Books and
Cooks West
June 2006
Unlocking the Clubhouse
by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher
Unlocking the Clubhouse:
Women in Computing
Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher
Nate's place
Saturday, June 17 at 5:30 PM
Our rating: 3.6 cups of tea!
From Amazon.com
When there were no opportunities for women in the sciences, it was
assumed they had no aptitude for the work. Even today, our tendency is
to explain the gender gap by pointing out cognitive differences between
men and women, overlooking the powerful societal pressures that guide
young people into--and away from--certain careers. Convinced that
"women must know more than how to use technology; they must know how to
design and create it," Jane Margolis, a social scientist, and Allan
Fisher, a computer scientist and college dean, devised a four-year
study (involving some 230 interviews) at Carnegie Mellon School of
Computer Science. They found that the seven percent of female
undergraduates at the college started out with as much excitement and
talent as their male counterparts, but often wilted early on,
perceiving that male students had come to college far better prepared
than they had. "The study of computer science education can be seen as
a microcosm of how a realm of power can be claimed by one group of
people," the authors argue, "relegating others to outsiders." Happily,
thanks to their efforts, female enrollment is up at Carnegie Mellon,
and more women are remaining in the field. The racial divide in
computer science is as pronounced as the gender gap, however, and would
benefit from studies like the one described in Unlocking the
Clubhouse. Surely the door can be pried open for blacks and
Hispanics as well. --Regina Marler
