Awkward

So computer science began as a women-dominated field.

And with that link, I was going to write a blog about women in cyberspace and how women blog more reflexively than men and I was going to link it to this video by Madonna and quote the beginning of it.

But then my choir concert came up.

And with it came the awkward conversations over text and Facebook inviting people from my "outer circles" to the concert. In fact, I'm inviting some of those people right now on another tab, and it really brings home the fact that I'm not as comfortable with these people as I feel I should be. And, while I may not be 100% sure, I get the feeling they're not particularly comfortable with me either.

I mean, I can hold conversations over the internet with my friends for hours and hours on end, and it'd be fine and dandy. But with my kind-of-friends, they all have to walk the dog, or take a shower, or wash the dishes after about ten minutes of awkward back-and-forth.

It's like a game we all play, pretending that we love talking to people who we don't really like talking to at all.

But while I may not actually go out of my way to do a favour for these people, or even hold a decent conversation with them, that's not to say those members of the outer circle aren't important. They do have social capital, and are a useful resource, inhuman as it may sound: whether it be for [dissenting] opinions, networking (looking for jobs, for example) or just to sell things to (like choir concert tickets). Perhaps Dunbar's number is still in effect, after all - I just called some of my friends resources.

Or perhaps I just need to get some sleep.

Women In Gaming

As a gamer who has an older sister who consistently is able to best him at games such as Tekken, Ridge Racer and World of Warcraft, I found the idea that women find it harder to get into games which have high access barriers ("hardcore" games) extremely interesting.

Our parents were employed when we were younger, and so my mother bought a NES for my sister and I when we were extremely young. I must have been about two or three, and my sister four or five, when we were casually smashing away at Street Fighter 2, trying to pull off Chun Li's Spinning Bird Kick. My sister is now better at most video games than I am (and most of her male friends as well) and I have an inkling that our early exposure to video gaming could be the reason.

Most girls aren't given a Nintendo or a Playstation when they are younger, socialised instead to play with dolls or whatever else they are given. Video gaming is seen as violent and, by corollary, non-feminine.

Now fast-forward about twenty years. In a society where failure is seen as the worst thing that could possibly happen, we tend to forget that "sucking" is extremely important in the learning curve.



It is rare that you will find something which you are good at immediately. As a kid, you are allowed to suck. Adults don't have the luxury of sucking: it is something which we are to fear and avoid at all costs. Thus, women who haven't been primed to playing video games from an early age end up in a similar state to your mother when she tries to send an email: confused, inept and feeling that they will never be able to move past their ineptitude. They aren't given the space to become good, and they abandon the pursuit of video gaming.

This, I feel, is the reason why there are fewer women who play video games.