9 too. It made a lovely lawn decoration.

 

[ratkil]

"a) a man-hating lesbian with a hormonal imbalance"
for some reason that kind of turns me on.......... :Q But then again I like Chynna....hmmmm wonder if she likes computers.......

 

[ltk007]

<< Your use of the word &quot;naughty&quot; is interesting. Until ltk007 entered the thread I don't think it was applicable to anything posted here. >>


I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment or cut you off from the cyber action

 

[gunf1ghter]

Yikes... that's the second time you have used your degrading, &quot;crayon&quot; reference.

I get your point, I realize you are opposed to &quot;broad generalizations&quot; about the female sex.

But guess, what, sometimes generalizations about either sex are actually true, regardless of how &quot;painful&quot; they are.

I don't think that you'd care to argue my &quot;generalization&quot; that MOST women wear make up in an attempt to look attractive?

Of course, that's based on my limited &quot;crayon colored&quot; experience.

 

[unxpurg8d]

Argh. We're not talking about makeup, we're talking about computers.



And NO, you DON'T get my point. I'm opposed to sweeping generalizations not substantiated by facts. Period. NOT &quot;sweeping generalizations about the female sex&quot;.

 

[ratkil]

Hey gunf1ghter you are wrong completely wrong, unxpurg8ed is right completely right, so there.

 

[unxpurg8d]

Okay, now everyone must halt their quibbling while I figure out how to mail my firstborn child AND a set of K'nex to ratkil.

 

[gunf1ghter]

wow, I'm glad that everything is settled with a decree like that from ratkill... thou shalt not tick off the rat god. :Q

 

[CQuinn]

I think that what is most insulting to me (a male) is this impression
that thereds started and gunf1ghter seems to be perpertuating that what
these &quot;girls&quot; in their experience choose to do with computers somehow
makes them inferior to the typical hacking dudes.

Let me whack you guys around with a cluestick:
(excuse the generalizations about to be applied)

1. A Computer is a glorified slide-rule, nothing more.
(A slide-rule is an ancient form of calculator, for those who didn't know)
How much power, productivity, benefit, or value one gets out of a
computer is up to the individual user, and no-one else.

2. Men think and act differently than Women.

3. Women think and act differenly than Men.

4. Most of us like it that way

5. There are male members of this forum who have been more irrational and
illogical in their reasoning (Intel vs AMD, RAMBUS vs DDR, This vs That) than
many states worth of female citizens.

6. Women (by biological, social and cultural motivations) tend to have
better interpersonal and communicative skills than Men... In General

7. Men (by biological, social and cultural motivations) tend to be better
at some forms of analytical thinking, and more likely to take risks
(explore unknown territories, break stuff) than Women... In General.

8. When applied to computers both types of being (all types of beings)
bring those skills to bear to make unique and positive contributions
to the overall environment.

 

[shadowfaX]

Whoopee... so does that make me different from a majority of the women who are stricken by technophobia? j/k Seriously, I'm kinda sad that I don't know too many females who play computer games (or &quot;one&quot; with their computer, for that matter...) with the same passion as I do... Makes it harder to talk to them when they don't understand half the words I'm saying. Ah well...

 

[Yeeny]

I said he was sweet, NOT bright.

You mean YOU'RE going to laugh at yourself nekkid TOO!?!?

LMAO! Ahh, now I know why we get along so well unxpurg8d. BTW, Evan says your mean, just like me...

 

[Svperstarr]

girls aren't as &quot;into&quot; computers because they don't have to &quot;try&quot; to have a social life. Lets face it guys, we just get tired of being turned down at the bars and clubs and just head to our computers where we can tell women that we are not only attactive but smart to boot.

Women are like NFL players... out of my league.

 

[Prodigy^]

you girls need to calm down. I'm not generalizing, if I was I would have said:

&quot;all computer using girls are ugly, all the hot chicks stay away from computers&quot;

did I? noooooooo.....I said something about how I usually see good looking girls often stay way from computers, and how computer using girls often aren't as good looking.

did I attack anyone in saying that? no. please drive thru

 

[thereds]

Now people hate me. This has turned out to be quite the thread.

 

[bolomite]

Most entertaining, this thread. Most of the females I know could care less about RAID striping, bandwidth, or Arctic Silver, because let's face it, who really cares? Unless it's necessary for your job or something. Us guys love tinkering/souping things up -- cars, computers, whatever. Then we can brag and boast to our friends. Women are generally more in touch with reality.

