Daring-Do for Digital Daughters

"It would be beneficial to show girls that their moms have no trouble handling computers."

--Advertising Age

It certainly would. As the next generation of girls zips up the proverbial pencil case and heads back to school, many of us grown-ups wonder how we can help them to stay the course in computing, from the math curriculum that somehow starts to vex them late in grade school, to a fear of gadgets that rarely afflicts their brothers.

A recent USA Today survey reported that women hold fewer than three out of every 10 programming, engineering and management jobs in technology companies. These are just the kinds of plummy jobs we’d like our bright young girls to enjoy, both for the intellectual challenge and the economic independence they afford – in one of tomorrow’s fastest growing and most important job markets. But how do we help our girls get there from here – especially if our own computing skills are, shall we say, somewhat spotty?

Relax—but not too much. Although there’s nothing like a mom who can model high-tech moxie for her daughter, attitude also makes a difference. For one, you can demonstrate that although you’re of the generation whose dormitory must-have was a blow-dryer instead of a laptop PC, you are prepared to acquire these new skills both on the job and in your home. Promoting a certain fearlessness, whether it be on the soccer field, in the study hall, or at the silicon-sparked workstation, can make the difference between floppy ambitions and a charged career drive.

But don’t just take it from me – a wired woman who found an old manual typewriter at the age of 10 and taught herself to use it because the new toy made writing even more fun. Heed the thoughts of a high-school friend, a nerd-boy who grew up to become a successfully employed, happily challenged systems programmer. In one instructive e-mail note, he got at the heart of all the research that tries to understand why girls clam up, computer-wise and otherwise, after their first few years of classroom glory.

"If you're interested in my view of why some women have problems with technology, it's because they are afraid to just try something new, without having seen someone do it before," says my friend. "Men won't hesitate to ‘go for it’ -- push the button, what the hell! The same recklessness that gets men in trouble also gets them ahead in computing.

"With computing, as long as you have a backup," he continues, "you can't irreparably harm anything. Even if you diddle with the insides of the computer, as long as it is unplugged, you probably can't break anything in one sitting that's worth more than a couple of hundred bucks."

Here’s his good advice. It sounds like a fun science project to share with your kids this fall. "Have the computer store back up the disk and CMOS [the memory chips that store your PC's basic settings] at their initial configuration, before you even leave the store. Then don't do anything useful with the computer for the first week. Just try everything. If you plan right from the beginning on reloading the computer and starting over in a week or two, then you won't be afraid to mess up while learning.

"Get a junked computer from somewhere, take it completely apart, and put it back together. Many girls did not get the skills needed to take things apart when they were growing up. The forces and motions needed to do this have to be learned. It's not some magic male skill."

Having "reconfigured" hard drives, plugged in circuit cards and figured out which little phone prong goes into which little jack to run the modem, I’ll attest to the truth of all this. None of my vaunted accomplishments was remotely difficult, much less magical -- yet to those who fear computers, they sound as if I scaled Micro-Mount Everest.

"For many male users, the computer is like a sports car, only better," reported Forecast magazine this spring. "Both are sophisticated toys men take pride in mastering." And yet we know that girls like toys as much as boys. Why not expose them to the finest in futuristic toys – and embark with them on a journey into an exciting era in human endeavor? Whether you believe computers are a boon or a menace to society, it’s important to equip all our children with the tools and judgment they’ll need to get the best from new technologies.

A groundbreaking Sacramento Bee series on women and computing summed up the broader value of giving our girls – our daughters, nieces, friends and neighbors -- a head start: "(It) isn’t just about simple job discrimination. It’s about all of us – parents, teachers, friends – who talk to young girls about their hopes and dreams for the future. It’s about more and more of our everyday lives depending on computers and the loss we will suffer if half of our population doesn’t have any input into tomorrow’s electronic world."

I couldn’t output better input than that.

Copyright 1996 Rachel K. Adelson

Rachel Adelson’s Live Wire Communications supports technology and media companies