From: "Cynthia H. Brown" <cynthb@sonetis.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 22:56:34 -0800 (PST)
To: paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
Subject: Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
Message-ID: <199702160656.WAA27621@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Sat, 15 Feb 1997 paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk wrote:

<earlier discussion excised>

> Not my point, I didn`t say I would refuse, as in my example, to have 
> my car serviced by a woman, rather, that I would not feel comfortable 
> doing so. This is not prejudice, it is a statistical judgement based 
> on the fact that, as a percentage, I know few women who are competent 
> car mechanics but I know a number of men who, by the same criteria, I 
> would call competent. 

Acknowledged, agree to disagree :-).  (Very few of my male friends
can do more than sew on a button, but that doesn't weight my choice
of a *professional* tailor.)  It did, however, sound like you were
agreeing with the previous poster's (more extreme) position.

> Very much so, I did not intend, even though my post may have appeared 
> that way, for one minute to suggest that women were *unable* to carry 
> out certain tasks, just that they seem less suited to certain 
> vocations that others. For example, I know a number of good female 
> History or English students but very few good female mathematics 
> or computer science students. This is not, I believe, because women are 
> not "suited" to computer science rather that they have never been encouraged 
> at high school etc. to learn about such subjects which are seen as male preserves. 
> I wholeheartedly believe this should not be the case, and my original 
> post may have been misleading, I just believe that in the current 
> system very few women do become good at science/technical subjects.

Agreed (sadly) that there is a dearth of role models like Mme. Curie
or Roberta Bondar.

There is also an unfortunate "geek stigma" often attached to those
who are good at math or science (male or female). Whether this stigma
discourages more girls than boys is questionable (psychology thesis,
anyone?), but it has probably resulted in good-math-potential brains
taking economics (or whatever) instead.  Fewer competitors for the
56-bit prize, but also fewer brains thinking up better PRNGs.

Cynthia
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                   Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng.
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