> She started a "geek feminist" website, so that didn't help...
This comes across similar to the excuse: "well of course she got raped - look at how she was dressed".
Feminism only became a "dirty word" during President Reagan's term. Susan Faludi wrote a very good book titled Backlash explaining how the backlash against feminism started, who did it and what motivated them.
> Stop trying to 'get more women in technology'. Why is this seen as a serious problem that needs fixing?
I used to be a member of SWE (society of women engineers) back in college. One of their large studies (done in the mid 90s, which I think was jointly done with NSBE - national society of black engineers) revealed 3 important things about engineering education in the US:
1. It appears that high school guidance councillors were discouraging women from enrolling in engineering programs. It might have alternatively been that they were encouraging men to enroll in engineering and just not encouraging women. There wasn't enough data to support either conclusion. The M/F ratio among the population is very close to 0.5. The M/F ratio among engineers is well over 10. That there is such a difference points out that there is a problem. We don't run around with guns and blow stuff up - we sit in chairs all day - so the arguments that people use to justify excluding women from combat are worse than useless when you're considering technology.
2. That women in engineering drop out of engineering at twice the rate that men drop out of engineering. The folks doing the study didn't have an answer for that, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was because so many of us are jerks.
3. Engineering is seen as "uncool". Movies and TV shows portray engineers as nerds - and that nerds are uncool and unpopular.
That there is such a difference points out that there is a problem.
No, it points out that there is a difference. There's thousands of differences between men and women. This one happens to be about employment in engineering jobs. You could claim it's just because of sexism, but it would be nice to have proof that it's that and not (for example) that there's just not as much interest from women in engineering jobs. I have no idea why you brought up combat, though, as I never mentioned it...
On your point #2, it wouldn't surprise me if they dropped out because of a number of factors and the bulk of them just happened to be the same cultural and sexual differences which make men and women different in general. But it would be really nice to have real evidence of something rather than wildly speculate.
On point #3, the current generation is in love with the idea of nerds and geeks. They're sexy and intelligent, according to pretty much every person on OkCupid.com (I think they actually have infographs on that too...). However, I can tell you definitely that being a geek was highly uncool when I grew up. It's the only reason I got into computers - I had no social life and computers were an escape. I'm not an engineer so I don't know what that's like. I could speculate (again) and say that based on my female friends who are geeks, not one of them is the stereotypical bubblegum hottie cheerleader type. Why? Beats the hell outta me. If we could solve that maybe we could get Paris Hilton to take up nuclear physics and little girls would grow up with a positive role model instead of what they have now, which is largely pretty drunken sluts on TV and tabloids.
This comes across similar to the excuse: "well of course she got raped - look at how she was dressed".
Feminism only became a "dirty word" during President Reagan's term. Susan Faludi wrote a very good book titled Backlash explaining how the backlash against feminism started, who did it and what motivated them.
http://www.amazon.com/Backlash-Undeclared-Against-American-W...
> Stop trying to 'get more women in technology'. Why is this seen as a serious problem that needs fixing?
I used to be a member of SWE (society of women engineers) back in college. One of their large studies (done in the mid 90s, which I think was jointly done with NSBE - national society of black engineers) revealed 3 important things about engineering education in the US:
1. It appears that high school guidance councillors were discouraging women from enrolling in engineering programs. It might have alternatively been that they were encouraging men to enroll in engineering and just not encouraging women. There wasn't enough data to support either conclusion. The M/F ratio among the population is very close to 0.5. The M/F ratio among engineers is well over 10. That there is such a difference points out that there is a problem. We don't run around with guns and blow stuff up - we sit in chairs all day - so the arguments that people use to justify excluding women from combat are worse than useless when you're considering technology.
2. That women in engineering drop out of engineering at twice the rate that men drop out of engineering. The folks doing the study didn't have an answer for that, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was because so many of us are jerks.
3. Engineering is seen as "uncool". Movies and TV shows portray engineers as nerds - and that nerds are uncool and unpopular.