#genderdivide

Margolis, J., & Fisher, A. (2003)

Women must be part of the design teams who are reshaping the world, if the reshaped world is to fit women as well as men.

Reflection: It's easy to draw this conclusion, but it's hard for women to actually design something for women. On the one hand, the design teams may offer limited chances for women to participate in. Even if women are already in design teams, their voices may be still depressed by other male members or leaders. On the other hand, even if women invent something brilliant, there's a good chance that it won't be recognized by the mainstream. There is gender bias in the world, especially for asian society. For example, as long as there is an avoidable car accident or irregular driving in China, commenters will always maliciously speculate that the car must be driven by a female driver. Although in reality male drivers have a higher accident rate than female drivers.

For this to happen, women must know more than how to use technology; they must know how to design and create it.

Reflection: Even women know all about this, the chances for them to change this male-dominated world are still low.

He continues, “Well, my father is not very patient in teaching her, but I keep trying to teach her and help her out.” The computer-impaired mother is a stock character in many students’ stories.

Childhood behaviors, however conditioned by gender socialization and genetics, tend to set computing on the male side of the gender divide.

Reflection: It's so typical that in a typical family, the father is always trying and mastering new things like computers or cell phones, while the mother is far away from or even afraid of these new technologies. Young children definitely will notice this phenomenon which may shape their expectation of their own sex. So, as we try to get more young girls involved in developing computational thinking, we should also try to get their mothers to change their cognitions and develop their own computational thinking too.

The story of Judit Polgar is remarkable. Her father decided to experiment on all of his children to find out whether genius was inherent or could be taught. As babies, Judit and her siblings were given chess pieces to play with and were told stories or daring-do involving kings, queens, knights and castles. She was introduced to the game of chess at a very young age and fell in love with the game, receiving tuition on all the key strategies and openings. She was home schooled by her parents in Hungary, despite the disapproval of the authorities, but Judit and her sister all became very strong players.

By the time she was fifteen Judit was a grandmaster, at the time the youngest player to achieve that status, breaking Bobby Fischer’s record. Although never herself holding the world championship, in her career she managed to beat eleven current or former world champions.

I have been thinking about this because in the last ten days I have played (and lost) my first game of chess in the Sixth Form Centre, and also been thinking about the options process – boys and girls choosing the subjects they want to pursue.

Judit Polgar’s story reminds us that girls can succeed in male-dominated environments and there is no reason why they should not take on subjects where the majority of pupils have tended to be boys. Likewise, I hope all the boys will be open-minded about the subjects they want to pursue and not simply follow a perceived gender divide.

Over the half-term I will be catching up with Queen’s Gambit – those of you familiar with the series will recognise the link with the story above.

I will also be relaxing with some reading, which is one of my great pleasures in the holidays and I very much hope each and every one of our pupils will get through a book in the next fortnight. A recommended reading list has been put together by the English department – with a few additions from special guests. At the end of a long term there is bound to be some TV watching and video gaming, but across the fortnight I hope your families are also able to carve out some reading time for everyone.

         Our gender stereotype start when before we are born, especially for girls. Your mother is given piles of pink clothing at her shower for your, anticipating your birth. There are ribbons and ponies and princesses surrounding you before you can even see properly. Your decision is made, for you – but by who? Who tells everyone that these are what you need and what you want, and anything else is wrong?

         Your mother and her mother were told what was right for girls. Pink clothing, and playing house, and tiaras are what is “for girls”. These ideas are reinforced when brothers and cousins tell you that you can't join in on games that are “for boys” because, because... it's not for girls. But who told them this? Why? Generations ago, someone has decided what was proper for each gender to wear and to play with, but in this modern day and age – when gender binary is become less frequent in households. Who is still perpetuating these ideas? The answer is simple, from Barton: marketing.

“I love a form-fitting, logo-emblazoned throwback blazer as much as the next gal. And it’s understandable that the NFL tries to boil female interest down to clichés—marketing, after all, is marketing.”

        Everyday, like we see in the articles by Lien and Barton. Someone else is deciding what we should fit into and what we, as females, should enjoy. Stereotypes once developed have been perpetuated by the advances advertising, allowing companies to niche out their sales. For Lien's article, she gives the quote from Roeser on this:

"People like me get paid a lot of money to understand customer and consumer behavior," Roeser says. A lot of that money goes into research and finding the best way to send messages to consumers. He says that, whether we like it or not, we're conditioned from an early age to pay attention to these messages."

Julio Villaneda, who's featured in the video profile above, teaches seventh grade math at a public all-boys middle school in Austin, Tex. The school just opened this fall as part of an experiment in improving scholastic performance. A public all-girls middle school opened as well.