Monday, October 8, 2012

Computing: Just for men?

This may sound like a brand of shampoo, in which case one might ask where they can find the feminine variety. They'd have to take two steps to the left where all the shampoo for women can be found. Then they might wonder why a brand of shampoo has such an odd name. But what if there is no alternative for women? Does there need to be another variety for women? Obviously there should be. There are far more varieties of women's shampoo than there are for men. No man (except those who either dearly love their wife or just don't care) would dream of buying and using women's shampoo. The same is true for women. They care about different criteria in their hair products. Shampoo is for everyone but the delicacies have been pushed onto women. Is this because women like shampoo more? Probably not. It's probably more due to the marketing of the product. Which brings us back to computing. Is computing and computer science just for men? Or has it merely been branded by popular culture and stereotypes as a guy thing? Computer science is not just for the guys. If anyone would like to see a stronger feminine presence in this field, it's going to take some considerable re-branding and clever marketing to do so, but it can be done.

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