She ASAP

[keskiverto]

Why oh why I seem to see these relatively often?

Need help ASAP
prof is bad aand her notes even worst

The "learning difficulties" of students and the "usual qualities" of professors are not the issue.

The gender strikes odd. The "female prof" seems very common.

How can that be? Professors of all fields still tend to be male more often and not and IT isn't exactly "feminine field". Where are all these "she profs"? Why is it usually them, that inspire posting to Fora?

[z05DSL3A]

From where I am, having so many Professors seems odd. It is a very high rank in academia. I have to remind myself that elsewhere in the world Profs are a much less exulted position.

[Computergeek01]

I've noticed that most questions like that are introductory in nature, very few of the are past maybe the second year of a programming class. Here in the US, you don't see many women in IT but you do see a fair number of them in mathematics. I've always assumed that these teachers were mathematicians that are "branching out" and doing a less than stellar job with it.

[booradley60]

I've also noticed that the material in question is mostly introductory. Some introductory classes are proctored by graduate students instead of full professors. Maybe there are more female graduate assistants doing TA work, and perhaps newer students don't make the distinction when using the term "professor"?

[Gvp9LyTq]

@keskiverto

I am very interested: would you mind providing some links (please don't bother if it is a problem).

Also, is it only on one site or are you seeing it elsewhere?


edit:
I took a look at this site and was only able to find 4 examples since 2008. Admittedly my search criteria may be a little too strict; I was only looking for the words: "her notes".

[admkrk]

The use of she, instead of he, has increased quite a bit in the last 3 years; at least as far as I have noticed in text books. It is a deliberate attempt to encourage girls to stay in scientific fields instead of following more gender related pursuits.

I actually had a class that was about "how to get more girls involved in math/science." The use of "he" is supposed to be discouraging to females.

[keskiverto]

Interesting details.

Although, a student that blames specific teacher ("her prof") is not likely to use "politically correct" textbook term for concrete individual, whose gender is (presumably) known.


@gennny: Human perception is subjective. We think we see patterns even when we are told that we are observing random phenomena. I don't keep exact statistics. Like "discouraging to females", I probably react/memorize differently to occurrences of "he" and "she". (There are languages that have only one pronoun word instead of he and she, so they do not have "gender issue".) Besides, my search-fu is weak on these Fora. (Except the reference section.)


The intro-course TA's is one plausible reason.


Non-native language users can make errors here and there.


A culture, where males still lack respect for females, can still exist in some countries or subpopulations. Grandma visited a doctor. Afterwards she denied having seen a doctor. The regular (he) had retired and there had been a youngish female ...

[Computergeek01]

admkrk wrote:

The use of "he" is supposed to be discouraging to females.

You can't honestly tell me that a rationally thinking person would find the gender orientation of a pronoun to be discouraging. Regardless of gender, that's the kind of person who breaks down when they should be stepping up. It's as juvenile as my 5-year old nephew saying that he can't use a certain drinking glass because "it's a girls color". Normal people focus on goals, not the arbitrary verbiage a textbook decides to use. If my kid wants to be an engineer than that's what she'll set out to do and petty things like the absence of a single letter from a word isn't going to get in her way.

[shadowmouse]

@ Computergeek01 I agree, but the problem might well be that not everyone is a rationally thinking person. This sounds similar to something I and a few others I know have noticed in that in all exams and textbooks we've seen, it is almost universal that whenever there is a competition between a male and a female, the female wins. I'm not saying that women are in no way being oppressed (they do quite often have lower wages for example), but it has almost become a thing that one man being superior to one woman is unfair, as the man must have been set up to be superior because he is a man, and that is sexism and oppression and blah blah blah. If the use of "he" is discouraging to females then the over use of "she" is discouraging to males. I think what we really need to do is stop telling people that they are being oppressed or forced into doing something (say a career path) if they aren't. Sorry if I went slightly of topic but people were talking about the whole "we can't call them he because that presumes that they are a man because they are in a position of responsibility meaning that women can't get into positions of responsibility..."

[Gvp9LyTq]

Computergeek01 wrote:

Regardless of gender, that's the kind of person who breaks down when they should be stepping up.

You're taking the position of the person hearing the pronoun--not the user of the pronoun. Do you really want to take the chance you may be chasing off talent from a field by using only one of the two pronouns?

It's not that hard to occasionally use an extra 's', and if it does increase the number of people entering the field isn't that good?

I am curious are you a man? And if you are a man, do you really believe you are the best judge of the affect that the consistent use of the male pronoun has?

How ingrained our prejudices are can be very difficult to see. I myself assumed that you were male simply because your user-name is Computergeek01. When someone says "computer geek" the image that forms in my head is a male.

