Soap Opera for Luring Women to Tech is a Flop 349
Billosaur writes "The Register has an article by Mark Ballard on attempts to lure more women into the area of technology by a '...TV soap that depicts them making a success of careers traditionally pursued by men.' The Public Awareness of Science and Engineering (PAWS) Drama Fund has been attempting to develop a soap opera called 'Happy Valley' to encourage girls to pursue careers in science and technology by giving them successful role models to follow. The idea is tanking, however, as no one is willing to pick up the show. To quote the show's writer, Tony McHale: 'People say, why don't you do a science soap. My reply is that no-one will commission it, because it's boring.'"
Hour Long Drama (Score:5, Insightful)
E.R., CSI, Numb3rs, I'm sure there are more. They have women, they have science. What more do you want?
Because guys need 'em! (Score:2, Insightful)
I think we'd all give our left... uhhh... big toe to find a nice Hot Geek Girl.
Cart before the horse (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad Ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares?? (Score:4, Insightful)
So what if there aren't many women in tech jobs....maybe thats because they don't wanna be there. How many men are in nursing as compared to women? You don't see too many male hookers either ;) It's a non-issue that bores me quite frankly.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:Hour Long Drama (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Insightful)
Of *COURSE* it's a flop... (Score:5, Insightful)
I got into technology because it was interesting and challenging. My gender had very little to do with my career aspirations. Maybe I'm a fluke, but I sure as hell never felt like certain fields were "off limits" to me just because I'm a setter rather than a pointer. I think the only time I ever heard "girls can't do that..." is when I tried to pee standing up, so maybe I'm just lucky.
I'll also say that I don't want more women in tech. I don't want more men in tech. I don't want more fluffy orange velociraptors in tech. What I want are more *good* people in tech - people who are smart, can think well, can do the work, and are good to work with. Specifically targeting "underrepresented" groups for a specific career based solely on demographic reasons is absurd. Ability is what should metter, not what one has under the hood.
"it's boring" (Score:2, Insightful)
Boring? (Score:3, Insightful)
In my degree program, the materials science major was so small that girls either equalled or out-numbered the guys in terms of enrollment. And there is such a shortage of people to replace metallurgists and civil and environmental people that any male bias has been lost to expediency. We hire the ladies or we can't get personnel.
The same is true for the military, the no women in combat rule has been OBE, overtaken by events. I think they've chosen a format that doesn't work for science. A soap opera is a stupid approach. My advice would be to do a show similar to the ER's and 24's. Have a female dominated accident re-construction team that goes in to analyze the results of major accidents, train de-railments, crane collapses, basic failure analysis. Is it a terror attack or not? Build on the premise and use good solid story telling. Science and engineering don't have to be boring. Soap opera's are boring,folks.
Restoring balance, perhaps? (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be, as the Harvard president was attacked for suggesting, that women are not as capable as men in scientific and mathematical fields. The brains of women and men ARE different, and that could be one way. I'm willing to believe that on average, a woman is less likely than a man to want to be a programmer, in a biogically predetermined sense.
However, that doesn't mean that all women are worse than all men in technical fields. Unfortunately, many girls are brought up to believe precisely that. They're told in ways subtle and not-so-subtle that they can't make it in science/math/engineering, and if you tell a young person enough times they come to believe it. Some female friends of mine recall being told point-blank, "Girls aren't good at math. Stop it." Stupid, yeah, but it happens.
If nothing else, the lack of present role models for women in scientific fields gives them the message that women can't go into those fields. Yeah, there are some, but they're far outnumbered by men.
So how many potentially brilliant programmers have we lost because Women Can't Do Computers? And how many women grow up with a fear or deep-seated misunderstanding of tech because they were told that they can't possibly be any good at it? Could your girlfriend/wife/female friend really program her own $*@#$& VCR if she hadn't been told at a young age it was impossible?
The best solution is to eliminate the bias that girls receive, and I think the world is getting better at that. Girls are passing boys in the SAT math, for example. But some bias remains, and rather than wring our hands and decry it, we can also try to counteract it by explicitly showing them women who do like tech. If there aren't enough real ones, we can bootstrap the process with fictional ones.
It may be pointless. It may not work; perhaps we already have as many female programmers as women who want to be programmers. And this kind of social engineering is as best unproven, if not actually backfiring.
And in fact, there are pushes to get men into education, for precisely the same reason. There are fewer male nurses, and some who want to are pushed out of the field by the stereotype that they can't. There's a deficit of nurses, and I for one would like to see if we could encourage more men to take up the field. It's a reasonably lucrative profession, if men can get over the shame of being called by a "woman's" title. Perhaps a few extra male nurses on medical TV shows would help.
