Female vs Male Talents

metrovelvet

Thaedydal wrote: »

I don't think that is the complete picture, I think there are women who are like that as well but they are not given the time to peruse it. They have 'women's' work to do, even at a young age girls were made to help give a hand minding siblings and doing house work and prep which was training for when they had a family of their own were as boys and men were given time to pursue such things and then we have the way that women are forgotten about and not celebrated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Murray_Hopper



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin



These women are out there always have been but they are bad examples of the ideal of womanhood which we are meant to conform to and so we don't hear about them.

Honest to god I swear some day I am going to write a book for girls (which boys should read too) about 100 women you should know about.

I really hope you write that book. It needs to be written because women get written out of the main history. [Ideally main history should be revised instead of having to write these books which further particularise women].

When I was in high school, we did not read ONE book by a woman writer. Not one and there are plenty, not even a Jane Austen or a Bronte.

I asked my teacher about this and he said 'The Scarlet Letter" is a woman's book. We are reading that. :rolleyes:

LittleBook

Thaedydal wrote: »

Honest to god I swear some day I am going to write a book for girls (which boys should read too) about 100 women you should know about.

Not if I get there first!

Bottle_of_Smoke

Men have to excel at something to attract a mate, the same pressure isn't there for women so you get the extremes

If for some hypothetical reason numbers of men reduced to 10% of the population you'd probably end up with the extremely talented scientists/entertainers/intellectuals/senior management being almost exclusively female.

Men aren't inherently ''better'' at things - they're just driven to attract women in a highly competitive world

Nolanger

Also, a lot of things were invented by men and suit their minds better e.g. internet technology

tigerblob

I believe that women tend to be Jacks of all trades while men tend to concentrate on one, as a general rule. While a woman can do a whole range of things well, a man is more likely to have one passion which he concentrates on. Obviously this isn't true for everyone but mostly, this could explain why men are in talent competitions more or what have you. The man could decide that he adores guitar and play it for eight hours a day while the woman plays some guitar, but also devotes her time to cooking, painting, writing, singing... you get the idea.

Wibbs

Nolanger wrote: »

Also, a lot of things were invented by men and suit their minds better e.g. internet technology

Maybe but it could also be argued that women are better at social networking and understanding such networks, so on the level above the mechanics of the backbone of web tech, they might be better at building the systems.

TBH I think while there may be subtle diffs, individual diffs are more important.

Nolanger

Wibbs wrote: »

it could also be argued that women are better at social networking and understanding such networks

Alway wondered if women are better at getting on with people, networking and communicating why are there no great female film directors?

Improbable

Nolanger wrote: »

Alway wondered if women are better at getting on with people, networking and communicating why are there no great female film directors?

Mary Harron - American Psycho

Valerie Feris - Little Miss Sunshine

metrovelvet

Nolanger wrote: »

Alway wondered if women are better at getting on with people, networking and communicating why are there no great female film directors?

Visual media? Dont like being bossy? Casting couch reserved for actresses? ALso you dont need to get on with people, you need to get people to do what you want and that sometimes means being the bad guy.

Wibbs

Plus a lot of women work in the media behind the camera. Particularly in TV.

SugarHigh

Wibbs wrote: »

Maybe but it could also be argued that women are better at social networking and understanding such networks, so on the level above the mechanics of the backbone of web tech, they might be better at building the systems.

TBH I think while there may be subtle diffs, individual diffs are more important.

Lmao are you seriously suggesting that since you perceive women to be better at social interactions they would be better able to build any sort of computer system just because it's used for social reasons?

Thats like expecting Usain Bolt to be good at designing racings cars because he can run fast.:D

metrovelvet

SugarHigh wrote: »

Lmao are you seriously suggesting that since you perceive women to be better at social interactions they would be better able to build any sort of computer system just because it's used for social reasons?

Thats like expecting Usain Bolt to be good at designing racings cars because he can run fast.:D

Its also the same reason women are expected to send the christmas and birthday cards.:rolleyes:

SugarHigh

metrovelvet wrote: »

Its also the same reason women are expected to send the christmas and birthday cards.:rolleyes:

Yea it was used by dad a lot as well. Pretending not to know how to use the washing machine because my mother was "just better at that kind of stuff" as if there was much to know or be good at.:D

Wibbs

SugarHigh wrote: »

Lmao are you seriously suggesting that since you perceive women to be better at social interactions they would be better able to build any sort of computer system just because it's used for social reasons?

You're missing my point by a country mile. Like I said above the mechanics of it. Programmers(and I've known a few quite a number both male and female. Yep they exist) tend to be very linear thinkers. Good plan too considering the nature of the beast. Few enough are particularly good at the user experience end. They think engineering first and usage often comes down the line. They tend to thrive more on linear complexity, often for its own sake. Vague example. Linux fans. They love that it requires more effort, more geekiness to actually do stuff. They're more in love with the machinery of computing than the actual use of it as a tool outside of that. This often leads to very inelegant solutions to the user experience. Real wood for the trees thinking. Each tree is identified and logged(no pun) and very ordered but the overall forest is often left out of the mix(simply because they don't see it or it's value). What I was suggesting is that if someone better at understanding how people actually interact in that example, rather than approaching it from how the engineering should work and railroading the user end to that, that might well be an advantage to anyone building such a system. If that kinda non linear thinking hadnt been employed in the past we'd likely be still typing C prompts.

