If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

kaylee-marie:

azspot:

In other words, at least 75% of male CS undergraduates had parents who were affluent enough to be able to afford computers at a time when computers were very expensive. Clearly, enrollment in CS is a social product of class privilege, not innate ability. Furthermore, this implies that computer geek prestige is an indicator of class privilege, in addition to being connected to technical proficiency.

A child’s gender modulates how her parents invest in their child’s education, as mentioned earlier. For example, girls, on average, typically receive their first computer at age 19, as opposed to boys at age 15. Note that age 19 is no longer high school, but university, when undergraduates have already chosen their major. If women typically receive their first computer as adults, and boys typically receive their first computer as children, then of course there is going to be a gender gap in CS enrollment.

Computer geek culture generally ignores issues of class privilege and male privilege when it comes to computer access, upholding a ranking system that mistakes the social privileges of affluent white males for inborn geek inclinations.

A point I’ve made to those voices that wane nostalgic over /goodtimes of computing’s yesteryear, and lament over the metamorphosis that they myopically perceive has made computing less accessible.

Something that I have never really thought about before!

My brothers and I are all around the same age, and we had access to about the same technology (which, I should point out, definitely puts us smack dab in the middle of privileged-town.) I can’t remember being ever held back from using computers because I was a girl. And, today, I am a huge privileged nerd. Proof positive that it’s about social class/gendered nurturing and NOT some innate talent that dudes have and chicks don’t.

That being said, I get talked down to A LOT in the nerd world. Mainly by boy nerds, who often seem to be engaged in never-ending e-penis contests. When non-nerdy folks hear me say that I can use computers it generally gets taken at face value. Never so with male nerds.