An invited talk given last Friday at the gathering of the American Psychological Association has been circulating online, titled Is There Anything Good About Men? It made for fascinating reading. The course I took on the psychology of gender back in college bent over backwards to stress that the variation within genders dwarfed the variation ( Read more... )

I loaded my friends page to catch myself up quickly before beginning work, but I was thwarted by a succession of fascinating posts. Is being a housewife a valid feminist choice?Nadine (ripresa) linked to a recent Linda Hirshman article contending that the battleground for feminism must move from the workplace to the home. In short, it addresses the ( Read more... )

Today I attended the first lecture of the course I am TAing, Computer Fluency. I was much unaggrieved to learn that despite a name that resembles "computer literacy", the course does not at all cover such utterly mundane topics as how to work spreadsheets and the fine art of mouse usage. Instead, it serves as an introduction to computer science ( Read more... )

I just read a New York Times article on the scarcity of girls in computer science. The article didn't contain any substantially new information for me, but it somehow led me to question the assumptions I've always held about this issue. As people continue to theorize why computer science doesn't seem to appeal as much to females, for me the ( Read more... )