The Importance of Early Years and the Media
[For more information on this important subject, see the GREAT page, which was developed
at Stanford for a previous Computers, Ethics and Social Responsibility
class.]
Though a thorough discussion of the importance of encouraging girls to
pursue their math, science and computer science interests in the early
years of their lives is beyond the scope of this project, it is important
to enumerate some facts and statistics in the subject. First of all,
it is during those crucial years that children discover some of the
interests that will later on shape their academic and professional
decisions. Women are often discouraged from mathematical and scientific
pursuits on the basis that they should be engaging in more social activities.
While young men are often allowed to spend hours on end in front of the
family computers, young women are encouraged to pursue less solitary
activities. Because of this young girls are deprived of precious hours
becoming familiar with the computing paradigm and the ever-increasing
influence of the internet. As [insert name] stated on the movie "Minerva's
Machine", as the computers increase in important to our everyday lives,
young women who aren't allowed to explore computers are being shut out
not only of computer science as a potential career, but of a whole virtual
world of information and opportunities.
Another interesting study asked sixth-grade students to draw a
computer
scientist. Most children drew older, bearded men with glasses, dressed
either in lab coats or in the standard "beat up jeans and plaid shirt"
geek culture uniform. Not a single child drew a woman. This image of the
computer science profession as a male dominated field may also further
discouraging young women from considering it as an alternative for their
future, after all, what young woman wants to imagine herself surrounded
by unattractive males with poor social skills, and somehow fitting into that
culture?
Tied to this issue of young women's image of computer science
is the issue of lack of prominent female role models in the field. The
media plays an important role of creating stereotypes and role model for
children in several different fields and professions. The toy-empire
Mattel caused outrage when they released their Barbie doll that complained:
"Math is hard!" Parents, educators, and feminists everywhere were repulsed
by Mattel's insesitivity to an already difficult subject: the myth that
girls are not as capable in math and science as boys. It wasn't until 1999
that Mattel released a "hacker" Barbie in the new "Generation Girl"
collection, which came with her own laptop
computer and "claimed" to be interested in web design and anime.
In the highly popular 1999 movie "The Matrix" the female character Trinity
was rarely seen meddling with computers whereas her male counterpart Neo
(played by Keanu Reeves) was portrayed as a highly skilled hacker and
as a professional computer scientist. Even though in the plot Trinity is a
skilled hacker as well, when Neo discovers Trinity's identity he states that
he thought he'd been communicating with a men. Trinity's response is simple:
"Most people do." One other Hollywood example is Sandra
Bullock in the movie "The Net", where though Bullock plays the part of
a highly skilled (and beautiful) hacker, she is also portrayed as being
deppressed, anti-social and isolated. Again, not exactly the glamourous
lyfestlyle young women are likely to fantasize about.
