Why are women so uninterested and useless with everything computer related?

OK before i get any female bit-techers ranting I AM A WOMAN.

On my travels around cyberspace, i'm often asked why there aren't more women/girls like me, ive been asked it again recently in my project log.
"like me" usually means, into computers, gaming, modding, webdesign and theres often a hygene element thrown in (apparently female geeks usually have BO problems).

TBH i dont understand it myself! Im about to start a comp sci course at uni where the male to female ratio is 81:19!!!!
Many of the women you do meet on the net, gaming and on forums like this etc are women who've had to get interested because there bfs/husbands spends so long on their computers, if you cant beat em, join em.

Me im a pure-bred. I met my bf sniping in C&C renegade. My love of all things computer started when i received my first PC for my 6th Birthday, i walked into the front room to see a pretty coloured screen announcing "Happy Birthday Hannah"... i was in awe, how did the machine KNOW ???

Of course i didnt realise at the time that it was the DOS equivalent of a screensaver drawn in paint....

But lets get down to the science of it.. Male and female brains are different, fact. And because of this, men tend to be better at physical activities, and the female strong point is communication. IE learning languages and being tactful .
So if women are so good at languages and communication, why are there so few female programmers, surely we should be best at it?

Gender stereotypes say that men/boys like cars/bikes/computers and women/girls like pink and dolls etc... But there are tonnes of women who are into cars and motorbikes etc... where are all the girls that are into computing??

Apparently when it comes to gaming women dont like the gore and cant handle the speed... but what about general interest? Why do women generally take longer to get the hang of everyday pc use.
I know im no guru, and often ask stupid questions, but i think im quite a fast learner, once somethings been explained i understand and can apply that knowledge.. even when its technical.

Is it because lifestyle differences mean women have less time for comps? Or is it just that its a male thing so women steer clear. Are women afraid of the internet? Of computers? I really dont understand it.
Is it that the female brain has (the best way i can think of putting what i mean) "compatibility issues" with technical stuff...

I just cant understand when, there are so many different fields of computing:
General use, word processing, music, the internet, gaming, programming, graphic design, general interfaces used in the work place, email, chat, hardware, modding.. etc etc why are women so absent from the complete set?

Hope i dont offend anyone... just... meh? Am i abnormal?

 

I wish there were more PC geek girls, I might not have such a hard time trying to find a woman then!

It is my experience that your average girl just doesn't have enough interests/hobbies - aside from computing, I reckon that girls need to get interested in more stuff. All the women I've been out with or know as friends, only care about clothes shopping! Why?

 

My Uni course ratio 105 guys to 5 women lol. Ok so thats actually mechanical engineering and not a computing or IT course.

 

well i must say im far more interested in my PC than clothes shopping but do have other interests too. I never used to be into computers and games etc but then i met Tom and became a female geek!!

 

I am sure a lot of it still has to do with social / peer pressure.

Men have to get a job quite frankly or they are not considered men. Nothing personal or in-flammatory, but it is still acceptable for a woman to aspire only to find a good provider.

If men had a similar socially acceptible option, few guys would be taking college / technical training serious. So this is especially true with more technical training that requires so much time and forthought - etc.

I mean, logically thinking, if a woman was thinking should I take all this training - spend so many years learning this stuff, and when I have children, I might choose not to work for a very long time . . .

In a technical field, once you get out of the business for a few years it could just go to waste (its hard to get back in after a long period off).

Considering most women probably want to have kids some day, and most will probably want to take at least 2-3 years off of serious work when they do have kids - deep technical training becomes a risky proposition.

I am not saying it is a good thing or bad thing, just something impressed into females by other females and their parents, and probably their husbands - in the case they are married.

So, other professions that are more suited to what a typical woman has planned for their future make more sense to many of them. For example, if you are a writer or novelist, taking even 10 years off might not be detrimental to a writing career.

There is normal peer pressure as well. Guys tend to have guy friends, girls typically have girl friends and they kind of mass together like that. So, when one tends to stray from the traditional stuff, they get a lot of flack from their circle of friends (for the good or the bad of it). This makes it especially hard to break out of tradition.

I think a useful example was a girl i knew back in the day in checmical engineering. She was doing good at first and kind of excited about it, but once she hot a few stumbling blocks, I don;t think she got the same social support (or kick in the pants) a guy would have got. When a guy stumbles in a difficult field, people berate them anf humilate them into trying again or going on dispite the frustration (maybe they get positive encouragement to). But with women, people tend to coddle them in this type of situation and find the reasons they need not keep trying (this was the impression I got from her situation).

After all, she could have easily been a cover girl / model / stripper (she was very hot), so why was she trying so hard to be a chemical engineer? So she dropped out at the first sign of adversity and went into business management (which is still a fine career, but I was left with a distinct impression that society in general had let her down).

And of course, I an not saying any of this is either good or bad, just the standard mode of operation and the general percetion of those involved (whether it is true or not is another story).

 

my uni course aeronautical engineering... ratio male to female 35:1
and that one was married, ginger, welsh and 8 years older than me.

 

There's no way to reply to this without sounding sexist

I'm not sexist...

I just wrote a reply though and hell i would have lynched me for submitting it!!!

Hows this:

Advertising in the comuting world is aimed at the Technology minded alpha male...


Thats gotta work??????

 

I enjoy a good day out shopping.. girls get a lot of pressure put on them to look good, so its part of caring about ones appearance.
I guess those girls with hygiene problems that were previously mentioned are ones that dont care at all...