SugarHigh

Wibbs your post still has nothing to do with male bs female. You've basically just decided that men are better at logic and women are better at design, back it up please because it's offensive to both genders.

Can you even show me that there is a higher percentage of female GUI designers than femal programmers?

Your thought process seems to be similar to the one of scientists aren't creative and creative people aren't scientific. It's something that sounds kind of plausible so gets accepted as fact with nothing to back it up.

Improbable

SugarHigh wrote: »

Wibbs your post still has nothing to do with male bs female. You've basically just decided that men are better at logic and women are better at design, back it up please because it's offensive to both genders.

I'm a guy. I don't find it offensive.

Wibbs

SugarHigh wrote: »

Wibbs your post still has nothing to do with male bs female. You've basically just decided that men are better at logic and women are better at design, back it up please because it's offensive to both genders.

Nope I didn't. If you're looking to have your hackles raised you're doing it to yourself.

Can you even show me that there is a higher percentage of female GUI designers than femal programmers?

Ok here's one susan Kare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Kare. A graphic artist not a programmer who helped design the first mac GUI. She's an example of someone coming in with a different approach. Indeed the original Mac team had all sorts of non coder types on it. They took a different non "geeky" approach.

Your thought process seems to be similar to the one of scientists aren't creative and creative people aren't scientific. It's something that sounds kind of plausible so gets accepted as fact with nothing to back it up.

Well it depends entirely on what you define as creative for a start. Great science requires creativity in spades as far as one off discoveries go, everyday science not so much. It requires more methodical thinking. Artistically creative people while requiring some methodical thinking to be successful are more freewheeling by the very nature of the process. You can be a middling scientist if you don't have a creative bone in your body, but you'll never be a great one. You can be a middling artist if you're sloppy, but not a great one. A bit of both helps both, but there's definitely a bias between the two disciplines.

Women used to be much higher in number in the computer field but this has dropped over the last 10 years(except in India of all places). What has changed? Hardly the systems themselves, so it's likely something else. The geeky image may have something to do with it.

SugarHigh

Improbable wrote: »

I'm a guy. I don't find it offensive.

That's nice, some women don't find being treated as second class citizens as offensive.

Wibbs

SugarHigh wrote: »

That's nice, some women don't find being treated as second class citizens as offensive.

IMHO Now you're either extracting the urine for effect or you're looking to be "offended".

SugarHigh

Posting one woman who works as a GUI designer has me convinced. Women are clearly better at designing gui's.

SugarHigh

Wibbs wrote: »

IMHO Now you're either extracting the urine for effect or you're looking to be "offended".

If I cme on here and said men are better at maths or women were better cleaning I would have been ripped apart.

You still haven't backed up how men are more logical it women are better at design.

Wibbs

SugarHigh wrote: »

If I cme on here and said men are better at maths or women were better cleaning I would have been ripped apart.

Rightfully as you're not comparing like with like and I would suspect you were either silly or trolling.

You still haven't backed up how men are more logical it women are better at design.

I actually didn't say any such thing. Please point out where I did.

Mise wrote:

Maybe but it could also be argued that women are better at social networking and understanding such networks, so on the level above the mechanics of the backbone of web tech, they might be better at building the systems.

TBH I think while there may be subtle diffs, individual diffs are more important.

A passage you yourself quoted so I presume you read it.

Programmers(and I've known a few quite a number both male and female. Yep they exist)

What I was suggesting is that if someone better at understanding how people actually interact in that example

Emphasis in bold for understanding. I don't see anything about what you're seeing.

Maybe try actually reading others posts before you hit "submit reply". At this stage I still reckon you're either missing my point by a country mile or deliberately doing so.

Maple

SugarHigh wrote: »

That's nice, some women don't find being treated as second class citizens as offensive.

SugarHigh wrote: »

Posting one woman who works as a GUI designer has me convinced. Women are clearly better at designing gui's.

SugarHigh, i'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse and/or just trolling.

Either way, enough.

Maple.

goose2005

bluewolf wrote: »

Indeed, female composers didn't get much fame when their jobs were to "go home and be women".
Everyone knows robert schumann but not much is made of clara schumann that I've come across


OR mozart's sister


It's unfair to compare male talent to female talent in this respect for the very reasons above.

True - you may as well compare working-class scientists/musicians/artists to middle-class scientists/musicians/artists and conclude that the latter are naturally superior.

I did find it very condescending when one of the overseers (male) at another one came to speak to me about not recording moves (this was after I had given up and was playing a last one for fun) - "do you not know how to write them?" :rolleyes:

But in proper chess tournaments, you have to record moves (unless you have less than 5 mins on the clock)

Nolanger wrote: »

One of the best documentary filmmakers was a woman but no-one mentions her anymore because she was a Nazi!

Actually her achievements in cinematography are often mentioned (e.g. the medal scene in"Star Wars" was copied from Triumph of the Will), with the inevitable apologies.

Nolanger wrote: »

Also, a lot of things were invented by men and suit their minds better e.g. internet technology

I don't really understand, are you suggesting that a female-designed Internet would be easier for women to program??