Oh, So True

Sunday, May 16, 2010
I have always worked (and excelled) in male dominated fields. Does my success have anything to do with the fact that I had zero interest in dolls and other "girl toys" as a youngster, and my parents never tried to get me to change my mind? You be the judge.


Courtesy of Zach over at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

11 comments:

mom in northern said...

Mostly because your mother didn't either, play with dolls that is...

Nathan said...

Nathan: What's This?

Unnamed benefactor: A roll of caps for your cap gun.

Nathan: What else can it do?

UB: If you smash the shit out of it with a hammer, the caps all go off at once and make a much more gratifying BANG!

To this day, I always try smashing the shit out of stuff with a hammer first...just to test its level of gratification.

Steve Buchheit said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Steve Buchheit said...

Well that and the whole, "Why do you want to be in this field of study?" crap that goes on.

And hammers. Is there nothing they can't fix?

Warner (aka ntsc) said...

In 2009 I was Chair of the New York Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, 3 of my 4 senior officers were women and in 2011 our Chair will be a woman.

We can make an honest claim that our gavel was once held by the likes of Bell and Edison.

Janiece said...

Warner, that's a good thing. The IEEE is well respected, especially as a standards body, and I'm glad at least the regional bodies are being inclusive of women.

nzforme said...

I was already majoring in Math in college when I first learned "girls aren't supposed to be good at Math." By then, it was much too late.

Of course, I hadn't known girls weren't supposed to be good at Math because my mother had majored in it as well. So it seemed the most natural thing in the world for me.

Janiece said...

nzforme, how did you end up in Law School after majoring in math as an undergrad? I'm just curious, as those two disciplines seem a little incongruous.

Shawn Powers said...

how did you end up in Law School after majoring in math as an undergrad?

One uses proofs, one uses proving. Seem identical to me...

:D

nzforme said...

Shawn pretty much just wrote the theme of my Law School application essays. :) It's the whole logical thought thing.

Actually, I always intended to go to Law School -- the question was what to major in beforehand. I asked a bunch of random lawyers about it, and eventually got two pieces of advice which proved quite useful: (1) Don't major in Poli Sci or English -- everyone else does and you want to stand out; (2) Major in something you can get A's in. The latter was particularly key -- as long as you're not majoring in Underwater Basket Weaving, Law Schools pay way more attention to your GPA than your field of study.

Anne C. said...

Similarly, my brother double majored in Philosophy and Comp-Sci. He said both were really about languages and logic.