A recent convo with my bestfriend who just bought a laptop went like this:
Me: so how fast is the processor
Friend: the what?
Me: how much memory does it have?
Friend: wouldnt have a clue.

etc... eventually she found the spec sheet and read it to me, i commented on what was a pretty good gfx card for a laptop.. she asked me what the graphics card does

The girls stick to girls etc point was a good one, but ive always found myself having good friends in both areas. My girl mates however are friends on an emotional level, very very close and always offering support and advice to each other on life issues.
When im with guys we sit around and chat about "stuff" computers, games, tv shows, top 5's (u guys really do do all the men behaving badly shite) but ive found this rarely creates a lasting friendship....

As for the career problem. Its one i face myself. At the moment im very much into webdesign, but theres no saying what kind of career i could want when i leave uni. Anyway, i want kids, so does my bf, but i dont want to take years off of work for them. I dont think it will make me a bad mother either if i only take a few months of, but even that could spoil promotion opportunities...
aahhh its a hard world if ur a woman with ideas...

 

Fact is this whole thread is gonna seem sexist. I ask that you write what you want to, i dont think anyone around here will get offended, i wont.
Im just interested in discussing the reasons behind the absense of women dont think it can be tackled without getting sexist...

 

i saw a documentary about this once... it's actually you'r parent's fault.. When we were kids we were told that boys plays with cars/computers and so on, and girls plays with dolls and such (prepairing them to raise children)...

Stupid, i know, but that's how it is...

another thing is instincts... Girls are raised to take care of the home and raise children... Boys should get food (today: work for money)... Also, in the really old days, boys were wariors wich fought for their land (and women)... i guess that's where the interest in cars and games come from...

So if anyone ever tells you that games is stupid, just tell them that you just follow you'r instinct

 

I think we are starting to see more women in computing, our Oracle9 programmer/designer/consultant is a lady, and she pawns me a lot of the time, so I refuse to let her see my code now

I think its an appeal thing. Most games and applications are written by guys and aimed at guys, if that makes sense. Quake3 for example, guns, shooting people, competitive behaviour... typical guy things, we are brought up playing cowboys and indias while girls throw tea parties. I think its much to do with our upbrining as Smilodon said.

Edit: Look at the male/female gamer ratio of the Sims for example, why do guys not play the Sims in the hordes that they play Q3, UT, and so on?

Then you have other stupid things, I speant £60 having my Boomslang 2100 imported from the US a while back, and my g/f really couldnt see why I speant £60 on a mouse, even after I explained the form and function of it. So I photoshoped one and coloured it pink. She would justify getting the pink Boomslang as it looked nice, but not the black one.

Its silly I know but in all seriousness, Men and Women are actually different!!

 

I have to agree though... We really need get more girls into computing/modding..

 

wow such a high ratio

(dudes:dudettes)
my Engineering 12:1
my computing 15:1

 

You just managed to bring the entire nature vs nuture debate into this. Heheh it is related.....
Scientists believed this was true until the 70/80's. A young baby boy called Brian had to have a circumcision. It went horribly wrong and the doctor managed to chop the whole lot off... i dont know how.
Anyway, because at the time scientist believed our "gender" identity was based on how we were brought up, they changed brian into brenda and told the parents to bring "him" up as "her".
Anyway, very very sadly, it didnt work.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/News/2004/05/10/453481.html

The nature vs nuture debate still goes on today. And i suppose the girls not being into to computers could largly be put down to the fact that parent will buy their little boys computers, but not their little girls. I guess thats where im different.
It still doesnt explain why women tend to find it so hard to pick it up later in life but i guess thats down to women not being technically minded...

Bottom line is more women do need to get into computing...

 

yeah, but i'm not talking about choosing gender.. just interests... We choose our interests, but not gender.

I don't know really... but it's an interesting debate actually...

 

my fiancee plays just as many games on her fairly pimp modded box as i do -

she just doesnt like twitch&click games.

she can whup my arse every time we race over the lan though.

 

I spose its how you are brought up - mothers making girls girly, daddys little ladies, stuff like that.

Also, Guys originally developed computers.. so guys find them easier to use - the whole process propigates itself.

Those are theories rather than anything substantial.

You could pose the question - why arent us males here doing more "feminine" things?

 

I think in my case it's because my Dad was desperate for a boy. Up until about 7 years old I had short cropped hair and always wore trousers. Then at about 10 my Dad pretty much stopped taking an interest in what I was doing. We stopped going to motor-shows & watching Grand Prix together, he stopped taking me to the gun club... I guess then he couldn't pretend I was his son anymore

I don't have many female friends at all, I just can't socialise with girls, they annoy me. The majority of my friends are blokes & I like blokey things. BabyChaos can vouch for the fact that I'm a very blokey geek indeed. Not something I see as a bad thing

The thing that really gets me though... is why do so many female geeks detest modding? It's such a weird one.

 

Its like a make-over, but for a pooter.

 

This kinda goes back to the chemestry of the brain. Appearently in rare cease that they really find a person who grew up "wild" or just not taught how to "speak" when they are young, by the time they are older, their brain chemestry has changed enough that it is just too late too learn it.

One girl in california was locked away in the basement by her parents and they just never talked to her, so she never learned to talk. Like at 8 or 10 years old, the authorities found her and immediately started to teach her how to speak and stuff. Unfortunately, though she proved to have a normal intellect, she never could get the hang of the speach thing. She could learn words and string a few togethr in a rudamentry fashion (like my typing), but she really just missed the window of when her brain would respond to that stimuli and learn about speach.