skyler@violet.berkeley.edu (07/30/88)
A friend writes:
I think computer anxiety, like math anxiety, would also be a very worthy
topic on comp.society.women. Here's a theory for you:
I don't think there is much difference between men and women in this
regard, but men in the workplace, maybe even in school -- especially college --
have two escape routes: there are ways to disguise the anxiety and
deflect assignments that would press them too hard; there are
ways to claim to be "above" the kind of task that requires computer
familiarity (whereas I think that the same situation becomes
a barrier to women); and men of course are faced with an
aculturation, at least in technology-honoring groups, that says
they should be able to do it so they are bound to work at it!
(This man obviously doesn't count too well, either. That's at least three
isn't it?)
Hmm, several other things come to mind. One has to do with the
fact that I am about to make a major career change and that one
of the tasks that I will face is earning the cooperation and respect of
technoids -- engineers of various kinds -- when, although I've been
a computerist for 30 years, I have been on the commercial, data-procesing,
and systems side of thigngs for the last 15! (I get to get back
into systems development and technology stuff after moving away from
life as a technoid a long time ago -- except for my ability to
stroke it nowadays thanks to things like Usenet and microcomputing.)
The new job will involve my sensibilities as a generalist and involve
me in system-architecture work, but I suspect that one of my early
duties will be to earn the technical respect of people who have spent
their work lives in the engineering community. But I already know I
can do it, even though I don't know what the details will be, even
though it means learning a lot of things that I've no experience with,
and even though I expect that I will have to do a lot of
scrambli
er, scrambling at the beginning. Of course, it helps that the company that
is hiring me thinks I can do it to, or we wouldn't be at this stage!
But I have a lot of reinforcing experiences, including learning
that the messes and failures that I also accumulated in 30 years of
work weren't fatal after all, and I haven't stopped learning
and improving (nor messing up, in all probability).
If this seems a little incoherent,
it is because I didn't make the contrasting connection to the
problems of women, perfectly as capable as anyone, being denied the
kinds of experiences that lets them know and feed their competence
at similar technology-oriented things. (The same company has
a concerted balanced-workforce program in place of its previous
affirmative-action programs, and I know women there who are on the
track to becoming chief engineers, someday. But it can
easily take another 20 years before the presence of women
throughout the engineering community will be unremarkable and
also not a source of resentment to those who
see the advancement of women as a 0-sum situation. (If there really
were a quota system and all that, this WASP male wouldn't even
have a
job offer in this time of tight employment and *very* selective
hiring, and promotion.)
Enough. I just wanted to say that
I don't think being anxious about coming to grips with computers is at
all unusual, whether you are a man or a woman, though
I think the men who are anxious about it have more evasions that they
can use and also have more reinforcement to toughing it out.
And there are a lot of technoids who become pretty anxious about having
to change to another form of technology (e.g., learn a different
computer or programming language). As adults, I think we forget how
hard it was, and especially how long it took, to develop proficiency
at commonplace things (learning to read, drive an automobile).
Achh -- I can't shut myself up! I'd like to know a lot more about the
kinds of anxiety and nervousness that people experience in having to
deal with computers at first, especially women, since I'd like to
see if there are better kinds of support and assistance that can
be offered to help people who'd like to get over it, get over itt,
or at least conquer it if not eliminate it.
And, if you don't think the statements about how we need, and will
get, natural language interfaces, artificial intelligence,
and elimination of programming as expensive labor
aren't masks for computer phobia/anxiety (and resentment of
dependence on technoids who appear to "like" math),
I suggest that you think again about where the appeal of all that
magical, you won't have to understand it to use it,
control over technology is addressed. (This is a noisy line, so if that
sentence doesn't make sense, I will blaim the telephone company because
I can't see what I am doing very well.)