I'm all for such groups targeted exclusively for minorities, even if there were no longer any discrimination.
Suppose you're a member of minority M, looking to get into group G, which is dominated by members of group D, who are all significantly different in some very obvious way. Wouldn't you personally like a little reassurance from someone else in M who's made it in G, that you too can do well? It's just plain human insecurity. As a girl who takes a lot of CS classes, even though I never experience any hostility from the guys in the classes, it just feels a little weird. I certainly do feel more insecure. Like it or not, just because so many more guys are in these classes, girls form a stereotype of CS as being something for guys and not for them. They have to hear that message from a girl, a living counterexample, to shake that stereotype. Being outnumbered by guys everywhere does nothing but reinforce stereotypes.
I lived in Japan twice for the summer, and once for a whole year.
I was really into Japanese culture and language, and was very excited to immerse myself in the whole experience all 3 times. For the two summers, this was not a problem. I took the same approach for my year long stay.
However, after month 4 or 5, I totally burned out. I was spending all week and all weekend speaking Japanese, which I was improving at a lot, but still required a lot more mental effort than speaking English. Beyond that, there are just lots of little cultural things to always be mindful of and this added a small but constant burden, too.
It was at this time that I started attending an English speaking church, attended by ex-pats. One thing I discovered was that, even if the person was Taiwanese and we were speaking Japanese because that was the one common language between us, we still agreed on the same things that were weird about Japan.
Having this support group made a world of difference. I was still in a Japanese environment, spending most days speaking mostly Japanese, but I had an outlet.
I suspect this is what women get from having female connections in the CS/programming world. As much as our society sometimes tries to ignore the fact, men and women are different enough that it is occasionally necessary to get away from the other culture and retreat into your own, even if only to hear someone agree about how weird the other culture can be.
Comments
I'm all for such groups targeted exclusively for minorities, even if there were no longer any discrimination.
Suppose you're a member of minority M, looking to get into group G, which is dominated by members of group D, who are all significantly different in some very obvious way. Wouldn't you personally like a little reassurance from someone else in M who's made it in G, that you too can do well? It's just plain human insecurity. As a girl who takes a lot of CS classes, even though I never experience any hostility from the guys in the classes, it just feels a little weird. I certainly do feel more insecure. Like it or not, just because so many more guys are in these classes, girls form a stereotype of CS as being something for guys and not for them. They have to hear that message from a girl, a living counterexample, to shake that stereotype. Being outnumbered by guys everywhere does nothing but reinforce stereotypes.
I lived in Japan twice for the summer, and once for a whole year.
I was really into Japanese culture and language, and was very excited to immerse myself in the whole experience all 3 times. For the two summers, this was not a problem. I took the same approach for my year long stay.
However, after month 4 or 5, I totally burned out. I was spending all week and all weekend speaking Japanese, which I was improving at a lot, but still required a lot more mental effort than speaking English. Beyond that, there are just lots of little cultural things to always be mindful of and this added a small but constant burden, too.
It was at this time that I started attending an English speaking church, attended by ex-pats. One thing I discovered was that, even if the person was Taiwanese and we were speaking Japanese because that was the one common language between us, we still agreed on the same things that were weird about Japan.
Having this support group made a world of difference. I was still in a Japanese environment, spending most days speaking mostly Japanese, but I had an outlet.
I suspect this is what women get from having female connections in the CS/programming world. As much as our society sometimes tries to ignore the fact, men and women are different enough that it is occasionally necessary to get away from the other culture and retreat into your own, even if only to hear someone agree about how weird the other culture can be.