pouët.net

This link was posted in the Oneliner: When Women Stopped Coding

I found it very interesting. What are your opinions on the subject?

There. I fixed it for you.

My opinion is:

1. You should have posted the correct link
2. You should have mentioned the topic in the title of your thread
3. this comment I found somewhere sums it up quite well, I guess:

My thoughts:

Why would the companies target only the boys? Why did they decide to take this root? Wouldn't it be more profitable to target both sexes? Or is there another explanation?
I didn't even know the graph was rising so much for women before 80s and then suddenly failing. So, it shows strong potential even in times where computer science was harder and more low level, but then was the backslash so hard to cut this? I am puzzled by this now. If you ask everyone, they would think women were always less participating in computer science, even in the 70s (I mean we have Grace Hooper and Ada Lovelace and all that, but those are exception people will say).

Thanks optimus!

I know cupe :( I realized that putting the topic in the name might have been a good idea after i posted the thread.

Oh, I got some answer. But still, why did they prefer to market to boys and not both sexes? How did we come to this if the trends at 70s were strongly for women? This rapid swift confuses me? Or maybe computer science was more theoritical in the 70s and in the 80s you had boys playing with practical toys, something males are more focused on doing? (But I will stop here, because my mere question might sound like objectifying :)

The problem with marketing it to both sexes is that it is much more efficient to market a specific product to a specific group.

As they mention in the article is that when PC:s were marketed towards boys and computer science got more practical the girls who did not have a lot of programming experience fall behind the hordes of male nerds.

Well before the 80's some computer work was still considered something to be done by secretaries, such as data entry. So the perceived gender roles by society would be a factor. I think Optimus has a good point also, during the 80's computers started to have many more real world practical applications and started to be introduced into more traditional male dominated occupations such as engineering and military. Perhaps men started to realise there was more potential in computing other than just being an expensive calculator or database.

As computer games evolved from more gender neutral games like pacman, pong and tetris into games based on fighting, racing, war and sci-fi it definitely attracted more males to computers. Sure there was definitely a time in the 80's and 90's where home computers were more interesting to boys. However the graph still seems to be falling in recent years even though computer technology is wide spread and arguably less gender specific than in the past.

So some other factors are going on as well because the excuse that boys had more access to home computers than girls hasn't been a thing for at least 10 years now.

Before home computers became a common thing I remember the first computers I saw being ones schoolfriends fathers had brought home from work as they were starting to get used for business.

I'm guessing there's a correlation between the proliferation of computers in every day business and the marketing to men. As we all know, men are still boys at heart mean that they were originally appealing to the guy either at the business, or to encourage dads to buy them for their sons, for a future in business.

Frankly I don't give a damn and probably the majority of girlz don't either. I'm not attracted to daily soaps, going shopping or hanging out with the boys at the nail studio while drinking my prosecco. If someone thinks he must attract me to those activities fine, I won't hold him back. But I won't do it any ways. My women friends feel mostly the same about computers. They simply don't give the big F. If they want to learn, I'll teach them. But if they don't ask, I won't force them.

Maybe it's because the computing industry is getting more and more competitive and women often do not feel self-confident enough.

that's not sexist enough... it's because women get pregnant all the time so they're useless in a crunch-time oriented industry!

I noticed an Adok icon. And then a Maali one. From the outside. I came here, with popcorn, for the aftermath and found nothing. Son, you are disappoint.

yeah, i spent too much time with women, i became soft! btw, coconut cream is excellent for your skin!

in my opinion, interesting reading is interesting. just my opinion of course.

Son, you are disappoint.