 

[bigd480]

i think i know what you mean when it comes to women and computers....

my on-campus job just went to all PCs from paper-based + a few Macs.... we're in the midst of a whole bunch of implementation issues that the supervisors (all women) are oblivious to, and all they wanna know is how to change the icons on their new PCs and why they can't make folders different colors or what all the keyboard shortcuts are....

i've come to the conclusion that women don't mix as well with computers as men do.... not that it's a criticism.... children don't mix as well with men as they do women, it's just nature....

i think people are afraid to admit that there are differences between genders.... they're not faults or shortcomings, just factual differences....

people just have this &quot;equality&quot; notion beat into their heads and try to shoot down anyone who points out a difference that could upset that balance.... they can't accept the possibility that someone can possibly be naturally better at something....

people also hate it when people generalize.... people who make general comments do so to try to provide explanation for something.... of course there are exceptions, we know that, we're just trying to draw a clearer picture of the &quot;general&quot; rule....

i interned in the systems integration dept at a huge multinational company this summer and at least half the people I worked with were female.... they were project managers, programmers, and seemed to know exactly what they were doing....

upon closer inspection however, i noticed that my boss didn't understand the concepts of macros or OCR (optical character recognition) and asked me to do tasks that she thought would take hours that actually took minutes with the right (simple) technology....

from this, i draw the generaliztion that women can be taught to learn tech stuff but they're knowledge usually only goes as far as their immediate job tasks, i.e. they're much less likely to play w/ the technology on their own and dig deeper and find out how to do more.... on the flipside, most of the men talked about new hardware, new programs they downloaded, the future direction of the company's IT infrastructure, etc....

so to conclude, i think thereds just noticed something fairly common and did not mean to demean women.... there are many ways the sexes differ and there's probably some aspect of brain-wiring that would explain this issue....

remember that generalizations, or stereotypes as you may wish to call them, don't come out of nowhere.... if enough people do something enough times then they are subject to generalizations.... just take them for what they're worth, which usually isn't more than a catalyst for further thought, and don't try to disprove or attack someone for talking about their observations....

Big D

 

[unxpurg8d]

Oooooooooooookay, boys, you wanna play generalizations here?!??!!? I can TELL you why less women than men seem to be into the technical aspect of computers. It's because MOST of us just don't have the TIME to put into it. We're too busy taking care of jobs, kids, the house, and MEN.


It's not that we're not interested, or that we're &quot;brain-wired&quot; differently - it's that YOU guys suck up all of our time since y'all can't even seem to find your socks in the morning without us, and we don't have any to spare for the things we'd really prefer doing................. but because we're a whole lot less selfish, we give up the things that make us happy in order to ensure YOUR happiness. So there.


So now every time you walk by a woman playing Solitaire, chatting, or the like, I hope your tiny male consciences twinge just a little......... because if she had just a little more time, encouragement, and someone who'd help her understand rather than patting her on the rear and telling her not to worry her pretty little head about all the hard stuff she MIGHT actually prove that she's more than just what your MISconceptions have limited her to.


I can't believe that after all this you guys are STILL going to sit there in your smug little male cocoons and not understand that each woman is an individual - just like you.

 

[Ladi]

A few issues to bring up here...

Geekiness. Just because someone's only good at code, or only good at designing hardware, or <insert some other specialty> doesn't mean somebody is not a geek. I'm sure that most of you who talk about the women you know who are great at <coding/gaming/engineering> can NOT lay claim to being good in every single area of computers. In fact, many of you are ignorant or close to it in some areas. Myself...I'm a software/OS girl and I can confidently say I know it well. Just because it's not hardware doesn't mean I'm no good with computers...Especially considering how many &quot;hardware&quot; issues can be cleared up with software fixes

Generalizations/Stereotypes. By bringing them up at all (and the thread title is an example of this: Women vs. Computers, you're hurting the idea that women CAN be as good as men with computers. Are you afraid of losing your &quot;superior edge&quot; in an area or something? Why do so many people try to tell girls that being a computer geek isn't feminine and it isn't something they can possibly be good at? Running into opposition is a great way to turn someone off from learning anything...and social pressures, like these, are even better. By subscribing to or trying to uphold the myth that women and computers don't mix, you're hurting future generations of techchikkies (of every age). I grew up in a house where I was *never* told that I couldn't do anything I cared to learn about computers; I was programming by 7 or 8, I knew basic hardware before I got to jr. high, and I've been working in tech jobs since sometime in HS, but I still can't cook worth a damn ;P. Advantages of parents who didn't believe in the stereotype that females can't handle learning computing (and seeing as dear old dad was a late-70s/early-80s IBM engineer, this was a big danger).

Moral of the story? This is a really pointless debate to bring up *again* since all you're doing is offending those women who DO know computers well in any way/shape/form and discouraging women who DO want to learn from every giving it a shot.

