Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Computers, Women, and the Bully Media
There are not a lot of women in computer science because of the media. The media encourages women to become physically beautiful and emotionally strong but not nerdy. In media productions, nerdy women usually get no love (remember- the media doesn't always reflect truth). I mean in TV shows and movies it is always the nerdy math girl that gets picked on and looks bad. Want to see a powerful and confident computer programmer in the media? Go watch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. What I want to pass to you is that as long as math and computers are seen as uncool in popular culture, the number of women enrolling in computer science will stay low. As for me, I think it's hot! (In a sort of sin^2(x) + cos^2(x) = 1 kind of way)
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I had a thought while reading this; if we were going to take a survey to see what major people thought had the most awkward students, CS would dominate. If media is an influence, us CS majors certainly are doing much to convience people that this is a major for "physically beautiful and emotionally strong" strong people.
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