“Real” technology

Hi guys and gals… I haven’t posted in like, soooooooo long. Apologies for messing up the boards with an influx of my name everywhere.

So I was wondering… we’re talking about engendering technology and the genders in technology… but although we call things “technology” is there a more “serious” technology? Something that makes technology more “real”? (Ok… I know these terms are hella nebulous, but bear with me.) I know that most times “serious” is often associated with “male”. I can’t back this up with cold, hard data, but it seems the traits of “seriousness” ie “show no emotion”, “view the stats”, “logic it out”, “paternal”, “technological” all tend to resonate with what our western, American culture would call “male”. This is not to say we’re all unenlightened blockheads or anything; rather, I would like to address the general public’s thinking. Whether this be right or wrong is another matter entirely.

I know that I am often thought of as being “soft” science because I participate in the <i>social</i> science of anthropology. So… I guess those “hard” sciences of biology, Physics and Chemistry are because people who participate in them most often have penises? Why was I not taken seriously when I told people I was an anthropology major, but when I added that I was also a computer science major it was automatically assumed that I knew how to program their computer and fix everything wrong with it (even though I was a woman)?

Also… as a “helpless” woman I also find myself getting help with “technological” stuff. In a scenario that could have turned ugly fast, I was alone at a gas station (not very promising) at about age 17, just having learned how to fill my gas tank myself. One of my tires was out of air. Ok… I could fix that. I drove five feet to the air pump and suddenly was surrounded by a hell’s angels biker gang twenty strong and none below the age of fifty. Um… uh-oh? Not so, because I was a “helpless little girl” they took the air pump and told me I was going to explode my tires if I filled them that much. They showed me how to fill my tires (not that I remember much beyond, “holy hell! these are BIKERS in LEATHER and I am DEAD!!!!!1one!”) and then rode off leaving me to suss out what the hell had just happened. I mean… I don’t think I look that helpless and I have a glare that kills from fifty paces off, or at least I like to think I do. Still… do any other women here get stopped by little old ladies to ask the time or directions?

Also, on the technological help scale, does anyone else get the “well now little lady, what seems to be the problem” when calling tech support lines? The guy I got on the phone was condescending and asked if the computer were plugged in or if I had tried restarting the computer. I had explicitly stated that I had just tried to dual boot my computer with Ubuntu and Windows Vista (which is a pain in the buttocks) and that the boot window (the window where you choose which Operating System AKA OS to load) was showing up blank on the restart. We went through the valley of “well you sure you restarted the computer” and climbed the mountain of “and you pressed the power button and everything” at least thrice before he called his manager who was ten times more helpful and not condescending. Even so… do any other women here have this problem? Or men who have the opposite problem (of being asked if they can program or fix things they can’t)?