Technology Diary 1

Posted by on Sep 20, 2013 in Technology Diary | One Comment

One thing that has really caught my attention lately are computers and being able to use a computer and deal with software etc. There seems to be this assumption that girls aren’t as good as guys when it comes to using computers and fixing problems related to it. I remember when I went on vacation with my friends to California and we encountered flight issues due to the plane having mechanical problems. Because of this we had to go to customer service and request for a flight change. While we were waiting online my friend noticed that all the employees were female and automatically said, this is going to take forever, cause they’re all woman so they probably won’t be able to fix our problem as fast. Honestly I was offended at the moment, and was shocked by his assumptions. Due to this we got into a heated debate and then when we finally got to the counter, one of the woman had issues with the computer and needed another women to help her fix it. My friend was quick to point it out to me how she as a woman made a mistake but paid no attention to the fact that it has been another woman to fix the issue.

The computer software industry is definitely dominated by men even today, but it has somehow turned into a women are incompetent with computers situation. Even my brother automatically assumes that if there’s an issue with the computer then the issue must be with me and my inability to use it correctly. In my household it seems as if when I fix something with the computer, I was probably lucky but on the other hand my brother is known as the computer pro. It makes me wonder if other females are put down in terms of their technological capabilities by guys, even guys that they are close with.

But it also makes me wonder if this problem is caused by us and the way society is. I for one am guilty of asking my guy friends on more than one occasion to fix technological issues even when I’m fully capable of figuring out how to fix it myself, and have female friends who are just as capable of helping me out. From what I’ve seen it’s quite common for girls to ask guys to help them out with this kind of stuff but very rare the other way around. So it makes me wonder if I myself have built this generalization.

1 Comment

  1. Kaitlyn O'Hagan
    October 6, 2013

    Knowing how much societal constructions are influencing your actions and how much your actions are continuing to perpetuate these false generalizations is something that I think is almost impossible to sort out. Both things are happening at the same time and I think the first step to dealing with the internal cognitive dissonance this causes is just the acknowledgment. But it’s hard–as the feminist mantra goes, the personal is political!

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