The usefulness of gender studies: avoid traps!
I am currently implementing some key learnings from my own gender studies performed 2013. For instance, in gender studies it is found that women in informatics work on "soft topics" preferably. This might sound nice, because women have a natural gift for soft topics. But this is nonsense. I am more talented for hard facts, statistics, numbers, formulas. The soft topics are fascinating me because they are even more complex than mechnical research questions because soft skills and emotions are more difficult to measure and enhance the complexity of statistical treatment.
The harm that is done by women moving to soft topics is in that these topics have a low prestige. Producing code is valued most in informatics. This means that people who do this have a higher prestige, this work is better paid and it is easier to get funding for such work as a freelancer or as a scientist.
I wondered why this could happen that during my 20 years of work life I drifted from hard topics like programming, simulations and numerical calculations to requirements engineering. Was it a completely free choice? No. I remember jobs where suddently I was told to keep my hands from the code, in order not to damage anything. When I asked to get programming tasks, I was told this was not possible because I had never written any code before and it is too difficult for me to learn. This was not true, but prejudice beats facts. When the boss says programming is too difficult for me, I must not touch the code.
Why I write this is the following: I kept my eyes open. The world is full of opportunities and we can choose. Currently, I am preparing for a programming course, a course about IT security and for a Matlab Simulink course. Welcome back, my good old friends! Differential equations, vehicle models, graphics, DOS attacks! I am feeling like in the good old times of my studies when colourful formulas were telling me their secrets and I calculated air planes in the flight or cold metal falling into warm liquids. I am on my way back to hard topics...
The harm that is done by women moving to soft topics is in that these topics have a low prestige. Producing code is valued most in informatics. This means that people who do this have a higher prestige, this work is better paid and it is easier to get funding for such work as a freelancer or as a scientist.
I wondered why this could happen that during my 20 years of work life I drifted from hard topics like programming, simulations and numerical calculations to requirements engineering. Was it a completely free choice? No. I remember jobs where suddently I was told to keep my hands from the code, in order not to damage anything. When I asked to get programming tasks, I was told this was not possible because I had never written any code before and it is too difficult for me to learn. This was not true, but prejudice beats facts. When the boss says programming is too difficult for me, I must not touch the code.
Why I write this is the following: I kept my eyes open. The world is full of opportunities and we can choose. Currently, I am preparing for a programming course, a course about IT security and for a Matlab Simulink course. Welcome back, my good old friends! Differential equations, vehicle models, graphics, DOS attacks! I am feeling like in the good old times of my studies when colourful formulas were telling me their secrets and I calculated air planes in the flight or cold metal falling into warm liquids. I am on my way back to hard topics...
AndreaHerrmann - 18. Nov, 11:54