Get over it...they told us women we couldn't be doctors, but some of the best in the world are now female and they're innovating; they told us we couldn't be lawyers, but some of the most talented are now female and they're bringing new viewpoints and interpretations; they told us we couldn't be politicians/diplomats, but again...talented women have been and will be respected in those positions. It'll just take longer with men like some of you have shown yourselves to be going around saying that there must be some deep-seated gender-driven reason that women can't be good with computers be it code, hardware, software, etc.

~Ladi

 

[Mrs AntiSocial Virge]

I just have a few things to throw out for people to ponder. The guys on this board who think that it is &quot;natural&quot; and &quot;normal&quot; for women to be &quot;afraid&quot; of computers and &quot;uninterested&quot; in them....are you going to pass that idea on to your daughters?

I ask this because I was raised in a very gender-neutral household. Meaning, I was not only given &quot;girl toys&quot; (i.e. dolls, play make-up, etc.), but I was given &quot;boy toys&quot; (GI Joe, He-Man, sports equiptment, etc.). In my house, there was no distinction made, they were all toys. Perhaps this was because I was the first born and naturally a tomboy, but never-the-less, I was taught and encouraged to fish, play sports, learn how to use our old DOS based computers, etc.

But, for as much as I wasn't constrained by gender roles, my father only encouraged me to be a nurse or a teacher, whereas my younger brother was encouraged to be a doctor or a lawyer. Women as discouraged, both by their peers (ewww, only GEEKS play with computers! YOu'll never get a date if you don't wear short skitrs, lots of makeup, and act like you don't know anything), and often by their parents. My father, for a time, encouraged me to learn about computers. He was dialing in to BBS's back when you had to put the handset into a plug to connect. For me it was perfectly normal to watch a guy sit there and download stuff. I was born in 1976, just for reference. Most of my other friends hadn't even heard of DOS, let alone used a computer. I have the interest, but once I hit puberty, my dad quit encouraging me. Apparently he could treat me like a son till I sprouted boobs, or something

Anyway, I've rambled on, but it isn't so much a matter of any sort of natural aversion to computers, it's that we're discouraged from learning anything about them, and at a young age.

 

[SmiZ]

Generalizations are meant to represent the Mean of a group. They are never going to acurately portray the deviations (and no Unx, i'm not calling you a deviant )

We as humans generalize about things that are &quot;usually&quot; obvious based on our own observations. These generalizations, if well founded, will be true in MOST cases. To say that most Americans drive cars to work is a generalization, but it is based on certain facts and observations that I personally know.

I see nothing wrong with generalizations, unless you use them in order to prejudice against a single person based on your beliefs of the group. To me a generalization is nothing more than saying &quot;The weather is nice today&quot;, a statement which was arrived at by using my senses to notice the color of sky, temperature of air, absence of clouds, etc.

Where the trouble lies is when you meet a woman and automatically assume she is bad with computers because of past experiences you have had with female computer users. To summarize your own experience with female computer users and draw conclusions from it is only natural.

To GF's question about only noticing because she has boobs, generally, the more visual the difference, the easier to make a generalization. You can't say you think that left handed or blue eyed people are worse with computers because you normally don't notice.

*flame suit on and unxpurg8d shield equiped

 

[unxpurg8d]

Generalizations are for those so mentally lazy they can't be bothered to expend the effort needed to develop an opinion based on FACTS.







(Kindness prohibits my mentioning that generalizations are also for those who are INCAPABLE of developing their own opinions based on facts, Smiz, you cute little thing. )

 

[SmiZ]

<< Generalizations are for those so mentally lazy they can't be bothered to expend the effort needed to develop an opinion based on FACTS. >>




Generalizations are everywhere whether we like it or not. We all have beliefs about certain groups as a whole.

Lawyers are theives
Teenagers can't drive (a generalization which causes me to pay high insurance rates even though I have a perfect driving record)
Politicians are liars
Computer users are nerds
Jocks are dumb

Etc. Etc. Etc.

The choice of the individual is whether or not to buy into these generalizations. I personally do not base the fact that since you are a woman, you must be terrible with computers. But I will say that of all the women I know, most aren't good with computers. Hell of all the people I know, most aren't good with computers, but the people who are, in my experience, are men.

This does not mean I am going to think you can't use a PC because you're a girl, it's just a conclusion I've drawn based on experience. Same idea as &quot;Hot things burn me when I touch them&quot; therefore I won't touch hot things because I'll get burnt. You make some observations and then you form conclusions based on those observations.

 

[unxpurg8d]

Smiz, no cookies for YOU.

 

[wyvrn]

 

[unxpurg8d]

:: sitting here with pounding headache and flat forehead from repeated slamming into brick wall ::

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.


&quot; I would hate to generalize, but it seems that the original topic is justified. I know women of several age groups and in several different professions (from web developers right down to the housewife). &quot;


WHY say &quot;I would hate to generalize&quot; then go right ahead and DO it?!?!