Women and technology...

Dyson

Dyson

Dyson

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Why do MOST women have little interest or knowledge of tech stuff?

My wife recently got a pair of £450 shoes, which are "amazing", but would think I was if she knew I was buying a gpu for half that :eek: .

This isn't a sexist thread or anything, just wondered what you all thought.
 
Dyson said:
Why do MOST women have little interest or knowledge of tech stuff?

My wife recently got a pair of £450 shoes, which are "amazing", but would think I was if she knew I was buying a gpu for half that :eek: .

This isn't a sexist thread or anything, just wondered what you all thought.
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You're asking for insight into the female psyche on a forum attached to a computer hardware retailer.

What were you thinking?????
 
Damn beaten to the reply again.

If my wife spent 450 quid on shoes I'd beat her over the head with them then wipe the blood off and take them back for a refund saying my wife had temporary insanity.
 
It's got nothing to do with Sex.

It's to do with what they were brought up on etc. (well partially)

Me - Brought up with technology, photography, cars.

I now have great interest in cars, technology and photography

Sister - Brought up with animals, horses = great interest in animals/horses and would never spend £450 on a pair of shoes but would easily spend an equal amount on the horse.
 
Didn't mean buying things as such, just the way that most of the women I know struggle to set a video recorder, and see no interest in new tech toys.

For example, "why do you want a new pc, the one you have now plays games?".
 
Dyson said:
Didn't mean buying things as such, just the way that most of the women I know struggle to set a video recorder, and see no interest in new tech toys.

For example, "why do you want a new pc, the one you have now plays games?".
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My sister still reckons that the older a pc gets the slower it gets, she won't let me near her laptop which needs a damn good sorting out and it'll be brand new again.

I don't think they struggle, just don't have the confidence.

When we got our DVD player and the time needed setting on it my mum didn't want to do it incase she pressed a wrong button and the thing exploded.

Yes those were her exact words.
 
Phate said:
It's got nothing to do with Sex.

It's to do with what they were brought up on etc. (well partially)

Me - Brought up with technology, photography, cars.

I now have great interest in cars, technology and photography

Sister - Brought up with animals, horses = great interest in animals/horses and would never spend £450 on a pair of shoes but would easily spend an equal amount on the horse.
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I do think this is right actually. Believe it or not, but there are women... ...on this very forum! Sara who comes to mind for example because she does/did write for some 'Technology For Women' website, and iirc did a 'imaginary magazine' front cover for some art course? - this was also a magazine that focussed on women who are interested in technology.

I may be wrong, i've not been around much recently, and my memory not serve me correctly but I think it was her.

I know what you are saying, and perhaps in a stereotypical view you could be considered correct, but despite the fact i'm male I have no interest in football whatsoever (even Scott Mills knows more than I do) and a handful of my female friends have other such 'geeky' interests perhaps not 'fitting' for women. Confidence, understanding and the catalyst to start it all 'interest' are good points, but just because you're female doesn't necessarily mean you won't be interested.

I think Phate has it right.
 
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Even girls doing computer science courses don't seem to be that interested in technology. Of course they are much more clued up about it than your average woman.
 
There are enviromental factors (upbringing as previously mentioned) and also genetic factors.

Men tend to have better spatial recognition and abstract problem solving abilities, whereas women tend to have better social abilities and emotional awareness. This is a trait brought about by evolutionary pressures, from the times when men would go off to hunt and gather food (which obviously requires greater problem solving abilities), and women would raise children and build relationships with surrounding families (which obviously requires the social and emotional skills).

The above, along with environmental and upbringing factors, are usually cited as the main reason for <10% of people in engineering and mathematics being female.

Before any girls have a go at me for being sexist, I am making generalisations based on established research here. No-one is labelling you, and I know lots of women who put well educated men to shame in problem solving. It's all about the bell-curve.



