After viewing Professor Meraz's lecture, it is my belief human perception and common stereotypes of women have had an effect on the number of women joining the field of computer sciences. The same goes for women and the struggles they face in the field of blogging.
Stereotypes and gender roles are assigned to males and females from childhood. The common narrative is that females are the care-givers, are passive and submissive, and do light work in service industries. Males are often the strong providers, do the hard work, and are dominant and aggressive. From Meraz's lecture, evidence can be seen that these stereotypes have made their way in to the information age of technology. Males dominate hardware and software engineering, while females are the majority of designers. In industries such as the gaming industry, games with action themes are geared towards males and feature males in the protagonist role. Light games like Diner Dash and ones similar that are games of mainly multitasking duties, are geared towards females and feature mainly female characters. What we have studied about the traditional perceptions of what men and women are supposed to be has a lot to do with this.
How children are raised have much to do with who they grow up to be. What they have seen and grown up around develop their perception, specifically their interpretation of things. Less than 1% of females listed a major in computer sciences as a possibility at the time of the research. In many cases, these females may have not grown up in an environment where females working in computers was seen or encouraged. So when the subject of computers is brought to them, they attach them to males and are not interested in working in the field. Females of this current generation now perceive computer science as a field for men, even though they are equally capable of doing the jobs successfully; and there are women already in the field.
In the field of blogging, the same holds true. In this field, however, we start to see schema. The sexualization of women in our society have built up expectations of what women are supposed to be presented as in our media. In Web 2.0, men, and even women, expect to see the same behaviors of women they have seen in older forms of media. In blogging, when a woman steps in and goes against those expectations, it shocks the cognitive structures built up in the minds of the receivers, also known as cognitive dissonance. The receivers then reject the material, which is why women have struggled in the field of blogging. Some women in order to gain some success in the field have behaved in ways that are identical with the schemas of the men and women who hold these perceptions. They then use it to their advantage to get their real objectives across. Depending on personal opinion, this can be seen as smart or as giving in.
-Calvin Nichols
I agree to what you have said in your blog. I also did some research and according to New York Times women who have graduated with the degree in computer science field is because they came from the families with the computer science background. Another explanation given by the New York Times is that the drop of interest in the computer science field is because it is linked to the pejorative figure of the “nerd” or “geek” and girls do not want to be associated with those terms.
ReplyDeleteCalvin & Damir-
ReplyDeleteI too read that article and found it directly relatable to not only Meraz's lecture but her research as well. Although i can agree with Meraz's insight on stereotyping making it uneasy for women to join the computer science field, i am surpirsed that not more women with computer science family background do not end up in the field. Goes to show how much peoples opinions and stereotyping really does effect our society.
I agree with your blog. I also think that stereotypes of women goes beyond the computer sciences and blogging. And it's sad that many women, and I'm sure I've fallen victim of this, won't do something because they aren't supposed to and it's not ladylike.
ReplyDeleteCalvin, your introduction is concise, and shows that you understand Professor Meraz’s lecture. Your transition into a discussion about stereotypes shows that you were able to relate class material to the online lecture. Further, you show that you learned about gender inequities in the fields of computer science/I.T. and blogging. Your post was informative, and made me want to go watch the lecture. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYour correlation between Professor Meraz's lecture and the stereotyping of women ties together well. I watched this lecture as well, and the points you touched on in your analysis made me re-evaluate what I had originally taken from the lecture. It definitely is a crucial point to note that women have historically been made out to be the "weaker" gender. My English class this past Spring semester was about LGBTQ and gender roles and we talked a lot about the incessant separation of masculinity and femininity in our society. The discrimination against women in the field of computer science is a direct bi-product of the masculine/feminine separation.
ReplyDeleteYour knowledge of this topic is apparent, and I appreciate your thoughtfulness.
I work in the television industry and the top producers tend to be women, and are very demanding/tough in order to match with their male counter part. However, I've noticed that the women are the producers of the shows while the network executives are the men. Quite problematic.
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