[Duthomhas]

@Computergeek01, shadowmouse
Your opinion is not supported by data.

Here's part of the problem:

the problem might well be that not everyone is a rationally thinking person

This places your (uninformed) opinion above the daily experiences of about half the planet's population, and above the actual scientists who actually study it, and in the same breath dismisses dissent as not worth hearing.

Step away from the pool before you drown.

[Computergeek01]

@ genny: My argument was purely against the idea that anyone who wanted to be an engineer would be discouraged by the use of a pronoun. I'm aware of what it takes and I doubt that anyone who's decided on that career would be off-put by something so petty. The reason that there are so few women in these fields is so much simpler then all of this exoteric psychobabble tries to make it out to be. The toys that build the prerequisite skills for these subjects and plant that seed of interest in these topics are marketed toward boys. If you want to say that there is more than just that one factor, then you're probably right but this one is by far the largest reason. To ignore the influence that the somebodys early childhood environment has on their future interests and to say that there aren't a lot girls in IT because the books are hurting their feelings is retarded to say the least.

If you want to build more interest in these topics among women, than you actually have to do something to build their interest. Assuming that they want to be a part of this labor sector and actively looking for boogymen who fit an overly simplistic theory isn't going to get you anywhere.

Yes, I am a male.

[Duthomhas]

You take a tire and say 'it's not a car'. No one is discouraged by the single (or few) uses of a single pronoun -- and trying to rationalize it into a single issue just shows you to be unaware of anything past the quarter panel.

Here's current news
The post: https://medium.com/the-coffeelicious/you-may-have-seen-my-face-on-bart-8b9561003e0f
The campaign: https://twitter.com/hashtag/ilooklikeanengineer
Easy reading: http://www.bdcwire.com/female-engineer/

Self test: Check out the many idiotic comments here:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/04/429362127/sexist-reactions-to-an-ad-spark-ilooklikeanengineer-campaign
(If you can't find very many, I suggest that is because your 'man filter' is turned up too much.)

[edit]

If you want to build more interest in these topics among women, than you actually have to do something to build their interest. Assuming that they want to be a part of this labor sector and actively looking for boogymen who fit an overly simplistic theory isn't going to get you anywhere.

Oh, sorry, your 'man filter' is already pretty maxed-out. Good luck.

[Computergeek01]

@ Duoas: Sorry, I didn't see your post before this last one before I made mine. I'm talking about effective means to increase the interest in the topic to begin with, you're addressing the need to decrease the attrition rate once they get there. I know what you mean about there being a point of convergence, each problem is a piece of a whole picture your car analogy wasn't lost on me. But if I have a flat tire, does that make the fact that I'm out of gas irrelevant (I'm not building on your analogy here, I'm just following the theme)? You don't see a 50/50 split in enrollment for technical classes in college, hell you don't even see that in high school or middle school electives. The interest in the topic to begin with isn't there among this demographic long before people make their career decisions.

Sexual harassment is a problem in every industry. The only difference with the Technical field is possibly due to the dearth of female coworkers, people aren't as aware of it. You may think that treating another human being as such is common sense, but for some reason reality disagrees with you.

[Duthomhas]

The only difference with the Technical field is possibly due to the dearth of female coworkers, people aren't as aware of it

Data? (Because I just provided links to obvious data to the contrary.)

You may think that treating another human being as such is common sense, but for some reason reality disagrees with you.

I suppose all the sociology I studied meant nothing, then. Too bad.

But then, when the world is so simple that you can rebuff the voices of people you claim to understand, in this very thread even, and accept only one simplistic explanation (oh, wait, are you up to two now?)...

I can say nothing more.

[admkrk]

Regardless of gender, that's the kind of person who breaks down when they should be stepping up.

Well you see, that is part of the problem. Women, in general, are less competitive than men, so they do tend to not step up. There are plenty of examples of women who do, such as Elizabeth Blackwell and Grace Hooper, but it is kind of hard to find any that do not.

It's as juvenile as my 5-year old nephew saying that he can't use a certain drinking glass because "it's a girls color".

It might be juvenile, but girls are "conditioned", just like boys, to think that way and it becomes more of an unconscious thought which gets reinforced by simple things like always reading "he" in a text. While things have changed quite a bit in the last 30 - 40 years, there are still gender biases towards career choices that inhibit girls from following certain paths, even when they have a genuine interest.

I am probably one of the most politically incorrect people on this planet, and certainly no fan of psychology, but I can see the points. Also, the reason I noticed the increased use of she in texts is because I find it disturbing, for lack of a better word. Maybe its just because more women are writing text books? Either way, the result is that something that simple will encourage more girls to follow science related fields in the long run.