Edit - on a side note... £450 for a pair of shoes is madness!! At least with a CPU / GPU you're paying for a highly complex piece of technology on the cutting edge of human knowledge. A £450 pair of shoes, nice though they may be, is still just fabric and leather fastened together :p
 
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platypus said:
My girlfriend doesn't particularly like computers, nor approve of my using them.

WTLM attractive geek gaming girl.
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yeah you and about 5 million others.

I think it stems from peer pressure at school.

It would take a strong character for a girl to take up techy drawning and engineering which are male dominated environments.

Likewise you don't see many men doing secretarial courses either. Without the education you can't then expect them to get uni places either.

I'm sure there are quite a few women out there who would probably have liked to do engineering but were not confident enough to do it at the age of 14 when they had to decide.
 
Well, to be totally honest I'd rather pay £450 on a new pair of shoe if I had it(student atm) than buy a new peice of hardware for my computer.

That's just me though, I don't have that much interest in technology, I'd rather own more clothes!
 
Who maintains our 4 computers in our home? - I do.
Who knows how to use our new camera? - I do.
Who can operate and program our VHS and DVD recorders? - I can.
Can my aero-engineer partner? - No.

Female of the species :cool: me!
 
Kaed said:
I do think this is right actually. Believe it or not, but there are women... ...on this very forum! Sara who comes to mind for example because she does/did write for some 'Technology For Women' website, and iirc did a 'imaginary magazine' front cover for some art course? - this was also a magazine that focussed on women who are interested in technology.

I may be wrong, i've not been around much recently, and my memory not serve me correctly but I think it was her.
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Yeah, that's me mate, girly-geek all the way :) I wrote for ShinyShiny.tv until I got a job in the real world (in telecomms electronics) and ran out of free time that I wished to put over to it...

(incidentally, the fake magazine cover is here: http://www.sarawallen.com/gallery/magcover.jpg - I wouldn't read it personally, looks far too dry for me!)

There are a few of us about but it is true that we are a rarish breed. I atrtribute a lot of my geekiness to me being a tomboy in general and therefore having the kind of mind that is attracted to these pursuits that often require a male-type brain.

BUT most of my love of technology manifests itself in pretty pictures and communication (in form of image editing, photography, websites and IM) - not gaming or coding applications. So I sortof have a girly take on it.

It's totally what you're brought up on too. Even on a smaller scale - my Mum knows Word and Outlook inside-out, but try to get her to immerse herself in the web and check her email through a browser, and she's lost. Too many links/buttons/flashing images.

It's interesting really, how our brains vary...
 
jas72 said:
Likewise you don't see many men doing secretarial courses either. Without the education you can't then expect them to get uni places either.
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I think that's why IT is becoming more popular with women. As that's more about admin work than technology. I'm talking about the sort of IT covered at GCSE and A-level.
 
jas72 said:
Damn beaten to the reply again.

If my wife spent 450 quid on shoes I'd beat her over the head with them then wipe the blood off and take them back for a refund saying my wife had temporary insanity.
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ahaha, i think I'd get on really well with you :)

LOL

TM
 
Phate said:
You have no idea how rarely I hear that
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Notice I said think which means I wasn't definite :P :D

Seven317 said:
Who maintains our 4 computers in our home? - I do.
Who knows how to use our new camera? - I do.
Who can operate and program our VHS and DVD recorders? - I can.
Can my aero-engineer partner? - No.
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You're not the first person I've heard say that. A work colleague was telling me the other day how her husband (who used to do something really funky with radars in Tornado aircraft or something) can't work their DVD player. I thought she was joking... :eek:

With Duff Man saying it's about genetics, could it also be attributed to levels of testosterone and estrogen in people's bodies or as they were developing in the womb?

Sara said:
Yeah, that's me mate, girly-geek all the way
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Ahhh thought it was you, but was coming off my lunch break at work and so didn't have the time to find out, glad to hear you got a job :cool: , last time I was reading your blog I think you were having fun with job applications :D
 
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