[TriLUG] The biggest deterrent for women in tech

[David Both]

I suspect that, like many other areas of life, parental support means more than 
anything else.

My son is a CPA and financial analyst. My daughter is a PhD and head of the 
Masters in Counseling program (not school, mental health) at her school. Neither 
got particularly good high school counseling. My nephew is an engineer and one 
of my nieces is working on a masters in speech pathology. My other niece just 
got accepted to the engineering program at Georgia Tech. All needed math skills 
and my daughter needed and still needs the rigors of the scientific method.

Unfortunately my daughter was steered away from math and science in her high 
school. I always told her she could do anything she wanted to do and she 
believed me.

My non-scientific observation from watching all of these kids grow up is that 
parenting made the most difference.


On 05/01/2013 07:08 AM, Peter Neilson wrote:
> On Wed, 01 May 2013 06:05:15 -0400, William Sutton <william at trilug.org> wrote:
>
>> the CS/CPE department guidance counsellor was an idiot ...
>
> Yes. I'm afraid that the "guidance" profession consists of people who have 
> less than zero understanding of science. These people actively hinder or stop 
> proper education in science. Family also take on that role. In my case, my 
> Marxist grandmother opposed my being sent to a rigorous school with good 
> science, and instead insisted I remain at the local high school. Why? "He 
> would get the idea that he's better than other people."
>
> So how was that local high school? Well, calculus was not in the curriculum at 
> all. I taught myself difference equations so that I could solve a Fourier 
> Transform problem for a science fair project on decomposition of the sounds of 
> speech, but had only a beginner's understanding of what I was doing. Never 
> addressed end points, for example. Decades later I discovered that my project 
> was now part of what happens inside cell phones.
>
> Even men who feel that they "ought to do something" about helping women 
> succeed in tech fields usually have no idea what to do. Should they steer 
> girls into "math for poets" instead of the regular (but more difficult) 
> classes? Should they offer extra help for math students who "don't get it" and 
> hand-feed them solutions to problems? Or should they instead hunt for lost or 
> misplaced understanding and assign additional work that corrects for it? Those 
> are two entirely different approaches.
>
> When advising middle-school students who want to become veterinarians (most of 
> these are girls) I always give a "mathematics inventory" exam so I'll know 
> what I should suggest. The exam is the sudden presentation of, "What's six 
> times nine?" Any answer other than an instant "54" tells me that the student 
> will never get through enough math to succeed at getting into vet school.
>
> In my own experience, kids know they are interested in science and technology 
> by about age eight. Boys want stuff that explodes or stinks. Girls are 
> expected to avoid all that unless it's horses. I think some girls get into 
> science and technology through horsemanship.
>
> -- 
>
>
> *********************************************************
> David P. Both, RHCE
> Millennium Technology Consulting LLC
> 919-389-8678
>
> dboth at millennium-technology.com
>
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