The NY Times this week had an article discussing that girls are responsible for most of the content on the web now. In addition, these girls are also developing a substantial number web applications, more so than boys. This seems pretty exciting because women have lagged behind men in computer science fields. Could this be the dawn of a new era in gender opportunity and equality in technical careers?
Some people argue no. They say that what these girls are doing isn't "real" computer science or technology development. Is there perspective true or is the internet really going to challenge the way we compute and these adults just don't get it?
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I think one of the biggest issues in this article is placing “real life gender role expectations” to the Internet. For as long as we continue to translate real life gender roles/expectations to the Internet could there ever be “gender opportunity and equality?” I highly doubt it.
By saying what these young females “are doing isn't real computer science or technology development” is only playing into this narrow view of real life gender roles. With the lack of female role models in this field, I think that the girls should be applauded for designing/creating/blogging and encouraged to do more!
The article definitely caught my attention when it stated that the one area where boys surpassed girls in creating Web content is posting videos. And the reasoning behind why boys are more likely to post videos, “to impress others.”
Really who is to say which has more substance…a blog that a female adolescent posts asking/giving advice to her friends or that a young male adolescent posts with videos of his latest hockey game? Obviously what the individual is posting matters to that person, so why deem one more ‘worthy’ than the other?
If gender were anonymous would this question be as prevalent about who is developing the next development in technology/computer science?
I can really relate to this article. Around 5th grade, I started running a Hanson-fan webpage. The HTML forms from free hosting websites would make your website too bland, and since I wanted to compete with the other websites, I learned HTML, JavaScript, and started designing my own material in Flash and Photoshop.
At the same time, once I got to college, the CS courses were less creative than my background in technology. In other words, I definitely found them uninspiring, as the article suggested. After creating interactive websites, there’s nothing creative about making a program that looks like it was made for DOS. Plus, as a female, you definitely feel outnumbered by the guys in the classroom, and it makes you constantly doubt your abilities.
Despite relating to the article, I wouldn’t call creating websites actually computer science. I think an interest in web development can lead to a career in computer science, but I don’t think it is the same thing. Regardless, not classifying this as CS has nothing to do with gender roles, it just isn’t part of CS.
I do think CS departments could do more to keep these females. Doing so would make it less gender biased. Introductory courses could include more of a semester long project, where the class would end with a final product. Another suggestion would be changing the type of programs. Obviously, they’re going to start out DOS-like, but instead of making everyone do a program that stores names and grades into an array, let them use the same principles to make something a little more meaningful.
But fortunately, I think CS has the possibility of attracting more females in the future. As HCI becomes more known, I think females will be more attracted to technology degrees again. That’s how it happened for me – I loved HCI so much that I’ve applied to the PhD program. It still means taking some boring classes, but I know that this knowledge will ultimately be applied to a product, which can then be prototyped and tested with users. Hence, CS becomes creative again.
I agree with what Hannah said in that in saying that what young females “are doing isn't real computer science ” only fuels the arguement that women to not belong in the field of computer science.
The article compares how men and women differ in their uses of the internet. Women are suprisingly much more likely to use the interent, but to do things such as blog. Men are much less likely to go online, but when they do they are more likely to spend less time online with things such as videos and pictures. This is not too suprising to me, considering the age range looked at in the article. The writers mostly discussed teenagers--ages 14 to 20. Girls of this age are much more likely to gossip, making blogging appealing to them--which inevitably takes more time.
This might be a dumb question, but how does environment factor into this? I know that as a guy I am very inclined to go outside on a nice day and do something physical. My girlfriend, on the other hand, tends to spend a lot of her time inside doing things similar to what the article described. It almost seems like a deep seated and outdated social expectation that women are supposed to 'stay inside' and find things to do there while guys are supposed to go out into nature and 'be rugged'. I could be completely off base, but does anyone else kind of see my point?
Josh - I definitely see your perspective there. When I was typing up my code back in the day, it was mainly females that dominated a lot of the web development aspect. It was more about arts and crafts than necessarily technology. Even still, a lot of the guys I know in CS aren't that interested in being outside either. Haha.
I know some of you think not labeling blogging and graphic development as "computer science" is a conflict with gender. It really has nothing to do with that. The field of CS would imply programming languages and very little, if anything at all, to do with graphics and especially not blogging.
Computer scientists create the technology and the applications. These girls are taking advantage of the technology that already exists - such as website creators, graphic applications, and blogging software.
Their interest in technology could lead to a field in CS, but their hobbies aren't the same thing as CS.
Josh--
I like the environmental question. Since I am a psychologist, "environment" has many meanings--do you mean "going outside and being in the environment?" I wouldn't generalize that women like the indoors and me like the outdoors, as I spent nearly every waking moment in my garden this weekend! :-) (And can barely walk, as a result!) However, I do think "individual difference" may play a role in who likes to be indoors and who likes to be out---our who likes FtF and who likes CMC!
Erin-- I knew you'd have good insights on the gender issue in CS!
I was thinking of environment as the situation in which the person was raised. As a child, I was encouraged to spend a lot of time outside and because of that I would rather spend my time doing something like gardening, which I love, as opposed to something on the web.
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