Hatred of Men and Women (Score:4, Insightful)
Too late in a woman's life to have any effect (Score:2, Insightful)
Young girls are constantly subjected in our society to advertisements, television shows, movies, video games, peer pressure, and stereotypes that all give them the idea that socializing, procreating, and "having fun" are the only things they should concern themselves with. That's why most females are only interested in things that support those goals (examples: fashion, trying to be popular, partying, dreaming of a perfect white wedding, wanting to have kids, etc). Note that nowhere in any of these goals are "learning" or "self-accomplishment".
If you want to raise a female geek, you have to actively combat all those influences and also actively teach the girl that other goals are actually more important in life. If you plant the seeds so that the main goals a girl cares about in life are learning and self-accomplishment, then everything else will fall into place.
Star Trek (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh and it was cancelled too.
Re:Mount Everest (Score:1, Insightful)
Got money and are a cocky ass? You can get laid even if you look like Ron Jeremy.
Of course, some of us suffer from a terminal case of integrity and are unable to pull off such behavior.
Re:Hour Long Drama (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who cares?? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Hour Long Drama (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason soaps are the way they are is because the largest marketable demographic that is at home from 11:00 AM until 3:00 PM is house-wives and stay-at-home moms of small children.
If you want to reach teenaged girls, you don't produce a show for them that runs while they are at school.
Re:Of *COURSE* it's a flop... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just like a woman to make her velociraptors fluffy and orange.
*ducks*
In all seriousness, though, I agree with you. There is no need to push women (or men, for that matter) into various fields just because the percentages don't match the general population. However, I do think we need to focus our efforts in this country away from *discouraging* specific genders from entering certain fields. Girls should never be told that "girls can't do math," and boys should never be told "being a nurse is for sissies."
That being said, the general population really does tend to sort itself into gender roles. Give a G.I. Joe action figure to a little girl, and she will likely dress it up and have a tea party. Give a Barbie to a little boy, and soon Major General Barbie will be unleashing the dinosaurs on Cobra's headquarters. In the absense of all discouragement, the percentage of women in technical fields would definitely be higher, but it would still not approach 50%, as most people who "encourage women to enter $FIELD" think it should be.
A more fundamental question... (Score:5, Insightful)
And where is all the interest in increasing male participation in primary education?
Re:Mount Everest (Score:2, Insightful)
How about making tech attractive to EVERYBODY? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps the gender ratio would be more balanced if the population in general believed that a person can be a techie and still be "cool".
Re:Who cares?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Of *COURSE* it's a flop... (Score:2, Insightful)
is it "lure girls" or change general perception? (Score:2, Insightful)
As another poster has mentioned, it's pretty lame to think that gals will just see "ooh! pretty role model! Me do too!" (although guys are pretty susceptible to "Arnie does it, so can I!" logic) and that gals so easily influenced would make your prime candidates for nuclear physics.
A more reasonable goal would be to just get people in general used to the idea of seeing females in a wide variety of technical, scientific and medical roles.
Re:It wouldn't be interesting . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Real physics research isn't like Bill Nye. It's quite often hours of tedious data collection, followed by days or weeks of number crunching. That's not to say that it's not enjoyable -- I loved the time I spent working in the lab -- but it's going to make exactly thrilling television.
I've talked to people doing some very interesting and cutting-edge biochem research, and had them admit that after spending 8 or 9 hours in a lab, to an outside observer, at the end all they have is a few tenths of a gram of white goo to show for it.
I think this is true for most sciences. With some exceptions, real research isn't terribly flashy. It's a painstaking process, and the rewards that drive people are mostly internal and inscrutable to those who don't share the same interests.
Just think of how hard it is for someone who works in the sciences to go home at night and tell their spouse/S.O. what they did at work that day -- now imagine how hard it would be to tell a few hundred thousand people that, and keep their interest. It's not easy to do, and I think that's why you don't see much mainstream TV about it.
Re:Restoring balance, perhaps? (Score:1, Insightful)
Verbal (male - female)
1972: 531 - 529 = 2
2005: 513 - 505 = 8
Math (male - female)
1972: 527 - 489 = 38
2005: 538 - 504 = 34
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/
Re:Restoring balance, perhaps? (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is a list of all the role models I can remember looking up to growing up as a young kid enthusiastic about mathematics:
I couldn't name a single mathematician as a kid. I had no role models. I didn't need to see TV programs about mathematicians to tell me that I enjoyed mathematics. I didn't know a single mathematician or scientist. Nobody in my family did science as a profession. Scientists were people in movies who wore lab coats and were the first to die when the experiment went out of control. They weren't someone I wanted to be. I liked mathematics because it was a fascinating subject and I could do it. I didn't do it because I wanted to be like someone else. I did it in spite of the fact that there was incredible peer pressure on me not to do because kids who like mathematics tend not to be the popular kids (until eventually you realise not being stingy with doing other kids' homework gave you a popularity of sorts).
So tell me please, what do role models have to do with anything? If you need a role model to tell you that science or mathematics or computing is interesting then I think you probably ought to consider getting a job in acting so you can try to be like them all day long.