Girls rule

[tikistitch]

Via the ever mind-expanding thedisneyblog...

Sorry, Boys, This Is Our Domain

THE prototypical computer whiz of popular imagination — pasty, geeky, male — has failed to live up to his reputation.

Research shows that among the youngest Internet users, the primary creators of Web content (blogs, graphics, photographs, Web sites) are not misfits resembling the Lone Gunmen of “The X Files.” On the contrary, the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls.

“Most guys don’t have patience for this kind of thing,” said Nicole Dominguez, 13, of Miramar, Fla., whose hobbies include designing free icons, layouts and “glitters” (shimmering animations) for the Web and MySpace pages of other teenagers. “It’s really hard.”

Nicole posts her graphics, as well as her own HTML and CSS computer coding pointers (she is self-taught), on the pink and violet Sodevious.net, a domain her mother bought for her in October.

“If you did a poll I think you’d find that boys rarely have sites,” she said. “It’s mostly girls.”

Indeed, a study published in December by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that among Web users ages 12 to 17, significantly more girls than boys blog (35 percent of girls compared with 20 percent of boys) and create or work on their own Web pages (32 percent of girls compared with 22 percent of boys).

But... (and you knew there would be one)

But even though girls surpass boys as Web content creators, the imbalance among adults in the computer industry remains. Women hold about 27 percent of jobs in computer and mathematical occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In American high schools, girls comprised fewer than 15 percent of students who took the AP computer science exam in 2006, and there was a 70 percent decline in the number of incoming undergraduate women choosing to major in computer science from 2000 to 2005, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology.

Comments

o_O

[mythosidhe.livejournal.com]

Sooooo....basically the girls are doing the modern day equivalent of staying home and making complicated and pretty but basically useless needlework samplers, while the menfolk go out into the world and become captains of cyber-industry? We girls sure are lazy.

Re: o_O

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

Getting women into CS - well, it's complicated. Here's a story about a computer science grad department somebody told me: this was back in the 20th century, when they were still actually concerned about affirmative action. They noticed the female grad students, who were equally bright and did well in classes, were not passing the general exams. So, they looked into it. In sum, what they found was, if the female grads had some problems in their lives around the exam, it would screw up their performance, and they wouldn't pass. Male grads, on the other hand, would basically let their lives go to hell in order to pass.

Then they did a smart thing: instead of trying to change men and women, or society, they changed the exams, and more women passed.

My hit is if we as a society want more women in high tech, there will have to be changes made. But, it's not clear to me that most people are interested in such old fashioned things as diversity these days.

[twotone]

Hrm. I don't know if it's fair to say that girls are becoming computer whizzes simply because the majority of graphically-oriented and personal diary sites are populated by girls. I feel it's more a product of what girls and boys do with computers... Many girls focus on prettying up their online presence (whether it's a MySpace page, NeoPets page, or blog) whereas boys are probably less driven to do the same. Then there's the question of whether girls who are into web design and making pretty personal pages would be interested in actual computer science -- the internal workings of computers and servers and such.

I do wonder at the purported lack of young male presence on the internet. Where are they? Are they lurking in discussion boards (the LEGO fan forums seem mostly populated by homeschooled young boys) or are they busy playing video games and MMORPGs? And what causes them to shift their priorities, because I'm pretty sure that there are just as many adult male Big Name Bloggers as there are female ones?

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

And what causes them to shift their priorities, because I'm pretty sure that there are just as many adult male Big Name Bloggers as there are female ones?

When I got to grad school, I noticed something: all the Psych undergrads were female. All of 'em. Well, except a few football players. Then the grad students were more or less 50/50 male/female. Then the professors: all men. All of them. Well, except a couple women, but that one's a BITCH, and that other one, she's a wimp who also teaches womens studies, which is not a REAL subject, hahahaha!

And, I always tried to figure out, wha' happen?

[spazzygirl19.livejournal.com]

Hmmm ... very interesting...

When I still worked in the world of advertising/design 3 years ago -- most of the art directors & designers we hired were men (freelance & full-time); though some of the BEST that came thru tended to be the women. And while the 'creative' world of advertising/design is a tiny bit more egalitarian than 'regular' corporate America; the same effect was going on. Men in higher echelon positions & few women. Women about 20 years ago had to fight tooth & nail to get up in the creative world; now it's a bit more common. However, oftentimes, I would still be the only female in a conference room full of men.

I remember one meeting where the head client (who was in his 60's) looked at me & said, "You'd prefer to 'nest' than be here, right?"

Now that blogs, Myspace, etc. have "taken off" -- it'll be interesting to see whether in 5 years that translates to more females in both the creative and computer worlds.