Gender Poll - 2009

[Bemk]

Men have fewer choices, and many of them still carry silly, illegitimate stigmas. I hope that will change soon.

Amy

I wish you luck trying to change the effect of testosterone. If you haven't already had that at school, testosterone is the male hormone that makes them want to act tough.

Part of acting tough is criticising others who don't (somehow I don't see why that's necessary)

[Freston]

Boys need to be liberated just as much as girls do.

That's true

If a man is a nurse, that makes people giggle.

Well, not so much as such. Not giggling. I've been a male nurse for about thirteen years. *cue giggle*

But there is a lot to overcome. I've really noticed I had to try hard to prove myself in teams where on average 90% of the nurses where female and effectively that made me the only man around on many locations where I worked.

Prejudice. I think. Many women still do most of the 'care' tasks in their households. Younger generations are more equal, but older generations aren't. And, in fact, despite all the professionalism needed to be a nurse, the hard work, low pay and lack of appreciation, many if not most of my female co-workers had working husbands that looked down on their profession.

I used to joke to the nurses that it was right that they did all the housework because their husbands worked at banks and insurance companies and hence did a REAL job. With REAL responsibility. Say that to a nurse, and you've signed your own death warrant, heheh, but because I was one of them I could get away with it.

Well, anyway, these husbands and in many cases sons of these nurses, they wouldn't do much of the care tasks at home. Not by themselves anyway, maybe if told to do something, but not from their own motivation. So I was greeted like such. A 'man' cannot do a job where emphasis lies on 'care'.

The opposite also happened. Specially the younger nurses would enjoy having a male colleague. And I've noticed some where much more acceptive of my errors than of their (female) colleagues. Maybe also because of 'lowered expectations' because of my being a man; 'cuz what can you expect from a man?? lol

Ah well, I've been in many debates about this. I blame the mothers. Ask a mother, any mother, and you'll find they have lower expectations towards their boys that towards their girls when it comes to household choirs or 'care tasks'. And, also, the tasks boys need to do differ from the tasks girls need to do. Boys do the heavy lifting, going to the supermarket to get a long list of shopping. Girls sooner clean the toilet.
A fun anecdote. I worked with handicapped people, so I was in long term care and not a hospital for example. You get much more personal with your clients when they are your clients for years. Well, anyway, a man of about 70... we had just finished dinner, he said: "the girls will go do the dishes, and the boys can go out to play for one hour". It was something his mother used to say, and I really felt I looked back in time there.



That said, I've met a lot of men who thought they'd like becoming a nurse but wouldn't. The pay is terrible and even a low ranking office clerk would go down in income by making a switch. Not to mention the education needed, which is difficult to do when you're raising a family. And of course, it's just not something a man is expected to do. You really have to swim against the stream to become a nurse when you are a man. For a woman, it's just a much more normal route.

That is also why I've found men are on average better nurses than women. Not because they are men, but because they had to overcome more to become one. I expect something similar will apply to women in IT. I bring this up because of another thing. Where nursing staff is about 90% female, the supervisors and team leaders are about 50% male.
(I mean of course, on average. Can't generalize about individuals)

There's a sociological explanation to this; in the Middle Ages -and I think, ion a way, up until the XIXth century, men were actually considered to be superior to women

Hmmmm, yeah maybe. But not as clear cut as that. How women where viewed changed over time. It's not an upwards trend. For example, women in high positions of power have been common for ages. I think I can trace the first declaration of war issued by a woman back to ~1300, and I mean in the region where I live. A ruin from that war is within half an hour from my house by bicycle

But I think my generation (I'm 33) is one of the first that concerns itself with emancipating boys as well as girls. It's a subject long overlooked IMHO.

[teenytinylinuxgrl]

Nurses are HEROES!! I had to spend a month in the hospital when I was 9. I was sooooo scared and lonely. My favorite nurse was a very sweet male nurse who was more gentle with me (physically I mean, when he needed to take vitals or blood and stuff) than the female nurses were, and he was funny! Even if he was there for an unpleasant reason (more blood for more tests), he always left me giggling from some wonderfully funny thing he did or said. I can't tell you how much it means to me still, even after 4 years. I'll never forget him! Nurses are awesome!!

Amy

[Brandon77]

All male here

[chigurh]

male ...

[lucho]

Another example of the masculine half of the equation

[MMAG]

female
I havent got this double Mount-Everest for nothing... lolz

[grishi_111]

I am of the male sex.

[see_no_windows]

MALE hoo ya! women want to do what men do and they say they want to be seen equal in society but this poll still shows that men are still of the intellectual kind. hm!

[Bemk]

MALE hoo ya! women want to do what men do and they say they want to be seen equal in society but this poll still shows that men are still of the intellectual kind. hm!

I wouldn't shout that too hard, for the general acceptance on the forums towards women on the forums shows that it is becoming a much more common occurrence that women are part of the IT society. None the less there is indeed an imbalance between men and women in the IT society, in both open an closed source communities. The male gender is still the most frequently seen one. This can be a cultural thing or just that those women don't really care about IT.