ChickTech Brings Hundreds of Young Women To Open Source 158
ectoman writes: Opensource.com is running an interview with Jennifer Davidson of ChickTech, a non-profit organization whose mission is to create communities of support for women and girls pursuing (or interested in pursuing) careers in tech. "In the United States, many girls are brought up to believe that 'girls can't do math' and that science and other 'geeky' topics are for boys," Davidson said. "We break down that idea." Portland, OR-based ChickTech is quickly expanding throughout the United States—to cities like Corvallis and San Francisco—thanks to the "ChickTech: High School" initiative, which gathers hundreds of young women for two-day workshops featuring open source technologies. "We fill a university engineering department with 100 high school girls—more girls than many engineering departments have ever seen," Davidson said. "The participants can look around the building and see that girls from all backgrounds are just as excited about tech as they are."
many girls are brought up to believe that (Score:3, Insightful)
Where's BroTech? (Score:5, Insightful)
"In the United States, many boys are brought up to believe that 'doing math makes you a nerd' and that science and other 'geeky' topics are for wusses," the_skywise said. "We break down that idea."
Name (Score:2, Insightful)
The probably could've pick a name that wasn't so terrible.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is sexist (Score:1, Insightful)
If I'm talking about the national budget in some advertised talk, and I look around during my lecture and see people very interested in the topic, should I say the majority of the population loves studying economics?
What kind of fucking logic is that?
Re:many girls are brought up to believe that (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. I keep hearing this stated as a fact, over and over. It's like a lie that becomes the truth if repeated enough.
Maybe because all the females in my engineering department were women, and not girls or chicks?
Mod parent up.
Re:Where's BroTech? (Score:3, Insightful)
so true.
discrimination is discrimination, unless you're on the beneficiary side of the stick. But hey, isn't that what makes the US of A so special?
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Re:Peer pressure? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have to question the analysis after this:
"These STEM majors, as with economics, begin with few women enrolling and end with even fewer graduating. This “leaky pipeline” has been somewhat puzzling, Arcidiacono said, because women enter college just as prepared as men in math and science. On average, women more eagerly spend time studying than men do, a trait that should theoretically attract women to STEM fields, which generally assign more homework."
More homework? Women should be attracted to STEM fields because they "generally assign more homework"?!
Well... THERE'S YOUR PROBLEM.
F- that... That's not at all why I wanted to go into "STEM" fields. I wanted to build s**t.
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Selective Service (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake me up when women are required to register for Selective Service, and qualify to be shot or blown up against their will.
https://www.sss.gov/fswho.htm [sss.gov]
WHO MUST REGISTER
Almost all male U.S. citizens, and male immigrants living in the U.S., who are 18 through 25, are required to register with Selective Service.
Re:This is sexist (Score:3, Insightful)
The litmus test is in applying the opposite logic. What would the situation be if they were promoting boys instead, and someone like yourself came along and answered feminist criticism with "but see they accept women too!" Even if they did, their primary discriminator is still the sex of the student instead of relevant discriminators, like aptitude and interest. The bottom line is you (or some other feminist) would have called someone out for saying
"While they're overwhelmingly male in structure, you're absolutely wrong in your made up assertion that they don't accept women."