In response to my introductory post, a few people commented that they were looking forward to my posts on the topic of women in the sciences and engineering, as they know girls or young women who show aptitude and interest in science and they wanted to know how to encourage them. My first couple of related posts, however, aren’t exactly encouraging. This, therefore, is my attempt to be a little more helpful.
In my own life, it seems my interests naturally gravitated towards the sciences, and since nobody told me I couldn’t do science, I just assumed I could. But when I think about it, I did get a certain amount of encouragement, especially from my father. He had a few computers over the years (I particularly remember a Tandy laptop) and introduced me to the BASIC programming language. I wrote math games (probably my father’s suggestion) and a karaoke-like program that would play the melody to “Material Girl” while the words scrolled across the screen (my own idea, or possibly my sister’s). I had dolls and costume jewelry, but I also had LEGO blocks and tinker toys, which I’ve always thought of as “gender-neutral” toys, but according to the Toys-R-Us gender segregation system are definite boy toys.
I was a social misfit as an adolescent and, as part of my stubborn streak of individuality, simply refused to conform to most gender roles. While my childhood was filled with Brownies and Girl Guides (you Americans would say Girl Scouts), as a teenager I joined a male-dominated group open to both sexes. That group taught aerodynamics and wilderness survival, which in my opinion were much more fun than crafts and camping-lite. When I decided that airplanes were my passion, my mother encouraged me through the process of getting a government scholarship for a private pilot’s license.
That’s not to say that I gave up feminine-coded activities altogether. I was an avid reader, including such frivolous literature as Sweet Valley High and the incest-obsessed V.C. Andrews novels. Language skills are important no matter what direction a person’s career takes; a scientist who cannot communicate her ideas is not a successful scientist. I took baton-twirling lessons; I’m not sure that it helped me much, but it didn’t hurt either. My room was painted pink with a heart theme.
My parents didn’t see my interests as odd, or if they did, they hid it well. While my mother is not very-well educated, she was the woman in her group of single-mother friends who would program the VCRs and solder the broken lamps of her friends, and later, clean off their Windows 3.1 desktops for them. She did all our minor home repairs and some major renovations, and it didn’t occur to me that there was supposed to be a man around to do these things. My father liked to have me handing him tools when he was repairing the engine on his boat. In retrospect, that’s something a father does with his sons, but since my father had only daughters and I was interested in how the engine worked, he encouraged my questions.
Since I’m a sample size of one, and I don’t have a doppelganger to use as a control, I’m not sure which aspects of my upbringing were most important in my decisions. The biggest thing I can think of doing is simply not discouraging any girl or young woman who is interested in the sciences. Tell her you know she can do it. Help her follow her interests. If she likes chemistry (or cooking, which is chemistry), buy her a chemistry set. If she likes astronomy, take her to a planetarium. Even if her dreams are a little romanticized, they may lead her in a direction that makes a good permanent career. Enroll her in math camp or computer programming camp over the summer. These things are all pretty simple, but apparently not done enough. Those who run these camps say that parents bring the boys in, but the girls have to beg to be allowed to come. Don’t pressure her into sciences that don’t interest her, though. The dinosaur books and tape went right into the garbage. My parents may have wanted me to be a doctor, but blood grosses me right out, and so they encouraged the physics/engineering route instead.
Model gender-deviant behaviour yourself. There has to be some interest you have that doesn’t fit neatly into your own gender role; let your children and those of your friends see you participating in whatever interests you, regardless of its gender connotations.
I know several geeky women read Feministe: what sparked your interest in the sciences and technology? What kept your interests going? What obstacles were in your way?