>Interesting perspective. Have you interviewed any of the women?
No women in either of these two companies or I would have.
>
>Perhaps ORA could poll the companies who send people to TPC as to how many
>women they employ and how many they will be sending to the conference and
>perhaps get them to comment. It gets really old going to these things with
>all the good old married guys who talk in the conference about how the
>wife or the little woman is out shopping, etc.
You've peaked my interest. I will cogitate on this a bit and see what we
might be able to do.
>
>*>So you are a female programmer, why do you like programming? Was your Mom
>*>a programmer? What kindled your interest?
>
>I'm an SA, a different kind of problem solver. :) And, my father was an
>EE, mom ran out-paitient surgery and, out of 4 daughters there are 2
>Martha Stewarts, me and a nurse practitioner who makes me look like Mary
>Poppins. I have no explanations as to why or how I was interested in
>science from a very early age.
My mother was a structural engineer, my father an EE so I had lots of
math/science role modeling going on in my house. As a matter of fact if I
didn't end up in science I would have been disowned. However, I have a very
good female friend who is a physicist and is now very high up in the
hierarchy at NASA's planetary sciences division. She was the only girl in a
family of 5. Her father was a delivery truck driver, her mother a
stay-at-home Mom aka frustrated opera singer. No techy role modeling in
that household. As a matter of fact her mother did everything she could to
steer her away from science and marry her off at 18. But my friend went on
to get her PhD in Physics from Cal Tech and is now a Physics prof. at the
University of Arizona. So what encouraged her...enlightened teacher
perhaps???
>
>*>But it does start at home with "Mom" as I described in my previous email.
>*>So somehow we need to fix "Mom" and things will begin to change.
>
>I don't know as I don't have children, but I wouldn't be so quick to blame
>mothers as it would seem a very popular way to excuse many things these
>days. Turn on your TV and watch it for a few hours and you'll be
>innundated with the very same message...when is the last time you saw a
>smart chick on TV that wasn't either portrayed as unattractive or plain or
>downright aggressive wench? There is a lot more at work here than girls
>being told that they aren't good at math...they believe it. Math is just
>another language. We need to start telling ourselves that, despite the
>differences in gender, that we should be able to do whatever interests us.
Very well said.
Madeline Schnapp, O'Reilly and Associates
101 Morris Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472
Tel: 707-829-0515, FAX: 707-829-0104
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED], URL: http://www.oreilly.com
